I went out and got in a couple miles in the park today, not too many problems, so I've been really lucky, most of my problems All right, it's 530, call the meeting to order, if Madam Clerk, you could call the roll, please Mayor Miller, here Alderpersons, Clemm, here Johnson, here Simmons is absent, Parker, here Stacy, here Shadle, here Sanders is absent, Sellers, here We have a quorum, Mr. Chair Join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all And that brings us to approval of the agenda, if I could get a motion So moved Second Motion by Sellers, second by Clemm, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion carries. Then we need an approval of the minutes from October 14th, 2025. So moved. Second. Motion by Parker, second by Sellers, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion carries. And we're down to public comments, which with the lack of anybody in the audience I would say is a no so we'll go down to number item seven which is discussion of the following budgets by city manager Boyer we're going to run down through public works street budget equipment fund for streets airport cemetery forestry animal control traffic engineering street light tax more fuel tax and street improvement manager

Boyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, you've gone over all of them, so I don't need to reiterate that. So let's start with Public Works.

It's right here. So as we all know, we currently are contracting out Public Works. This is where the Public Works Director pay would come from. So there's currently nothing budgeted for an in-house Public Works Director. Any questions on Public Works?

Are we going to get a public director? Currently, Fehr Graham is providing all our public works director needs right now. I understand, but are we going to hire a public director? No, not this time. Okay. And moving down to airport. Obviously, we've got quite a bit of work going on at the airport.

We've included the airport management contract and the amount that you're seeing there is essentially the new contract plus the estimated CPI increase for next year, which is a standard amount. We also have about $100,000 in contracted building repair and maintenance. That was a carryover from 2025 and it's used to basically repair the hangar roofs.

We also are budgeting about $40,000, same as $25,000, for the fuel system upgrades. We've got a tank, an in-ground tank that will need inspection, and we'll look at what requirements that that will need.

The fuel tank is part of the mitigation plans. That's an old tank that will have to be replaced in the next fiscal year or two in order to meet compliance.

It's very similar to the situation we had at the street department, new regulations coming into place, and this older tank does not meet those.

We've got about $15,000 budgeted for engineering, so that's generally with CMT, Crawford, Murphy, Tilly, they do the work at the airport and have been for many years.

They're working on a build-out plan for about 10 years. We've got a 10-year program there.

Skipping down, we've got the fuel, we're budgeting $100,000 for low lead and $80,000 for Jet A, that's just a carryover, we did bump up the $100,000 low lead by $4,000, skipping down a little further, yes, why did we bump up $4,000?

I think the prices have gone up on that, I'll have to double check, but I believe that's why we did.

Great. So we're bumping it up not knowing? Yes. We expect that the cost of fuel will be more expensive this coming year, and that is all getting paid back through fuel sales. So it comes back in as revenue, different place here in the budget.

Alderman Sellers.

I just wanted to know I know you had talked about equipment and hangers how many hangers are out there that that need to be that you think should be done this year or will it carry over to 2027 also so in terms of roof repair I'm assuming that's what you mean yeah there's I think there's a minimum of three Darren do you do you know that off the top hand I mean there's there's three for sure that need to be dealt with and there's a handful of others that need to be a repaired, but do you have any five altogether? Five for sure that need repairs. For this year. For 20, yeah, for 2026. Yeah, that's what I meant. Repairs or replace? Repairs. Yep. We had a, excuse me, we had a contractor come in and evaluate the roofs and we were looking to replace roofs, but based on his consultation, he felt the steel, while it's not pretty, is in good enough shape that we can just repair the leaks and the seals and the bolts and nuts that hold it on. There's a repair method for that, and so we're moving forward with that because we can get way more for our buck, and he thinks that the roofs will, you know, last another 20 years as far as steelworks goes, so we're, not that we're kicking it down the road, but we're trying to do economy of scale to get as many of the hangers to stop leaking as possible. Might need to be some new ridge caps as well. Sure, yeah, anything to make the existing roofs last longer and be watertight. And we'll just go ahead and move down to 7052. That's IDOT grant projects. So this is mostly the city's match, so includes the local share of funding for the Pappy lights. That's about $32,000 and terminal updates of $191,250. The remainder, the $294,000 will be reimbursed through these grants, offsetting the amount to be in revenue.

Avenue section of the general fund budget. So we've got a number of projects in the queue. This last item here is $517,000. It includes our match and the items that we will need to float cash flow until we get reimbursed. Okay, with that, I'd like to move on to streets. Any questions on airport? Okay. All right, so street budget. Again, this is informed quite substantially by the amount of work that we're doing in-house.

We have included a public works operations superintendent and assistant. So it's basically one third of this person's time will be spent in the street department as well as the assistant. We're going to need to update the AFSCME wages due to the fact that we've come to a contract and it's been signed. Also, we're budgeting for four summer mowers, two part-time pothole patchers.

So we've got about six part-time folks that we're planning to hire next year in the street department. Other than that, it's standard staff wages and benefits and withholdings. Moving on down to, yes, sir. Yeah, I just had another, you were saying you need four mowers for the summer and what else were you looking for? So we're budgeting for two summer mowers and two additional part-time people to work, do pothole patching. Draw your attention to item 6080, books, periodicals, memberships. So we're working with the auditors and they would like us to move some items in the budget. So this is why books and periodicals and membership is so much higher. So we're allowed to consolidate some funds here at the auditor's direction. For 2026, we're closing the projects fund and incorporating the two items that had in the fund into the street budget. So that'd be the annual memberships fees for the Gene Adams Trail. That's $20,000 per year. And the PEC path is $100,000 will now be paid out of the street budget. So that accounts for that change. This is item 144-6080, Books, Periodicals, Memberships.

In addition, we've, you know, hit a few highline items here. Now, bear in mind that new equipment is going to be coming out of capital, so that wouldn't be included in the street budget directly, but we do have some standard amounts that we've carried over from the previous year for contracted building repairs, equipment repairs, infrastructure repairs, vehicle repairs, and gear and clothing.

So those are generally carried over from the previous year. Education, training, and travel is the same as it was last year. We have engineering at $400,000 in the street budget, so this is increased by $50,000, and it includes utility permit reviews, the compost permit, public works master services agreement, and I'm sure Darren has a few other items that we worked on this year that we used.

just go ahead. Yeah, any of the general maintenance items that IDOT forces us to do, all those items come out of that budget. We also have street designs or specific ADA ramps, things that the city workers are doing themselves that have to be designed and permitted and all those functions come out of that budget. Okay, then moving down, we've got about $60,000 for fuel, diesel, and $60,000 for gasoline. That's always kind of a fluid number, but it's basically the same as last year. Kind of rolling down to some of these other ones. We've got $20,000 in rock road material. We identified that we need to increase that. It's about double what we did last year on that. We've got $25,000 in the sidewalk program. That's increased from the previous year. And then we've got $325,000 in snow removal supplies. Most of that is is salt. So almost all of that is salt.

Alderman Spacey.

Yeah, what are the rock and road material? What's that?

So if we need to pick up some CA7, which is a backfill material, like it's got gravel and sand and stuff together, that would be an example of rock road material.

Essentially, it's what we need to do base repairs or do other types of maintenance.

$20,000 worth? Oh, yeah. Got a few last items on the next page. I have one other question. Sure. For our streets from our plant list, what do we have set aside for that? We'll get that when we get into the street maintenance. That's a little later in the presentation here. The Street Improvement Fund, we'll talk about that.

Just a few highlight items here. Machinery and equipment. We're planning to purchase a signboard, arrow board, mulching head for the mini excavator, dual Freon machine, transmission flush machine, and a 24-foot trailer. So that comes to about $84,000. So those are some of the smaller equipment we plan to purchase this year. Also looking at the capital outlay. So updated repairs to the city yards, admin building.

we're budgeting $100,000 for that as well yep yes joy yeah when you were saying all the the things you were i know i got the 20 foot fat trailer but what were the so all of these things are are planned for next year what's the sign well so if you know when we're doing road work uh we need aero boards and yeah it essentially is a truck we have one of them is going to be a truck mounted one one's a trailer mounted one it kind of create you know directs traffic around the construction zone provides safety for the workers.

I'll expand on that for a second.

Yep.

So the reason we want to buy signboards is we used to have one, and it was damaged in a storm, and it's no longer functional.

And to rent them, they rent for about $4,000 a week.

So we need to have our own when we're doing all this road construction so we can get messages out to people quicker so they're more informed when we're working in areas.

So this $84,500 is equipment we have already purchased or we need to?

We need to and we need to replace. That's what Darren was just saying, that we have a sign board that we need to replace and the others are equipment we need to purchase and acquire.

So those will come to the council individually?

Yes. Yeah, they'll come as a resolution as we go through the 2026 year.

Okay, with that, I'd like to move on to a cemetery fund. This is pretty straightforward, not a whole lot of changes here. Just touch on some high-level ones. We'll be, you know, we have one cemetery care employee who takes care of it, so the wages and benefits are here, itemized. Also, we're kind of carrying forward the supplies and equipment. Several years ago, we made some investments in the mausoleum roofs.

those are pretty much done we made some investments in new mowing equipment and that's been done the machinery is being taken care of and maintained appropriately and because of the kind of the geometry of the machines themselves they they really saved a lot of time so this is just a carry forward from last year any questions on cemetery okay the next one is forestry again we've got three full-time employees in forestry and the wages and benefits are reflected there Fairly, everything's pretty much the same as last year except we've added a couple of items. Tree assistance, so that is when we hire outside contractors to take trees out that are too big or too dangerous for us to do. So that is included at under $67,65. And then machinery and equipment, we're budgeting $300,000 for a clam truck, bucket truck, ropes, chain, and pole saw so but the vast majority of us for the clam truck we're looking at replacing the the clam truck or the apparatus on the back there that hydraulics get older things get worn out and we're looking at replacing that and then small equipment we're just doing this same thing we always do trim saws you know leaf blowers things that wear out break while we're out the field working any questions on forestry okay with that we'll hit animal control not a whole lot of change

changes here, again, standard changes on the AFSCME employee, this is our animal control officer, contracted vehicle maintenance, in 25 we had a van door repair that was fairly expensive, but there we've removed that for next year, we don't expect to have that problem again in the future, and we're just adding a few items here for live traps, snares, and tranquilizer darts, so we can be effective with animal control, but again, yes, No, just with animal control, um, are we all up to date with, um, the, the young man with the license and stuff? I know, um, we had to change Yes, we have a new animal control officer. I don't believe he has all the, the certifications yet. So we're, but that's something we're working on. Okay. All right. If there's no questions on animal control, let's move on to traffic engineering. Uh, this is kind of stoplights.

Streetlights, Stoplights, sorry, Traffic Signals, I meant to say. So we're anticipating replacing the crossing at 75 at Honeywell. I think it's been brought up by IDOT that it needs to be updated and replaced. So we're budgeting for that. And then, of course, supplies. So whatever we have to do out there to replace like light bulbs that are burned out and that kind of thing. So any questions on traffic engineering?

What do we have there? What do we have on 75 and Honeywell?

There's a pedestrian crossing signal there that IDOT's telling us needs to be updated.

Alderman Clown?

Rob, where does the state stuff show up at? I mean, the work that we do through the state, is that in a whole separate place?

Yes, that's not here. This is just traffic engineering. Like I said, this is traffic signals.

So if we do a cost share on a replacement or something like that, that would be budgeted here And thank you for the ones at Empire and Lincoln-Douglas, those have been fantastic Empire and where?

The speed thing says Oh, yeah Alderman Parker?

No, he asked the same question I was Okay Okay But that I'd like to move on to streetlights So we've got a few changes for this year We're budgeting $40,000 for the Carriage Hill lights, I'm sorry, $30,000 for Carriage Hill and an additional $10,000 for unexpected repair.

$10,000 for unexpected repairs. I don't know if anyone's been on Carriage Hill, but when they built it, they put these little cantonary lights that are not very good, and they're broken, they're very old, and so we're looking at what we can do to at least fix the ones that we have. The wire was kind of just direct buried in the ground. We're thinking that it's broken somewhere, but we're not entirely sure what we're going to end up spending on that, but we wanted to put something in here for a budget on Carriage Hill.

Then we've got electrical expense, that would be back to your, you know, the cost of the streetlights, and then the electrical bill associated with them, and then crosswalk signs, I'm sorry, supplies and equipment include crosswalk signs, and machinery and equipment include filters for all the traffic signal boxes, they have a fan that keeps all the electronics cool, and we have to replace those filters. So any questions on streetlights?

Alderman Stacy. Yes. Yes. So you're budgeting $40,000 and you said $30,000 is going to go to Carriage Hill. Yes, $30,000 was like a loose figure that we had to repair them. They've been, I don't think they've functioned in many years and it's kind of a challenging issue because we're not sure exactly what's wrong there. Okay, so is the other $10,000 going to be for neighborhoods? Yes, we could see what we could do with that for sure. Absolutely.

Okay. Any other questions on streetlights? All right. Motor fuel tax. And Tom, this might be what you were referring to a minute ago. So as you can see, we've got about a million dollars coming into the motor fuel tax on the revenue side and about a million going out and work. We're budgeting $100,000 in crack sealing. Obviously, we have to protect the investment that we've made over the last many years and crack filling is the first step to doing that.

so we route the cracks that have formed over a period of time and we fill them with a mastic material and then we have rock road material this is basically our our asphalt for city-led projects so we're looking at spending about 900 or 998,000 on road material any questions on mft you said this is our streets what I was talking about earlier this is part of it this is part of it so these are for the street to department led projects. So this is the materials for our pavers so we can pave the streets. Okay. Any other questions on motor fuel fund? Now this is the one everybody was I think referring to a minute ago. This is the street improvement fund. So that's where we bring in the 1% sales tax. We're budgeting revenue of about $3.7 million. And then we're also bringing in additional $220,000 from electric Tax, $155,000 through Natural Gas Taxes, Road Improvement Fees of $252,000, that's your water bill, and then interest income on the whatever accumulates in the account. So in 2026, we'll be allocating approximately $500,000 for engineering, $30,000 for rock road material, $30,000 for paint supplies and markings,

and $3.3 million for the 2026 road program. And then we'll also have a transfer to debt service because we pay for our bond. We have a couple of bonds that we are paying for through this fund. The total build out of the streets, I don't know, Darren, if you can pull that up quickly here and maybe just go over that. It's a timely moment to kind of go over that.

Sure. So the 26 road program we have budgeted based off the list that we made a couple years ago, and we have some added projects to that as well. It's a total of just over $6 million in expenditures for next year. Some of them have water improvements on them as well. That's where the additional funds come from. So the first project is Dewey Street from Walnut to Locust. That project cost is $675,000. I'm just going to round them.

We have the two sections we're committed to on Gladewood. They're about $135,000. We have Pershing Street, Chicago to Carroll Avenue. That reconstruction is going to cost about $365,000. Pershing got bought on because we're intending to fix South Carroll, and Pershing has to be addressed as well because there's a storm issue that holds a lot of water against Carroll Street, so in order to do one, we had to do the other.

we also have the municipal parking lot we were going to try to get that done this year but it's going to push to next year and we also have the alley at the police facility behind us that most of the squad cars use total project for that is about a million dollars South Demeter Drive Empire to West Demeter Drive so basically that's from Empire Street to La Cresta then La Cresta to I believe it's Hillcrest. That needs all new water main on it and new street so that project is about 1.2 million dollars. Benton Avenue from Winslow to Wyandotte, there's a section in there that needs new water main and that's a new street replacement. The projected cost is 1.3 million dollars. Stewart Avenue from Stevenson Street to Winter Drive, that section needs new water main as well. Total cost of that Project is $469,000. Concord Drive was an addition from this year. We actually put this street on and took one street off. Concord is a total cost of about $500,000. It's just going to be a street replacement, very poor condition. Street, Seminole Drive

here, about $122,000. It's one of the smallest sections we have. South Park Crest, as I noted before, that one was removed with the permission of Alderman Clem this year and will be pushed to next year because we just kind of ran out of some funding. And our final project then will be Carroll Avenue, which is an addition to this year. It wasn't on. We kind of started Carroll and the street department wanted to finish it. So that's going to be surface reconditioning on that project at a cost of about $525,000, so that'll be from Empire to South Street.

What is the repairs for Seminole? Seminole's complete surface replacement. It's alligator cracked, and there's the manholes that are about four inches out of the ground, which cars are clipping the manholes underneath, and that was, Seminole was on our project list that was established by the council.

So what would cause that?

Sinking of the base is what's going on over there. We addressed some of those streets last year, not last year, the year before that, and we ran out of money to finish Seminole, so Seminole got selected and pushed to a 2026 program.

Can I have a copy of your reports on the different streets you just gave?

Certainly.

Thank you.

Alderman Sellers.

I was going to ask for a list of all the streets you just named.

Yep.

I'd be glad to say that.

We just finished this up last week, so yeah, we'll get it to everyone.

Okay, and the last item is Capital Equipment Fund.

So under the revenue side, we've got about $170,000.

that's two cents per gallon of gas at city limits and then we also receive $900,000 from general funds so we transfer that into the capital equipment fund. As far as expenditures we've already gone over the police department so for other vehicles we're going to be looking at enterprise buyouts so that several years ago we did several enterprise leases and for pickup trucks and other runabouts we'll be buying some of those out. We're also going to be we've budgeted for a 10 yard and a five yard dump truck and then dump body for the hook lift trucks. We have two hook lift trucks down at the yards. We use them pretty much only in the wintertime. If we can equip them with a tilt or a dump bed, we can use them for construction. And then also one crew cab truck for the public works department. In addition to that, we've got some machinery we've asked, we've been requested that we acquire a new an additional roller for our paving crews and also as we move down here we've got various lease interest and principal payments so any questions on the capital equipment fund okay that concludes my presentation from the budget is there any other discussion seeing none open to public comments agenda or non agenda and seeing none I take a motion for adjournment some of

I second.

Motion by Sellers, second by Johnson, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Thank you.

We're going to take a few minutes.

Okay, we'll start in about three, four minutes.

We'll start in about three, four minutes.