08/21/2018

[0:00:03] welcome everyone i'm not calling this meeting to order please stand with us i will be led in prayer of honorable gallagher please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance and that will be led by honor and faith heavenly father lord we ask you to be here tonight with our gathering lord i pray that you would lead our minds in the right direction lord and that we we would always represent you in the way that we should lord we thank you for keeping your hand over south haven and blessing our community in your name we pray amen i pledge allegiance to the fire of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all the first on the agenda this evening is approval of minutes for the august 7 2018 meeting mr mayor move we approve the minutes of the regular meeting of august 7th 2018 within you addition installations regression second we have a motion of pain second baltimore brooks is there any discussion yes okay that motion carries next on the agenda i'd like to welcome police chief steve pearl we're going to recognize a special achievement of uh sergeant tyler price mayor board uh just like to take just a second just to recognize sergeant tyler price last week he and i were i was actually privileged to be able to go with him he and i were flown up to clarksburg west virginia paid for all the expenses were paid for

[0:02:06] by the fbi they flew us up to the fbi's sieges which is the criminal justice information center there in clarksburg tyler was nominated and received an award for utilizing the index system in one of our cases last year we had a sprint store that we had some individuals go into and as some of the accomplices drew the attention of the clerks away the other two went in and opened up the restaurants and snatched the money and run out they called us of course unfortunately they got away the first time well they come back the second time and did the same thing but the company was a little more prepared for it called us we got there we were able to catch two of them uh two of them got away well tyler even though it was a misdemeanor tyler was assigned the case and uh instead of just kind of going along with just the two that we had in custody and charging them he investigated further utilized the index system which is part of the ncic system that's all a separate branch and you have to have the credentials and be a member to get into it what he found out by utilizing that system was that these four were actually responsible for a crime ring that spanned from new york north carolina and georgia he was able to identify those two that were unidentifiable to us at the time and also was able to identify the fact that they were responsible for some armed robberies in tennessee and alabama so because of his work that little crime ring was identified we do still have outstanding warrants on the two that he identified but across the country each year uh index uh looks and uh picks out some of the top cases that were

[0:04:09] utilized by using their system and uh out of 38 today selected this year uh tyler got the uh the top prize uh or top award for utilizing that system uh and again flew us up there all expense paid uh give us uh him a nice plaque as well as one for the department to display as well and they're getting those made up and shipped to us since we were on an airplane they didn't want to get damaged so they're actually shipping shipping them to us so we're waiting for them to arrive now but it was a lot of staked honor for people to go with him and uh and be able to receive that award because of his work especially on a case that barry easley could have just sat on somebody's desk and just said you know we'll charge the two that we have in hand and just leave it at that but he wasn't satisfied with that and took it took it forward [Applause] sergeant price i just want to tell you congratulations and thank you uh that's outstanding hey you know that's the kind of stuff right there that you know that extra effort is what makes the salt lake police department uh stand out above other departments and your efforts are incredible we appreciate that very proud of that uh of that award we're proud of the work that you do we appreciate you thank you okay next on the agenda and uh chief pearl will introduce our new officers i'd like to introduce to you mary and bell i planned on the shaping being here but i found out she is actually on military drill at this time so she couldn't couldn't make it marion is one of three that was just sent off to the

[0:06:10] training academy down in moorhead graduated two weeks ago and uh marion while he was there received the five under 50 award which is running five miles under 50 minutes and also won the rogue warrior 10 week fitness challenge award while it was there and nia she received the top cop award for the academy class she was the she received the top award in pt she also received the 550 award as well but it's going to take a minute to introduce you to marionville and again i apologize neil was his own military and i didn't i wasn't aware that at the time but just to let you know that uh what what kind of officers that were fortunate to be to attract here and get here okay next on the agenda is our budget hearing at this time we'll need to close let's close this meeting we'll need a motion to close the uh public meeting then reopen the budget hearing so is there a motion to close the public meeting we have a motion ballroom in brooke second ballroom and wheeler i'm all in favor say all right i'll post saying no i just haven't motion carries the public meeting is now closed and now is there a motion to open the budget here a motion by alderman flores second ballroom wheeler all in favor say aye aye any opposed say no i just have motion carries the budget hearing is now open mr chris wilson if you'll just give us

[0:08:12] an overview of uh you know we've had we had a budget workshop uh we've uh a few weeks have gone by have a proposed budget uh you'll just uh give us a quick uh summary then we'll open up the uh open floor for the board and anyone else in the audience who wants to speak so to recap no tax increase no fines fees no increases in utility funds sanitation water all remaining the same the new positions coming online um that were in the approved budget that we talked about the board meeting were the five new laborers and parks the new food and beverage manager to accommodate the increase in parks tennis and as we expand parks one new animal control officer one new inspector in planning department a two million dollar budget for overlay which is up from 1.5 million one new facility maintenance position in public works the one difference that the draft you've got in front of you compared to the one a few weeks ago is that the spring test budget was up to 240 000 and the expense was up to 240 thousand dollars in tourism but no change in general funds no change in utility no changes in debt and no changes in sanitation chris there was some talk about a new hr director is it that is um that is in here um it's right now any all those positions have yet to be posted so we haven't started collecting any information on them yet until actually the board adopts the budget the report uh confirms those positions so um yes i'm sorry that position is in here from 1912. just to clarify that spring fest christy and i worked on that to do a little differently in the past the line item in the budget was not reflective of current numbers uh there's been some changes in recent years uh we're receiving more money uh from the

[0:10:15] carnival and some of the things that uh we just wanted to have a realistic budget so we went back and uh based that christie's done a great job in um the last year in estimating actual expenses on being real on how much it costs to operate spring fest and that's that's where tuning it costs 240 thousand dollars to do it so our goal as you all know is um to at least break even and uh weather plays a big part in that the years that weather is not horrendous we have broken even there have been years that we've actually had a surplus in that line so so the goal is still to break even just a little heads up a lot of discussion ahead of that but we do plan to make a few adjustments with the entertainment to try to make that more productive than it has been the last few years a lot of things have changed uh you know when springfest first began and the concerts were there that was before we had you know the summer series and a lot of the other concerts there so there was more you know people were more excited about coming to see some of the acts there so it's it's a little different than it used to be but we're we're determined that it's going to be good and christie's determined and so am i and so we're going to make a few changes but anyway long way to take the goal is to break even but that 240 is a real number chris preventing changes in the health insurance again with health insurance the numbers in there offers a modest increase in premiums the board will have to go back and revisit that once we get into again our renewals are january um budget is october 1st so there's still some window that we're going to continue to negotiate continue to work on uh on those policies and those plans as we move forward so we will be coming back before you with some kind of modification in fy 19 depending on where we are we've got one company that won't quote us a rate until september 15. we're running that before when we're you know trying to get a number prior to

[0:12:19] 10-1 we need to go further on the year to get some of these claims behind us to give us more negotiation power if there is any if you've been reading anything all rates in mississippi nationwide are skyrocketing right now premium rates and our plane is looking to be no different so yes to your point we are going to have to come back and have some other discussions about where we go with health insurance for january we're going to have to account for nine months of that increase yes we're under our current rates through december and we'll know more in the next actually within days we'll know more but the upcoming weeks will know a lot more about what the real situation is going to be but i do want to go on the record again to say that any organization including the city of south haven that is the most challenging that's the most volatile thing it's one of the most challenging things that we can do to maintain the benefits uh with you know the volatility of the health insurance mark in our country right now so uh it's every year is challenging this this year seems to be maybe the most so we'll we'll be updating all of you within the next um you know next few days about that situation the budget number in there carries our current plan through the end of the calendar year so we know we're set there but we are going to come back and revisit it any other discussion among the board do you want motion to them no i will go also and then we'll do that i appreciate that is there anyone in the audience that has any questions or comments about the proposed budget every line item is open for discussion so any questions that you have we are prepared presentation and the line items are on our website southern.com so that's all obviously publicly available as well okay

[0:14:24] seeing or hearing no one that's wanting to speak uh i'll entertain a motion to close the area let's make that motion i have a motion by alderman flores second alderman brooks all in favor say hi all right all folks say no i was having motion vegetarian is now closed now we will go on with a public meeting is that necessary all in favor say any opposed say no i was having a motion carries the public meeting is now open and we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is a resolution for unmarked vehicles mr nick manley and this is the importance of state law resolution for the unmarked vehicles for the police department that are used for investigative purposes i have to have a resolution on minutes that these uh certain vehicles that are attached today will be i think it's just one vehicle maybe or two and those will be sent by the park's office to the augusta's office so the nicest authorization for that resolution let's move on have a measurement florida second ballroom kelly is there any discussion hearing another roll call yes okay that motion carries next on the agenda's extension of the civilian agreement this is just the amendment to the civilian agreement uh exact same terms as it was amended on last year it extends it until september 30th 2019 so initial year um under uh

[0:16:29] their master agreement amendment one since 90 offices to the mayor to sign the extension was civil link that will have the master agreement and amendment number two it will mirror those from movement number three as extension tonight i'll make that function second i have a motion baller gallagher second ballroom wheeler is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes okay that motion carries next on the agenda's agreement with tyler technologies for south american court this agreement is actually for chris shelton's signature it's an agreement with tyler technologies that will allow for certain court records or the correctness to be aligned um to get even more accessible to our police department and other members that the court uses to allow to see the or to utilize the online records and um tonight just the authorization for chris shelton assigned the agreement the cost of the service is i think it's three i got it right here um three thousand five hundred dollars uh so it's something i think uh that uh thomas and the quarterback are looking forward to so tonight office for chris shutting the sinus agreement and um we're with tyler for the web services internet based product subscription agreement so moved we have a motion of honorable flores second daughter and kelly is there any discussions there's a couple comments we had in the effective ad there's a couple comments on the contract they admitted for us with their attorneys so contractors they admitted some issues that we had as well so you're good i'm good with it yet yes any other discussion it's very mellon roll call yes

[0:18:37] okay that motion carries next on the agenda is an agreement with tyler technologies for units this agreement also for chris shelton's signature it's a amendment to the agreement with tyler technologies with unit system which is our operating software storage that we use throughout the entire city the software is ancillary to the service so while we're getting software the services the software is useless without the service and authorization to pay in advance as well because we'll know be getting the goods in advance based on the reputation of the company so reflect that in our minutes which might need authorization to allow christian to sign the amendment with munis or wick tyler for the immune program throughout the city um noting that they exploit software ancillary to the service and that based on tyler's reputation and their corporate city we can pay the fans receiving the contract second we have a motion balance second dollar brooks is there any discussion yes okay that motion carries next on the agenda is a resolution for our jag grant this is the annual our annual drag jag grant that we receive every year uh and this year the south haven is starting to be in the lead again so tonight we need an authorization for the mayor to sign the mou in their local agreement with the soto accounting and city of olive branch to receive the jag funds and authorize the resolution to authorize those to be sent to attorney general's office for the air local for approval by their attorney general's office and to proceed board with the jag grant and program i'll make that motion second promotion volunteer pain second alderman kelly is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes

[0:20:47] okay that motion carries next on the agenda special event permit for memphis food truck and craft beer festival to be held at container outlets this is just the special event permanent uh for the event on september 1st i think it's going to be continuing into 6 p.m and it's for the food truck festival at the tanker outlet mall and it's been reviewed by the clerk's office and recommended tonight for approval make that motion second we have a motion gallagher second ballroom and wheeler is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye all folks say no eyes have it motion carries next on the agenda is the fire service extension phase two for the recommendation to award the bid uh this is phase two of the fire service extensions multi-year uh project i think we started out with four phases and the first year's phase kind of took some of what the mayor had on list four this basically covers the malone road area some of those roads that come off of uh to the west of long road to provide adequate fire service the beds came in the low and best bid and we recommended award to buzz plexico dozer services in the amount of 667 864.77 asking for the board's approval to award and authorize the mayor to execute the contract documents when we're received i'll make that motion second we have a motion by all maintained second volume and brooks is there any discussion again i know the board is familiar with

[0:22:49] this but for those in the audience or that may be watching this again is part of a larger plan for the city's annexed areas to replace the water lines with sufficient water lines to put in standard fire hydrants so the annexed areas have the same fire protection as everyone else in the city any other discussion here you know yes okay that motion carries thank you dan um next on the agenda is a resolution complaining private property mr mayor without the resolution granting authorities kelly is there any discussion among the board hearing none is does anyone in the audience that has a financial interest in any of the properties want to speak hearing and seeing none we're all call plays yes yes yes yes yes and that motion carries next on our agenda is our planning agenda is wendy cook yes sir we have two quick items uh the first one is a conditional use permit to allow a full service spa at 453 state line road this is going to be in the kreber complex right down here at hamilton and kroger um conditional use permit for a whole service spa requires that they have three amenities which they have met those amenity requirements um they all have to be licensed technicians at the state of work or state of mississippi boards uh all their documentation has been submitted the conditional use requirement also states that they have to have a one-mile radius distance from an existing one we have check that through a windows survey and they're compliant with that uh we're recommending a one year conditional use permit with a four-year extension to be

[0:24:52] reading annually mr mayor make a motion to approve item number one on the planning agenda as presented second we have a motion of alderman kelly second alderman brooks is there any discussion on item one hearing the second application is um similar to the first as a conditionally used permit for a hair rating facility this one's going to be at 186 state line road uh it's going to be in a retail center on the north side of state land road just west of airways boulevard has the same half-mile radius rules it has the same requirements for static certification and uh board certifications they have submitted all the required documents and they did meet the one-mile radius requirement so we're recommending a one-year conditional lease probably the four-year extension mr mayor make a motion to prove item number two on the planning agenda as presented so we have a motion by hermann kelley second ballroom in brooks is there any discussion eric nunn ralph hall yes thank you all right next on the jenna's mayor's report got a couple issues to update everyone about i actually need more action on one issue recently actually this week chris wilson brought to my attention the fact that gatsby which is the government accounting standards board that's a national organization that reviews the accounting procedures and auditing practices of governmental agencies has

[0:26:57] reviewed an issue that uh will affect our retiree health insurance benefit you all may recall that last year we felt like it was an excellent thing to do to award our employees with the option at retirement of staying on the city's group health insurance plan until they qualify for medicare or have other options obviously this is a tremendous benefit because when you get off of a group plan if you are in a situation where you have to acquire personal health insurance the cost is tremendously more plus you can face some issues of insurability with pre-existing conditions and that kind of thing so it's a tremendous thing we thought it was a great thing so we implemented that we do have a few people that are on that program now the problem is that now this accounting board has ruled that we now have to consider this a liability for the city it's actually no liability because the retiree pays the premium so the city takes no liability whatsoever our cpa including and chris has explained this to them and asked them to you know to review this again we have no liability but they have continued to come back and say that it will be treated as a liability so it will be you know will affect our um you know will affect our assets and liabilities obviously our financial situation the other thing that's a negative is a requiring that uh that we hire actuaries every year to come in and again measure a liability that doesn't exist so it's kind of crazy but we've told them that and at this point that's what it looks like we don't know the exact dollar amount for that uh but basically we would be we could possibly be paying upwards of ten thousand dollars a year uh to get someone to tell us how much of a liability that we have that's not a liability it's it's really crazy and then the other thing is um you know again it's a negative on our books it hurts our financial situation

[0:29:00] so when all that being said and open up discussion it's chris wilson's recommendation and also my recommendation that we suspend this at this time until we know uh more details about that the reason we're recommending to suspend this is we certainly don't want someone to base their retirement plans around having this uh and then you know it'd be sprung on them that they're not going to have as you all know health insurance your health insurance is a huge decision you know when you approach retirement age so we don't want someone to rely on that benefit and let us not be able to provide it so that's our recommendation that we make a motion and we vote tonight to suspend it but at this point we'll open discussion for that what about the people the employees that are former police that are currently on it it's my understanding and chris can tell you more details it's my understanding that they will have cobra options um but again it eventually would lose the retiree health insurance plan so suspending it just means no new retirees will get on the plan those four that we have on it would continue to stay on it until the board made a decision one way or another to continue it spend the money for the actuary have that liability on our books and move forward as is or in the program so one's actually rolling off there's five on there now one is going to have a birthday and we'll roll off next month so we will have four current retirees on the plane what's up who who what's the uh appeal process like here or is there one as far as there's no these guys know what they say no matter what that's right yeah i mean it's real simple you you follow the gatsby rules as far as your accounting or you don't really have a qualified uh opinion your audit which will it would devastate your financial standing from a standpoint of your audit would have one big red flag on it and everything that would happen that's not what yeah i mean you know you it's it's um again you know

[0:31:03] so the big thing is retirement benefits and pensions are killing governments and killing government finances you hear about states and cities in the worst financial trouble it's because of their unfunded pensions this happened a few years ago if y'all recall 2015 we had to start booking purses unfunded liability we lost i don't give an exact number we went our our net position went from 85 million to 50 million because of the gassy standard same thing's going to happen with this not to that extent we think because we had to begin to book all governments begin to have to report and book the state pension liability against basically require us to show a liability that we truly don't have but so when we issue debt or go out for re-rating they will look at that and now we're either going to have a call unqualified audit just assume the liability and move on or do so even though there's only four the the the numbers and the x-ray will come in and look at all potential retirees so we have 398 give or take one or two employees on health insurance as is they will come in and have to start building the numbers on any potential retiree going forward so we could hire someone tonight first they they would become pros eligible on ours after 30 years or 60 they'll have to do that for all potential employees so we're looking at potentially a million dollars of unfunded liability we don't know the number yet i mean that's what you know we've got to have and we've reached out we've got four actuaries i'm running down trying to get a number on their estimate of what it would cause from professional service to do it what's the time frame in order to make the decision we're on the clock now this came down the rulings really started to come down early august so here we are um i've had some cpas tell me no one knows the impact of this but again it's the

[0:33:05] it's the mayor's point there's no there's no appeal there's no this is the accounting standard that we have to live by or get a qualified audit right which would be saying that you know you guys didn't account for this liability and i can tell you right now if you try to issue data go get re-rated on that that's the first thing that will come up so so this motion is just to suspend any future to not accept renew until we unravel this onion a little bit more yes and i may have assumed uh payne's question i thought you were asking me ultimately what would happen but chris was just telling you that it won't in the short term it won't affect the current ones that are on it but ultimately if nothing changes and we have to discontinue the plan that's what i was referring to ultimately that the benefits would go away well that would have been my next question yeah but we'll make that decision they will if the city decides to go away from offering this post-employment benefit which again if you read you know watch the new i mean read about these things illinois i mean you've got governments that are upside down because of their post employment benefits going unfunded so that's why gasby sits and meets hey we need everyone to start accounting for these things so bond investors and general public can get a better idea of what true number the net assets are of the school district water district city those if the city decides to go that route those employees those four that are currently on it would become uh cobra eligible to remain on city's plan at their existing rates for a minimum of 18 months so there's not going to be a notice going out saying hey next month you're off insurance okay there is cobra benefit from those individuals because that's all this plan really was it was cobra anyway is there no way to keep them until it turns out i mean we have to account for this in our fy 18 audit close of business 930 we're going to have to either account for this and have actuary on deck or the programmable season we're going to have to this tonight is

[0:35:08] just to suspend any conditions but we're probably going to have to create we're going to come over to the mayor we don't want anyone retiring tomorrow thinking that they're based their entire retirement on a potential of this program going away they'll still have 18 months even somebody will retire tomorrow those that are on it now right we got people retired 15 years left we don't have anyone that's got that long left but yes there's not anyone that's getting ready to be 65 unless you know the one yeah so i'll practice in the same boat they are in the same boat however talking to them they don't share the same concerns because they don't they don't submit their financials to the same regulatory and um gfoa that we do for the recognition and to be held by that standard so i don't know what they're going to do their people initially told me they didn't apply to them because the same thing that the city doesn't pay the premium it's i've got gatsby rulings here that it doesn't matter the retirees 100 responsible for their premium it still applies unless unless you're less than 100 people which we're not well again the sad thing is we were trying to do a good thing you know last year we were trying to reward our loyal loyal employees for their service to the city we tried to do a good thing we did not know about any of this at that time or if we knew there was any question of this at that time and you know obviously we wouldn't have done that this applies to medical long-term short-term vision dental anything and everything you may offer which we don't do any of that for retirees just help but this applies across the board they're getting the numbers on anything and as we went through the difference between us having to do this now for this as opposed to what the state did for purse it's not our retirement so the state went out had to get the actuary

[0:37:10] come up with that formula that each audit year we plug our number into and they give us our number for the unfunded liability which is about 55 million hit to your bottom line do is there any other discussion about this beautiful topic is there a motion to suspend i'll make that motion second got a motion ballroom with flores got a second bottom of kelly is there any other discussion hearing none roll call updates to you daily on where we are on it but that's we don't see gatsby reversing it i don't know i don't think so how many accounts have you argued they're pretty set in there to tell you they've already done that now you're pretty set in their ways all right thank you chris okay the only other item i want to update you about is this positive so after that we've got something positive um i-269 i was in a meeting recently with indot commissioner taggart it was updated at i-269 uh the final leg of that will be open in october so you may know that it was done in three phases to connect interstate 55 and interstate 40 on the tennessee side and it started on the tennessee side that was done then last year the middle leg was opened up between uh the tennessee line and highway 305 and i'll branch and so in october they'll have the final leg done which will be between highway 305 and interstate 55 which will connect that in mdot's words they believe that that the i-269 project is the most significant i will have the

[0:39:12] most significant change with transportation improvement since uh interstate 55 was opened in the 1960s they believe that it's that will make that big of an impact so you can think about it on your own i mean you're going to bypass a lot of the southbound or the northbound traffic coming from the south on interstate 55 going to nashville or going to the east coast you know will now miss salvation i mean you you'll help us with church road uh in i-55 a little bit you know because a lot of that truck traffic will be uh hitting 269 to go to 40 so that will um diet south haven so it'll be a big benefit for us the economic impact will be tremendous you can get ready for all the north south corridors that connect with 269. obviously getwell will be a big deal in south haven but then you have the ones in the lewisberg area that there will be tremendous growth opportunities there i've told you before that we believe that the mackenziel exit and hernando alpha 269 will have a a long-term effect on south haven as a potential connection of sweeney road and mackinvale which would allow southaven residents to access 269 you know that way by sweeney and mackenfeld so anyway it's going to be a tremendous thing it's going to help anyone that's trying to get to east memphis namely colorville there's no quick way to get to tylerville from southaven but now there is it should shave off about you know 10 to 12 minutes at least off that drive plus make it a much more pleasant ride so it'll be a big deal but that should be open in october so that's the that's the positive news tonight that's all i have this evening next on the agenda is our citizens agenda we have miss caroline barnett with our south haven public library just registered to speak let's come forward i'm going to introduce meredith yeah daniel i actually i'm the director of first regional library my name is meredith welcome i've been here about six months

[0:41:14] now and i obviously mistimed my budget request but i'll know for next year may i go ahead and give you our packet though this time certainly mr chris wilson um so i typically do most of my budget requests in july and august and this was when we had scheduled tours that i realized for next year that y'all are ahead of the game because obviously you have a budget ready to go but at least you'll kind of know where my thinking is going as far as asking for what the library needs in the future and i appreciate you hearing from me now we're we're first of all we want to say thank you because uh you your support has made it possible to have one of the most used busiest libraries in the state and have it be really operating at a level that is second to none the innovative programming that goes on there with the services that are offered to so so many people it's in the top 10 busiest in the state as well as you know it's just it's a beautiful library i'm sure if you've been in lately you've seen it really is a showplace and we're just so thrilled for what the city of south haven has admitted to and has done over the years for the library and for its community when you look at a library in the community it is really like the community throwing its doors wide and saying here is the door to opportunity it's a huge economic driver the research has shown that return on investment for economic opportunity in the community is at least five dollars for every dollar invested

[0:43:16] um in the south payment library fair set up i hear about repeatedly ever since i've come you know people getting jobs there people who've graduated with advanced degrees coming back to say thank you to the librarians everything that's happening to encourage kids to get ready for school it's just a huge economic opportunity as well as just a life thriving opportunity for your people and so it means so much to us that you continue to support us i've included a few graphs in this packet to kind of show you what i'm looking at as far as your history of contributions and where you stand as far as our other cities in the system but i'll be honest with you it was almost impossible to draw up this packet for south haven because you are just a very different kind of city in our our system you're very large you have different economic needs you have a huge population spread over a larger area so it it's kind of like comparing apples and oranges when you look at those graphs so to keep that in mind because it really is quite difficult to find another city in our service area that is really comparable to south haven so i did my best just to kind of show you where other cities are in the in our service area in our region but it's it's really not possible to give you a true comparison because you do stand apart and you can see that in your library so but if you have any questions for me i brought south cayman's budget with me today i'm happy to answer questions about how we spent your money last year anything like that i'm happy to go over with you now oh i'm so glad to hear that it really is i mean i'm really just excited to be working with y'all to be

[0:45:18] honest it's a wonderful library and all kudos to caroline who's in the audience who's the manager there you know you're on your graph with the uh how the increased revenue is allocated you're proposing it looks like the majority of that is for salaries and benefits yes the majority of it actually goes to um our purge allocation whether we were notified we have to give more to purge this year and there's going to be an upcoming increase as well i believe and so behind the cover we have to cover that additionally our board voted to try and increase across the board a two percent salary increase for cost of living for our staff this year so that calculates your portion of that are there any other potential funding opportunities i know the city of south haven obviously is a significant part of your income in your budget um are there typically you mentioned that we're different than any other cities it's hard to find a comparable uh what do other i'm just saying i should know this but i don't what what do other libraries you know throughout the country how do they typically acquire their operational funding so it varies state by state i will say one thing that i'm i'm actually in talks with desoto county about their legislative ask right now because one thing that i feel like we're really hamstrung about in mississippi is that we're not allowed to sell anything we just got an attorney general's opinion that said that our we would be allowed to directly sell a thousand dollars a week in discarded books which is the first time they've ever cracked on that um but a thousand dollars a week frankly across 14 libraries is not going to make a huge dent for us i mean it's a

[0:47:21] nice idea and everything but when you add up the staff time and all that it's not going to help us a lot but if we were able to say have cafes fundraise merchandise like you see new york public library selling cool bags and you know you know things like that that people who had the funds who were using the library who were excited about the library wanted to you know have a t-shirt with us on it um if we were able to fundraise more along those lines i think it would be a great benefit to the libraries in mississippi i have to be honest and say i'm not um i'm maybe not very popular sometimes among librarians when i say that but i do think we need to have more public private partnership going forward i think that's just the way of the future we're going to need to be more nimble we can't have 100 of everything be donated by our counties and cities i think it would be much better if we you know combine that with some efforts of our own and if you wanted to work with me on a legislative ask you know a letter we would definitely be interested in that um certainly yeah yeah okay i can see it being a really nice opportunity for us to you know expand our services bring them into the 21st century at all our locations not just you know our big show places um and also you know make sure that we were supporting y'all and not not a drain you know that we were actually you know fully contributing and the library again the library is beautiful y'all do an incredible job thank you i actually did a tour last year uh christy and i did a tour and a just really impressive you know what you do is um yeah we're proud to do that but it is tough it's it as you know you can look you've looked at our budget you know what you know 330 thousand dollars with 341 000 is all significant you know to even to a city the size of south haven it's a significant give and uh and obviously the building you know we own the building providing that

[0:49:22] we're happy to do that yes but the city is you know city's all in cities contribute a lot of money it'd be nice if there were some other avenues to acquire funding it would kind of ease the burden you know on the city too so we can keep we would love that um you know right now it's just local funding plus state funding so the the local funding is whatever the city allocates whatever this the county allocates and then the state funding comes to us via what's called the personnel incentive grant plan and we have to be accredited for that and then that basically comes to libraries that are accredited and that have the things in place that you need to have in place and it's a formula based upon population as well as how many counties are in your system so [Music] that i will be honest that took some serious hits over the last few years i'm sure y'all also took some hits when the governor and the state legislature were doing some cuts for a while there at my previous library system it was like a cut every 72 days so that's made it more difficult i would say over the long run you know but we want to make sure that we're making sustainable moves you know even as we think about where our money comes from i would i would love to talk with you about some options i appreciate that and has there been any discussion with our local state uh delegation on possibly some legislation from a state standpoint that would i have not had that conversation i'm legislative chair for the mississippi library association and last year i'll be honest we did a huge legislative push where we were at the capitol every week some some librarians were there every week to try and make sure we didn't get another cut and that we covered our increases in insurance um as you just talked about the volatility has affected us as well you know for our employees and so we were able to do that and we're actually kind of looking at our direction for this next year and it might be that we need to ask that additionally

[0:51:26] okay yeah thank you any advice you have for me too i would be thrilled to receive well i definitely to answer your question anything i can do as far as helping you know the library look for other potential funding if there needs to be a letter from me or anything like that i'll be glad to help you thank you another uh we've already had some people come to us they're gonna need like carpet replaced and stuff like that this year so we're already gonna have some additional costs probably just bringing the building up this year i think too it's already been coming up on the horizon so that's something to also think about okay i once brought that to my attention is that where is so i know that our branch manager was talking about a request to repaint and put in new um carpet with me but but to be honest i haven't been involved in that i've been involved in another budgetary level entirely so i don't know um i know that if it's a la at the last meeting i had just mentioned to alderman colley and arnold hoops that we you know have been in the building 10 years now it was 10 years in march 2008 is when we opened and our carpet is just very warm and stained we're starting to get some pull up so i was just curious you know if that might be something that we could look at and again with having been in the building ten years particularly in the meeting rooms kind of the children's area story time area it's it's showing a lot of wear and so we just you know wanted to look at whether we might be able to do something about that in you know the coming year or with them i'd love to do it for our anniversary here but that is just something that we kind of need to look at is just sort of the upkeep of the building on the inside a little bit on the outside was that in the budget no so that can't be in our budget mississippi law is really weird sometimes we have to have a chat about mississippi library law it's just really weird when i moved here i couldn't even believe it so the library can't own its own buildings

[0:53:29] none of us can and believe me it causes a lot of frustration among the directors so we can't own our own buildings they have to be owned by either the city or the county and south payments is owned by the city and then the attorney general's latest opinion and the law say that we cannot make any capital improvements so it literally if i see like you know this is broken and i have the money for it i can't allocate it i have to call the city and say this is broken please repair it um it is a little bit of a complicated system yes your face is telling me exactly yeah that's how i feel sometimes is like really you know um but we are a little bit hamstrung that way and they see it as a as whoever owns the building owns the capitol um so they won't let us make repairs so if it would be new carpet and new paint it would be y'all putting it in okay yeah we just need to bring that to the attention of our facilities director bradley wallace sure okay is there any other any other discussion or questions yeah at least get some sort of estimate on what that would be and so we can sure so much stress thank you thank you any other questions okay thank you very much we appreciate it i appreciate you all thank you okay next on our agenda this evening is our personnel doctor mr mayor move away from the personnel doctors presented on the state second we have a motion bottom and brook second dollar pain is there any discussion hearing none roll call yes next on the agenda is our city attorney's legal update mr nick manley

[0:55:34] quick i was handed this morning it's just a professional service agreement with uh deborah burch for the cities i mean for the city's park program that helped teach yoga all throughout the west brom to sign a contract with ms burch we have a motion of alderman brooke second baltimore wheeler is there any discussion hearing done all in favor say aye all opposed say no i just have it motion carries all right next on the agenda is our claims docket mr mayor move we approve the claims docket and the amount of 714 831.66 including demand checks second we have a motion ballroom pain second alarm flores is there any discussion to determine the need for executive session got a motion honorable gallagher second honorary kelly all in favor say aye aye all posts say no eyes haven't motion carries the need this evening as claims regarding our public works and police departments and economic development uh potentially bringing a new business that will locate uh to the city so is there a motion to declare executive a session got a motion bomberman gallagher second baller at brooks all in favor say hi all opposed say no i was having motion carries the very board will now enter executive session um

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=u883gd0avWU