Transcript — Eagle Mountain City Council, 8 October 2026

Speaker A: Test, test.

Speaker B: All right, let's go ahead and get started. It is 6:02 on October 8th, and we are here for our budget work session. Welcome everybody here. I will make note that, uh, Zach is online, and we'll excuse Rich. He had a work engagement tonight, so, uh, Council Member Wood won't be here, but we do have Council Member Hewish online. And, uh, the item and the reason that we're here is to discuss, uh, our 2028 budget, and this is kind of the planning kickoff. So Kimberly, are you or Terrence the— Kimberly, to begin with.

Speaker C: Terrence will be running a lot of this show, but I'm, I'm just, uh, here to, uh, thank you for taking the time out of your day, um, for these meetings. And again, this is a planning meeting. So today we'll be talking at high levels about what does the calendaring look like. We're following up on the conversations that we've had individually with the council about what the hopes and the objectives are for the outcome as we go throughout this budget and planning season to try to make sure internally that we are aligned with what the council's priorities are so that we can also try to incorporate enhanced communication items to look at ways to involve the public more or make sure that there's an opportunity for that to happen. Again, a lot of these things are coming from the feedback we've received from the council. What we need now is collectively as a body with some of these items to make sure that we are aligned as we continue to move forward. We'll be doing our internal staff kickoff on October 22nd. And so this meeting kind of Precursor. Precursor to that, thank you. And so I'm gonna turn some time over to Terrence, and he's gonna work through this presentation, the few items we have. And we'll, again, at any time as we're going through it, please feel free to have us pause, ask questions. We can continue conversation and discussion. But that's what this is. It's a planning kind of meeting, looking at our calendaring and what we have, um, coming forward. So thank you.

Speaker A: Good evening, uh, Mayor and Council. Um, time flies. We just adopted the fiscal year 2027 budget last August, and now we're kicking off the budget planning for the next fiscal year. We'll be going over some few items today. As mentioned, thank you for the time that you spend with me and Kimberly going over some of your feedback in this last budget planning. So we'll talk about some of the things that we've learned from that process, and then we're going to go over some of the planning objectives, not just for tonight, but as a whole budget planning process starting October until the adoption of the budget next year. around June. Also, we're going to go over quickly about budget roles and responsibilities when it comes to the council, the mayor, the city manager, the finance, the budget team, and the departments. And, um, and then we're gonna go over the budget process and timeline. I have the calendar here, and we emailed a copy to Councilmember Yuvish. I'll give a copy to each one of you as we go over, but the bulk of our conversation will be based on this budget calendar as it sets the, um, the topics and the process of like how we're going to develop the budget for the next fiscal year. And then we're gonna have a higher-level conversation about service level. I know you've been, um, aware about that and some of the 5-year needs assessment and the things that the, the staff are working on. Then we'll end with some budget communication and engagement plan. As we met with the communication department, we go over some of the things that we can do for the next budget cycle. Let's start with some of the things that we've learned from the last budget planning cycle. We met with each of the— yes, Mayor.

Speaker B: Just before you went on, I thought it was maybe in one of these other slides, so I want to ask, is that schedule coming up or just the email?

Speaker A: The—

Speaker B: The one that you just showed us.

Speaker D: Oh.

Speaker B: Are we going to talk about that or—

Speaker A: We were going to talk about this, Mayor, in the later presentation.

Speaker B: Okay, I thought it was. I just wanted to— because you mentioned that you emailed it. It's coming up.

Speaker A: We only emailed it to Councilmember Juarez because he's online, so he will have a copy of that one.

Speaker C: I did email it to everybody, actually, so that you would all have it for future reference.

Speaker B: Okay, I just— when we get to that slide, I want to talk about that schedule.

Speaker A: No problem. Thank you, Mayor. All right, all right. So here's some of the high-level things that we've received, and as we go through the rest of the budget timeline and the process, we try to incorporate some of the feedback that we received from you. Some of the things that we commonly heard is just several service metrics or budget metrics in general. way to communicate some of the—

Speaker E: I'm just gonna— I'm gonna stop you, Terrence. I'm gonna ask that someone print that and bring us a physical paper copy that we can look at and mark up, please. If you've got one, I'll take one.

Speaker D: All right.

Speaker A: Thank you for that. Sorry about that. Okay. All right. So the first one, some of the high-level feedback that we receive is service metrics. I know we've been talking a lot about service levels this past budget planning. Of course, there's going to be some heavy lifting and work of like trying to set up the baseline of where our current level services are, and we'll be working with the departments to do that. So Some of the things that we've learned is how we can establish some key performance indicators or some performance measures that will help us communicate the impact and the changes that we've been doing as a city and the value that we're providing for the community. Next is more and earlier frequent council touch points, AKA budget work meetings. So for this one, it's just having regular budget work meetings so that We spend that time discussing some of the core areas of our budget, that we spend more time for you guys to have enough time to review them, to deliberate, and to discuss, and making sure that we have some alignment when it comes to the priorities as well. Any question before I move on to the last one?

Speaker E: Nope.

Speaker A: Okay. And then last one is the feedback that we received from you is You would like us to maximize and use all the available communication channels that are available for the city to reach out to our residents, informing them about the budget process and the budget information that we have. Any questions from there?

Speaker F: Nope.

Speaker A: And I'm going to go over the budget communication plan later in that presentation. Next is the budget planning objectives. So this is not just for tonight, but for the whole budget duration planning. The very first thing that we would like to achieve is alignment on priorities. As you know, we're, we're a growing city. There's so many needs that we have to, to deal with, and even the day-to-day operation of the city is a lot to handle as well. What's important to that is there's so many needs from our residents, there's needs within the city, the staffs, the departments. But the question is how we can align those needs and priorities. And as a council, some of the direction that we probably need from you is so that we have the understanding of the overall city organizational goals, priorities, and desired outcomes, especially for the next fiscal year. The next one is planning for the future. For this budget planning process, we would like to be more strategic and long-term looking when it comes to our budget. Yes, we're going to be looking at what will be the budget for the next fiscal year, but we want to expand beyond that. What could be our financial forecast for the next 5 years? Not just the revenues, but also the needs of the city, the staffing, and all the services that we probably need to improve to have a plan for the next few years. And then last is, which is important, is and could be hard to measure or to do is to measure our impact. It's very crucial that— sorry, Councilmember Clerk-Leopold.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: Okay, sorry, I thought you have a question. So the last one is how to have that conversation for you as a buddy and also for us as staff so that we have a common language when it comes to what are the impact or how we're going to measure the impact, the service levels, the metrics. That we'll be talking about so that we are on the same page when it comes to that topic. And then the good thing about this is communicating and measuring our impact will help us tell the, the story to the community of the things that the city is doing when it comes to, of course, improving the quality of life and making sure that our city is attractive to live— for residents to live, play, and work. Any questions on this? Just key planning objectives for this budget planning.

Speaker B: Awesome.

Speaker A: All right, so the next few slides I'm gonna be not nerding out, but I just want to cover some of the things when it comes to the budget in general. It might be a review for you, but I think it's a good way to just think about the budget. Every year, the city is required to, to plan for its budget and to balance its budget. But ideally, what's, what's the budget is really all about? And I see the budget has this potential of acting and being a tool in these areas. The budget's full potential, it helps us guide what we do and how we do it as a city. I see the budget, and, um, when I was in my MPA program, we've been— we've been taught that the budget is one of the most important policy documents that a government could establish and present or publish. And I believe that that is correct. Like, as a local government, the budget is the most important policy decision and guidelines because it It's that where you allocate the resources that you want, that you have, to the needs that you think that the community need at this point. The budget as a policy guide helps the community understand where the priorities of the council are, and then it helps give direction to the staff where those priorities and policy should be focused on. You're familiar with the tool of a budget as a financial plan. We're just not just— it's not about just what we're going to be spending the next fiscal year, but we're also going to be looking at our revenues, making sure that what we collect, what we bring in, it's the same amount of money that we can spend on, and we don't create any structural imbalance when it comes to the budget. Something that is very interesting to me is looking at the budget as a communication tool. The Government Financial Officers, or GFOA, this— they have recently changed their budget criteria when it comes to publishing budget books for the cities. They've been pushing the cities and local governments and school districts and all those entities, the public entities, to use the budget as a communication tool. One of the changes that they would like to implement is making sure that the budget acts like as a communication tool when it comes to the focus— that focuses on the public, the elected officials, and the residents as the target audience of the information. I know sometimes it's really hard to read 300, 400 pages of budget, but that's something that we're planning to, um, to improve, like how we can communicate or use that budget as a communication tool and be strategic way of communicating consistently that will help both you, the elected official, and the public understand more our city budget and our financial condition. The budget is an operation guide. As you approve the budget, it sets the boundary of how much workload the departments will work on. It's sets the, um, the expectations of like what the city should be able to accomplish in the next fiscal year. So it helps guide that oper— um, guide the staff operationally. Also, the budget, I see it as a system. Um, as you can see from here, um, in the previous meetings, you guys have the opportunity to work on your strategic plan. Um, the strategic plan that you guys are working will help set the community priorities. And those community priorities can be translated and will be tied back to the budget, because where your priorities are, that's where we try to put resources on. The budget is influenced by the capital improvement plan. We try to review those infrastructure projects that will come online and the current projects that we're working on, and all those planning behind those capital improvement plans do tie back to the budget. The master plans and general plans and all those things, um, in— based on your policy decision, could impact what we include, what we don't include, what we budget in our, in our fiscal year. The budget that we're hoping to achieve, hopefully this coming planning is that to emphasize more on long-term financial planning, we would like to develop some financial model that we can share with the council when it comes to the revenues and the expenditures, the staffing, the different projects from the CIP, the different programs that the different departments are thinking about, that we want to put it in a model like what we did when when it comes to the utility rates study that we did, wherein you're able to see the trends of where we are and where the needs are. And if we see some deficit, for example, that we will have enough time to react, that we will have enough time to pivot and make changes to the budget. The last 2 is— it's more on the budget monitoring and communication, wherein as we set up these service levels and figure out how we can measure the success of those service levels and where we are. We can monitor that through establishing performance measures. And also, as part of our year-end auditing, the Act for— will act as a reporting tool for the year-end as part of what happened in that fiscal year. Any question between these ideas of budget as a tool in the last slides, and then budget as a system, like how everything kind of ties back to the budget and why— the reason why we're spending this time talking about the budget. Nope? Okay. Now we're gonna go over about the roles in the budget process. So here's some of the key stakeholders. Of course, we have the residents as well as a stakeholder when it comes to the budget process. And I'll talk about where they can put their input later on. But in terms of like the process itself and the timeline and how we discuss things, here's some of the general area of like responsibilities. The very first one is for the City Council is to, of course, establish community priorities and policy direction, which we talked about that earlier. Those really policy decisions and direction is what we take as staff, which we'll go over between, uh, for the mayor and the city manager. Um, the next one is providing guidance on service levels and the desired outcomes that you want as a council, as a body, when it comes to, to what level of service are we comfortable to provide for to our community. And then, um, As part of the tentative budget process, you know, first meeting in May, usually that's the official time wherein the administration, mayor and city manager, will present the tentative budget to you guys. And that's the time that you have to review, deliberate, and of course later on in June, adopt the budget. But even though that's in May, today is October. We already starting to, to do some budget discussion because we want to involve the council and we want to have that discussion that before we come to that point of tentative budget presentation, that you guys are in the loop of all the discussions that we have and how we came to be to that, um, to that point by that time that the budget will be presented to you guys. Next is the mayor and the city manager. Their responsibility, of course, is to translate those council priorities and policy direction from the council that will trickle down to the staff. Of course, the responsibility to make sure that we balance the citywide needs versus the available resources that we have. And as part of that tentative budget presentation is to present that recommended budget for council consideration by that time. Next is finance and the budget team. So our responsibility for you guys is to help establish the budget process, the guidelines, the timelines, and of course to develop some financial assumptions and analyze some of the budget requests that we will be receiving. And then our hope is that we can provide some objective analysis and options for you and recommendation to the body as the time comes that you guys consider what decisions you would like to make when it comes to the budget. The departments, their role and responsibility primarily are heavily involved with identifying the operational and the service needs within their area, within the city. And then of course they, they can hear that from the residents as well. As part of this process, they're the ones who will develop and justify those budget requests. And once the budget is approved, the departments are the ones who will manage those approved budget or the resources that they were approved. And depending on what the service level and the expectation of the council, they're the ones who'll be responsible in delivering on those services. Any questions when it comes to the role in the budget process?

Speaker G: Okay.

Speaker A: Now let's talk about the budget process. I know that you already see the calendar, but I just want to explain why the calendar looks that way, but at the same time what we're currently doing. I know we're in a budget— the very first phase is the budget planning. This is where we are right now. We're in— you have the calendar on yourself, and that's part of this meeting, is to establish what will be in the budget calendar and that we are on same page when it comes to the council and the staff as well. As part of your strategic planning purposes and some of our budget workshop that we'll be doing later on, there will be some conversation about goals and priorities. In this planning stage, we'll be able to present to you some of the revenue forecasts. And not just the forecast, but as part of this fall season, some of our staff will be working on doing updating their 5-year needs assessments, which will help us forecast the needs for the city, uh, in the next 5 years. And, um, as we go through this budget planning process, the goal really is to be aligned, um, when it comes to what success would look like, um, overall for this budget planning process. And the not so exciting but at the same time a challenging part of budget planning is the budgeting itself. This is where the allocation will take place. This is based on the council's priority and policy decisions. The allocation will help us identify where you want us to put the resources, the dollars, to those goals and priorities that you have for us in this Phase 2. And it will be part of our budget work meeting. There will be some budget work meeting where we will need to have hard conversation when it comes to the trade-offs. As much as we wanted to do everything that we can, there's always a limitation of time and money and, you know, resources. So, and then after that planning and budgeting, the allocation part of it, and the budget is approved, it's not gonna stop there because we're gonna still monitor the budget. It's one thing to set the spending and the goals and stuff, but we need to communicate back to the council where we are based on those resources that were approved, what level of service are we currently seeing because of those budget requests that were approved. And pretty much it's mostly communicating the, the financial performance and also the key indicators and the performance measures as well. And the next phase is of course communicating that back to the community and other stakeholders, the business community, the bond rating community, you know, those other stakeholders that do look up to us in our, in our financial outlook. As you can see, it's a loop. Each phase informs the next. Together, the budget, it's not just about balancing what's a revenue and expenditure, but it is a strategic and a powerful one. So that's something that we would like to continue working on to develop a strategic budget. Any question on the budget process cycle? Okay, now the fun part, which we will spend more time on, is the budget calendar. I know, Mayor, you mentioned anything you want to cover, something on the budget calendar. Do you want to cover that first, or do you want me to just cover what we have right now and then have a little discussion after?

Speaker B: No, go ahead and do your part, and then I'll add to it. Sounds good.

Speaker A: Thank you, Mayor. All right, so what you have in front of you is your budget calendar, and it's color-coded. The yellow ones are the ones that scheduled for a budget work meeting, usually happens, um, prior to the Planning Commission, like what we've done in the past, from 3 to 5 PM. And then the orange ones are— those are— we will have some budget discussion or some action items during your regular scheduled City Council meeting. Those are the highlighted ones. And then you'll see a blue and a green. The blue is primarily for this department and the staff. The green ones is primarily for the department and staff. The green ones is for budget workshop that we'll be doing with staff, and the blue ones is the deadlines when it comes to like when the budget request will be submitted by the department. And now I will explain why we got to that point. So here's our budget process and timeline. Um, today we're doing a kickoff. As Kimberly mentioned, we'll have a kickoff with staff on, uh, October 22nd, and depending on the feedback that we receive from you, that will help us communicate those things to the staff by that time. The first 3 things, or the first 3 circles, or after that, is primarily for the staff. We'll be planning to do like a level service work— budget workshop with the staff on November 12th. And primarily the goal there is to help the staff, um, uh, identify— some of them have already worked on identifying the current level service that they have, uh, but we also want to identify some of the metrics that could help track, um, some of those, um, level service, uh, service levels that they have as a department. And then they'll be working on some 5-year needs assessment. Last budget planning cycle, some of our staff had the opportunity to do some 5-year needs assessment, and some of them just need some quick update. And then there will be some departments that still need to work on their 5-year needs assessment. That will be an emphasis, uh, these 2 budget workshops, and focus on the month of November. So we're not going to have a budget council discussion during that time because we'll spend more time internally prepare some information for you guys when it comes to the level of service and the 5-year needs assessment. Just to touch base on that 5-year needs assessment, last year the focus was to look at staffing, what the department needs in the next 5 years. For this year, we'll probably add some other elements in case they need more software or if they— Terrence, can I ask you a question?

Speaker E: I'm curious about all of these these items that are coming up on the calendar that are in blue, and perhaps the 2 that you're— the one you're talking about right now.

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker E: The level of service and performance measures. Are there internal documents that are being produced that could be shared with council from each of those?

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker E: I really would like to request, because I've been here a number of years and I don't typically see those. And let me state the reason why I think that's important. I know that the Budget Committee is going to look at that. They whittle it down, obviously, obviously based on resourcing, right? And they try to prioritize. I value that. So I'm not saying that that's unimportant. I think there's value in allowing the council to see the magnitude of the need so that we are certain that we are directing those finite resources that we have in the right direction. So I want to state it that way.

Speaker A: Yes. And oh, sorry, Councilmember Clark.

Speaker D: I just want to piggyback off of what he said. I do think there's significant value for the council to see those things because it helps us understand better why certain things are proposed to be eliminated or explain to residents the tough decisions that we had to make with something.

Speaker E: Well, it may compel us, and I do mean compel, it may compel us to stop looking at something that we think is kind of nonessential. essential but very important.

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker E: And realize that we're going to have to divert some resources to those absolute essential needs, and we might find ourselves in a different position than even what staff's asking us to do.

Speaker F: Yes.

Speaker E: OK, thank you.

Speaker A: No, thank you very much for that feedback. And just to let you know, we incorporated that in the process. So you will see in this one, December 15th, we'll have a level of service council discussion. So based on the workshop that we've been doing internally, There will be some communication that will come to the council on December 15th regarding that level of service. In terms of the 5-year—

Speaker E: yes. This is 2 weeks later though.

Speaker D: That's like when things are due.

Speaker B: I was just pointing out so you know that all those ones in blue is one meeting. It just shows what the topic is, right?

Speaker A: The blue ones are, yes, for the deadline for the, for the staff.

Speaker B: Yes. Those aren't multiple different meetings. It's one meeting.

Speaker C: It's not actually even a meeting. It's just a deadline for the staff to know when their stuff is due.

Speaker A: That's right. Councilmember.

Speaker E: So the Budget Committee is just their— that's kind of their drop-dead date for the information from each department. That's what I'm reading that as.

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker A: So everyone will submit their budget request by December 3rd. And then just to Kind of talk about some of the new changes that we've done, we'll be doing, is that Budget Congress on January 27th, which I will talk about later in the presentation. But the idea there is we'll spend a day and you will hear from the departments themselves. They're gonna be talking about their current level of service, their needs assessments and stuff. But it will be—

Speaker C: Congress.

Speaker A: It will be a day, it's gonna be a day commitment. So that's why we want to give you this calendar ahead of time, and I know it's gonna be requirements of time. It's gonna be on a Wednesday because it will involve some of the staff. It will involve our staff, so the departments will be there as well. That's January 27th.

Speaker E: 27th.

Speaker A: 27th. Sorry about— yes. So we will, we will have some discussion about level of service after those workshops. It'll go to the council. And then for the 5-year needs assessment, as the later budget workshop that we'll have, we'll have those too. So, um, yes, it will, it will come to the council, those information, and we'll try to, uh, communicate that. So all requests will be December 3rd. And the reason why we want it to be upfront, because we will not be able to do the succeeding meetings and discussion if we don't have the information. And just for your purposes, that January 27th will be the first time that everyone will hear Mostly, I mean, they will submit the request, but technically that's the first time that Budget Committee, administration, mayor, and the City Council will hear all these requests at the same time. So we'll spend a day, a whole day for that. Any question on this few?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's where I wanted to jump in and maybe have a little discussion with who's here, and we'll get Councilmember Herwish to weigh in as well. That usually— so that 27th in the past, and it's been a couple of years, I think you were here. We used to, like, we went to a hotel in Lehigh one time, call it an offsite. We've had those planning meetings and that's where each department would talk through their stuff. It's an all-day thing. So my first question on that 27th one, and we talked about it a little bit, is do we wanna do that at like the Broadbent Room or something like that? Is that the— It's the Lehigh. Yeah, the Lehigh. Just so that we can, like what we've done in the past. questions that I have is we have a couple opportunities to get together as a group and spend larger amounts of time on whatever the topic. I think the budget is going to be one of them. But when we are at ULCT, another offsite that is not a retreat, just want to be sure.

Speaker E: You are talking about when they have their their annual or biannual conference in Salt Lake City and/or St. George?

Speaker B: April.

Speaker E: Okay.

Speaker B: April. We had talked about it internally as well. Do we want to have a half day before the— on our travel day, get there early and have a conference?

Speaker E: I'll just weigh into that and see what everyone else thinks. I found it super helpful this past year to be able to do that. I mean, we're already traveling that day. It makes complete sense to me. Especially where you're able to just—

Speaker B: Make the best of our time.

Speaker E: Just reserve a conference room in the hotel. There's no additional expense, and it allows us to accomplish, for me at least, a greater magnitude of work.

Speaker B: So then my second part is we kind of have a half day before and a half day after. Is there interest in— because they end at lunch, they give us our lunch and pack us out. Do we want to stay for a couple hours and utilize— so I'm trying to find times when we're together when we can kind of— it's hard to cram everything into our meetings that we have, so I'm looking for those. And that may be a budget meeting, that may be a strategic planning meeting, but I'm wondering if we use—

Speaker E: I'm going to say this and then I'll be quiet because I'm the only one speaking and I want to hear from the other council members. But for me, the more the better. And I recognize that it's a commitment and that it takes us away from our day jobs. I mean, there's no question. It's interesting when you look at this, you know, the city council doesn't really do much. I know that. And as I look at this calendar, just Anyway, I just—it requires a tremendous amount of time, but I'm willing to give it the time that it needs, and I know that my fellow council members are as well, to the degree that they're able to adjust their schedules. That's why I really appreciate this in advance, and if we can agree that these times work and do some extensions like you're suggesting, Mayor, then I think let's just get it on the calendar so that it's on our schedule and on our radar, and we don't get something.

Speaker B: So that's kind of what I'm getting at, is I know that we— there's 1,000 other things we can talk about, and I'm trying to find times that fit that we can do budget, but we can also do our strategic plan or general plan or whatever else, our list of things that we have to do. When are those opportunities to have those discussions?

Speaker D: I like when we set time aside. It's great that we're doing this, We try to fit it into everyone's schedule, and it's great that the staff will stay for an extra long day to go through budget stuff with us over a 1.5 or a 2-hour period. But when we set time aside where it's just budget and we're having these conversations, I think it's more productive work. One thing that I want us to take a look at is there are a few dates like May 18th, we may wanna look, and then May 11th, May is like this ridiculous month. They call it Maycember. And one of the feedback that we got from our residents was that we had— I can't remember if it was a public hearing or what it was, one of the stops along the way in the budget and taxation process. And they said, this is— the meeting's the day before school starts. Well, we have to go when like the county tells us and stuff like that. But if we can just be mindful of that and try to avoid certain dates that might be crazy. And, and I know that staff has stuff going on. They have kids too. So like, just something to think about, 'cause that was feedback that the public gave us.

Speaker F: Yeah, I'm supportive.

Speaker B: For sure, the ULCT.

Speaker H: Oh yeah, that's great.

Speaker B: And then are there any— I was looking for Fifth Tuesdays and I think there's one in March.

Speaker F: The Fifth Tuesdays work out really great.

Speaker B: It's actually Easter weekend or whatever. So, uh, are there any other dates that we want to set aside? And then I have a— actually, Council Member Hewish, are you good with what we're talking about?

Speaker I: Yeah, I— this is so helpful for me. I've already added all of these to my calendar for the next year, so I'm, I'm planning all, all of these meetings. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Uh, the One question I had is, when is ULTC? I don't know that I have those dates on my calendar for April.

Speaker B: It's usually the 2nd or 3rd week of April, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

Speaker I: I can look it up if it's posted online. The only other thing I would add, and maybe Terrence will get to this, I love this city budget open house idea, and I think for that meeting, having a— we've talked about having a little bit more of a formalized Budget in Brief that gives a 1-page summary for all of our revenue sources, expenses. I think in that meeting, that would be an appropriate time to have that document as a handout that people can go through and look at revenue, anticipated revenue, even though it's a tentative budget. More than just a presentation. This last year, I found that I was going back through all of our budget meetings, and I was screenshotting all of the presentation slides. It would be so helpful to have something attendant to that meeting as a solid handout, not a marketing piece, but a 4 to 5, maybe 5 to 10 page something that we can hand to them and say, this is what we're anticipating with the summary of hires and capital projects and that sort of thing. That's the only thing I would add to that. But I love this budget. I've got it all added. I'm excited for it for next year. This is my favorite part of the year.

Speaker D: One other thing that I think, um, that would be great for us to do is take a look at when farmers market starts, um, when we have Touch a Truck and the community fun night, some of those things. Like, it would be good to have a version of this calendar that we share with the public that just says, here's times for you to engage with us about the budget, um, and learn more about it. Because I love the community the open house, but I think we go through extra efforts at other times to be able to do some of those things.

Speaker B: So that would be only the yellow ones, right?

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then the, uh, I was going to ask you to just send a calendar invite on those dates as well. Most everybody's been doing that. If you can do it, it would just get us all on the same calendar. Then, uh, so I— we added the dates. It's April 15th, Councilmember Hewish, if you didn't hear that, April 15th through the what? Through Thursday, Friday, Saturday for ULCT. Well, it's Friday. It's Wednesday.

Speaker A: Well, Thursday and Friday are the classes usually, right? But Wednesday, it starts on the 14th, was when you would drive down, and that's probably when we would meet, right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker G: So April 14th, we would start at noon on that Wednesday and probably end at 5 o'clock on that Friday, or even in the evening.

Speaker B: Yeah, so through Friday. The conference ends at noon. We just extend till 5 or 6 and then drive home. So it'll be a late night, but I'm riding in the Corvette.

Speaker C: Maybe.

Speaker B: If you'll let me. We're going to raffle that off. Then, so the calendar invite. The other question I had with this schedule, you're going to have to correct me what my thought was in our previous meeting, but Can we add these meetings to our regular— this was your idea, Kimberly— our regular schedule when we adopt our schedule?

Speaker E: Yeah, I think we should.

Speaker B: That way it's not— so our regular schedule only has our council meetings, and we're gonna add these as regular meetings. Was there anything else about adding it to our schedule that I'm trying to remember we talked about?

Speaker C: I think our request was just that depending on like these rough timelines, if we were to try to just replicate that next year, but we wanted to try to get it out in advance so that people can prepare for it. And the conversation just would be if we're putting it more permanently like that is again historically a lot of our budget meetings we've done on the same night as a planning commission, a Tuesday night. It gives us 2 hours with a hard stop. Usually 3 to 5 is what we are doing. Would be making sure that we have a conversation with you guys that you are okay with that kind of ongoing for next year. It basically would pattern this schedule. But— and obviously when you adopt the calendar, you get to have a greater discussion about it anyway.

Speaker E: But don't you find value in having it on the calendar so that it's that we're looking at it.

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker E: Because it's just when you're just trying to find it and fit it in an already full calendar, it makes it so difficult to me. Even if we have a member or 2 of, of the council that can't make it on a— for a 2-hour window on a Planning Commission Tuesday, I, I hate that. I mean, I don't, I don't like that. So let me start there. But the reality of it is, is they can go back and listen to it and hear what's discussed and then give some input. I just, I find value in it. I think that the last couple of years, the way that you've kind of asked us to do it and that we've— I mean, we had to dedicate more time to it, but for me it's been more helpful to be better informed and to make better decisions.

Speaker C: And only a handful of the ones that we do with the council requires more staff, and those are ones typically where we're doing an all day or something. So if they are ones that that don't typically involve staff, would the council prefer it to be an evening? Like, we intentionally scheduled this as a 6 to 8, an evening one, to try and accommodate more of the, of the council and to be mindful of your day schedules as well. So that's kind of a question, is, is it— do you guys prefer us to try to do like a 6 to 8 if it's not staff intensive?

Speaker E: I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak for Councilmember Wood. I know for a fact that he would prefer that. I mean, I've had this discussion with him. For him, with his— he has a pretty demanding daytime job and not a lot of flexibility. So any of those that can work in that space that don't impact staff, the entire staff, in a, in a way— and we have 2 or 3 that might have to— I would say that he would be an absolute yes on that. For me personally, whenever, however, I will make the time to be here. And but I also know that Councilmember Whiting and and Clark, they get pounded during the day, so I don't know. I don't know how they feel about it.

Speaker D: Listen, you guys, I'm a mother of twins. I can handle whatever schedule you guys give me. So like, I made 2 babies at once.

Speaker F: I can do whatever. I'm flexible. Yeah, I'm flexible. It doesn't— whether it's— I'm flexible. Yeah, it's not a problem at all. But I just— I did want to bring up one date on this calendar though. It says September 28th. So April 13th would be the Tuesday right before the same week of ULCT. So now you're occupying Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Do we want to do that April 13th, whatever that 2-hour window is, do we want to take that as part of our retreat?

Speaker I: I think we—

Speaker F: oh, as part of our super long meeting, our very painful long planning meeting.

Speaker G: Super long meeting. Yes, that makes perfect sense. sense because we weren't sure if the council would be willing to extend. And so Kimberly, Terrence, are you okay with that?

Speaker I: Yeah.

Speaker B: The only problem with that one though is that's the all-department budget meeting. So it's—

Speaker C: We will have done the budget congress. This is where then you're seeing more of the operational budget picture coming together. But the— anyway, I think we might have to have a little bit more of a conversation about that one.

Speaker A: No worries. Everyone is getting excited, and I was like, it's going to be the next slide, and then I have another slide to answer all your questions and stuff. But can I go quickly, real quick, on the next one? And yeah, that 13, um, it's mostly just to answer that quickly, it's mostly non-personal related. So any one-time budget requests that was submitted, um, any vehicles, large equipments, those going to be the discussion on that one, like operations discussion in April, which we can probably move into the, the ULCT timeline as well. Okay, just to answer quickly, if I still remember it, for Councilmember Youwish, yes, we're still planning to do like a budget in brief, hopefully before that tentative budget, or by that tentative budget presentation. Those information will be available. And yes, we will use that in utilize that when we do the open house for the public. For Councilmember Clark, your comment about mailer, we'll go over that with the budget communication plan in a bit. This is the rest of the budget timeline, which you're already seeing. Pretty much we'll have some revenue discussion. This one might turn into a day conversation, not the revenue, but there will be some discussion when it comes to the 5-year needs assessment, the forecast of our budget, and not just for the next fiscal year but the next few years. So it might require some time for discussion. Yes, Councilmember Clark.

Speaker D: Which, which one are you referring to specifically? Is it the 5-year one or the revenue discussion one?

Speaker A: The revenue discussion. So as part of the revenue, we'll have a revenue discussion, but we'll probably touch on some of 5-year needs assessment for that one. Just to align what our revenue are, and then we can show you the 5-year needs assessment and where the staffing plan and all those things. And then depending on where the revenue are, and then we can talk about some of the things that we can do to meet those needs.

Speaker B: And also in that, I'm hoping that by the 26th we're well into the session and we kind of have an idea on what— because will that discussion— is that when we're going to have to talk about the Will it be before the UFSA Truth in Taxation process, or will it be before that?

Speaker C: I, well, I would think that, that's a great question.

Speaker B: Yeah, I thought it was.

Speaker C: That's a great question.

Speaker B: We don't know, and it's late enough, but when do we, if it's Truth in Taxation, when do we need to know?

Speaker C: Well, we need to know before we adopt the tentative budget because that's when we have to put our proposed tax rate.

Speaker B: So we don't have to notify the county before March, April?

Speaker C: No, not anymore.

Speaker B: If we could go through everything and decide to do it, if we had to do taxes, it could be way after.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker G: Okay.

Speaker C: It used to be you had to notify them by March 21st, but with the changes they made to that timeline, we don't have to notify them yet.

Speaker B: So by the time we're in St. George at the ULCTE conference. Is that too late?

Speaker E: It's April 13th.

Speaker B: What date did you—

Speaker C: Yeah, it's pretty late. So what it means is when we're talking, it doesn't mean you have to make any decisions. But it's the same thing is when we start with budgeting, and if you look kind of at the timeline, the revenue discussion is kind of at the back end. And it's because when we talk budgeting, We're talking what are the service levels again at a policy level? What are the service levels you want to provide to the residents? And then staff is putting all their stuff together and saying this is what it will cost to do that. Then you have a revenue discussion that says we have enough revenue to fulfill that, or no, we don't. And then the council starts to say we want to either decrease some service levels or we're willing to increase revenue in order to meet those. service levels and align those priorities. So it means that you have to have a discussion at that point. The truth in taxation is really centered around the UFA, right? From a resident standpoint, we expect it would just be a transition. It's the whatever UFA is charging, they stop charging, and then the city has to charge it because we have to take over the stations and everything and those costs. It really is just a transition. It is the exact same truth-in-taxation process we had to go through at that level, but that is what that looks like in terms of the anticipation for this year. If the council decides that yes, we're bringing— we're moving from UFSA to UFA, then it would change our levy and it would be— they just stop charging it and we start charging it.

Speaker E: To be clear, it's really moving the levy from one bucket to another.

Speaker C: One agency to another agency. There you go. Not an increase in tax. But potentially the process has to be the same. There's some clarification that we're reaching out to the Tax Commission and legislation regarding that because again, it is a service transfer.

Speaker E: So it's really just making sure that the agency that's providing the Service is collecting the tax.

Speaker C: Which is the only reason we don't have a— normally we would, if we knew that was how it had to happen and that you're considering that, we will build that into the calendar. You don't see any of that built in right now. And the only thing it does is in your calendar where it says on June that we adopt the budget, if we have a truth in taxation process for that change with the fire, then it means you're adopting an interim budget term budget instead. And then in August, you're not allowed to do it sooner. In August, we have a hearing for that and then adopt the budget.

Speaker F: I had 2 more questions on the calendar. May 11th for the city budget open house, that's— is Planning Commission going to run into that? And then May 18th is, is a city council meeting at 4 o'clock, and I'm seeing the budget scheduled from 3 to 5. But May 18th is a regularly scheduled City Council meeting. It would start at 4:00.

Speaker B: We usually kick the discussion items back on those days and talk budget till 5:00 and then start.

Speaker F: So we'll start at 3:00. So we'll still start at 3:00.

Speaker E: Okay.

Speaker B: So we're basically coming an hour earlier than 4:00.

Speaker F: Okay.

Speaker B: Do budget till 5:00 and then only have 1 hour for our work session.

Speaker F: Okay, that sounds good. And so what about the city—

Speaker C: And the budget does have to happen. That is a statute item. in terms of the first meeting in May is when that has to happen. What we could— it's up to you if you say you don't want to start at 3 and you just wanna start at 4 like usual. But we usually have so much discussion on our agenda items already that we have found we needed to set aside time to review that during an hour earlier.

Speaker F: Okay, and then the— so the open house, we're still good on May 11th?

Speaker A: If it's a Planning Commission, that's probably my mistake. So it will be— well, I'll just move it probably to Thursday if that— it's okay with everyone.

Speaker F: Make that work.

Speaker A: This one is just an open house, so we'll put some— I'll talk to it about that in a bit, but pretty much we'll put some information around people just for people to ask questions and for that one. And we can plan that, what that open house might look like. later on as well. So I'll double-check on that Planning Commission. Um, if it's a Planning Commission, um, day, then we'll probably need to move that open house.

Speaker E: Okay, go to the 13th, that's what you're saying?

Speaker F: Yeah, go to the 13th. That's what I would recommend.

Speaker D: If changes are made, you'll send us an updated calendar?

Speaker A: I will do that. And that's the reason why I haven't sent the calendar invites, because I want this this discussion to happen first so that we can finalize the dates. And I got too much excited and I forgot to mention that after this meeting, our next council discussion will be on December 15th, and that will be focusing— not December 15th, yes, December 15th, but the next one will be December 8th first. We'll have some public safety discussion regarding that, um, um, the property tax code that we have and the public safety coverage. Uh, the Utah County Sheriff's Office are going to be prepared to discuss their level of service by that time too, and we'll have some discussion on that day. And then, as you can see, before, before that revenue discussion, which I jump right away, uh, we'll have some discussion on public safety. We'll talk about level of service. There'll be some discussion about capital projects. This time, the department will come before you like we did last time. They're going to be talking about some of their ongoing projects that they're currently working on. They probably will talk to you about if there's any changes in scope that needs to happen, and then some of the things that they're probably looking to do in that next budget year. And of course, we'll have a separate day where we're going to talk about the whole 5-year capital improvement plan. And then we'll have that day, a whole day for Budget Congress, which is your listening opportunity with all the requests from the departments. So as you go through this, I'm hoping that we're starting to pick up some of the needs along the way. As part of that, you see it in your calendar but it's not in here. Currently, we're doing a survey. So I'm hoping that some of those information from the annual resident survey, some of the things that we've talked about from public safety, capital projects, budget congress, that we'll have enough time after that to So that you guys have the needs already in front of you and we can talk about the needs and the priorities and where you guys want to do when it comes to the allocation and the trade-offs and those kind of things. Any question on those things? Nothing. But yeah, we'll look at— it's gonna be May 13th for the city budget. So we'll have— I'm gonna back up again. So we'll have revenue discussion, probably a day discussion on that one, including the 5-year needs assessment. And And then we'll have an overview of the 5-year capital improvement plan. So you will see what will be potentially slated for the first year, most likely the current projects that we're working on. And then you'll see a preview of like what's going to be the projects in the year 2, 3, 4, and 5. Have a feedback from the council, and after that feedback, we're planning to bring it for adoption on a regular scheduled meeting. meeting on May— March 16th for adoption for that 5-year plan.

Speaker E: I just want to ask, I mean, I know that Steve and Ben kind of said that they think the ULTC conference is April 13th. Their website doesn't say that. It just says that that hasn't been determined yet, that I can tell. Do we know that's for sure?

Speaker A: I heard that in my UCMA meeting just briefly last week. Okay. I had a UCMA leadership meeting, and our conference is always same week, and they— we were told at least in that meeting they've determined the date. The UCMA is the whatever, 12th through the 14th, and then ULCT. It's a possibility that that changes, so— but that's what I've heard.

Speaker E: Yeah, I just think that we need to be aware that, that there may need to be some flexibility in that.

Speaker A: Thank you. And then after that CIP discussion, we'll have some personnel, mostly compensation for existing staff and benefits, and also any Any new requests for staffing will be handled by that time. And then, as I mentioned, we'll probably move it— that April 13th— to your offsite meeting. We'll talk about those non-personal-related budget requests outside capital projects and personal. And then, as mentioned, by statute, we have to present a tentative budget by May 4th. So that will go in your regular scheduled meeting. Then in between, May 13th, we'll do a budget open house for the public to have the opportunity to ask questions. We'll probably highlight some of the budget new things that we'll be doing or will be part of the budget as part of the deliberation. That will be a good opportunity for them to ask questions or if they need some clarification on that one.

Speaker E: I've been thinking about the personnel discussion. I mean, I'm going to throw a weird idea at you, okay? Really, it's just, it's kind of a metrics that I would like us to evaluate is where are we at with our individual departments? For instance, we have X number of employees in Public Works that are serving 80,000 residents. So what's our number? What's our service?

Speaker B: That's that thing that I had Natalie working on with the interns that she's— Remember we asked, and I asked you guys to— what's— how many parks employees do we have compared to the acreage?

Speaker E: Because I'm just sitting here thinking, I'm glad to hear that, Mayor.

Speaker B: I mean, she's getting it buttoned up.

Speaker E: I can't remember that. Yeah, but so for me, that's going to be really key. And I think it's— I think it's a really good thing for us to be able to evaluate that and to see that if we had 1,200 building permits this year and we anticipate 4.4 residents per unit, that we're going to be adding 5,000 people, how many employees do we need to just maintain our level of service, to bring those 5,000 people into the fold and take care of their needs? I don't think we've ever really looked at that deeply. For me, that's a metric that I really want us to become familiar with.

Speaker B: The week those interns were leaving, we asked what other things did you want, and we had a big thing. I just asked her last week, I think it was in our executive meeting, Ben, do you remember timeline about what she said, where, where she was at on that?

Speaker G: I have been meeting with her on this, and I know it's something she's been working on. I know the council gave a lot more, expanded the breadth of that when Addie was still here. And so of course that was Addie's last day, so that work all translated onto Natalie. So she's reaching out to all those cities that we are actively involved working with, but also reaching out to the league as well. So I, I don't have a timeline.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, I know it's a huge lift, but it's something that we've all, it's, it's gonna be a giant metrics that we can kind of measure where we're at. And I think it's gonna be helpful.

Speaker E: Are we comfortable, Mayor, that we'll have that for our discussion in March?

Speaker B: We'll dang sure by March. I, I hope in the next month or—

Speaker G: That's, that's, I'm comfortable with that. And, and she's setting it up such that it's probably gonna be like a Google Doc that each of the cities can put information in. Have access to that afterwards, and then each year add to so we can see a trend over time.

Speaker B: Maybe even have the league manage it or something once we get this kind of buttoned up. But it's definitely— I'd expect hopefully it'd be our Christmas present. I don't know, but I would love to see that sooner than later because it's going to help us make better decisions. I think it's what we've been missing.

Speaker G: Some of the information is readily available. Other questions the council had had to be like number of employees relation to parks and things like that that they have to do a little research on, but should only have to do it once unless they're adding more park information or whatever.

Speaker B: Yeah, employees per acre type of a thing. Some of those metrics were— anyway. Good.

Speaker A: Great discussion. Yes. All right, so just to finish up, we'll have a tentative budget review. So that's just like one of the budget work meetings, potentially last, or we can schedule one more. It depends on the council Because you're already going to have the tentative budget with you, and then that's the time for you to ask questions, clarifications, or anything that you may have, um, that you might need, um, to help you in your decision-making when it comes to the budget adoption process. As mentioned, if there's no Truth in Taxation plan, um, we're planning to have a public hearing and adoption on June 15th. If not, we'll just adopt the interim budget, and then sometime in August schedule that one if it's considered. Any question on the budget calendar timeline process? I know it's a lot, but I hope it was helpful.

Speaker F: I would just say my conference room is always open at my office building in Lehigh if you ever want to use that as well.

Speaker B: That is one of the areas we said if we do one of our offsites, it could be at your office or at the broadband or Or the chamber. Or the chamber. Yeah, I mean, there's places we could go and, you know, get around a table. It's less noise. So we appreciate that because that was one of the considerations.

Speaker A: Okay. So I just have a few more slides and then we can continue and have some discussion if you'd like. So the very next few slides, it's something that We're hoping to achieve and to present to you as a council when it comes to the budget. It might be different in the way that we think of budgeting. Some people will think it like line items, like all the items, what comes to that one. But I think that there should be some conversation mostly on the level of service. So for this budget planning process, as part of our Um, budget workshop with the staff this fall, and some communication will come to you as a council. We would like to have more conversation about service levels, um, that we try to understand what the residents' expectations are and pretty much what the— depending on our budget, to what extent the council is comfortable setting that level of service. So in just in a high-level view, service levels are— helps us set and manage expectations of the receiver, which is the residents in this case, and we as a city as the provider. And you as a council are the ones who will provide that policy direction and decision on where should be the level of service that the city needs to provide for our departments. And that's why we're going to have that discussion about— in that heavily in during our Budget Congress. And part of that, not just understanding our current level of service, we also need to measure the impact. We need to know how those level of service— are they improving? Are they declining? Are we maintaining? And what we need to do. So there's some measurements that needs to happen As much as we wanted to present all that information in this budget planning, there's no guarantee that we can be able to finish all of this. But as a matter of expectation is we're hoping that we can work on service levels first, and then if we can add those metrics and performance measures, those will come later on. And if we can do it this budget planning, that will be great. As you know, our departments are— they have a very heavy workload when it comes in their day in and day out. their jobs. So, but we'll try our best to come up with some measurements and performance measures, but we'll keep you updated and in the loop where we are in that process. But for now, we try to hope that we can articulate and demonstrate the level of service the city provides to our residents. And one of the primary reasons why we want to do that is because as we consider the annual budget, and not just the annual budget but the 5-year needs assessment Yes. The 5-year forecast, we really want to get to the point of like, we're always talking about what's the ideal, the target, the recommended level of service. And some of the things that you guys are talking about, getting data from other cities, those are helpful because they give us some benchmark opportunities and data points. But the primary purpose of this, going over level of service, is so that we can continue focusing on enhancing the quality, efficiency, effectiveness of our existing service levels. And that we kind of— when we talk about budget, that we think about service levels in that, in that sense. And that our hope is that every year that we're improving, or we're planning to improve, and as we consider future years, um, as much as we wanted to do all the changes, Maybe some of the changes will happen in year 3 or year 4, but we have that conversation of like where these service, uh, levels will change by what timeline, um, depending on the direction that we'll get from, from the council. Um, right now I want to talk about the relationship of long-term financial planning and the budget process. I know we're just talking about budget process and all the things that we're— we've been discussing is the focus on to build that budget for the next fiscal year. But I think we need to take it a little bit more, um, when it comes to, um, looking at it on a long term and being strategic and forward-looking when it comes to these things. Um, as you can see in your, um, screen, there are a few things that do impact that long-term financial model, which we're hoping to develop as part of this process. There will be some revenue forecasts that we're hoping to achieve as So we'll be working with economic development, continue working with the economic development department, the community development, the building department to help us forecast those potential revenues that might come our way and what that would look like in the next 5 years. As you know, forecast is, you know, there's no guarantee because we don't have a crystal ball, but it can provide us some guidance. And for this discussion, it's just We just look at it on the higher level, gives us some perspective of like where we're looking at on that level.

Speaker E: What's the timeline for a long-term financial plan that we're examining? And the reason I ask that is our IFFPs are 6 years, right? I mean, we kind of have to have a plan for those resources that are being collected, and we put the facilities on those plans, and we have to complete them in a 6-year window. So what is the timeframe that we're talking about when we're talking long-term financial plan?

Speaker A: That's a great question, Councilmember Wright. So that's why we're doing some of the— oh, go ahead. Sorry, do you want to—

Speaker H: I was going to say our IFFPs typically look out beyond even the 5, 6-year window. It's the IFA specifically that with the AmPAC Fee Act that you can only project in that window, and that's the collection of dollars. And so you're just projecting a list of projects that you might collect those impact fee dollars on in that window.

Speaker E: So Brad, you're saying that we have plans that perhaps project out 10 years? I mean, we're looking at that that far in advance, maybe longer?

Speaker H: Well, there's— so our IFFPs, that's the goal of a master plan, right? Is you're projecting out what the infrastructure could look like, what roadways you need, what sewer lines you need, I'm just trying to associate the timeline.

Speaker E: So you're telling me we're doing that to a 10-year window at some point, or at least in some places we're contemplating that?

Speaker H: We're building it out, right? Because as we've gone through this process, it's taken us a while to correct all these master plans.

Speaker E: And get better every year.

Speaker H: And it's getting better. And so as we looked at it, we really tried to focus on, okay, what are we doing today? What's on the list. Do we have enough money to cover these things? Are they on here? And then we try to look at it and project for a year or 2. Are we targeting the right things we need to in the next couple years? And then we want to expand upon that and try to get to the 5-year window. And then I think the attempt is that we would like to project as far out as we can. Doesn't mean that targets are going to change or they're not going to adjust, because they will.

Speaker D: For sure.

Speaker H: Because we can never fully You can't fully project what area of the city is gonna build up next. And so you have to be flexible to it. But the main point is that you're actively looking at those and following those as a guideline and a target that you can measure against.

Speaker E: So I mean, that's kind of relevant for IFFPs and for those enterprise funds, right? Those revenue funds. That makes a lot of sense to me. general budget, just our general fund, what's the timeline or timing we're trying to get to on a financial plan for that?

Speaker C: When you're talking on the governmental side, we can project as long as you want. I think that as we look in terms of our phasing, our goal in terms of phasing is we'd like to be able to start getting where we show you a preliminary budget, we are showing you 2 years' worth. In terms of our revenue forecasting and things like that, we would like to get to at least a 5-year— Is there any reason we can't go more than 2, Kimberly?

Speaker E: From my perspective, especially for general fund, I mean—

Speaker C: The reason you don't on the governmental side is we are doing that through the 5-year needs assessment. But on the revenue side, again, as a government, the bulk of that is coming from taxation. And you want to know potentially what's coming down, but everything that you're doing is really only for the next year.

Speaker E: Yeah, but, but in our circumstance, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just be a little— I'm gonna give you a counterpoint because I think that the city council needs to be more aware and we need to be having more public discussion about those tax revenues that we know are coming. And they may not be here in 2027 or 2028, but by 2029, and I know there's an if in here. If the development continues to go in the way that it's going with some of those bigger users, we know that those METs are going to come and we can calculate that.

Speaker C: Yeah, we will do a 5-year revenue forecast. Yes.

Speaker E: Okay, so that's really what I'm interested in seeing because I don't want to be limited as a council member to just seeing what's absolutely in front of us because that's not planning in my mind. I want to expand our vision and our understanding of what's coming, even though I may not be here. It puts it in black and white for everyone that follows behind or that sits in one of these seats to understand it.

Speaker C: And it, again, it primarily is just because from a taxation and charges for fees, right, it needs to be based off of what it's costing you today. So as part of the revenue discussion, those alignments will say, this is what it's currently costing us to provide this service. We need to raise business license fees, or we're recommending that to maintain this level. We need to change what our permitting or planning fees are, and you're doing that in connection with that. And so there, it's getting to the point of understanding that there will be changes, and we have to look at it every year, and it is fine to forecast that out so that you know But you would potentially, you don't want to assess a levy for something that you're gonna need 5 years from now. You would do that in 5 years. You would do what we've done of targeting and saying, we're going to try to reach this coverage over time, and you're gonna be ratcheting it up.

Speaker E: And maybe I'm not stating my desire clearly. So I'll try and kind of come back and restate it. Knowing that there are going to be some additional METs and some property tax values that are going to go up, I don't think that's difficult. Look, even a layman like me can project that over the next couple of years. If, if, if— here's the if— if we can anticipate when the building is completed and when those taxes are going to be collected, we know the rates are going to be collected at today's rate. That's fine. We can project that. That's information that we haven't had, that I haven't had, and that has been very vague, even when we've asked for it. That's something I'm looking for in this year's budget, is some more clarity in what are the projected revenues that we know will come over the next 4 or 5 years. Now, can it be impeded? Can it change? Can something disrupt that? Absolutely. But if we can look at it and say, look, as long as things continue on this trajectory, there's likely to be some of these sources, and perhaps as we get into that 1 or 2-year cycle where we're actually doing the planning, we can say, well, we expect this revenue source to grow by this amount. We can't really spend it or budget it yet, but we can look at it and say, maybe we can get to some of these projects when that revenue comes.

Speaker C: That's the key.

Speaker F: I'm good with that.

Speaker B: I think—

Speaker C: You can't spend it— like, I can't say I'm going to do all these things in the budget this year because we're hoping this will happen this year. But we can certainly forecast, and it is— we completely understand that. A forecast is a forecast, and it is based on all the information we have today, and it's okay that tomorrow I have new information that changes that forecast.

Speaker B: Really what's being asked, and I've heard it 1,000 times, so I'll say it differently, is how often do we sit up here and say, oh, let's use RAP tax for that, or let's use it, and we spent, like, we're talking about a city hall, and we're talking about all these things, and oh, we're going to use MET for that. Well, we've spent year 2028 MET 15 times. We don't have that much MET. We only have this much MET. So we're trying to decide, well, every time we turn around, well, how much is it projected that in 2028 or 2029 that number might be so that we can plan, okay, well, that's the year that we could do the City Hall, or that's the year that we could do this project. Because in the meantime, we just keep saying, yeah, do it, we'll do it with MET, and we don't know what MET even equals. So is that what you're asking?

Speaker E: Yeah, because it doesn't really give us— it doesn't give us— how do I say this? It's like, anyway, I'm probably not going to give it a good example, so I won't try. Um, but, but for me as a decision maker, it's just helpful to look forward to— I know, and look, and I understand expenses can change, right? Our costs go up. So yeah, we may, we may collect this. Look what happened with our sheriff's contract, and look what will probably happen next year with our sheriff's contract and with our personnel decisions. I mean, that's part of why we need to weigh all that, and those resources have to come from somewhere. Anyway, I hope you understand what I'm asking for. I don't want to change your mindset on how you budget, because you're a great budgeter, Kimberly, and I'm glad you're on our team, because you keep us out of trouble. But for me, it's really about seeing into the future, or at least looking at it and saying, this is probable, and if these probabilities come into play, We don't have to spend them, but we need to know that they're going to be available to perhaps start to touch some of these things that we just can't get to, that we think we can get to, but we can't because we don't know how to get to the— to get the budget, to get the funding put together to be able to afford them.

Speaker B: I think part of that, as we look forward to that also, and this can take Evan as well because I think he's worked on this, is, uh, yeah, we're going to get MET, but what's our taxable value projected to be next year? We know when— what's coming, what's approved, what's got a building permit, and what will finish by January 1st. We know what last year's taxable value was. What do we suspect next year's taxable value? And if some of these projects, like say, uh, the Facebook expansion or Meta expansion, is a 3-year expansion—

Speaker E: Williams project.

Speaker B: Or Williams project's set to be finished in 2029, what's the value going to add in 2029? What's the value add at this rate so that we can say, okay, at that rate, you know, it'll help with the code that Council Member Hirsch put together on public safety. If we know that, that our value add or our taxable value is here and we need to maintain 85%, what do we need to do this year so we don't in 20 years get to a point where we're out of whack because we know what our Yeah, I'm going to give you an example.

Speaker E: It's like this. It's like me knowing that I'm going to get a raise or that my salary is going to increase next year at the end of the year, but I'm not willing to share that with my wife yet because I'm worried she's going to spend it or put it somewhere where she shouldn't. And my wife's not the spender in our family, by the way, so she will— She's not going to be the one to blame on that, okay? That's what I'm talking about, is I don't want that information kept from us. I want to know that, okay, look, the boss has already said, and it's likely that you're— now, can something change? Can market conditions change? Can ownership of the company change, and the guy that made me the promise is no longer? Sure, those things can happen. But if we continue to march in the direction that we are, what are the things that we can reasonably count on?

Speaker B: It's—

Speaker E: Can we at least examine that As we're looking forward, what that'll do for me is give me at least some hope that some of these things that we talk about perpetually, we'll be able to get to at some point in time. And to start to really timeline that and say, this may not be something that will even happen while I'm in office, I'm okay with that. As long as we've set a path towards that outcome, that makes me, that makes me whole.

Speaker C: I think what you're seeing is the plan that we've had to try to mature our processes along the way, this is the continuation. So if you recall, like, this is the first year we have a full-time budget manager that is overseeing the budget process, right? Everything from every year prior to that is just try to fit in with all the things that everybody else is already doing, right? And when we were doing our long-range forecasting, Up to this point, the focus is on those heavy big-ticket items, which is getting our capital improvement plan built out. We've got a pretty strong 5-year.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: We're moving it out to 10 years, even on the capital planning side, in terms of being able to see what's coming down the pipe from that. And then the second phase to that is, are we ensuring that we're incorporating those operational costs that come along with implementing these infrastructure projects? projects, and that is part of your operational forecasting out as well. So you're— I want to clarify that we haven't kept anything from you. What you haven't seen is because we haven't done it, right? We haven't looked at the operational side.

Speaker E: I probably misstated that, Kimberly. I'll take that back and clear it up. I don't feel like you're withholding stuff from me, but I don't feel like I have the information I need either.

Speaker C: Right. And that is where you've seen us move to, okay, We're first trying to work on our 5-year needs assessment. We're moving, and with that comes a 5-year revenue forecast for how you fulfill that. What are these things that help make those long-term decisions? And then particularly with your capital outlay repair and replacement, we will get to the point where you will have a 40-year forecast for what you anticipate future expenditures, and those are essential for ensuring your rates are sufficient. to save up for what those big-ticket items are.

Speaker E: I won't be here in 40 years, so I don't anticipate seeing that outcome.

Speaker C: But those things are important to our process improvement.

Speaker B: So, okay, Councilmember Hewish wanted to jump in. Let's give him a chance for a second.

Speaker I: Yeah, I just want to second what, what Councilmember Wright's talking about. Just a basic 5-year pro forma that is a big picture. It will obviously need to adapt and get tighter and change year to year as Those revenues and expenses come closer to us, but kind of mapping out the next 5 years, the IFFPs will probably be on a rolling 5-year number. So even though they're in a 6-year payment format, a rolling 5-year of what does that look like in the next 5 years and what roads do we need to build in the next 5 years, I think it will help us to not put off the big projects that need to be paid for. It's really easy for us to jump on the little small low-hanging fruit. But when we do that and we kind of lose sight of the big picture, we end up not doing the big projects that need to get done.

Speaker B: And one thing I wanted to just kind of get maybe as a report, some of you may not know this, but I was with Speaker Schultz last night at a listening tour activity thing for a few hours, and it was kind of fun just to talk about where the state's at. But when we go up there and we're asking for roads and we're asking for help from the state to do whatever it is that we're doing. Last night, some of the questions that I got asked for us to evaluate, because they're saying, well, if you're not doing this, we're not doing that type of a conversation, is, well, what are your water rates at? You might have to raise your water rates. And I says, our water rates are good. I just looked at them. And he said, okay, good. What are your impact fees at? Because right now they're around $30,000. I said, I think we were just a little under— well, our building permit fees these, including impact. But I said, but with what we passed on Tuesday, I think we're going to be closer to 40,000, is the number we were talking about. But he was asking, you know, have you guys evaluated this? And I said, yes, yes, yes. Because I checked those boxes and said we're above average or we're at this mark, we've already— It absolutely made it to where it's like, okay, then now it's time that if you've done all this, we can step in. But that, that's just how they're evaluating it too, are we doing our job? And I know that's a little bit of a report and a tangent, but kind of on what we're talking about, this 5-year plan and our IFFPs and that. So that's crucial to us going where we're at.

Speaker H: I think what's important about the master plan concept is that with the master plan, and I don't mean to get— I'm not gonna get sidetracked too far, but with the master plan, you're projecting this window and this target, right? And we've been going at a fast pace. And so what we don't want to miss is we don't want to miss the growth that's happening in that fast pace. And we're trying to collect for it. But so you ramp it up and you build this schedule that you're preparing so that you can supply that level of service as growth comes in. But what that doesn't mean is we can do that, but it's going to still be dependent on how many homes come in in that next given Like, our impact fees could be down, and we need to be able to prepare and fluctuate for that too. So just because you raise it doesn't mean that that means we have more money. It's still dependent on the factors.

Speaker G: You're absolutely right. It could have and will have a chilling effect on the market in general, just like we already have a chilling effect from interest rates and from the lack of city sale of water.

Speaker B: Hey, so real quick, thanks for being patient. Melissa, would you jump in?

Speaker D: Thank you. 12 comments later.

Speaker E: Ladies last, right? Sorry.

Speaker D: Remember, I had twins. Anyway, Kimberly, I really liked how you said mature in our process, because I really think that's what it is. Like, we're a grown-up city now, and we're going to act like grown-ups. Anyway, like, I think that it's not I've got a bunch of money that Grandma and Grandpa sent me, and it's burning a hole in my pocket, and I need to go spend it at the gas station. I really like the concept of saving and planning and forecasting. It's really super frustrating, both for residents and elected officials, when they talk to us about a road connection that they want, a turn lane, a stoplight, something like that, and we say to them, oh, we can't afford it right now. And Councilmember Wright knows that we've been like really railed by saying like, well, how are we going to pay for it? And they really let us know that that's not an acceptable answer. So being able to say, hey, if things happen the way we're projecting them to be, this is when we think that we'll possibly be able to do this. And that was the other thing. I think the word forecast or projection should be used when we have this, whatever we end up creating, instead of the word plan. Because to me, it's not a plan. People will look at it and go, you didn't get this well, 3 years, you know, whatever. And if we can say forecast, it just helps people understand over and over and over again. The weather might change. Yeah, the weather might change. So anyway, I concur with everything that's been said. I really appreciate it.

Speaker A: Great discussion. That's why we're going to spending a day of revenue discussion. But yeah, overall great discussions, and I don't need to explain the connection between budget process and long-term financial planning. I think we're on the same page on that one. All right, just a few more slides, and, um, this will be the Budget Congress, um, that I'm talking to, um, earlier. That will be a day event. So the purpose of the Budget Congress is to give departments an opportunity to tell their story and help leadership— that's council and administration— make informed and strategic budget decisions. That's the hope for that discussion. We will primarily— departments will come and we'll schedule it. It's gonna be a day. It's gonna be a listening opportunity for all of us. But they're going to be going over some of the accomplishments that they've done in that current or last fiscal year. They're going to be talking to you about the challenges, the barriers that they're facing as a department as well. And highlight things that I want to— that we— I hope that we spend more time on is that discussion of like where we are in our current level of service and looking at that by department. And I hope that that will provide some context for their budget requests and why they're requesting those resources. And the next one is to give the council the idea of like the trade-offs of like, if you approve those requests, what will happen to the level of service that they're proposing? Or if you don't approve those requests, what is the community or the council will expect in terms of the impact to the service level that they're currently handling. And part of that discussion of that continuous improvement, that we want to make sure that we can measure our success when it comes to the service level impacts, and how do we quantify that and explain that to, to the community as well. And I think that's just the, um, in the previous, next future budget planning, that's the time that as they talk about the accomplishment, that they can talk about the outcomes of like those budget decisions that we've done, you guys have done in that current fiscal year, what happened because of those budget decisions and what value they add to the community in general. So that's pretty much the Budget Congress kind of preview of what will that discussion will happen. And then we met with the communication department when it comes to the budget communication plan. They already created a dedicated budget webpage. So after this meeting, we're going to be posting some budget process information there. We'll put some budget timeline over there. Any communication or information that we may have, we'll probably put it on the website. Not just the website, because maybe Councilmember Clark, do you have a question? Okay, I'll finish first. Aside from a dedicated budget webpage, they're gonna put some information on the newsletter, their email blast, of course social media. And every after our budget work meetings like this or the future ones, we're going to be working with the communication department to come up with some infographics or some summary information that we can share to the public of where we are in the budget planning process. I know that there was some— it was brought up through those feedback meetings that there's a proposal of sending mailers with the budget dates to the community. I understand that there will be some costs associated by sending those mailers, so that's As a body, that's probably a direction that we probably want to hear from you guys. If you want to do that, mailers, or do you think posting it on a webpage, on our newsletter, email blast, and social media might be good enough, or enough for— as a way to broadcast this timeline and process?

Speaker F: I think online is fine, but maybe I'm getting outvoted on that.

Speaker D: I think that we saw through our Truth in Taxation and this year's budget that there are people who just aren't only online or don't know how to access it. Because even though we have a 600-page budget that we publish and we do all of that stuff, there were still residents saying that it wasn't transparent enough. And I think if we were to do a mailer, it's probably going to cost a couple thousand dollars, even if it's postcard just saying, hey, we've heard you and here's our plan for this year. We want you to weigh in and be involved. We could also tell them about the survey and other things. I agree we should be judicious with what we send and what we spend, but for this specific thing, I think it's important.

Speaker B: Councilmember Hughes.

Speaker I: Yeah, so I think Online is, is fine. The challenge that we had in communicating is, one, we were trying to leverage a medium, the Eagle Mountain Citizens page, which people roll through. So you might make one comment and then you feel like you've satisfied the question, but then that same question comes in 10 different posts. So there wasn't one strategic place that I could point to and say, here it is, here's The 5 to 10 page document that you can go get a very good summary. We did do a very high-level budget and brief that was reactionary, but I don't think it had enough depth to really answer the question. So I'm okay with online. I don't know that we need to mail something out to every resident. That would be pretty costly, but we could do a communication campaign to direct everyone to the— webpage to download a useful, well-documented, drafted budget in brief. Our regular budget is too big and too vague. It didn't really break out who was being hired. You'd had to kind of sift through the current year budget and the next year budget to figure out, oh, it looks like they're hiring someone here. So those would be my comments. I think if we make a really good budget in brief, we could hand them out at the The open house, that would be fine to have some paper copies there, and then the rest of it we, we could direct online and then just, uh, through other means direct people there when they have questions. So I think the quality of the budget and brief is the most important piece here for me.

Speaker E: Um, I, I agree with you, Councilmember Huebsch, but I, but I'm gonna just throw a little caveat in here. I don't think it costs us anything if we just put little— well, it's going to cost something, but I think it's very minimal if we just put a little QR code with an email address or an address.

Speaker A: There you go.

Speaker E: People can access it in their utility billing, or we even print it at the bottom of the utility billing page. Just something that directs people to where to find the information regarding the budget.

Speaker D: And I think we— I really think the QR code on a postcard is— I mean, If no one else wants to pay for it, then obviously that's fine. But it's not expensive, especially when you have it sent to every address within a certain zip code, because your rate goes down quite a bit. So like, maybe we should look at the dollar amount and see what it is. But I think if we do like a kickoff postcard to help people know this is where the budget stuff is, that might be helpful.

Speaker E: And I think this is what I'm thinking and the reason I think that the utility billing makes the most sense. Because if someone is still requesting a paper utility billing, now you've contacted them. You've given them the information. And if they're already doing it electronically online, then they're already accessing the information online. I think that's a pretty good measuring stick to reach the right people that you're concerned about, Councilmember Clark. And I think it also saves us some resourcing.

Speaker B: Well, and I think just to weigh in, looking back at last year, It's something worth trying for this reason. We went to cottage meetings, we went to everything and tried to talk about it. We were online, we had web pages, we had handouts, we went to the parks, and it wasn't until everybody received their mailer from the county that all of a sudden, what's happening? And I'm thinking, what do you mean what's happening? I tried to beg you to talk to me about taxes. You know, if there's a way to— if that's the way people see it, I don't know.

Speaker E: We're already paying to print and to send those utility bills anyway. I don't see that as a significant increase in cost to do that.

Speaker F: I'm with Councilmember Wright on this, and the reason why they were up in arms is because they saw a proposed bill, like their proposed payment going up. That's the reason why they were up in arms about it. But I think you put it— I guess what we could do is we could evaluate the cost both ways. Let's get the data on the table. Because it is only a couple thousand dollars. Okay, that's different than if it's $20,000.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's for sure not $20,000. More than half of our residents opt out of paper statements. Okay, but I do— I personally, in terms of our finance budgeting, I would really like to see a— knowing again, when people receive their notice, I'm supportive of trying to do a postcard in advance of the open house that says, we've done it, we've adopted the tentative budget. Here's the postcard that has the QR code where you can go to get more information. Here's the date for the open house that we invite you to come to find out more stuff. But I do think there's value in at least trying to do that. And if we do it this year and we don't get any more engagement, then we don't need to do it again next year. But I personally would like to try that.

Speaker D: One other thing too, we could spend maybe like $400 or $500 on 2-sided yard signs and put some of those up with a QR code around strategic places like where schools and heavily traveled intersections and just say questions about the city budget, you know, something like that. It would be a very inexpensive way to catch people people and get them to pay attention, especially if we put it up at a targeted time and not forever.

Speaker C: Are we exempt from the snipe sign code?

Speaker D: Yes, we are, because we have a mayor that could, um, what is it called when he like forgives you?

Speaker C: Pardon us?

Speaker D: We can get a pardon.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, because we obviously will put it on our message boards and, you know, like in things like that. And do as much as we can. What we'll do is we'll get some pricing, we'll bring it back to the council so that you can see what it would cost and if that's something you would be supportive of.

Speaker E: 'Cause what I'm hearing is there's a desire to make sure that we're communicating more effectively. That's what I'm hearing. And so help us evaluate what it's gonna cost us to do that through the different means and methods that we've talked about.

Speaker C: Yes, we wanna increase our level of service.

Speaker G: There you go.

Speaker A: All right, this is the last slide, I promise. Overall, just to summarize all the things that we've talked about and the things that we will be talking about in the future, I look at it in this way, wherein it will depend on how much impact you would like to make in the community and to balance that to the budget that we have. And sometimes we may not be able to do it this year, but I know that as we continue doing this strategic planning and Long-term planning, it will help us get there too. So for now, do you have any questions in general about all the things that we talked about? The next time that we'll be meeting, we'll be discussing public safety on December 8th.

Speaker D: Mayor, can we take 60 seconds and have the people that are sitting up here as elected officials just spout off all the things that we get asked the most about? Because I think those are the things that we could start doing education now. Like, when we've gone to meetings, when people have emailed us, like, 60 seconds, all of us just say the different ones. Because I feel like there's— we should start targeting education. I think tax rates, the difference between impact fees and how growth should be paying for itself, and explaining that. What other things have you guys heard?

Speaker B: I don't think anybody ever on this council has done anything in 60 seconds. It took you longer than that to explain it. So start with you and let's then—

Speaker E: She was—

Speaker B: I know education.

Speaker D: This is the time period where there's not a lot of information in the budget, but we could be tasking our comms team or even us as elected officials to put information out in a clear But I think coordinating it a little bit better than how we had to do it with our different efforts through this last year, I think, is good. Craig, you've campaigned recently. Like, what, what are some of the things that you got asked the most?

Speaker F: Well, I'll answer that one in just a second, but I think, for instance, communicating to the public the different buckets of money and what's restricted and what's not restricted. I think that would be helpful. So they can understand what we're talking about relative to that. Let's see. I'm trying to think. I mean, public safety issues relative to streets. I mean, that's one of the things I think comes up very frequently. Safety in school zones. Quality— like why parks might be looking the way they are. I mean, why open space is not being taken care of. It really comes down to lack of resources sometimes on our side with employees and such. We don't have enough staffing.

Speaker D: Brett, how about you?

Speaker E: One of the things that I wish our citizens understood more clearly is just taxes, how they're— where they're created and what they fund. I mean, what they're tied to. Property taxes, everybody complains about property tax, and property tax is one of the smallest revenue streams that we deal with, right? I would like our people to understand property tax, municipal energy tax, what, what generates them, what is it that creates that revenue stream, and sales tax. I think if they understood that a little more clearly, that we'd have more people that would shop in Eagle Mountain. They understand that if you shop outside of Eagle Mountain, 50% of your tax stays in the municipality that you purchase your product from. If you buy it on Amazon, Money stays here, 100% of it. I don't think our people really understand that. It's not something I understood until I sat in this seat, and I'm old. I think if we understood that, that we would be a little more protective of our own environment and say, gosh, I can fill my truck up at $180 worth of diesel fuel. I can fill it up in Eagle Mountain, or I can fill it up in Lehi. Where should I fill it up? I always fill it up in Eagle Mountain. up in Eagle Mountain for that very reason, because those taxes stay here and it benefits my community. So I just, I think if our people understood that, they would be like, oh, okay, it might cost me another nickel in Eagle Mountain, which it doesn't, by the way, but it might on any given day. But those revenues stay home. And I think that's important for us to understand.

Speaker D: Mayor, how about you? What are some of the things you get beat up a lot Every day's a new ask.

Speaker B: I mean, I'm just thinking about—

Speaker D: Ask, A-S-K.

Speaker B: I'm like, what did I say? But they're always asking something. And what are we doing about this? And it's just what fire are we going to? But yeah, I mean, the big conversations this year were around the taxes and traffic. Sometimes I get excited and, hey, what have you done? And just kind of a report on what's going on. Like, you mean this week or last week? 'Cause we're on a whole new, you know, it just changes every day. But definitely open space, our parks maintenance, taxes, transportation. Yeah, I mean all of that.

Speaker F: Mayor. I've got another one to throw at you real quick. I think it would be really helpful, and I emailed Evan about this, He liked this idea too. If we could have somewhere on our website showing here's how much money we have received from data centers or are receiving from data centers, a running tally that people go, hey, take a look, the data centers paid this, this, this, this. And if we had something that was just a running tally that is just there, it should be transparent anyway. I think that'd be very helpful. We can point them directly to that.

Speaker D: It'd be sweet if we could— you know how they have the debt clock?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker D: The federal debt clock, how it's like—

Speaker F: And then people can see, oh my goodness.

Speaker D: Yeah, compared to the $6 a year we used to get for that land.

Speaker F: Yeah, people— so I think— and that's something I think we could put together on the communications side that would be helpful.

Speaker G: I think to add to that, we ought to show the other entities and what they're getting from the data centers too, because even though we might be giving some incentive from the city, we're bringing a lot of money into the schools, that type of thing.

Speaker F: I totally agree, but I think, I, I think it'd be— talking about communications, let's put that together.

Speaker B: Council Member Hughes?

Speaker I: Yeah, I agree. I think these are all great ideas. So it sounds like a place where residents can learn about how property tax works, sales tax, MET, personal property. Those are things that I'm just learning this year. I'm like Brett, I've lived here for a long time, and you all were there when I had the epiphany around that property taxes dollar amounts stay fixed. So any education we can do around that is a, is a net positive.

Speaker E: I mean, Council Member Huebsch, I remember when— I mean, someone's always frustrated with us, period. I mean, you just— if you're going to be an elected official, accept that as the reality. Okay, but I remember when we had some residents up near where the new Walmart is at, their frustrations, and they just couldn't believe that we would consider putting a Walmart there and da da da da da da fill in the blank, right? And as I looked at that, and I certainly heard them and understood some of their concerns, and we fought really hard with those council members that were on the council at that time to do all we could to raise the quality of the of the architectural elements of that. that site, and I personally think it's one of the nicest Walmarts in the state.

Speaker D: It is.

Speaker E: And we got beat up on both sides of that equation, but here was the thing that really kind of pushed me to the Walmart side of things, and there are those that will still gripe at me for saying this. But at the time, the sales tax revenues that were anticipated per year to be generated from that one store were about $1 million. Million of additional sales tax revenue. And so what did that mean? That didn't mean that we were going to take that million dollars of sales tax revenue and, and, and split it with Saratoga Springs because, because the sales occurred in their city boundary. It meant that those sales happened here and we kept the full sales tax revenue. I mean, you got to send half of it to the state and then you get your proportion back based on your population. That happens no matter where you buy it, but the other 50% stays local. It stays in your economy. So $500,000 of that comes into Eagle Mountain's coffers and will every year. And if the cells grow, then it— then, then that grows. And so for me, that was one of the motivating factors in saying yes to that, but trying to protect the impact to the residents. And that's the balance that we face as we deal with budget items, land approvals, data centers that may want to come. That's always the balance. And I, I think that most of our citizens They find themselves on one side or the other of most of these arguments. Those who think we're a bunch of knuckleheads, I wish they'd just give us a little grace and sit down and really evaluate the data. They can still disagree with us. That's okay. They should, and some of them should, because if everybody agrees with you, you're in the wrong place. I wish they could understand just how tax revenue works. and how it impacts them, um, and how cities are funded. We don't have some magic bucket of money that we get to tap into every time you need something.

Speaker B: You should just take it out of my pocket because apparently they're lined.

Speaker G: Well, and it's, it's probably important to note too that as far as sales taxes are concerned, it didn't raise anything to the residents. They would have spent that money anyway. It just would have benefited another community instead.

Speaker D: Thanks, Mayor.

Speaker B: Okay, we do have a couple items to talk about in a closed session. Is there anything else? Brad, I, I know you were kind of— were you waiting to weigh in on anything? Okay, you're good. Uh, if that's everything, we do have some items to talk about in closed session if you'd wish.

Speaker E: I'll make the motion, Mayor. I move to adjourn to a closed session for the purpose of discussion of pending or reasonably imminent litigation, the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual, the purchase, sale, lease, or exchange of real property, a proposed development agreement, a project proposal, or financing proposal related to the development of land owned by the state or a political subdivision, and/or the deployment of security personnel, devices, or systems pursuant to Section 52-4-205 of the Utah Code Annotated.

Speaker D: Second.

Speaker B: Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Wright and a second by Councilmember Clark. Councilmember Hewish?

Speaker I: Yes.

Speaker B: Councilmember Clark?

Speaker D: Yes.

Speaker B: Councilmember Wright?

Speaker E: Yes.

Speaker B: Councilmember Whiting?

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker B: Okay, we'll adjourn to closed session at 7:48, and we will have to come back here to adjourn the meeting, just so everyone's aware.

Speaker A: I want someone to sing.

Speaker B: All right, it is 8:42. We're back in our regular meeting, and I will—

Speaker E: Second.

Speaker B: I'll take a motion from Melissa to adjourn, a second from— sorry, Councilmember Clark and Councilmember Wright. All in favor?

Speaker E: Aye.

Speaker B: No one opposed? We are adjourned at 8:42.