Presque Isle Council reviews 2027 budget for police, public works, and solid waste

[0:02] Council Chair: Right over here. Thank you, good evening everybody. Welcome to evening number two of our 2026 budget workshop tonight. We have up first the police department with chief Hayes with us. [0:20] Chief Hayes: The police budget. First thing I want to say is I had this perfect and then Laura hates me and she decided to move something from the capital to budget into my operating budget so it's not balanced anymore. I think she was jealous or something going on there but here we go the 78 yes so the first big change you're gonna see when it comes to revenue it's grant reimbursements went down by 20. The reason for this is that you are hiring safety grant which is our traffic in you have to be a fully certified main criminal justice that can participate in your higher safety grants. I currently have six that have to go. I had to cut three of them and be able to do it next June and I just would choose to give out and [1:34] Speaker C (unidentified): go right back to what it [1:36] Chief Hayes: should be if not a little bit more. The next big change is the overtime budget. I would choose that by $20,000. Main reason is staffing. So this time last year we were three officers down, and then throughout this year, at some point, we were actually seven down because we had multiple officers on maternity leave, mental health. Right now, I'm only one down, and I plan to have a full complement by people who make a big difference. So unless something catastrophic happens, they have the reduction of $20,000. The next line item that has changed is travel and training. training. You're going to see a trend here in the next couple of line items because it all has to do with my six new officers. So the travel and training budget, I have increased by $10,000 because I have to send six police officers. So that will cover their training, their hotel stays, their food. Membership and dues, this one is totally on me. This is an integrity check. It went up by $2,300 because last year I completely forgot about my Derrigo membership which is $2,300 or $2,250, which is really embarrassing because that's how all of my officers train. So I don't know, I was having a moment this time last year. So that is why my membership dues is over by $2,250 this year is because of that. So I added that in. The next one is boots and uniforms. Once again following that same trend of six new officers. officers. I added $4,290. I have half of those officers already fully kitted out. I should have the other one kitted out by November, December. So that $4,290 increase is really just to kit those last two officers. And that means everything from their jackets, shirts,, pants, belts, cadet uniforms, everything, suit to nuts, including the bulletproof vest. The next one that has an increase is new equipment budget. I raised that by $10,000, and the reason for that is for rifles. So, as you probably know, as a police department, we completely provide everything for our officers when it comes to uniforms, when it comes to the cruisers when it comes to the firearms and the equipment so the only thing that we have never provided is rifles mainly because it is a huge budgetary item somewhere around a hundred thousand dollars so what i have planned on doing is over the next five years buy four rifles a year giving it to the officers that right now have none and then working my way up the line what is happening What's happening right now is I have some officers who have no rifles, and then I have officers that have their own rifles. There's no conformity, uniformity, consistency in the rifles that they have. They buy what they can afford. So everything else that we provide them is uniformed. Everybody knows how to use it. They know how to use their weapons because they're all the same. We do not have that with our rifles right now. so that is my five-year plan to finally build up that armory and then we should be good for the next 20 years when it comes to that then we have a couple of decreases I decreased office supplies by $2,000 pretty much just going by the numbers of year to date my training and equipment budget went up by $6,000 once again, it's exactly the same thing. Six officers going to the academy. What this line item covers is pretty much ammunition. So for each cadet, they will be shooting off 15 rounds each. Plus this line item also covers everything else besides their uniforms. So the stuff that they wear to work out, their pillowcases, their sheets, their bedding, their backpacks, their bags, everything. The next item is a quite a large decrease is the outside services that is what we pay our transcriptionists out of and that is also where we pay all our mental health crisis out of just going by year-to-date numbers and we are starting to negotiate co-pays on our counseling I feel comfortable by decreasing that amount by four thousand all of those items that with the increases and decreases have balanced themselves out, except for the additional line item that we just added in from capital budget, which is the Taser and Bodycam and Axon iCloud new contract. So this is a contract we signed five years ago, I presented to, it includes 18 body cameras, 18 Tasers, and Axon's iCloud system, where all that video surveillance is stored. It also includes all the Bluetooth. So if one of my officers pulls his taser and doesn't have time to turn his body camera on, the body camera automatically comes on just once the taser is pulled. Same thing with the firearm. This system we've used for the last five years, honestly as a chief of police, I think it's paid for itself five or six times over when it comes to liability, when it comes to security, when it comes to lawsuits. We average about 24 to 30 hours of surveillance a day that those body cameras are on in all those officers. And our policy states any interaction with any member of the public, those body cameras are on. The system and the software that Axon has also been fantastic when it comes to redaction and retention. So we can control what we need to retain and we can control what we need to redact. So in the world of FOA, where we're averaging about 34 requests a week, I have a person dedicated to that system. And they are continuously redacting body cam, blocking out children's faces, names, voices. It's extremely busy. She's an extremely busy girl who does this. But that's the new world that we're in. [8:51] Speaker D (unidentified): 30 plus FOIA requests are what's like the top two or three categories are they like well that for the FOIA request yeah is it like news stuff or no it'd be [9:07] Chief Hayes: members of the public it could be obviously we send everything to the courthouse that so attorneys discovery requests at other agencies and an awful a lot of hoops and justice agencies like that with his [9:30] Speaker C (unidentified): civil suits not a lot of [Speaker D (unidentified): inquiring] Minds, I guess you could say no, we got those two. Well, that's kind of what I was wondering, like, yeah, no, we get those as well. You look at it and say, why the hell are you asking for that? We can't do that on the law. No, but in your mind, oh yes, well yes, yeah, but yes, yeah. [9:57] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah, so you have Dispute and Joe Blow and FOIAs this, and you're like, they're not a lawyer, they're not an involved party, they're not even an attorney. [10:06] Chief Hayes: Correctly, it can be just a name, and that's all it takes, and then we must stop the process. Now, we bill for that process, depending on what it is. So if it's attorneys or something like that, it's not billed on the discoveries. But if it is a member of the public and they do want something, we have to figure it out. Because sometimes it can be very, blanket. Before it changes, it seems to be on a weekly basis. So there's continuous training that's involved. You leak something that is company, yeah, so it's, it's a lot of work, and we have noticed when it comes to having the body cameras though, it's a huge difference in the cup. There's not, there's nothing hidden, you know, anybody, any, it's probably the best things we've ever done, I think. Now it is on, I was and I, and there is a possibility that this here and that, so that is also, and this is a 10-year contract, so we had options, but the 10-year contract I thought was the best, and this package also includes a changing over of two different tasers, so they will renew it new, the tasers, and we knew the body cameras and make sure, yes, everything, and they have been wonderful for the last five years. The body camera goes down the shippers and you, one of the things too I forgot to mention is the confidentiality of life with a link system, so if anybody stands [12:30] Council Chair: does all of that stuff that's stored in the cloud and all your body cam footage and all that, how long is that stuff [12:36] Chief Hayes: stored, is it like forever and definitely ever, depending on what our retention schedule is. Interesting, so if it's something just minor, we're literally talking about a dog complaint, we will have that just in case something comes up, but everything else, if it's an arrest or so, it's, It's something that for us as a people, there's just no way we can do it, so it's a wonderful idea. It's amazing, really. It really is. [13:12] Council Chair: People have no idea how a lot of stuff goes, it's just mind-blowing. [13:19] Speaker D (unidentified): I'm going to put myself in Mike's mind, because he's not here. If this is a 10-year thing, do you think we could put it somewhere other than other operating expenses? The only [13:40] Speaker E (unidentified): Other place we can print it, I guess, is in here. Could we just rename it contract, like, you know, taser contract, so the public knows what it is? [13:51] Council Chair: Well, it's under there as taser body count. If [13:58] Speaker D (unidentified): you're just looking at the one pager, you just see other operating expenses. Granted, it was first for this year, but, you know, it jumps up almost 2,000%. I'm just saying it would solve your potential, even under equipment [14:33] Speaker E (unidentified): repairs or something. Is [14:51] Speaker F (unidentified): it on there now? Yeah, you'll see it under stipends on there. [14:56] Speaker C (unidentified): It wasn't really new equipment. [14:58] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay, so our book is the latest of what's going to [15:20] Speaker G (unidentified): be... Yes! Yes, he says yes. We [15:45] Chief Hayes: are not. So we have a specialized reconstruction. It's between agencies, so they send us people. [15:57] Speaker D (unidentified): Well, if we have the... [16:01] Chief Hayes: Well, I wouldn't go that... We have some incredibly talented people, but the other agencies have talented people, too, that we don't have experts in, and they will send our experts. So you don't... [16:13] Speaker C (unidentified): We scratch our back... You're content with that? Oh absolutely. What's on a one-way street? No, my public safety budget. [16:26] Chief Hayes: Yep, we can do that. This one actually is pretty easy. Overall it's an increase of $14,949, and that is mainly because... [16:42] Council Chair: Where is that? I'm looking for the page. It's not on my table of contents. Oh yeah, 138 Public Safety Building. I'm sorry. My goodness. I'm going to have to get some glasses. 138 so [17:25] Chief Hayes: public safety budget I have an increase of fourteen thousand nine hundred and forty nine dollars that's because of three line items the first line item that increased was fuel oil I have an increase of four thousand dollars came up with that number from the year to date that I've seen right now obviously we're 24-7 the building never stops but now what we're trying to do to do what do our best when it comes to that is making sure that the doors are always closed he's not always on and going on those back garage doors we used to be a major issue the officers are getting better at that the next line on which is increased significantly is electricity went up by over $10,000 once again going by year-to-date numbers once again this is where the officers are well I don't know if they're being good or they're doing something naughty I don't know but the lights are always off at night so they're pretty good about keeping the lights off once again it's the same problem with 24-7 building Never stops going. The final expense was an increase of twenty three hundred dollars was janitorial supplies. That's pretty simplistic, but it's pretty much everything for the building, from cleaning chemicals to toilet paper, printer paper, everything that building uses. The main reason, and the reason why it's increased, is just the prices have just, in the past year, gone up. We understand. Yeah, that's pretty much it. And the only decrease, really, I had was a major decrease was phone and Internet charges. I decreased that by $2,000, once again going by year-to-date numbers. And that is it for public safety. Can [19:25] Council Member: I ask you any questions? Looks pretty good to me, Chief. Nice work. Thank you. Okay, [19:41] Council Chair: so up next, we have Public Works, Nate, and now it's your turn. [19:47] Speaker I (unidentified): Page 88. Page 88. Everyone notices our revenue. So our revenue in the past years, all that revenue was salt that we were already purchasing that we were selling to entities throughout the city. We would get that money back, and now it goes right back into our salt budget, so it's not really revenue, we're just replacing what we've already bought with that. Our major consumer of that salt was umpy, who's now going to be purchasing their, they're building their own salt shed, so we were looking at that revenue, if you want to call that, would be going down to about six or seven thousand. We pulled that out. As a next one would be asphalt. I know in there it says unchanged on the initial request for the asphalt budget. This year was six hundred thousand. It's been put in there as decreased by two hundred thousand, so four hundred thousand. I would like, you know, to try to get that back up to that six hundred thousand mark. If we look over this two hundred thousand in the last two years, we're looking at about a million dollars that will be, will have been cut from the pavement budget, which equates to about 12 to 13 miles of road that we're deferring maintenance on. The longer we defer those maintenance and keep pushing streets to the side, the more it's gonna cost us in the end. If we don't stay on top of the streets and maintain them, they get electrical service. Slight increase on our electrical service, and that's just to, you know, the increase in electrical charges from versant. Fuel oil, so for last year's budget, after getting the new heating system installed in the building, we went with the estimate that we were given for what it should take to run that building. The controls were not replaced when they put in the new heating system which I know that's an item that we're trying to get done this year. So currently I'm at 99% of my fuel oil for this year for our budget, so it's costing us more than what the estimate was. So looking at last year from October to November, or I'm sorry, October through December, it was about 5,000 gallons that we went through last year. So I've added that into next year's budget, so and then if the controls are approved, then we get those. For our gas oil, I know there's been increases in diesel. Obviously didn't really change our request for the diesel, looking at where we are at the budget right now, we're about 68 of our budget for 2026. And looking again what we spent between October and December of last year, if we stay in line with what we spent last year, we'll still be under budget. We shouldn't need an increase there. Gravel, there was a increase in our gravel, so our winter sand falls under our gravel budget. There was a two dollar per cubic yard increase this year for what we pay for our winter sand, so it would have been a four thousand increase. We adjusted that, we only are requesting the additional two thousand for that line item. Other operating expenses, just a slight increase there, and that's just for our annual cost for the QuickBooks program that we run over there for our budget. Again, same with the pavement patch, a slight increase, and that's just the increase in cost for the pallets of the coal patch that we purchase. Salt and calcium increase there, and that is to line up, so we contract through the state and the contract that they get through their vendors, and that was the increase that we saw this year to the price per ton, so we increased that budget so we can still continue to buy the same amount to solve. And then our water sewer and sprinkler, that is just the anticipated 1.5 increase that I got from utilities, they're expecting that to go up again this year, so it was just to match that increase and then lastly just a few items under our for our capital improvements. Some of our requests, they were what we were requested, the suggestion was to go to no money for the capital, but it's stuff that we're shifting over to the tip to pull the money from there. And then we have the excavator again, I know we had this conversation last budget cycle about purchasing a new excavator for the Public Works Department, and I still like to have that conversation again this year. We're looking this year we put About another five to six thousand dollars into our current excavator to keep it up and running, just from the wear and tear. We lost new tires, tie rods that went bad on it, and a lot of those parts for that excavator are not cheap. And then with the addition of public works getting involved with some of the house demolition, with code enforcement, with the city, I think if we purchase the right excavator with the foam-filled tires, something that we can use for our ditching and for the projects and the work that we have, we can also use that same excavator for our house demos and not have to rent one of the track excavators when it comes to the house demo. And then lastly, the single axle plow truck, we put 50 000 last year towards that, a new plow truck for us next year, and looks like, we have that funded through what I have left in my undesignated reserve and then through the solid waste reserves. The only thing I'll say with the single-axle truck, right now our estimates that we have for that is about $225,000 for a new truck. I've requested $255,000. Part of that increase is due to if we don't get that truck ordered, probably within the next 30 days there's going to be new emission fines and fees, so if you have a truck built before june 1st the next year they can put this year's engine in the truck with a fee from the epa. If it's after june 1st they have to use the new model engine, and the epa has not come up with the new fees and the prices for what those engines will cost. And then And then you also have an increase in the model going into the new year. So that's why that request is at $255,000, but the estimate is only about $225,000, right, what I have for the public works. Any questions? [28:07] Speaker G (unidentified): I could just throw something. Do you want to talk about the tariff for the salt? [28:15] Speaker I (unidentified): Yeah, so fortunately they were able to negotiate that out. We were looking at about a $60,000 increase for what we buy for salt if those tariffs had stayed in place. We are, it is still a point of pressure for our budget for next year, not necessarily for the salt. I mean, if they put the tariff back on, then obviously I will be facing that. But we also have a lot of our steel and our plow cutting edge products come out of Canada as well. And then we also, we use carbide tips on a lot of those cutting edges. Right now the increase in carbide is at 400% for what we're paying for those carbide tips. Luckily we do have quite a good stock over there right now, so enough to get us get us through for a while, and in hopes that some of those prices go down. But if they continue to rise and that will be a pressure point as we move further into this winter, getting into next winter on what those carbide cutting it just may cost, so crazy price increases. Yeah, from 60 62 bucks a foot to about 240 a foot and [29:29] Council Chair: scrap carbide's worth hardly nothing right now. It's it doesn't even make sense. Yeah, it's I [29:36] Speaker I (unidentified): don't get it. We're we're exploring other options too, trying to find some American-made vendors, looking at purchasing some of the hardened steel on our own and building some of our own cutting edges right over at the shop. And then we're just now starting to look into some other options for cutting edges, whether that's polyurethane and some other new products that are out there, and maybe buy one or two of those, test it out, because some of those are quite a bit cheaper. We're just not sure on the durability on them, so to [30:12] Council Chair: get the R&D department fired up over there and see what's going to work and what isn't. Nate, thanks. Appreciate you put together for us and the work you guys do. [30:27] Speaker I (unidentified): And I'm up next with utilities. That's right. For utilities, this one is just four items on there, and there's only been a decrease for the utilities budget. Oh, yep, sorry, 155. Last year's budget we saw quite an increase to our blinker and traffic lights, and that was due to the issues we were having with the solar program, some of our smaller accounts that were under the solar program, and the additional fees we were paying for those smaller accounts. We have been able to work that work those issues out, so last year we had requested We've invested $32,000 for the traffic lights and blinkers, and with being able to work those issues out and move some accounts around, we're actually only at 20% of that budget for this year. So we've decreased that back to the original amount, and that's it. [31:56] Council Chair: Hey, why are you hiding out? [31:58] Steve: Come back around. Steve, welcome. Good evening, Council. [32:04] Council Chair: Looks like page 106, guys. Yeah. [32:07] Council Member: I think, yeah, Paul and Nate's, I think that was good for one of those pages of numbers. Well, let's start just from the top. We'll start with revenue. We're going to see increases in revenue starting. We're seeing about a 13% estimation increase in revenue. This is due to the cost, the fee schedule. If you guys remember, a couple months ago, we proved an increase to the fee schedule starting next year. So we're going to see small bumps in our increases of fees for programs as well as rentals. So as long as we continue to maintain the amount of services, the amount of individuals we're serving in programs and rentals, we should see an increase in revenue, and we anticipate that with those small increments that we have done. So that should help. And then we had our new line item for revenue, which is sponsorships. I don't know if you guys have been out to the baseball field this summer or into the gymnasium recently. Recently, we have several sponsorship signs over by our new scoreboard, as well as in the gymnasium, we've had sponsor signs that have been implemented and taken into place. We saw a good, healthy amount of sponsorship money coming into it, and I've already had multiple business owners come to me and say, hey, how do I get my sign up there, which is a great sign. [33:29] Speaker E (unidentified): So where are we charging for those? [33:30] Council Member: We're charging about $600 to $650 for that. The first year is the tough year because you've got to pay for the cost of the sign to build. So we're only getting about $150-$200 out of that, but after that renewal costs I believe we're going about $350-$400 on that. So we should start to see even more dividends on that as we continue in future years. [33:55] Council Chair: Pretty good deal. And they look nice. Yeah. [33:58] Council Member: I was really happy. It looks really cool. Yeah, and I like our placement by the scoreboard because it's really easy. So we've seen that as well as Shirt sponsorships have been going in there as well. So we've been really happy with that. As for the rest of my budget, most of it is remaining unchanged. I will just highlight those that we're seeing adjustments. First one down the line, you see fuel and oil, small increase in their surprise, cost of fuel continues to go up. We're still anticipating a usage of about 1,500 gallons, and just with the increased cost of fuel, we're just making an adjustment for that. A little bit further down, mile reimbursement. We're going to see a decrease of that. We're looking to decrease that $370. We have not used that budget at all in the last two years. I want to keep just a little bit in there for an unforeseen thing with mile reimbursement. We have two vans and two trucks. The likelihood of that very unlikely, but I continue to decrease that, just monitor that over these years, and if that continues that way, continuing on, we've been reviewing things with our salary budgets, looking at the part-time budget. We are looking at making adjustments on that, so that's different than what we were just looking at, those adjustments there, and accommodating for that, those part-time budgets. That accounts for front desk attendance, Ginny, if you're familiar with her, she's our big one. That's usually there. We also have a couple of others that work in there when we're able to hire them, and then we have a mixed combination. We're trying our best, and we're having some success with getting more and more volunteer coaches, parents. You seem to have a lot of success with that, but there are still opportunities where we have, especially youth helping with coaching, and particularly our summer programs, baseball, softball, tennis. Those are being paid positions. They're last one is our salaries. We're going to see a small decrease in that. Last year we had to, we, our makeup was myself, I met admin assistants and three programmers, our outdoor programmer and then two other full-time programmers. We've had some adjustments in our staff makeup where our two programmers now consists of one full-time programmer and one, I would say, point seven five. We have a school teacher. He doesn't work on a full-time basis. He does during the summer, but that's why we're seeing a reduction. [37:22] Speaker E (unidentified): Sorry, though, you were mentioning, so the age of four is going to be like 117. All said and done, maybe 50-some thousand. That's pretty good. But I think some of it's your sponsorships, and then you've held the line on other things and economized. [37:56] Council Member: And it's good to see that, especially, I mean, we all know small businesses, times are tough, things are getting tough, but people are still finding ways to make that opportunity to support local programs for kids. Correct. It's great to see that. And we do our part by advertising their business. Right. That's good. [38:14] Council Chair: That's very good. We're lucky that we have that type of community, too, where most of our business is, I mean, everybody has kids or knows kids that are all involved in rec programs. And, I mean, this is the grassroots of it. And this is where there's a lot of support out there to be had and recognized and appreciated. And I think, yeah, that sponsorships line right there, that's nice to see. And it's good to see that type of involved business community because we're really lucky to have those kind of people. [38:54] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, so this October 29th, so later this month, will be the 10th anniversary. [39:03] Council Member: That's right, and we're doing a celebration on the 24th. So we're doing a luncheon. We welcome all of you. That's basically from 11 to 2. Work what we Kevin side my advisory board and I we have gone through a bunch of photos historical photos we're gonna have several displays on tables about these signs with a bunch of photos of different programs of youth throughout the years and it's funny because when you have someone like Kevin who's taught in schools for 30 years he goes oh I know who that is that guy's a dentist now I know that guy is even that's gonna be really neat where people are gonna be able to look at parts of that And then just celebrate we'll have inflatable bouncy houses we're gonna have food we're gonna have some games so the cool things we tell people about that is they go really it's already been 10 years and then they go it's been 10 years the [40:05] Speaker E (unidentified): Old still looks great and if we [40:26] Council Chair: Get that publicized that could be a really cool event I didn't realize it was 10 years myself hmm well it sounds like a really neat event nice community event yeah [40:43] Speaker E (unidentified): Long as there's no pictures it says oh my god look how skinny they I [Council Chair: Didn't] Suffer from anorexia and I'm not now fat, I'm just normal and I was extra skinny then. You were just tall. Yeah, just tall. Steve, [41:09] Council Chair: Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Nice work. That was very good. Yeah, really. This is solid waste. It's your turn. [41:26] Speaker E (unidentified): It's funny. I'd rather say, up next is Dana, because this is a solid place. I've [41:37] Council Chair: Been called worse. I've been called worse. My apologies if any of that came wrong. [41:42] Speaker E (unidentified): Well, no, I just kind of laugh because we just... [41:52] Speaker G (unidentified): Council, page 122. I'd like to start with this, the budget snapshot, because this is different than most departments. When the expenses are $400,000 and change, the revenues are $765,000. And change so our revenues exceed our expenses, so we generate a net revenue projected 2027 for the city of 347,915 dollars. We've been part of Rustic Waste Solutions since January 1st, 2019, so it's been eight years. This would be the ninth year, and prior to that merger, if you will, of AWS Caribou, Porcupine, Limestone, the department costs $338,000 a year to the taxpayer on average over a six-year period. So we've gone from a cost of the taxpayer of $338,000 a year to next year revenue of $765,000, so the net swing is $685,000. [43:15] Speaker E (unidentified): Well, you know, that was the hope, right? And that was a vision, and it's worked. [43:23] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah, sometimes. Page 124, there's, I think, 10 line items. Eight of them are a total of less than a thousand bucks, so I'm just going to focus on two. One is the tip fees, and I'll go into detail that, and also on outside services. So I'll explain that. The revenues toward the bottom, page 124, we receive a pilot from Heuristic Way Solutions. So pilot's a payment in lieu of taxes. AWS is paying Port Fairfield for a posting tri-community landfill $25,000, so we said, well, we have a landfill too, so why not give us $25,000? So they voted and we received that, so this is the second year of receiving the $25,000 pilot. [44:29] Council Chair: Is that something that has to be requested [44:31] Speaker G (unidentified): annually, Dana? No, it's just in the budget now. Great. The top of page 125, the second revenue line item are permits. So we sell permits for the transfer station, which is located at the Prescott Landfill. So there's no landfilling operation there now, but it's just a transfer station. Permits, basically a change at $305 from the previous year, is just the permit fees are the same as they were in 2026. Six, and the permit quantity is approximately the same as it was a year ago, so that's almost unchanged, it's basically the same. Tip fees is one of the changes, so tip fee is the disposal fee for like a dumping fee, and we, Laura sends out the bills, but this is tracked by Rooster Koi Solutions, and then each month, mostly this is the commercial haulers that get these bills, but it can be other businesses. So we're proposing a $2 per ton increase, so it's $93 a ton now, but the first two months the next year remains at $93, and then March 1st we increase it to $95 a ton. So most people don't know how much trash they generate, but it's about two tons per household. So when people start saying, yeah, there goes the city again, they increase their rates because you're probably going to hear from the haulers that the rates are going up. But for our part of it, two tons from a household on average, two dollars a ton is four dollars, four dollars over 12 months at 33 cents a month. So it's not going to be any major increase from us, from the from the city. So we've done this in the past, but we delay until March 1st to give the hall one, you're probably going to pass the budget in December. So it gives the haulers time to tell their customers that there could be a price [47:02] Speaker D (unidentified): increase. Right, yeah, with solid waste being revenue positive, do you, how do you determine, do you have a bottom line you're trying to stay with, or? [47:20] Speaker G (unidentified): So the going rate for Rustic Waste Solutions, so a contracted town, like say Mapleton, they're paying about $113, $114, I have to look, but it's right in that range. So we're at $93 now, we're going to $95, so why increase it? We don't want to get it too much of a spread where funny things happen, where maybe somebody else's trash gets charged to Presque Isle because it's less money. [47:53] Speaker D (unidentified): So where are they coming up with this Mapleton rate? [47:59] Speaker G (unidentified): Roostick Waste Solutions votes on the rates end of November. They'll have their budget. So Sonya and Herman and I are on the board, 10 member board that will vote. It's probably going to go up 3%. So we don't want to spread, we don't want to be too low and have people do something that they shouldn't and try to push another town's trash through Presque Isle to get it for a lower rate. So [48:46] Speaker D (unidentified): we're charging, well, they're charging other towns a higher rate because they don't have an ownership share? Correct. So it's being looked at as a business? [48:55] Speaker G (unidentified): Correct, yeah. Okay. Yeah, if we weren't an owner, we'd be paying that, we'd be paying that. And here somewhere, it's about $115.43. So we're charging the haulers 93 now, go 95 March 1. And that's still a good deal for Presque Isle because they're going right, if we weren't owners, $115.43. Now that's going to increase probably for next year, environmental monitoring taking care, I probably should explain this, Mapleton transfer station's been closed since 1998, we kept the license active because if we let it lapse, we'll never get it licensed again. It's just in case we should ever need a transfer station in the future is the only reason why we keep that. So we have to pay DEP a license fee, $410, and that goes up a little, 3% every year. And then we have to pay a reporting fee, $258. But if we stop paying, we'll never, ever be able to get that license because it doesn't be current licensing standards for setbacks and buffers outside services. Page 126 is where the other big change is. This is where this is an expense that we're paying, the city is paying to a rustic way solutions. This is an estimate because a rustic way solutions hasn't even started on their budget yet. It'll be started on at the end of this month and approved at the end of November. Basically, the good news is we did a buy-in fee, if you will, when we became part of rustic way solutions, 145,000 a year for eight years, and 2027 is year nine, that goes away. So that line item ends up being 105,000 to change to the better over a year ago. Over beyond that, it's minor things, QuickBooks we use or uses for invoicing, the haulers tracking and so forth, miscellaneous things that don't fit anywhere else, a hundred bucks, but no change. Membership and dues, professional engineer license, which is every two years, it's 120 bucks. I carried that, but I won't be here, but it's in there for someone else, and may have another license. The travel and training is I buy online training for, that's again for someone else that may need CEUs or PDHs to maintain the license. And then mileage is just local mileage, $150 for. That's about it. Thank you, do you have any questions? We're good to move, Dana. [52:40] Speaker E (unidentified): Obviously, the success of this must happen. I can force you, know? And without you, it would have never happened. And so your service to the city is well [53:03] Speaker G (unidentified): seriously, I appreciate that, but Craig, but I was one part, and I was thinking about this today, that I had to stop and think what his name was, but Peter Hall was on the council at the time. We had a meeting with tri-community landfill that went horrible. Emily [53:22] Speaker E (unidentified): was it not? Yep, when our city manager that we had the time, I [53:31] Speaker G (unidentified): probably, we shouldn't say this because it's being recorded, but I thought, it's over, we will never, we're done. And about two or three months later, I'm not kidding, Peter sent an email out and he said, gee, I thought that meeting went really well, when are we going to have another meeting? [53:49] Steve: Are you kidding me? It [53:53] Speaker G (unidentified): took three years, four years? Yeah, what [54:10] Speaker E (unidentified): made sense, what meant the straight-space test, because, you know, we aren't in the solid-race arena at all. We have none. Just what you teach us. And so here we sat with 347,000. [54:36] Speaker G (unidentified): It's amazing. And, again, there were different points where, yeah, I provided some advice and expertise, but there were points when the buy-in was pretty big. My advice was don't do it. And if they listened to me, it would have never happened. So you don't always want to listen to me, I guess. Because [55:07] Speaker E (unidentified): now this conglomeration of our four communities own, there are what, six or something? Six or seven? Yeah. Anyway, and most of them now are what communities don't own. So they don't have [56:16] Speaker G (unidentified): 17 years, but then Presque Isle has more of what's called license capacity, something like 25 years. So, really, it's beyond, you know, it's another generation or two before. Downstate, they don't. Thank [56:40] Speaker D (unidentified): you, Dana. Thanks again. Do I have an idea for a parting lifetime punch pass? See? He loves it. [56:53] Speaker I (unidentified): He loves it. He loves it. [57:00] Speaker D (unidentified): Non-transferable. [57:05] Council Member: Up next [57:10] Council Chair: this evening is industrial council. There we have the list. Mr. Lambrough, the Executive Director of the Presque Isle Industrial Council. The [57:25] Steve: presentation is going to look a little bit different. The financial overview, the total rental revenue for the park was $1,337,000. That's an increase of approximately 2.8% from fiscal year 2026. Above that number increased slightly due to the updating data from the lease agreements. The operating appropriation is $485,000 which is a decrease. The net revenue generated is $852,778 after operating expenses. That is not deducting for our internally maintained debt service. The operating expense breakdown, the total is $485,000. And we've seen the breakdown for the payroll taxes and employee benefits at $340,000, office expenses at $32,000, building and grounds maintenance at $93,000, and equipment supplies and safety expenses at $18,000. R &D debt payments, $677,000, and that's funded through rental revenues. The reserve contribution is $115,000, which is designated for future repairs, infrastructure improvements, and growth initiatives. The remaining balance of approximately $60,000 will be added to our reserve account for future industrial park opportunities. Of course, above and beyond all of our expenses, and that $60,000 will be going back to the future growth of the park. As far as overall highlights, we continue to fund for core operations, property maintenance, and management. We maintain strong financial performance with growing rental revenue and reducing operating costs. We emphasize long-term financial sustainability through debt repayment and reserve building. As far as the final lines, there's no major new construction projects that are proposed for 2027. Yet. This may change as I find my appetite. [1:01:04] Speaker F (unidentified): That may change, huh? [1:01:06] Steve: As I find my appetite for risk and gain insight into financing options. Options, specifically moving forward with respect building. The focus for me is paying down the debt. Investor accounts remains a strong financial asset to the city, generating significant revenue beyond its operating needs while continuing to invest in debt reduction, property maintenance. [1:01:46] Speaker D (unidentified): You've got some big shoes to fill. Yes I do. I certainly do. [1:01:52] Steve: I'm probably going to fill them a different way, but that's [1:01:56] Speaker D (unidentified): To be expected walk your own mile and as I how did the predecessor build some buildings certainly it's been in discussions the city is has very little debt right it's never going to be cheaper to build and my concern what I always harped to Tom was that you have these CEOs or whatever coming in that you would entertain and right and you can promise all you want that yeah we'll have it up next year while that's costing that company however many millions of dollars and they can make every town Around here has an industrial park it's not an industrial park like ours but you know and [1:03:12] Speaker E (unidentified): Really that's right I mean we haven't built a building whether it was you know pre-ordered by someone or something we just built on our own that isn't full about the time that it works yeah about the time that we're starting to put the walls up right so I think that the point is that you know we 're gonna get a hundred percent of what and so we could be we just continue [1:03:47] Council Chair: Go ahead it's been said you can't sell what you don't have that's [1:03:50] Speaker E (unidentified): Right and yet again [1:03:58] Council Chair: This industrial council list is another unique feature that the city of Presque Isle has going for it and is yet another attracting and noticed and very promising feature that a lot of other communities I'm sure or NBS for. And so that's something to be a little proud of, I think. [1:04:28] Speaker D (unidentified): Our distance from the next metro area, I guess you could say Bangor, whatever, is for the price of diesel and everything. Is there still an issue or potential issue [1:04:46] Speaker G (unidentified): With water supply? Yes. [1:04:49] Speaker D (unidentified): I know that's part of the infrastructure for the But is that an industrial parks issue? So the lack of that tower sitting there doing nothing? [1:05:19] Steve: Not necessarily. The underground infrastructure is in that process that will possibly benefit. [1:05:50] Speaker F (unidentified): Just adding to what Jay said, he's working hard on building a foundation of infrastructure under the ground. So that building, we joke back and forth about, you know, really getting the capacity. You'll remember the opportunity zone and the project that was i [1:06:55] Speaker D (unidentified): mean i think we're lucky to resolve the fw web issue with as little of a cost that it was but that's a another thing that i just yeah we got some land we can build you but we can't sprinkle it needs [1:07:12] Speaker F (unidentified): to be resolved stuff that yeah it's ready when these fires suppression so [1:07:49] Speaker D (unidentified): does that tower need to become functional again [1:07:53] Speaker F (unidentified): historic so I'm not sure what that the [1:07:58] Speaker I (unidentified): water tower right [1:08:03] Speaker D (unidentified): but I mean is that lack of hindering this or sounds like it's more the underground yeah I mean we [1:08:13] Speaker E (unidentified): need the water pressure but we also need them so [1:08:18] Speaker D (unidentified): we don't need another tablet [1:08:19] Speaker E (unidentified): well we may depending on where you build up the size of the pipes I'm just saying her giving historical context but anyway but no it's a big deal you're used to dealing with that [1:09:04] Speaker D (unidentified): 65 year age mark yes i am yeah you can't collect anything no but [1:09:12] Speaker E (unidentified): just barely get the senior citizen discount but 65 years is that's an impressive it is and [1:10:00] Council Chair: i'll say again there's eyes on russell and this is far from a dying community because there are so many wheels turning in so many things and positive attributes that we have here that are really moving us in the right direction that it's a pretty special place it really is doug you got anything else well i don't know if i should ask here but with you track [1:10:28] Speaker D (unidentified): driving that area much more what do you think of the intersection by ferris dana you got How much longer? You can stamp something. [1:10:48] Council Chair: You sketch that street light plan out here the next week? The skyway street relieves a lot of that congestion when it's not student pick-up time at the middle school, but that's a [1:11:40] Steve: clustering area. [1:11:43] Speaker E (unidentified): It's not a Presque Isle street anyway. It's something the DOT would... Anybody [1:12:17] Council Chair: else get anything? No, sir. Alright, Jay, thank you very much. Nice work. Keep it up. Doing a great job. I am, yeah, I'm overpaid. Alright, well, that concludes budget workshop number two for this evening. Budget workshop calendar with me, so it will be our next one. Okay, it looks like our next scheduled budget workshop is going to be November 9th at 5.15. Thank you, Hank. You're welcome. And we'll be right here. Similar setup. We'll be going through this some more.