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You seconded it. All right. So that we got two affirmative votes. Man, the suspense. Mike Jones. It's approved 6 and and having talked to Glenn Pickkins, it would have been seven. So congratulations. Okay, wherever you want to come on up here. Let me move out of the way and come up here uh under the seal and administer the oath office. Yes, please. Okay, there's a copy for him to see. I got it. Yeah, I'm stand right here. You come stand next to So, your right hand. So, before we get started, let me just take a quick personal point of privilege to say that I'm excited to do this. It's uh it's nice to be working together again. You touched on the fact that there's a lot of stuff going on here. I've been here forever and never as much as there is now. There's never been as much good stuff going on. So, it's going to be nice working together, ma'am. Thank you. All right. You raise your right hand. Uh just uh I'll say parts of it and you repeat if you don't mind. I Mike Jones do solemnly swear that I will well and truly I Mike Jones do solemnly swear the rest of that stuff that I will well and truly well and truly conduct myself as interim city administrator to conduct myself as interim city administrator the city of Smyrna for the ensuing term this the city of Smyrna for the ensuing term that I will faithfully enforce the charter and ordinances of the city of Smyrna that I I will faithfully that I will faithfully enforce the charter and ordinances of the city of Smyrna to the best of my ability without fear or favor without fear or favor and that I'm not the holder of any unaccounted public money due to the state or any political subdivision or authority thereof.

That I'm not the holder of any unaccounted for public money due to the state or any political subdivision or authority thereof. And that all my actions as interim city attorney act as I believe for the best interest of the city of Smyrna. So help me God. And then all my actions as interim city administrator act as I believe for the best interest of the city of Smyrna. So help me God. Congrats. Thank you. [Applause] Yeah. Think we stole this from downstairs, didn't we? Mike, we're looking forward to having It's going to be good. Item B is public hearing. This is our um fiscal year 2026 proposed budget. So, I'll invite Landon up now. Do you want to go down or do you going to stay here? You're going to go down. All right. staff has done an excellent job putting this budget together over the last several weeks and months and um just really proud of the the finished product. So with that, take it away, Landon. All right. Certainly appreciate everyone tonight. Uh, we know this can all sometimes run a little long, but Councilman Lindley just asked if I said this presentation lasts last weeks and months or you've been working on it for a while. So, you know, that's really up to you, Landon. So, yeah, the suspense is uh we'll just leave that up to you guys to see how it goes. Well, we will try to be as thorough and concise as possible tonight as we go through this. So, as we as we run through um as we start out, this is our, as the mayor said, the FY 2026 budget. That is the period of time running from July 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2026. Just as an overview, uh we'll be going over general fund, E911 fund, hotel, motel, water, sewer fund, go through our personnel recommendations, fee changes, debt obligations, capital projects.

Give you an overview of those funds, how they compare to last year, how revenues versus expenditures compare as well. Starting first, here's our revenues versus expenditures. Um, as we look at the comparison there, as is required by law, our general fund is balanced this year at 69,900,600. Um, our special revenue funds are also balanced this year. Uh, that is using about five a little over $500,000 from Hotel Motel to balance that uh use of hotel motel reserves. Um, we'll hit on that a little bit in a few minutes. our capital projects as well. This represents um our CIP that is a transfer out from the general fund and a transfer into the CIP fund but that is completely contained uh right there. We'll talk about SPLAS how that factors in on the next slide here. Then our internal service fund that is our vehicle replacement fund. You will see that there is a transfer from cash reserves of about $1.7 million. The reason for that is, and we'll once again touch on vehicles in a minute as well, is that we budget our 30-year average of um vehicle cost is what we put into that fund every year. So, most years you'll see us, this is my fifth year, I think, every year we've had um we've put more money in than we've spent. So that's been building up our reserves and our fund balance and our vehicle replacement fund so that when we get to a year like this year where we have more vehicles that are more expensive then that fund balance can cover it and uh we are very confident that our fund balance is sufficient to cover those purchases. And then lastly, our enterprise funds. That is mostly our that is our water sewer, water sewer CIP, uh water supply, things like that, water administration, distribution.

You'll see a transfer to cash reserves uh from that account. We'll touch on that in a little bit as well. Uh we've typically had a pretty significant transfer to cash reserves in the water sewer fund. Uh it was previously um a lot bigger, but our as our CIP grows, that numbers got a little smaller. it was balanced for the first time last year. The reason we are comfortable transferring that to cash reserves is because we often do have capital expenses like we had windy hill modifications for about four million in FY20 and this money keeps us from having to take out debt and bonds to pay for those uh big ticket items. So this next slide here just shows us a comparison of our FY25 revised budget, which is the current budget cycle that we're in, compared to our proposed FY26 budget. You'll see the general funds increasing by about 2.4 million 2.5 million. That's mostly due to our insurance benefits uh general government line item that has to do with retirement vehicles insurance which will hit on uh for the most part with all of our other uh divisions within the general fund. They they've stayed mostly flat. Our special re our special revenue funds have decreased. The biggest reason for this decrease is that we are no longer budgeting for ARPA funds. That's the American Rescue Plan Act. That was during COVID, if you'll recall, around 2022. Uh we've been spending money from that. However, funds for that had to be spent by the end December 31st of 2024. So, this past December, however, uh other funds have increased bring that up a little bit. Um hotel, motel, confiscated asset, CDBG, those type things. Then, if we go down, you'll see the biggest difference in any of these is the capital projects funds.

The reason that's so much smaller in FY26 is because we do not have anything budgeted for the 2016 or 2022 splast for 2016. Although we do anticipate spending money in FY26, we're not budgeting budgeting anything for that right now. We'll come back to you all with an amendment towards the first of the year maybe I think typically done that September October but it'll just depend. And then for the 2022 splast, the full budget was adopted at the beginning of that splast in FY22 or in 2022. So since that budget's adopted, we don't have to do anything else to it unless we need to increase the full life of the project amount and then we'll amend that as we go. So that's why you see the big decrease there. The only thing for FYI 2026 is uh this year's CIP for internal service funds. Again, this is our vehicle uh replacement. you'll see an increased number for what we're planning to spend here. This because we're replacing more vehicles and larger price vehicles. The main one would be a fire truck. We currently have budgeted at 1.7 million. And then a few sanitation trucks for 300,000. We will be coming, I believe, uh with an amendment. We have a few things that will be changing. I'm not sure when uh Kristen will decide when to do that, but this is our budget for for that. And then our enterprise funds, you'll see a decrease uh there. pretty much that full decrease um is made up of our a decrease for the water sewer CIP transfer which went down by about $560,000. That represents almost that entire decrease there. This is just kind of an overview into categories for a general fund revenue. As you'll see, property taxes is by far the largest percentage-wise um revenue source for a general fund. This is a decrease.

It makes up about 61% of our total revenues this year. Typically, it's about 65% or that's what it was last year. Uh the reason that's decreased a little bit is we have a smaller than usual increase in our real property taxes based on the the value of homes in the tax digest. It's only about 1% this year. Uh as everybody knows, the housing housing market slowed down a little bit, but um so but we feel good about that number. As we go down charges for services, this is about 14% of our total revenue. These services are things like sanitation, prisoner, housing, accident reports, commercial recycling revenue we get from parks. Other taxes, this is things like insurance premium tax, financial institutions tax, u just those types of taxes that aren't necessarily services that we're providing. And then as we go down interfund transfers, these are transfers in that we get which we'll speak on in a few minutes from the hotel motel fund and the water sewer fund. They transfer certain percentage of their revenue to the general fund. License and permits. This is mostly what Rusty's department collects over in community development for business licenses. Permitting they do fire does some of this as well. Intergovernmental is the revenue that we receive from Cobb County. the House Bill 489 for services provided by the city that would otherwise fall under the county domain. So, they pay us for that. Fines and forfeitures, this is mostly municipal court. There's some other things that fall in there as well, court fines and fees. And then miscellaneous is just kind of anything else. Uh revenue sources that don't necessarily fall in one of those other categories. Kind of grouping our expenditures as well by uh by function here. As we look at public safety at the top, that's our biggest. Uh this is police, fire, um jail, things like that.

General government is all those other things that the city does. Administration, finance, HR, library, community development, parks, uh pretty big category there. And then public works is our recycling, sanitation, highways and streets, facilities, uh those type things. Engineering as well. Insurance and other benefits is just kind of the big the big pool for all those insurance and benefits as well. debt. These are the kind of speaks for itself. Our debt payments and then CIP and vehicle replacement. Uh it's capital projects and vehicles that we're going to replace each year. Just some notable expenditures we kind of pulled out, especially insurance and benefits since that's such a big line item. So overall with these, we have about a $425,000 increase. That's about 3.7%. For health insurance, we're actually decreasing this year. It's down for the full amount from 6.2 2 million to six million and 90% of this is absorbed by the general fund. So how we do that is the percentage of employees that each fund has. Uh that's the percentage they pay for these uh benefits like health insurance, retirement, prescriptions. The general fund has about 90% of our employees with the other ones falling in hotel, motel, E911, and water sewer. So, we are actually decreasing our health insurance. And we're projected this year to actually fall a little below $6 million of what we're budgeting, but five-year average, we're at about 6.2 million. Some years we've been well above that. Some years we've been well below. So, we feel comfortable with that number. And then our prescriptions are increasing from about 525,000 to $600,000. A 12% increase. Uh we're seeing a little higher, but this is historically about where we where we've been at. We also have a $150,000 increase to other insurance. This is the category that captures all other insurance that's not health insurance.

That's liability, cyber, some of the premiums there have gone up as well as claims. So, we're increasing that. That's again, that's for the whole city. We budgeted all in one place. And then for retirement, we have a $341,000 increase there. Uh, all of our employees use the G Georgia Municipal Employees Benefit System or GMBBS would be the acronym there. This is the pension component of that. So assuming that all their assumptions hold, making this annual contribution ensures that we'll be able to meet those future pension needs. And we see the increase there. This is about 3.4 million for the general fund. A little over 3.7 total. Uh a note here for retirement, and we'll also hit on it for for debt. A few years ago, council with money at the end of the year does has set aside reserves that are earmarked for specific uses. Among those were vehicle replacement, capital replacement, debt, and retirement. So, what we were doing with this is we were using 200,000 of that money that was set aside. I believe this was just a year or two ago because uh we had to revamp some of our retirement. uh we are using that for the retirement and then we are also using 300,000 for uh to fulfill some of our debt payments just for this year. Um we still have a healthy balance even of those committed funds uh that we'll be using for that. The last line here, 911,000 for contingency. The first two you see there are the raises that employees get which are contingent on mayor and council approval in January. Uh we'll come back to you at that time uh to vote on it. These are not set in stone, but we set this money aside for that. The top one for merit raises is based on employees uh performance appraisals ranges from zero to 3%.

And then the cola, that's a cost of living adjustment. We started doing this about three years ago and the initial few years to catch up to get employees where they need to be because it everyone had fallen far behind for inflation. We did whatever the one of the metrics that we use judging inflation. That's what the cola was set at. However, beginning last year, we kind of got caught up. We capped that at 3%. We're doing that again this year. And then the last line item you see there, 48,000 for unallocated contingency. This is essentially just to balance the budget to plug that. And that's for things that may come up throughout the year that that we need some extra funds for. A few other expenditures here. We have 200,000 for a comprehensive plan update. This is again Rusty's department for the comprehensive plan which is required every 10 years from the state. This helps guide future developments, land uses, housing. It is required again. So that's something we we must do. And then we have 200,000 for storm water master plan. Uh we currently don't have a good master plan. So uh our public works folks don't really see a good path forward until we get an exact plan of how we're going to address these issues as they come up. uh do things like inven create an inventory system, plan for expansion, R&M, reduce flood risk, which uh we feel confident will help us in the long run if we have a good plan. And then next we see 32,000 for blanket concert event series. This is a great series that parks began a few years ago. I believe they're increasing that from five events up to seven this year. They do those at the Village Green Park and the Reed House. They're budgeting for that once again.

And then the last one you see here, 237 for traffic improvement, roadway maintenance. This is just the general fund. It's kind of putting all everything that we're spending in these different places all together uh for things like pavement markings, general repairs, maintaining roadways, traffic detection cameras, and then on top of this, we also have about seven a little under 800,000 in splass for FI25 and FI26 that we'll have to put towards track traffic improvement, traffic calming, things like that. Going through a few of our funds really quickly here as I've mentioned these before. The first one is our E911 fund. So the city operates its own E91 call center. So if you make an emergency call within the city, it gets routed to our dispatchers. The top revenue source there, E91 fees from phone companies. These are collected from tele telecommunication providers within the city. Uh this number stayed pretty steady the last few years. that had a bit of a drop off a few years ago. Um, all these numbers aside from the transfer from the general fund are the same um as they were budgeted in 25. The only difference is the transfer from the general fund is actually a little less. We actually had an employee move location, had an employee retire that position fit uh better within the IT department than it did E911. So, uh, that was less and that transfer from the general fund is a supplement that is required to balance the E911 fund, uh, from what we get in the general fund. This has historically been a little low and we're certainly hoping it will be lower this year as well, but we wait till the end of the year to see what the number uh, the fund needs is. And then you'll see the salaries and operating expenses at the bottom there. It is balanced.

Our hotel motel fund. Next, if you see at the top, hotel motel taxes. This is just a tax on room nights occupied in Smyrna hotels. Um, understandably, this took a big dip during COVID and people were traveling less. However, it's recovered extremely well. We're trending really well this year. We're hoping it may actually be above this number. Um, this is balanced with a use of hotel motel reserves about 59,000. We have sufficient fund balance in the hotel motel fund to cover this. And you'll see at the bottom it, as I said, it is balanced. the payments to the Cobb Galleria. So the city does have an agreement with the Cobb Marietta Coliseum and exhibit hall authority. So that means a fixed percentage of the revenue that we get for these hotel motel taxes are paid to Cobb Galleria and then a fixed percentage about 37 a.5% is transferred to the general fund to reimburse the general fund for things that it does. So you'll see those amounts 666,000 661,000 thereabouts. And for the expenditures, this is used to fund our community relations fund. And so we have a few employees there, Jennifer and Patrick. Uh that's what funds those. Going next here to our water sewer fund. You'll see at the top our main revenue for water sewer usage. We operate a water sewer utility. This is a big number. However, uh increases that we get from we buy our water wholesale from Cobb County Marietta Water Authority. Uh they have increases each year that used to be 2% every year. Recently it's been two and a half percent and then we've recently found out in the last month or so it's going to be three and a half percent through fiscal year 29. Those increases are passed along. So our revenue increases but then you'll see going down to our expenses our wholesale purchase of water.

That's by far our biggest line item. Uh that increases as well. Then if you look down the next line to transfer to water sewer CIP that number has actually decreased about 560,000. I think I may have mentioned that a few moments ago. So once again, uh we do have a transfer to reserves of about $178,000 for our water sewer fund. This is to help us cover any capital expenses that we have come up that can be extremely expensive. And then uh one last note here, you see about 2.1 $2.2 million for the transfer to general fund. This is the reimburse general fund for things the general fund provides the water sewer fund. It's things like IT, HR, finance services that it throughout the year gives the water fund. And we have a strict cost allocation formula each year that we do to make sure that the water sewer fund is reimbursing the general fund for that. It's about a $52,000 increase from FY25. We do have a few proposed fee changes here. Uh most of these are small. Starting at the top here, community development. The only thing they are changing is they're adding a $500 fee for temporary certificate of occupancy. This covers coordinating and inspections necessary to uh get these temporary certificates done. And then as we go down, fire has a related fee that they're adding for that. And it's just the time that staff spends having to coordinate letting these businesses come in uh early to do things like training and move in furniture before they're actually occupying. the building for business. Fire has a few other small ones. Fire fire sprinkler plan reviews. Um we're going from 150 to 250. We have new fees for $100 for limited work permits, fire sprinkler suppression systems, and fire alarm system. We have new $100 fee for fire safety fire safety system removal permits as well.