Cave Creek approves $138,259 town hall design contract, establishes 16-member state trust land task force

Obviously, I had that speech, but what did I just say? We apologize for being uh being tardy to thank you for waiting and we'll try to be expeditious with the time the rest of the way. So, the first thing on the agenda is a joint town council and audit committee meeting and this is September 2nd. Um so, u it is now called to order pledge of allegiance. I will lead us in the interest of time. liberty and justice for all. Okay, this is the audit committee town council discussion.

Postal town council acceptance of the audit findings the special audit of the three utility funds related to billing and revenues. Sherry, good evening mayor, mayor, vice mayor, council members.

Um so uh council had asked for us to have the auditors do a special audit of the um utilities um related to the billing and revenues and we looked at um three years um we have the auditors here to present um the report and then after um presentation any questions um we do have on the agenda asking council to accept the report.

Um, we have Dennis Mashki who is the partner in charge of our audit here and we have uh Richard Gillespie who is the senior manager on our job and so I'm going to turn it over to them to discuss the audit. All right. Good evening Mr. Mayor, vice mayor, council members. Um, we want to present the results of our audit procedures.

Um we did some consulting type procedures to analyze these utility funds um because it was our understanding and going through the analysis that the estimated revenues were significantly higher um than what the actual revenues that came in for um the the previous three fiscal years. So um we did some we broke that down into two pieces of the procedures that we did.

One is through the internal control assessment and that's where we're looking at the controls the operations of you know when a cash receipt comes in how this how this um gets collected and and the money's into the bank and ultimately gets recorded to the general ledger. And the second thing that we did is we estimated or reestimated how those numbers should have been evaluated. So the first thing I want to talk about is the internal control process.

Uh what we did is we looked at three fiscal years 23, 24, and 25. And we performed um internal control assessment procedures like we would during an audit process where we were looking at the billings, recalculating customer billings, making sure the receipts that came in were ultimately recorded in the bank and then recorded within the general ledger. And so in total, we selected 75 transactions. And within that sample, that population, we didn't see any internal control deficiencies.

Um, we would designate that we would call them significant deficiencies or material weaknesses. Um, we did not note any of those breakdowns and internal controls. And all of the recalculated billings matched. So, we were able to recalculate um the usage and then the rates to recalculate what was being posted to that customer account as well as then what got posted into the bank. and uh within the general ledger.

And so the second piece to that is to kind of understand or try to recalculate uh what we believe that estimated revenue should have been and to kind of show you what those variances were so we can uh see maybe how that threw off the estimated revenue compared to the actual amounts. And I'll let uh Richard kind of go through that process. Yes. For the second piece of armor procedures, um we um analyze the estimated revenues um of the town.

Um so it would have been for the fiscal year 23 budget year through the fiscal year 25. And with estimated revenues, obviously you you go up to a certain point for that next budget year. So um um so um to start um we'll kind of go over just the key factors and um takeaways um and then we'll kind of dig into the um the the analysis um for the fiscal year 2020 20 fiscal year 2023 budget or analyzing the fiscal year 2022 estimated revenues. Um there was no rate changes during the fiscal year 2022.

So it's a little little more straightforward to um predict. Um and then we um however we recalculated the town's estimate um with significant variances. Um we'll as I said um we'll get into the um variances um on the next couple slides.

Um and then for for the fiscal year 2024 budget or the fiscal year 2023 estimated revenues um there were rate changes beginning um January 1st 2023 um that included for the Cave Creek water um a slight increase um in the base um and then as well as minimal volume change um in the rates um and then the Desert Hills water um there was a significant 26% base increase and then roughly about a 9% volume increase um as well. And then wastewater um was the largest base increase of 51.39%.

Um and then um large varying flow rate increases on top of that. Um so these are just kind of factors we use whenever we kind of went in and kind of recalculated those estimated revenues on our side. Um and um we also um for for that that um estimated revenue year um we recalculate the town's estimate um with significant variances as well. Um lastly, the fiscal year 2025 budget or the fiscal year 2024 estimated revenues. um the rate changes um started um January 1st, 2024.

Um this year, I think this is the year you all kind of caught up with um the um based on the rate study and so there were slight more um you know between two to 5% um um rate increases across um all all the systems of the town. Um and then during our recalculation um we um estimated um with significant variances as well. Um so one thing to know to note before we go into kind of the details um is um the effect on the general fund subsidies.

Um so the overestimate of revenues um did not result in a equival equivalent amount of general fund subsidies. Um the overestimate does not represent the amount of subsidies since the expenditures of these funds were still under budget. All right. So here's kind of our summary of our analysis. I know there's a lot of data here. So um I'll kind of go through um each column um and kind of represent what it is and um you know to where it's a little easier to to see.

Um so this first column is the budget fiscal year. Um so you'll see 23 through 25 and then the estimated revenues um fiscal year which would be fiscal year 2020 through 24. So like I said earlier obviously you're going to you know use that prior year fiscal year um actuals through a certain date and then kind of estimate to determine the budget. So um um and so this um this next column should be um column one is the estimated revenues per the budget.

Um this is the detailed line item budget um approved by the town. Um so that column represents basically um the revenues um estimated revenues per per that budget within that fiscal year. The next column represents the estimated revenues recalculated by us. Um and then this column three represents the prior year actual per the trial balance. So this was actually the actual um revenues ended up being recorded by the town for each of these fiscal years.

And so these last three columns represents the variances during our analysis. Um this this column here um represents the variance between the town estimate as well as the actual. Um so you'll see pretty large increases or large variances within here. And these show that um the town's estimated revenues was more than what was actual. And then this column here, the column 2 minus 3 would be um the variance between auditor estimate and actual.

So um whenever we were determine the estimate for our side um it's kind of noted below. Um so obviously it's easy to estimate revenues in retrospect. So we did um within the um budget it always would say hey these are the actuals through January or February or March. So we would use that data that was used to to prepare these estimated revenues um within the budget.

So um basically um as of that point of time whenever the budget was being prepared we used th that data to be able to estimate based on our um factors that normally we would see. Um so you'll see the the variance here um a lot less a little more conservative um based on based on our side. Um and then this final column represents the variance between the town estimate and the auditor estimate.

Um so you'll see um large estimates here or large variances here between what we've estimated and what the town town estimated. Um and sorry should kind of circle it. So this was for the Cave Creek water system. Um and it's very similar through the other three but we'll go in a little more detail on the other other two systems. So this next one is the Desert Hills Water system.

So as I noted earlier you know you'll see the budget fiscal year estimated revenues fiscal year estimated revenues per budget estimated revenues recalculated by auditor and then the prior year actual trial balance. So you'll see this column which is columns one minus three which is the variance between the town estimate and actual you'll see a lot of large variances um for the desert hills water system as well very similar to the cave creek water system.

And then over here where we used um you know the information at the time of preparing the budget to determine our um our estimate um a lot a lot smaller variances and once again for the most part I'm a lot more a lot more conservative. So and then the final column as we've mentioned um includes the the variance between the town's estimate and our estimate. So very very large variances there.

Um then finally we'll get to the um wastewater which wastewater is a little more predictable because it's not so much volume based. It's really more just ba um was a little more predictable. So um so similar columns um so variances here um between the town espen actual really aren't that bad in comparison to the other um to the other systems.

Um however um in our calculation you'll see um little little lower a little more conservative on our side as far as estimated revenues for the for the wastewater and then final column would be the variance between the town estimate and the auditor estimate. So kind of um you know identified errors whenever we um went into um digging into the estimated revenues.

Um so for the fiscal year 2022 estimated revenues which would have been for the fiscal year 2023 budget um the budget didn't include the actual revenues through a specific date. So it's very tough to determine um as I mentioned earlier usually it'd be estimated revenues through January or February um of that pre of that fiscal year to determine um the budget for that next fiscal year. And there was no specified date within there.

Um, so all we did is we we kind of went through like I think February, March to determine, okay, hey, what's the what's roughly what the town would have used during that time. Um, so anyway, so we went through kind of similar to the other fiscal years, we just kind of had to guesstimate, okay, they went through probably March. Um, and so whenever we did go through, um, um, we recalculated the estimate um, it ended up being 10% less than what was reported as estimated revenues.

And this year was the um significant um because the rate study that was done years ago actually had used the fiscal year 2022 estimated revenues within there um to determine what these rate increases will be um in the future. So um really with that with that being um kind of overestimated that fiscal year um and then within the rate using that um amount within the rate study that's kind of what triggered um kind of um you know overestimated revenues through those next fiscal years.

Um, so, um, rather than being kind of conservative with the rate inquiries, it was really more kind of, um, they expected a lot more revenues than you all actually got. And as Dennis mentioned earlier, we test the controls, um, and everything. And really the way the town's recording actual um, revenues, there's really no no issue there. Um, so going to the next fiscal year, um, so fiscal year 2023, estimated revenues.

um the town's calculation um for estimated revenues revenues in fiscal year 2023 um um they actually doubled the actuals as of January 31st 2023. So rather than kind of taking that those um those revenues through that January time period um and kind of doing their own estimate to where um you know um kind of estimating for the rest of the fiscal year they basically just doubled that.

So basically they kind of assumed hey it's December and they basically doubled um the revenues to get to their estimate within that budget. Um and so essentially they calculate for 14 months rather than 12 months for for that year. So um and and also um um I forget if that's on a slide or not but there was a lot of turnover during these fiscal years um within the finance um director position.

So that's one of the reasons why it's really tough to kind of tell like each fiscal year because there's a lot of different different methods used through all these fiscal years. Um so um lastly for the fiscal year fiscal year 2023 estimated revenues um the town's fiscal year 2024 adopted budget utilize erroneously calculated fiscal year 2023 estimated revenues um factoring factoring in a percent increase based on the fee schedule.

So basically they use that prior year estimated to create that next year's budget um budgeted revenues and really that previous year was over overestimated. That's kind of what caused um that fiscal year 2023 estimated revenues to to be a lot more. Um and then finally for the fiscal year 2024 estimated revenues um within the fiscal year 2025 budget. The town's estimated revenues for fiscal year 2024 mirrored the fiscal year 2024 adopted budget amounts.

Um however the fiscal year 204 2024 adopted budget was erroneously inflated as mentioned above. Um so basically the summary kind of take all those key factors in the last three points. Um um kind of just roll it with roll with it. Um is the error calculated within the fiscal year 2023 estimated revenues resulted in a residual effect on the following. So the fiscal year 2023 inflation of estimated revenues. Um and then on top of that then the fiscal year 2024 inflation of the adopted budget.

Um and then finally resulted in the fiscal year 2024 inflation of estimated revenue. So really kind of that fiscal year 2022 fiscal year 2023 overestimate kind of just triggered um triggered this overestimate of the subsequent fiscal years. All right. And that concludes um our presentation of those specific procedures. I'll open it up to questions. So we for fiscal year 24 roughly for the utilities we overestimated revenue by a million dollars. Correct? Roughly. Yes.

Another question from council. Is it safe to say that these were paper errors rather than anything tangible money? Um yes. Um so as we mentioned so part of it um was evaluating the internal controls over collecting basically recording you know billings collections and recording within the general ledger and we found no issues with that.

So the actuals everything was good is really just more um I think the big thing it was probably with turnover within the finance director position and a lot of inconsistencies within preparation of those budget amounts. Um and um and it kind of just started with that fiscal year 2022 and kind of um I'm guessing whoever came in as a finance director might have um used those prior year amounts and then kind of just um you know kind of ripple effect after that.

But as far as actual amounts recorded by the town um as far as revenues th those are all accurate. We didn't find any um material weaknesses or significant deficiencies within those procedures. So, yeah. And just to be specific in your report, since November 2020, there have been four different finance directors. Yes. So, within a 5-year period um and several acting finance directors, hence, you know, easy to make mistakes.

Y and that's why we kind of wanted to um ensure that you know the the subsidies know the general fund subsidies that that wasn't affected by this this overinflation. Um it's really just more um these the budget was the budgeted revenues were a lot higher and the town wasn't quite meeting it. But as far as the expenditure side and actual revenue side, those are accurate accurate numbers.

It's really just more the estimated within the budget process was just um being calculated um little little inflated. So more questions. Okay. Uh I'd like to hear from the town staff. We could I have a couple questions for them. Yes mayor. Well, f first of all, it's good that there's no actual dollars. This is just a procedural thing, but it's a it's management decision-m that we need to know how much money we expect to come in, how much comes in, and identify discrepancies from such.

Wh why do you have you concluded why this was not caught earlier? What What is it about our reports that this just didn't scream problem? I I'm not sure because when the the acter the annual comprehensive financial report is done and the budgetary comparisons show there those there were variances there they were clearly reported but why they weren't brought up or discussed I I really don't know.

Are you confident that our processes have been uh fixed to the extent that with experienced personnel of course the personnel issues are not included in that do are our processes robust enough now that we can count this this as a problem the overestimation is a problem that is now behind us uh yes so um I'm actually the one who had brought up some of these things because this is the experience that I come from my my entire career here has been around governmental, accounting, auditing, consulting.

Um I have not been in other industries. This is the industry that I know. I would be kind of scared to go to some other industry and go I don't know this. Um so I you know I have a few decades of experience in this and know what to look for. Um I also did so when I prepared um the estimates when we were working on the fiscal year 26 budget I did provide those to the auditors to say do you have any comments about the approach that I took on that and you want to hear straight from from them.

Yeah they actually for that was supposed to be something I was supposed to talk about. So, um we did um kind of analyze her fiscal year 2025 estimated revenues and preparation of the fiscal year 26 budget and it was very similar just more detail from what we were using to um produce our um auditor estimated amount. So um so we went and kind of reviewed hers and it everything um pretty much was in line with what we would expect um you know within whenever you're preparing a budget.

So okay, other any questions other questions from council dusty? So this is going to be corrected next time we do this. Yes. So the estimates prepared for the fiscal year 26 budget which I would expect those to be a lot closer um to what the actuals will be um when we get through that fiscal year. You never know how much people how much water people are going to use, how much sewer I exactly. It's never it's never going to be exact.

Um and what um was prepared for the fiscal year 26 budget is what I had provided to the consultants who are working on the the rate study that is currently in process so that they're starting from um better estimates to go forward. Thanks down here. Okay. So we are in the position of uh accepting this. Is that correct? Correct. And I think um we did this as a joint meeting that they're accepting it as the council. Okay. Okay.

So, I I'll just make a motion then that uh that um we accept the audit findings from the special audit committee and the council related to billing and revenues. Second. All those in favor? I closed issue closed. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate your time. I'm again I'm sorry about keeping you waiting. Okay, we have a motion to adjourn the audit committee. Please second. All those in favor? I oppose. Motion carries.

So, I call to order the uh town council meeting of September 2nd, 2025. Uh public announcements. Um one thing I want to point out is we have a distinguished uh visitor at the next council meeting and that is the uh the uh president of the Central Arizona project. Uh water is probably one of the biggest topics in the state right now and he will be here uh to speak to us about what's going on with CAP.

And I want to just just say that CAP I think has been extraordinarily proactive and it should be a very very interesting talk. I hope a lot of people can make that. Other public announcements. Okay. Then we'll go to call to the public. Carol Perry, mayor, vice mayor, council members, thank you so much for your ongoing support of Hidden in the Hills.

This is a little premature, I guess, is the word, but we just you are literally the first PE people to see that the map has been printed and this is very specifically one of the things that your grant funds. So, the directory is still a month away, but this is the map. And I just wanted to point out that it now says inside the map and on the very back of the directory sponsored by the town of Cave Creek. We cannot thank you enough for your ongoing support.

And I put a stack of these over there somewhere. So, if you want one of these before you get the directory and as soon as I have them, I'll get them to you. So, thank you from the bottom of a whole lot of people's hearts. Thank you, Carol. No additional no further ones. Okay, we're at the town manager report. Mayor, council, I don't know if you can hear me. Yes, we can. Super. Um, just wanted to report back.

Not everybody uses um all of our different communication tools, but wanted to report that over the weekend there were two wells in the Desert Hills uh service area that failed. staff initiated some emergency protocols to investigate the cause and and have a well company um come in and and evaluate the wells.

The utilities department also brought water resources from the Cave Creek uh water system to try to fill up water reservoirs so that we could try to um assure that there were no um outages or or issues there. Um we um initially were having difficulty with filling up the water reservoirs, but we were able to catch up on that. Um staff communicated through various means to let our customers know about the situation and to alert them to the possibility of water pressure dropping.

Um and the town also um urged customers to conserve water while the wells are being serviced. the town will continue to provide updates to our customers as needed until the situation is resolved. So, um just wanted to highlight that I think that um really affected a number of people and want to make sure that um our our customers um both Cave Creek and Desert Hills um which were both um uh impacted. Um so that's all I have uh mayor and council at this time. Okay. Thank you.

Uh motion Oh Desty do we have an estimated time when when at least one of the wells will be back online? Um, I will try to get that information. Um, they were working on it and I've been told I can't have Sean come up and and give that to you, but u maybe Sean if you can give me that information I can report it um in the this evening. Okay. So, with that, um, Sean will just, um, go ahead and email me and I'll I'll make sure I have that information, um, for you.

So, with that, we'll go ahead and, uh, Mayor Council will move on to the rest of the agenda. Okay. Next thing on the agenda is proclamation for uh 2025 falls prevention awareness week. Whereas it is estimated that 1/4 of people 65 and older will experience a fall each year and whereas falls are the leading cause of both fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults in Arizona and the United States.

Whereas falls continue to be the leading cause of injury related hospitalizations, emergency department visits, deaths among those Arizonans 65s and older and older with over 26,000 fall injuries, 84% of total injuries for this age group with 524 deaths as reported by the Arizona Department of Health Services in 2023. Whereas fall related incidents account for 16 to 20% of all EMS medical calls for service in the Cave Creek, Arizona in fiscal year 24-25.

Whereas falls can lead to loss of mobility, loss of functional independence, depression and dependency, injuries from falls are largely a preventable community health problem and are not an inevitable result of aging. Whereas evidence-based programs reduce fall risk by utilizing cost-effective strategies such as exercise programs to improve balance and strength, everyday strategies to improve mobility and stability, uh reduction of h household hazards. Household hazards. How do you know that?

I just it it's a bunch of letters on mine. I'm, Robert Morris, mayor of Cave Creek, Arizona, to hereby proclaim September 22 to 26, 2025 as falls prevention awareness week in Cave Creek, Arizona, and urge our citizens, family members, caregivers, and community- based organizations to promote falls and prevention awareness and action. So, 22nd to the 26, falls prevention week. Um, action items. We now have a consent agenda. I think you wanted to pull something off, Tom. Yes.

the first item on the uh consent agenda regarding the authorization appointment of the audit committee. I think that should be pulled off so that the public knows what's happening. Okay, we will pull that off and the remaining numbers that would be numbers two through five. Do you have a motion to accept those? Some moved. Second. All those in favor? I. All those opposed. Motion carries. 70. Um okay. So I get some from staff to explain this to us. Thank you, mayor.

So um what um we have here so the the audit committee this was kind of one of the things that I had brought up and um and there was agreement with council that it really um does not not not really needed um because I brought it up because I wasn't seeing any distinction between the audit committee and the council and the role that the audit committee was um handling it was things that is really duplicative of what the council can can do and is required to do.

So, some of the audit presentations are statutoily required to be presented to council, not an audit committee. Um the the entire body of the town council was making up the audit committee. So, it really was no distinction between an audit committee body and the um town council body. So, a lot of things were being redundantly done in past years. they would do a presentation to the audit committee and then later do it to the town council.

More recent years, it's been changed of like, okay, let's do it as a joint meeting. But I didn't really see that there was value being added in calling it an audit committee. So, that was part of why I brought it up as as something to look at as why are we doing this? Thank you, Sher. You're welcome. Anyone else have questions? So just to clarify then the council will continue to act in its role as an audit committee anytime that would be necessary.

Um, it would act in its role as a town council doing things the town council has every right, including audit to do, including audit. Thank you.

without an audit committee being one of the prime movers between all this audit stuff we're hearing the last few days um I'm comparing the audit uh in years past not not currently but in the years I've been watching the town since 2013 and uh there is a decided difference between the approach on audits um in private business and in government and the government it's a far more confrontational um very carefully keeping because it is an autumn an audit of the management of the town financial management of the town and I'm very eager and was and continue to be in making sure that we have a a clear difference between the auditors and the town staff.

So it is a uh an audit of that performance and a financial audit. Uh you hear all the time about things happening that auditors find all across the country in all kinds in businesses and private, public, you name it. And so we want to make sure that the citizens of the town have confidence that we are doing a a a good job and an honest job with the funds that we're entrusted with on that. Um thank you. Yeah. So um you want to make the motion? Are you satisfied? Um, yes.

I uh move to approve this item on the consent on the agenda. There a second. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you, Sher. Thank you. Next on the agenda, general general agenda is council discussion, possible approval of a professional service contract with Zimmerman architect for the purposes of developing plans and construction drawings for the renovation and expansion of Cave Creek Town Hall. Lisa, that's very nice of you. Thank you, mayor, members of council.

Uh trust you all had a pleasant summer. Um, where is it on here? See if we can [Music] the PowerPoint. Hold, please. usually good on my toes, but I only have five of them working right now. So, this is where Ian Cornwell always had something, right? We miss Ian. No pressure. Nice to see so many people here this evening. Why don't you give us a verbal background? I I apologize. Um so just a little bit of background on this item. Uh back in 2023 at the uh town council and senior staff uh retreat.

Um, as part of that strategic plan preparation, the council identified uh under infrastructure um a town hall project and they directed staff to evaluate options for redesign and redevelopment of town hall. Um through the end of 2023 and into 2024, uh the town staff engaged with Greg Zimmerman. Zimmerman architect who's a has a long history with working with the town, has done a few interior remodels of town hall over the years uh and the courtroom here.

Um so he's very familiar with with the property, the layout. Um he did we asked him to conduct a space plan to look at our existing capacity, our staffing needs, uh any discrepancies or shortcomings that we have. Um, one example that um, we've identified is meeting meeting rooms, uh, smaller conference rooms, on-site storage. We have a lot of things kept off-site in storage currently. Um, so all of those things were done.

We also asked that he as part of that uh, looking at the existing footprint also evaluate options for uh, an expansion of town hall. Um the three the three different opportunities that we asked him to evaluate were expanding the building out towards the town council chambers, uh adding a second story to the existing town hall or going out south of town hall uh with a new building addition.

Um, last year, council or earlier this year, I should say, council approved the purchase of the uh, Woo Cash parcel, which is the vacant lot directly south of town hall. It's 7 acres. Um, we made a the the town approved the down payment of that and then also in its fiscal budget approved the remaining balance to be paid in J July 1st.

So, we are now the proud owners of 7 acres south of town hall, which makes this project even more um uh readily available to us to expand south because now we own that property. We'd been leasing it for upwards of almost 20 years um at $1,200 a month.

So, um, buying that parcel and having it as part of this town hall complex gives us a lot of options, uh, not just in expansion of the town hall facility to accommodate staff, uh, and the public, but also, um, more flexibility in parking and and other things. Um, some technical difficulties, physical issues.

So once again, uh, council has approved the the CIP which included the WO cash parcel and also uh to provide funding for the completion of construction drawings and finalizing plans for remodel and expansion in this year's budget. Uh, the council put uh 500,000 in that um line item for the budget. the price for this uh phase of the project which is full construction designs and plans uh utilizing a design bid build model for execution. Um is the proposed budget amount is find it here.

It's all in the slideshow trust me. um $138,259 uh will um execute plans, drawings, and it also leverages uh the architect and his staff to help with the scope and solicitation of contractors and also gets them a seat at the table to make sure that everything we're getting uh when we go to bid is is realistic. So it'll include um the uh engineer cost estimates for all the for everything. So that takes us really into well there you go. There it is everybody. I tried to summarize as best I could.

Um see where we're at. So, like I said, the um we we've got a working draft of a space layout which is pictured on the right there. Uh it shows um the town hall is the long ways left to right. That's the existing footprint and the new addition would extend south um and uh perpendicular to that. And really what we were looking at in the space layout were staff adjacencies, uh public service efficiencies.

You'll see in the top right of the existing town hall footprint is a one-stop shop customer service counter uh with public restrooms. Um a meeting office off of that.

Um and then as you move left uh is where you get into the staffing and the adjacencies that we're discussing which is development services, the engineering, utilities and then the new uh addition to that building would be really the concentration of administrative services such as finance, uh town clerk, uh HR, those those types of departments will will occupy those.

Then also a uh a town council um office for you know town council members to be able to meet with constituents after hours and things like that. So, a, you know, a really good design that incorporates um, like I said, public service efficiencies and then considers current deficiencies such as, uh, increased on-site storage, dedicated meeting room space, as well as adaptable office space, uh, where staffing changes can be easily absorbed.

So, we've the last five years, I can say we've had a lot of, um, staffing changes in different roles and and new positions and things. And what this design does is allow us to readily accommodate uh any changes in staffing um due to market conditions or otherwise. Um then like I said, town staff has has been included to review and make suggestions to further refine the design. The this design that you see on on the board was actually brought to council at its retreat earlier this year.

Um and at that point we decided to to move ahead to this stage to have um this architect work with continue to work with us and prepare those uh construction design drawings that we can in the future go out to bid. Um go to the next slide here. So th this includes construction design a bid package to actually go out to to bid for this? Yeah, this will be complete plan drawings um that we can go out to bid and and get uh pricing from. It's uh it's a very good deal. It's a very good deal, right?

Considering that what we budgeted, what we thought it might come in at and what this what this entails. So, the scope of services in is included in your packet so that you can verify that everything that the architect is is in line to do and provide for the town.

Um, and then the the last thing which would be something that we would bring back to council at a later date should we decide to get that far would be an add-on which is I believe he identifies as phase five which would be during the construction phase he would be on call to monitor the progress of construction and answer questions and give direction to to the contractor kind of act as an intermediary between the town us the the client and the uh the contractor that ultimately is selected by council to perform the work.

All right. So, we uh staff is recommending approval of the uh virtual services contract. Sorry. Um so staff is recommending approval of the uh contract with Zimmerman architect GM Zimmerman architect. Um our next steps would be if we move forward with this is to bring back um at our next council retreat um the renderings and pro provide those to council for review and feedback. Um, we would also at that time have a cost estimate.

Um, and then depending on council's feedback at that point, our goal would be if we were to move forward, um, include it in the budget, the next fiscal year budget, um, and as if that passes and is approved, um, then bring begin construction, um, as close to July 1 as possible. So we would actually after the retreat um if everything is still um in process to move forward we would then put bids out or the RFP out for bids.

Do we have a cost estimate on what the total cost would be for we do not everything yet that we would be bringing that back to the retreat. So once we get closer and these renderings are done um and the uh we'll also have architectural examples that we'll bring forward but um we're going to have an estimate a closer estimate at that point. Question for council tone. Thanks. Um can I ask a couple of ancillary questions? So in the sheriff's annex, do we know when that space may be vacated?

Uh we do not have a a time estimate on that and I don't think it'll be If I may, Council Member Auggerton, uh this is Grady. Um just want to let you know that they do not have a project per se that's budgeted. Um and so I would tell you probably we're estimating at least five years out at the earliest because they don't even have a a project um right now identified. Okay. And Mr. Mayor uh Grady, can I ask what's the square footage that would be available in this building after they vacate?

Just roughly was it do you remember was it 3500 square feet or 4,000? I'm just not recalling Luke or Teresa. What percentage the council floor plan takes of the entire building? Are we a half of the building with the council chambers? No, this this room is is less than a third of the footprint. Um Okay, that's gives me So, council member, we are looking at possibility of reuse of that that would benefit the community.

Um but at this point, um it looks like they're locked into it, which in a way is it's kind of to our advantage for us to have MCSO reporting from that location, right? No, it just seems like especially the timing after this other project is considered that you've got literally growth opportunities in the future and you might be able to do something with public meeting space and so forth. Absolutely.

Um, in the floor plan we're looking there, I have to ask this question because I've never been able to get an answer. How many employees is that floor plan for in the town of Cape Creek? How many FTEEs are you preparing that space for? Luke um or Teresa, do you have the number? We have a lot of flexible space that's been purposely designed as you saw in the one. Can you go back so they can see the floor plans? So, um one of the issues that we have is we don't have a very efficient way.

were compartmentalized and so we have a lot of people that come in and try to come in to the one end of the building and then they go to the other end of the building to handle like water utilities and things like that. We're looking at having a um one-stop shop customer service counter where building safety and plan review and uh utilities are going to be there.

I know when we reported back to the council um at the retreat, we had a number and I'm I'm just really sorry I don't have that number off the top of my head, but I do know um council member um we we had a I don't recall who it was, but there was a um council member that asked, you know, did we have growth built into this so we would not be facing this issue? And my response was yes.

And I believe we have based on the the the small number of staff that we have that we have about at least 20 years or more because we do have some areas that some of the space can be flexibly changed out. But we're trying to keep what we have proposed um intact and we believe we have many many years of being able to keep it um as you see right before you tonight.

Yeah, just just to piggyback off off that, just counting the uh fixed door offices and then the uh cubicle spaces and what we were really trying to do with the cubicle spaces was create uh more opportunities for for transient workers, you know, field, you know, people that work in the field and and come back. Um but I'm counting approximately 40 uh altogether.

Um, but once again, the the workspaces in the middle of kind of the two bigger areas that are shown as cubicle spaces can be flexed and adapted into anything with with, you know, some fixed walls. So, and then if I can, just one last follow-up question.

uh the employees that are now over at the food bank and so forth, they would would they stay where they're at or do you hope to consolidate everybody in the future or No, they they would stay uh where they're at because they are um more involved with the with the wastewater treatment and then the field work that goes off there, their yards off of there for all the the field crew.

But there are a few employees that are more in a transient capacity that would split time between that office and town hall. And how many FTEEs do we have out there at that location? That I do not six. Somewhere thereabouts. Um, the utilities has the majority of our employees. I just don't have the number at my fingertips. Very good. 15. 15. Okay. Thanks. Uh, are there any design elements that would enhance security for the building? Less doors, less windows than what's there now? Absolutely.

enhanced security. Yeah. So, right now, if you're um so this we're in a a very old retrofitted uh strip mall essentially. I think it was four separate businesses at one point. So, there's a front door, back door, front door, back door all the way down the the front and back of the building. So, what this design would do is is make a lot of those doors obsolete and be bricked in and and whatnot.

The other thing, you know, if you look at the front of this the town hall now, as it it is currently, it's basically a wall of windows and doors. Uh so all of that would be going away in this design. So from a security standpoint, it will be a lot more secure as points multiple unnecessary points of ingress and egress are being eliminated. Thank you. And we will be bringing architectural design options to council. So No, I'll I'll after the motion is made, I'll have to come.

No, it looks like you have six entry entry points into the building. I mean, just counting. Yeah, that's a lot less than me currently. Yeah, right now you have what, 20? Less than Yeah, far less than half. I ask one comment. Um, you know, I worked in in a government building for 20 years and it underwent a major renovation. um which made it much more pleasant for employees. And I think that's an important comment here because this workspace is awful. It's old. The HBAC is terrible.

Um they crammed people, new people into closets without any windows. It's really unacceptable for today's workforce. And I think it's mandatory that we do something to improve the environment for our employees if we value them and if we want to continue to recruit professional and technical employees here because it's it's really it needs work. It needs improvement uh just for the health and safety of our employees. Okay. So we'll have a period for comments after we make the motion.

If there any other any further questions on what we seeing here today, then we'll uh look for a motion then further. This is a motion to approve professional services contract with Zimmerman Architect for the purposes of developing plans and construction drawings for the renovation and expansion of Cave Creek Town Hall. Second. I I second. I had the second Oops. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. You had your comments are first as I'm sorry. Oh, I'm Yeah, I we Thank you. public comment. I David Phelps.

How did I miss that? Thank you. Hello, council members. David Phelps here resident. Uh appreciate the comments from uh the council. I did see this back at the council retreat and was I think it's been a oddity that this plan is being shown here tonight for the first time but the trains leaving the station. So now any input you get from your constituents the people are at the top of your org chart are going to be not so much.

I really think that we should focus on using the space that the sheriffs are going to be leaving. I know we don't know any more today than we did a couple of months ago when we talked about it in a council meeting uh having to do with the budget, but they are building a new um regional facility was my understanding of it.

Um, and I really think for the cost of building new, uh, that at one point in time there was approximately a $6 million price tag on re the rework and the addition and the parking lot and the electric gates, the security gates for the town staff. And I think it's just getting a little bit too much. Uh, I think the people that you employed to do the space study came up with the answer that town staff needed to provide to you to say that we need more space.

Uh, I think that what we really have is a utilization study that's needed. Town hall is empty at least three days a week. That's the difference between the town hall and the fire station. The fire station that we just spent about $5 million on is used 247 365. There you can quantify and and realistically say this is a good value.

What we're proposing to do for our staff with the annexation building is a little expensive in my book and I would say that you would be better off doing the remodel of the existing building and and taking some of the uses that you have proposed for the new remoth remodel, excuse me, and storing them outside if need be and air conditioning and heating them.

I know that we're going through a revitalization with our files where we're internally uh we're creating um the documents in um unzips instead of uh zip files instead of paper files. Well, if we're doing all this electronic recording, we're not going to need the file space room that's on that plan. Um but the main thing is we've got a building that's already built. The roof's there. The walls are there. Not so many windows, not so many entrances.

Right across the hall here, I will bet you there's bathrooms in there. I'm out of time, but I would ask you all before you vote on this. How long would you like to know that's going to be built for about $67 million before before you feel right about the council voting on it? I think you're it's rushed. Thank you. Okay, thank you. There were no additional speaker cards. That's it. Okay. Um, so that's I made the motion. I've had the honor of working with this staff for many years.

I think the comments that were made by the vice mayor were very apt. I think we're going to look back and when we see the functionality of this new facility, we will look back and say, "How did we ever work with the kind of thing we've got?" I think this is a great opportunity for much more efficient interfacing with the public and the uh professional services of the staff. We have a great staff and we need to give them a concmpath facility. Thank you.

Uh Katherine uh had most of the comments I had since you haven't been through that facility over there. It is a mess. People are in offices that are uh the lowest form of like a warehouse and uh it uh to windows and odd spots, no security whatsoever. Um and we we just heard a special audit due to turnover and uh in both the the the uh workspace and the uh salaries we pay have got to be competitive to keep the people we want and to attract people when we do have an opening.

Uh, so I think in order to have a town government that um that functions correctly that that this that you have to have a space that is a workspace that fits. And I don't know of no other workspace that I've been I've been in many many government offices recently and ours is by far by far the worst. Um we're not doing what Mesa did was build a spaceship. If anybody's been to that building, it's it's pretty pretty amazing. Um, so and we don't have to proceed. $138,000.

I'm just absolutely blown away by how inexpensive that is to come up with a bid package for this. And this this isn't saying we're going to do it. This is to um kind of this is a down payment to see what it is. I I'd also like there are also savings there. I'm uh I think the town staff it frankly ought to use more interns, summer students, things like that for special projects.

And I think this space um can save some money by using a less expensive uh people who can still do some work that we need to have done. So I'm I'm going to be in favor of this. Other comments? I think what we talked about um at the offsite if I'm remembering from two years ago and then from this year um the current building we have is insufficient. The question was, can we wait for the sheriff to vacate? And I think what we all kind of came to consensus on was we probably couldn't wait.

And should the the sheriff's department finally vacate, um, it would give us the opportunity to renovate the sheriff's spaces, um, if I recall the conversation correctly, as some type of community center, uh, and things where people could come in and hold meetings. Right now to do that you have to go over to the library. You have to do a whole bunch of other things.

This would allow the opportunity for for residents to uh to come over to a community center where we could hold some of the larger meetings. I know some of the some of the times when we meet in here um we have an overflow crowd. Well, that could give us an opportunity to uh to have the bigger audiences and things. So, I I think that's the gist of the conversation as as background, David.

Um, my personal feeling is that building is a rat trap and it just needs to be fixed and whether we expand it or whether we just fix it, um, I don't really have a preference. I think, uh, the 138k is is probably money well spent. Other comments? Comments? Yes, Cynthia. Uh, I would support the motion. I feel like it's an opportunity to create a good workspace. I know in my own office building, I felt guilty about not having people in there 24 hours a day, but I have no fix for that.

So, I think same thing with the town staff. If we have a good active staff and they have good productive workspace, uh, we've done our job in providing for that. Um, I think it's an investment. the property will hold its investment and it does give the town options in the future uh to be able to subleas space just like we've done with the sheriff with other groups other complimentary groups or provide for other community support. Uh so I I think it's an opportunity.

Uh there was the opportunity for public comment during our budget process when we allocated funds not just for the plan and design but also uh as a holding space for possible construction. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. We had our comments. So all those in favor of this signify by saying I. It's financial. We don't do financial anymore. We're on That's right. That that's correct, right? Yeah, we can do voice vote. We vote.

Voice voice vote unless there's a negative, then we have to do a roll call. Okay. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carry 70. Okay. We're on to the next uh Yes. Okay. We're next item, which is council discussion. possible appointment of seven to nine residents to serve on an ad hoc task force for the purpose of studying, evaluating, and issuing its findings, recommendations relating to the possible acquisition of 4,000 acres of state Arizona State Trust Land.

And I'm I'm going to give a little uh is anybody going to Who's a staff member? Hi, Mayor. I am if you don't mind. Okay. Were you gonna give an entree into the history here? Um yes, I was going to give some background if you don't mind. and I'll go ahead and start with that. So, um, Mayor Council, as you're aware, the um the town strategic plan has, um, an item on there as a priority to evaluate possible acquisition of, uh, lands that are held in state trust.

It's approximately 4,000 um acres in in town. Um council has um definitely indicated um that they have a desire for some preservation. Um and so staff um uh just before the summer break proposed that we go and seek um citizen input to go through a process that staff would um uh provide some background information and basically have a group between seven and nine individuals that would be appointed by the council.

Um during the summer we received approximately 19 applications a number of them I believe it was 12 that were submitted electronically and then seven were um submitted in hard copy. Um so you have a packet in front of you that has all the application information.

We we kept it purposely simple and the idea is we'll likely have somewhere between six and eight meetings starting once this um the the task force is appointed and we have some structure to the meetings and the topics and we'll be trying to get this completed by February and then a report presented back to council in March with the findings and recommendations from the members of the ad hoc task force.

Um you recall that when we talked about this um last time um in order for this to be given due consideration for by voters um by um getting this placed on a ballot in November, it has to be done on an even year. And so we would have to have this all completed and ready to take to council um after the reports presented to council in March in May. And it would be basically um language that would appear um as a as a ballot item.

Um, so with that, um, council has the, um, opportunity tonight to go through and I know a number have gone through and prioritized, um, the listing and for there to be some nomination of individuals to serve on this ad hoc committee. Um, and one of the decision points is to decide whether it be seven or nine. I would my preference initially was seven. Um we had a couple council members that thought maybe nine or 11. I think 11's way too many. Um but the staff and I can go with nine.

Um but seven in my opinion would work ideally just like we have a council that is a seven member um body. So that I'd be happy to answer any questions the mayor and council may have regarding the process or the appointments. Um thank you Mr.

I just great I just want to agitate you again with I think the larger we go with an advisory panel there are some intrinsic benefits the trouble with seven is that four determine the outcome which is the way we're set up statutoily but I think on advisory committees you have so many qualified by definition applicants for this group that I don't know what the harm would be in 11 or 13 or 15 other than you have to have people attend the meeting and you have to factor in for absences which could happen with seven as much as it could 11 or 13.

We're um council member Auggerton um you bring up some some valid points. Um I'm just really concerned about when you start we're going to be running this and as an open meeting process. So all the meeting um notices, agendas and meeting minutes will all be posted and um so and then when you start adding and you have a larger group because there's a lot of business to get done here.

I'm really concerned about um having quorum issues and not meeting quorum in which case we would not be able to have the group meet. So that's why I think if you can have a quorum for seven would be four people. If it's nine it would be five. But I think when you start getting into larger numbers, it could be really difficult to hold meetings. Let me just uh requirements not going to be televised.

Then the general public doesn't have an opportunity to see them while they're happening or look at recordings afterwards. And uh and and I guess I also want to kind of ask the question, what is the goal or the objective of the committee?

If the starting point, and I'm actually just asking that rhetorically, if the starting point is that we have an opportunity here to preserve 4,05 acres, not unlike the 2235 acres that spur cross, it seems as if quote everybody would be in favor of land preservation. But of course the devils of the details which is how is it being paid for? But the foundation on this was laid back with Mayor Francia and a group of volunteers who worked at that time.

And I almost feel luckily that it was yanked back from oblivion because we're running out of timing even though on the upcoming September agenda we're going to have the continuation of the agreement with state land department.

But without getting into specifics, the changing political nature of Arizona government and an upcoming election next fall for governor and the national way things are pressuring issues in different direction, it does to put it irreverently, it does seem like it's last call for alcohol. So if we're all one big happy group that we support land preservation and these 4,05 acres specifically, and then the challenge is how do we pay for it? Who pays for it? and how is that structured?

I don't know why a party of seven can do a better job than since you have so many people who have indicated an interest. I don't know the downside of having an advisory group that is large enough to reflect geographically and those who have been here a long time, those who have been here a short time and so forth.

I understand from a mechanical standpoint that staff has another obligation to do this, but I think uh if you want a a true honest cross-pollonization of people from around the town, each of whom brings a unique perspective and you've had this much interest, which is more than the town ordinarily gets, I would recommend not limiting it to seven people. I think you've got a resource opportunity here and you ought to take advantage of it.

If everybody is in support of the outcome, then what's the prime value of the committee? And that is to take a look at what staff's recommendations are and the specific contingencies of finance and paying for it and so forth. 25 years ago, the only way the town was able to get Spurc Cross Ranch was to do an immediate six-week long incorporation to get 51% of the assessed valuation into the town with the cooperation of Phoenix and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

So, we would not lose preservation to some very large national interests who had money that were opposed to coming into the town that prohibited golf courses and so forth. they wanted to develop in the county. Now, this time the preservation land once again is in the town of Cave Creek. It has existing restrictions and it has an ongoing lifestyle that it wears on its chest.

Uh I just think that and there'll be opposition like there always is on many things for reasons that appear to be valid to the people opposing. I I just would urge the council to keep an open mind with how many volunteers you ask to come in and and give their opinion. If you have seven and you don't have a quorum and we lose a meeting, I don't see that as a plus. If you have 9, 11, 13, 15, you've actually picked up the majority of the people who have applied to be considered for this post.

If two or three don't show, the meeting goes on. We're not asking for a contract review. We're really looking for to create a booster team. Kind of like high school spirit here. We're looking for people to boost it. And as a litmus test for how much are people willing to pay with a temporary assessed valuation on their personal property because and I won't I'll stop here.

I don't want to belabor this, but Spur Frost Ranch was a very different time and the people who voted for it then probably were more inclined to use it than on this particular issue. And we have a gentrified and little bit rarified population here in the community that's being asked, are they willing to tax themselves to pay for this preservation?

And the answer probably would be affirmative if we have a credible relationship between the town's skin in the game and their personal property skin in the game. And I think that's the value of this committee is to come back with recommendations from where they sit.

So, I belvered the point, but I'm filibustering hoping that I can create some staff consideration of the larger group and council consideration that sometimes you can't have too much of a good thing and public volunteerism is something that we continue need to need to nurture, I think. So, thank you, Mayor Grady. How many people were on the ad hoc committee for Morning Star, please?

We had um maybe Luke can help me, but we had I thought seven and we had some alternates, but I might have my number off on that. Um Luke, do you recall?

Uh the council appointed seven members and two alternates and we actually had to use an alternate because one of the appointed members uh once we determined the schedule of all the meetings which was done at the first really the first order of business after electing a chair and vice chair uh one one member uh was unable to meet make the meeting time. So we were able to call up an alternative to uh serve that term. Thank you.

So if if I may, uh, Council Member um, Freriedman and also uh, Council Member Augertton. So during that process, those were very transparent. The meetings were open to the public. People did attend um, that were not necessarily part of the committee. Um, and that's what we're trying to do here. So the public will have an opportunity. We'll have an item on the agenda for public comment. Um and they'll be able to the chair will be able to call on you know the public if they want to speak so forth.

It's not a closed process. In fact, it'll be held in this um council chamber. If I may continue. Um so seven versus nine. Um committee members, I've got a few points I want to make. First of all, nine people on the committee is absolutely convoluting the final equation. I feel um it makes it more difficult to reach a conclusion or a conclusion of options. As the old saying goes, too many cooks spoil the broth.

Two as well, less people would result in greater efficiency, accountability, and speed of decision making. Last, and we also mentioned, by the way, that there would be alternates on this, so there wouldn't be like people were missing. We'd have people to fill in. Um last, um there, and this was brought up a minute ago in a roundabout way. There's a reason that most cities and towns have seven or less people elected as council members and mayor.

It keeps things tighter and creates an opportunity to convolute decisions, not convolute decisions. Okay. In Maricopa County, I'm going to point this out. There are it's comprised of 24 cities and towns with the exception of Phoenix who has nine people on their council and they're also mega big. Um, and Chandler has five. I don't know why. The other 22 cities all have seven people on their councils and it works as well. It worked pretty well with the um morning star committee.

They got that done brilliantly. I mean the people who are not going to be put on this committee can still contribute. Why not? I mean they can be involved. They can show up at these meetings. They can have discussions with those people who get selected. So that's basically what I have to say about seven and I'm pushing for seven hard. Okay. So, I'm going to be the contrarian. Um, we have 17 qualified residents. Why not let all 17 of them serve?

We've been saying we want to expand the amount of people who volunteer for things in this town. Why limit to 579? Why don't we let everybody who wants to participate in this participate? I don't see it as a big deal. Um, I've heard cats before. I'm pretty sure that uh that Grady's hurted cats before and I'm pretty sure that uh Luke has done it too. So, I don't see a problem with having all 17 people who volunteered on this committee. I just think we shouldn't be limiting.

We should be expanding the opportunity for people in this town to volunteer. And I think this is a great opportunity. I don't think there's anything that's so pressing that you couldn't have a meeting with 17 people. That means you'd have uh nine or eight that would uh no nine that would have to show up for quarum. Um if you got 17 people getting nine people into a meeting room is not a big deal. Just just my thoughts. Tom. Yeah.

Tom, firstly thank you for the work that you did in incorporating Cave Creek and the work on Spur Cross. That's truly appreciated. But I agree with Joe. There's a reason that we have important bodies such as you see here that are limited to seven people. I think it's that's a sweet spot. I think you can make good decisions. We've got a lot of really excellent candidates. I think many of them are out here today. People that I know have dedicated themselves to the community.

Some of you probably will not be chosen. That's unfortunate. But I also know that I see people out there who are are really talented, powerful people who have the community interest in mind. But the point that I want to make is I think there's a sweet spot in terms of making decisions. And I think seven is a really sweet spot. Me. Okay. I um I'm going to go with uh let anybody volunteer who wants to volunteer.

I think that uh we it's an honor to have this many people who are interested in participating in open government and that we should welcome you all and if you don't want to come because you think there's too many of you then you don't have to participate. That's your choice. But I think there's no way for me to decide seven people out of this list. I don't know all of you. I know some of you. Um, I I also think it's important to have new faces from people who have not volunteered before.

Um, so I'm going for the gusto here. I think anybody who wants to be on this committee should be. I'd like to hear if that's legitimate uh from some of the people who have volunteered, who are in the audience if you think it's too unwieldy. Um, that that matters to me to to hear your opinion. I also have one last thing to say. Um, which you know, I hate to beat a dead horse, but when I worked in government, we hired uh facilitators to organize and coordinate the meetings.

If our town manager doesn't think that he's able to manage 15 people, let's, you know, and it's no offense, Grady, it's a lot of people and a lot of opinions. Um, so there are people who are trained and qualified to lead these kinds of discussions and I think that we can easily hire somebody to do the job. I agree. Okay. Well, uh, I'm going to make a motion and that motion I I have, you know, Grady's got to lead this and so I I think we he deserves a vote on what he thinks will work.

I mean, we're not why not have everybody in town on it? Uh, so there's an upper limit somewhere. So, I want to make a motion uh which is the high end. I'll make a motion that uh that we have a committee of nine members and I'm looking for a second and we'll vote on this and if we don't then we'll we'll vote on another until we get to an answer. So, is there a second? Okay. Um I think we've heard everybody's comments. So, we ready to vote? Okay.

Um let's take a roll call on a nine member committee, please. Theresa. Council member Albertton. No. Driscoll. Yes. Council member Friedman. No. Council member Magcguire. No. Council member Rhodess. No. Vice Mayor Vice Mayor Royer. No. Mayor Morris. Yes. Okay. So, it fails. 52. Okay. All right. I'm looking for another motion. I move to to uh have 17 on the committee. those are 17 qualified residents of Cave Creek and I just think that's a smart thing to do.

So just for clarification that does 17 it does not include the two non-residents. Does not include the two non-residents. I don't think they should have a vote in how we do business. Why do you say that? They're not going to be paying the taxes on it. What about what about the residents who have lived in town maybe a year and don't really understand the town because they don't have haven't paid their dues and put their time in yet. That's one thing I think they're not residents of the town.

I get that but still it was open to anybody. Okay. Motion looking for a second. Second. Okay. So now we have discussion. So um point of clarification. Yeah. One of the applicants was Steve Lamar. Has he completed his term on the planning commission? is uh no, Steve Lamar is an acting uh member of the planning commission. He was just appointed by council last December.

So, he's just beginning a new term because I do have a concern that we take anyone who would be on council or planning commission um and have them uh also participate on the task force. Okay. I amend it to 16. Um and nobody's s currently serving in the on the commission. Quick, is there a second to that? Second. Okay. So, um we're ready for comments. We have comments on the 16 number 16 people here excluding the current sitting planning commission.

You're very generous to look at the right direction. Go ahead, Phil. Why don't you go first? Your mind will be brief. Uh Steve Lamar. Um, this isn't a a conflict of interest in my opinion. I just want to say Steve Steve Lamar has lived here over 40 years. He's a retired attorney who probably understands Cave Creek and its dynamics better than anyone else who may be involved in this. He's been here since incorporation and was a part of that. He's had a major impact on Inquiring Spur Cross.

He's a former councilman. He's currently on the planning commission. I think we should not rule out Steve Lamar. I agree. Oh, why do you think it's a conflict? Well, I think it's consistent that with what we did with the um the Morning Star task force because again there were sitting council members and planning commission members who wanted to be on that task force and they were excluded. So, it's consistent with that.

Uh and also anyone who's on council and on the planning commission has lots of input into the town's decision. This is a citizens advisory task force and so we want new faces and new voices to participate and to bring them along. Uh so again it's I I work great with Steve. He is a wealth of information. I have tremendous respect for him but he has a role currently in our government and our processes. Okay. Any other comments? I just would speak in support of the motion.

I think is something that you're going to be pleased with. The energy level, the variety of remarks, and the fact that nobody goes home a loser. Uh, anybody who wants to volunteer gets a chance to be recognized.

Well, Tom has a point because when we have as many outstanding candidates as we've got here, I the the biggest problem I have with all these things and it happen all the time is there are people who deserve and who can do the job and we we exclude them and that's a hard thing to tell somebody who's taken the time is willing to put the time in on something as important as this. So, I I echo probably the comments here. All right, we have a motion and we have a second and we've had comments.

So, uh, you want to get a Let's take a roll call, please. The motion is 16 people. 16 people excluding the current city planning commission. Excluding the current planning commission. Council member Overton, I. Council member Driscoll, yes. Council member Friedman, no. Council member Magcguire, no. Council member Rhodess, I. Vice Mayor Rory, yes. Mayor Morris. Uh, I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna support staff, but so my motion does carry 4 to three, so it's 16 people. Yeah.

Morgan, so everybody um, thanks. Uh, thanks, Mayor and Council. Um, Luke and I will follow up with the, um, the appointees and communicate with them um, and coordinate with them on meeting schedules. Um, thank you for having the discussion and and um giving due consideration to what we were requesting. We're fine and we'll we'll make this work. I I think we need to help them with a facilitator for this. So, we might want to check in with that. How do you break a tie of eight? Negoti.

It's an advisory committee with no power to actually implement is advisory committee. It has to come back to the council. action other than they can just say it's an 88 tie this one or this one. So Okay. So, um Mayor Morris, will a chairperson be appointed by this by this committee? Well, we're going to let the town manager make a decision somewhere. He's got to run this thing. So, I'm sure he'd love all the micromanagement he can get. Want anybody to speak?

I do think that if he needs to hire a facilitator, we ought to support him. That's right. He's got money. He can do that. Yeah. Okay. So, the 17 people who are on it, I guess they're going to follow up with you and let you know when, where, and how. And good luck. And it's important work. Uh this is really started in 2008. It sat for uh 15 years until this council got the ball moving. So, there's been a ton of work negotiations appraisals and things beforehand.

Uh, and there's been work on the finance area of what it takes to do it, but it's going to take a vote, and you've got some really important work to do because it's a great opportunity for the town. So, thank you for your service in advance, and we look forward to a uh good product. Thank you. Thank you for Okay.

Uh we're on the presentation of the fire EMS quarterly report surprises I couldn't I was I was at this actually I probably should have vote Yeah, we're gonna take a five minute break, fellas. Yeah. Are we I I was just telling Brian during the meeting that my best friend since I think fourth grade, his son was picked up a major injury rollover on Carefree Highway. and they rave, absolutely rave about Daisy Mountain. In fact, one of the uh EMTs that treated him actually came to the hospital.

He was in intensive care for 10 days, something like that. So, uh Mr. Tobin, you're doing good out there. Thank you. My It's my group. They make me proud every day. Pretty easy, pretty easy to be the fire chief in these mountain fire matters. I'll tell you that. Well, mayor and council, uh, Chief Tobin and I are pleased to be here to give you, um, you said quarterly report, which it is, but it's also the annual report. It's the fiscal year report, end of year.

So, um, we track stuff both fiscally and calendar year because of the way we started up. It was kind of a little bit weird, but so this is also a fourth quarter report. We'll kind of touch on both as we go through this pretty quickly. And if there's anything that you any questions you have, just please let us know. Um the first slide again is just the numbers for the last quarter um April, May and June.

It shows you um what percentage are medical, what percentage are fire, what percentage are special ops and then it tells you the year to date what percentages you have. And so those are just the basic details and numbers and um you can see how many times our unit responded and some some months are busier than others. The 80 80 calls in April versus 70 calls in June. Um, and then the important part that we kind of gloss over a lot is the training.

And, um, I'm just thrilled with Chief Tobin and his crew and what they're doing for training. They got their hands full right now training, uh, 15 more people for the new fire station that's going up, which we can talk about, and he can talk about that a little bit, but they've got an academy just getting ready to go through.

But if you just look at the total number of hours and the different items that they train on, um it just shows that the folks here are doing a tremendous job and they're they're well that's what you want. You want people to show up quickly and you want people to show up that are trained and that's what you're getting. That's what the that's what we try to show you with the reports here. Um this is a comparison of the quarter, the fourth quarter versus the year.

And so we had a few more service calls in the fourth quarter than we average for a year, but you can see it's still almost 75% 72% of our calls are medical calls. We focused on that a little bit last time. Um we are a little bit of an older community and we have a lot of visitors and it's not that much different from almost any other department, tell you the truth.

Phoenix or Scottsdale or Mesa, they're the bulk of their calls are emergency medical calls also now since the fire departments got into that business here um over the last what decade or so or more than that maybe. Huh. 75, right? Yeah. Um this is the comparison I was talking about between the calendar year and the fiscal year. Um but what you can see now is we've we've become very consistent. Uh 753 778 779 776 calls per year.

So we're running right in within 10 calls or so a year um consistently. It changes a little bit each year whether it's more medical or more fires or more special duties and service calls, more special operations calls, but the total number of calls have been very very consistent. And um again, we're just pleased with how they're happening. If again, if you have any questions on these as we go through it, just let me know. Um this is the fourth quarter noteworthy activities.

We try to do this every quarter and let you know. Um the Ojoy grant program is going very well working with the um caring corps in the in the school district. Um we had those uh preparedness meetings for the wildlands early on in April. We had the the meetings for the community here. We had in in also um the firewise submitts and approvals. I'll talk about that just a little bit. We have both Galloway Ridge and Desert Enclave were approved for Firewise communities.

That gives us four that have been approved in the town and we have one more that's currently um being been submitted um to this the national and state folks to review. So the communities themselves are taking it upon themselves to do this. Um the budgets were a big deal this year because as you know we um coming into the fiscal 25 26 years.

Um we um are now assisting with Daisy Mountain and have our agreement that we'll pay for the station in Cape Creek and half, excuse me, half of the operating costs and the startup costs for the station um that's going in at 24th and Cloud. And just to be clear on that, um the Daisy Mountain Fire District is paying for the capital for that. They are building the station. They're paying for the capital. We're paying for the startup, some of the startup and and themies and things like that.

And the folks um the agreement is in 10 years when they need a new fire engine, the town will be um buying the second fire engine when it comes has to be replaced in about 10 years. Same with the brush truck and the tender, I think. Mhm. Um, so the agreement is that they spotted it all up front and we'll the town will do their part in a little bit, but it gives you time to budget for it and and as Grady was talked about, do maybe do a vehicle um acquisition fund or something like that.

So the budgets were a big deal, but they went through. Hopefully we answered all your questions during the budget time. And so then these are the kind of the larger calls for the the fourth quarter. Um, we didn't have that many fires. We had a couple fires, couple barbecue fires, brush fires. Um, I think the mayor, you had commented on, it didn't seem like we've had as many large wildland fires or as many.

And I'll just tell you, if you look at the numbers, we've had as many calls as we usually get. We just don't have the impact or the that we've had in the past. And there's a lot of reasons for that. One is the training of the guys and gals that uh that Chief Tobin provides us. Second is we've changed, we've talked about this in the past, we've changed our response guidelines in the summer. So you're getting a lot more resources much quicker.

So a 1 acre fire stays at a one and a half acre fire versus a 1acre fire now becomes a 15 or 20 acre fire that you've seen in the past. And so that's where it's question for you real quick. I see that you've got a trail rescue here on 53 at Spur Cross. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? One on 53 on Spurcross. Um they say trail rescue EMS and and I'll talk about that in just a second on on another slide.

Um I'll give you a number that we have for the year and what we're finding is if it's actually a trail rescue like we had on Saturday like their letter that I I left on the dis today um then that takes a lot more resources and assistance from the region to come and assist with that. But a lot of times we're getting calls for a heat um incident and it's somebody that just came off the trail at the Spurcross trail head or at the Tom's um it's not Tom's thumb, it's the other. Yeah.

But they just come off and so then that turn that just turns out on the EMS. So these are trail rescues or EMSs from people that have gone out. So we can talk about those. And then the automatic aid responses. Um if you recall um we have gone to Scottsdale quite a bit this year for some of those bigger fires for the year um that they had over there. But the the flip side of that is they come to us when we have the major incidents here and assist us.

This is for the again the fiscal year the 2425 accomplishments. Um the town completed the process of getting the resources and activities that the the station is completed. It was opened in December. The engine and the new tanker were bought. Um, all of that has paid was paid for with the last budget. So, you have no capital for fire going forward until we start replacing vehicles. So, that is all done. It's all been paid for already and it's all completed. Uh, the construction was done.

Chief, if you want to talk about your construction of the new station on 144, no, number 144 on Cloud and 24th. Yeah, thanks Jim. Um um mayor, council members, u I'm pleased to report that the fire station 1442 2402 East Cloud is only 2 months ahead of schedule and only uh under budget. So from a fire chief's perspective, uh that's I'll take all the credit for that even though I don't deserve it all, but I'll take it when I can get it.

Uh so it it is moving along at quite a click to say the least. They just tiled it this week. So, the roof has been tiled. The apparatus front, it's just coming along so fast.

It's hard to really explain all of that except that the the superintendent on site is saying that whenever uh he needs a sub, the sub shows up the next day, which some of us may seem like you would think that that's the way it's supposed to work, but it doesn't always happen that way in construction, but it has with the Wilming Company that is our contractor there. When they're ready for the next sub to come in, they show up uh the next day and they start working.

It's like a bunch of uh little bees operating around that place. Today they moved a power pole that was necessary for uh access into the parking lot. So every week they make a tremendous tremendous amount of progress. So uh to that point we hired uh 15 new firefighters. Started three weeks ago. That's how long it takes for us to onboard and get firefighters ready. Takes 15 firefighters for one fire truck. 12 people 24 hours. Four people 24 hours a day. It takes about 15 people for that.

So they started 3 weeks ago. They will go to the Phoenix Fire Academy a week from Friday and start the regional academy experience there. That takes about 14 weeks. They graduate on uh April uh January 9th. Um on January 10th at 10:00 in the morning, you'll all get more information about this. We will have a a grand opening of that fire station on on 24th Street in Cloud. You will all be invited.

ribbon cutting, speeches, acknowledgements, a community event with kids, families, residents, anybody that wants to come. Tours of the fire station will all be done on the 10th of January at about 10:00 in the morning. And on the 13th of January, the full-time crew will report to duty at that station. So that's Tuesday, January 13th. So remember, the folks graduate on Friday, they have their days off, they go back, they go to a shift schedule.

The first day of that shift schedule is Tuesday, uh, January 13th, and we'll start running emergency calls out of that station, January 13, 2026. So, it's exciting for all of us uh to be moving into this next phase of of our department and serving both West Cave Creek and uh East Desert Hills out of Station 144 amongst other areas. So, we're pleased like we said that both stations now have been built faster and at or under budget.

So, that hasn't happened in the valley in quite a while, but it happened with Daisy Mountain and it happened here in Cave Creek. So, we're both very proud of what's going on with that. Um, this this is a list of what some of the major accomplishments and I just I want to highlight just a couple of you. We talked about EMS services. Um, these guys were just noticed, Daisy Mountain was just noticed again that they are on the gold honor role for the American Heart Association.

And they're the only fire department in America in America. The only fire department in Arizona, excuse me, that received the gold level certifications for both cardiac and their their documentation. So, um, we're very proud of that. I'll show you the certificate for that here coming up. But, um, that doesn't happen by happen stance. Um, nobody else in Arizona gets that, has gotten that.

It just shows that even on EMS calls, as the mayor was talking about a little bit earlier, um, the Daisy Mountain folks that are serving our community are doing an excellent job and very proud of that. Um, uh, increased emergency response and coordination. We worked very closely with Department of Forestry and Fire Management this year. Um, and then we even had tabletop events. We had two tabletop planning for fires in the area.

what what's going to happen, who's going to do what, and we did all that pre-season, and we had the regional meeting with them, and then the community outreach safety events. And then we've talked about these as we gone along, and uh town sponsor brush cleanup days. We did two this year. Um, but we've done 10 events total, and we've collected over 216 tons of brush and materials that from our residents in town that we've taken and taken to the the dump. So we do two of those each year.

We do them in the spring. We try to coordinate that with the rodeos and the other stuff that's happening in the spring. So we have to those days move around a little bit. Usually it's February and March or April. But our people are responding. And the mayor, you ask me about why we're our wildland fires seem to be less. And this is one of the reasons because the people are listening to us and they're paying attention and they're helping us by doing the stuff that they can do with that.

and then we'll do free home inspections for them if they want.

Um, and then again I want to touch on the agreements we have with Cape Creek Community Unified School District and with Coring Corps and we did a large community event um about a month ago now maybe at at the church and we're going to do more of them and asking for volunteers like you were today asking for volunteers to help us with the outreach programs and and Mayor you showed up at that and and got to speak a little bit you and Mayor Crane and um again I was uh very pleased and very amazed at how many people came to that just with an open invitation.

Do you want to help talk about you know what we can do to help our uh elderly elderly residents into town? So that that worked out very well. Uh these are just the certificates from our new Fire Wise communities both for uh Desert Enclave and and for uh Galloway Ridge. We just got them. the the communities have the certificates and I actually got the signs for their communities today this week and so I've already called them and said we can get your signs to you.

Um other accomplishments, some bigger accomplishments that we did. I don't want to talk about all of them, but uh Chief Tobin, as I think I brought up at one of the quarterly events, was awarded the 2024 Arizona Fire Chiefs Lifetime Achievement Award for what he's done his entire career. And he's brought all of his knowledge He's brought his knowledge and skills to us and and it just has helped us tremendously as we've gone through this partnership with these guys.

Um the rodeo and the rodeos we these guys uh Daisy Mountain does the standbys all the events that we have for those we've asked that they use the Daisy Mountain crews because we know what kind of service they're going to get and the kind of professionalism. So they've done all of that with us. Um, last year I mentioned we assisted Scottsdale with two separate second alarm brush fires that they had out um by the the Scottsdale ranch in the gated community out there.

Those were the biggest ones in the valley last year and our crews assisted with that and u I don't believe we lost any houses in that event. No, no how all houses were saved again which is an amazing given what's happened here recently. And then you can read through and see some of the major incidents that we had. And then I did go through our um our incident reports. I get every report um that we the crews run on.

And so last year alone, just in the last fiscal year, we had 18 trail and heat rescues. Councilman Freriedman, going to your question earlier, how often are we doing this? We've had 18 of them. They are usually concentrated in the spring and summer.

Um, I've been driving out to Spurcross parking lot um at lunch when it's 115 to see if people were out there and about a third of the time there's still cars in the parking lot from people that are out hiking at lunchtime when it's 115 which is not a good idea. I'm trying to get in trouble. I haven't talked to Grady yet. Maybe I start leaving notes on their their windshields, but not a good idea. We'll see.

And then the other is the kind of special events that goes into that is the gas leaks and hazardous materials. And there's um 11 times that occur. We had gas leaks, gas lines broke or hazardous materials incidents. And and Chief, I think on 144 he now Daisy Mountain and you can talk about it a little bit more if you'd like. Um Daisy Mountain now has a special operations team for these types of incidents that runs for the North Valley. So yes.

So, uh, we have a what's called a, uh, technical rescue and a hazardous materials team. So, I've talked to you at previous council meetings about how we've sent our members for these different training programs that last four to six weeks on each one. But, we have uh on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, a minimum of three, our maximum of four what we call bite. In other words, they do both. They're both hazmat and technical rescue technicians.

They will be operating on our heavy rescue unit that will be stationed at the new station at 24th Street in Cloud. It will be heavy rescue 144. And it is a enormous truck, double rear axle heavy rescue like you've seen back in Chicago and New York. We use them differently here, but they're there are technical guys that do um everything you can imagine. And because of the new fire station, we're moving them south to that location. and it's going to be more of a deployable regional asset.

So, it'll cover a lot of the north part of uh Phoenix, certainly Cave Creek, uh my whole fire district, and of course, you know, we respond up the I17. So, we have a lot of work that we do on the on the interstate as well. So, that unit will be fully functional out of that station on the 13th of January. And I think that we've responded to gas leaks and gas mine breaks up in Desert Mountain, even from North Scottdale. as part of the regional response.

And so whichever closest crew is available is the crew that goes. Yeah. Because on the gas leaks, you know, if it's an act if it it's a if it's a southwest if it's a construction company that ruptures a gas line or actual it takes more than just four firefighters to manage that incident because of the risks associated with it. So part of the automatic aid system is they'll get resources from other places. So Scottdale has a hazmat team. Phoenix has many.

We have one and other communities uh also help respond to those to stabilize the incident, evacuate the community and be support for Southwest Gas as they mitigate those. And then again, the new fire stations. I just put some pictures up. We have our our fire station which has been up and operating and Chief Tobin sent me these pictures of his fire station which is coming up. The center one is what it's going to look like when it's completed which is going to be very shortly here.

So, if you haven't driven by it, drive by it and take a look at it. It's really pretty impressive. Yeah. So, we have four because we have 2.2 acres that we were able to develop for our property. Yeah. We had less than an acre as opposed to what you had. And um we we know that we have to park stuff uh under the under the roof. So, we added four and they're really big uh parking spots under there. They're they're long enough to they're long enough to park a ladder truck in.

So, and we want to thank you for giving us three cuz we didn't think we could get three on our site. And then these are just some of the stuff we've already talked about. The Daisy Mountain Fire and Medical Award. Um Chief Tobin, look how photographic he is and is accepting his award last year. And then I I'm still really proud of the new vehicles we got.

Um the tender we managed to get for under budget even though we budgeted it what four years ago now we still got a brand new tender that meets all of our needs and our engine has come in and so as you see they're labeled for Cave Creek Fire and uh we like them to do that and we're going to start doing some school stuff with them so that the the kids in school know that we have Cape Creek fire that's coming up.

additional comments or questions or we'll be happy to answer anything that you have for us and hopefully we didn't take too long, but there's a lot to lot to cover when you're doing an annual report. So, keep up the good work. Please, any other questions? Can I Mr. Council, whatever you've done to prevent fires this year, keep doing it. Yeah. Right. I'll call a little bit of that mother nature, right? Humidity, rain is helpful. Keep doing it. I know.

I know I don't either, but again, I've mentioned I think uh when I was here previously, you know, we manage that response, the brush staffing, and you pay me to make sure that we manage that appropriately. So, when we don't have red flag days, which the D Department of Forestry and Forest Management declares, which are hot, dry, windy days, then we don't up staff on those days. It works. It's the science behind it.

So, I think we can all be happy that we didn't have to use too many of those resources this year. Yeah. Throughout the system, not just here. Yeah. Thank you. We're very lucky to have such a competent team. Thank you very much. Sure. Okay. Next and last on the agenda is presentation of the fiscal year 2025 fourth quarter finance report. And Sherry joins us again. And I am joined by Bridget Blacker Academy. Oh, welcome Bridget. So, first off, I want to apologize for my voice.

Um, about three weeks ago, it was almost completely gone. It's dramatically improved, but I'm still not fully there. Well, maybe it's you that got Grady sick. He's Thanks. I don't think so. Yeah, he's I'm not I'm not contagious. So, I I have significant allergies. I basically say I'm allergic to Arizona. You can't go anywhere. Oh, no. I I love being here. It's just a shame that I'm allergic.

Um so we have the fourth quarter um finance report um for the fiscal year 25 and so our fiscal year ends June 30. Um this is precomp completion of all the year end acrruels. Um there's a lot of things that go into that process to do all those acrruel entries. Um, and we still um want to say maybe not the last AP run, but the one before. Um, we're still getting invoices for last year.

So, it takes a while even just to get all the invoices in that we need before we even have all of our expenditures, much less all the other acrruels that we need to do. So, this is pre having all those year end acrruels in. Why is that not moving? Um, so we're going to talk about um some of the projects um that finance has been working on. Then we'll go into the financial status report um and the investment report. And then we'll do a review of where we're at on our performance measures.

Here we go. So, I'm going to turn it over to Bridget to talk about some of the projects. And we're not going to cover everyone. We're just going to hit some highlights. So, one of the projects we've completed is the accountant position was filled. The accountant position um is currently training with the payroll and accounts payable as well as their normal duties. And let's see, council financial policies for fund balance, fiscal planning, budget, debt management.

We have reviewed and revised all of the approved council financial policies. Some more of the projects completed for fiscal year 25 is the fiscal year 2026 budget was adopted during the fourth quarter and we do this annually. It usually takes about 6 months or more. We closed our safety deposit box. We had council revise the authorized signers on the safety deposit box so we could access the box and close it. Once we opened the box, we discovered it contained laser fish and backup tapes.

Many of these items were passed the required retention dates and needed to be destroyed. The remainder do not require safety blocks. Um, in process projects, banking services including integration with smart gobub. So, we've updated our state treasur distributions to deposit to Wells Fargo. We implemented check scanning for payments received in office and we have the wire capabilities set up to be payable to the vendors.

Remaining services are moving along and we hope to have more implemented in the near future and Sherry will cover utility rate and user fee studies. So um we have been in process on the utility rate study. Um it's taken a little bit of time to make sure that we had all the right information to the consultants to be able to do the calculations that they need. Um we're trying to do a real thorough making sure that we're capturing and covering everything that we can.

Um so I need to touch base with them again on where um they're at and when they feel comfortable with having um be ready for another work session to go over what they've got. So, the the most recent was a target of thinking that we would probably have rates that would be effective February 1. I'm hoping that they'll say they can still stay on that timeline, but um we'll we'll see where they're at with things and see if that needs to be pushed, but um so it's a big project, a lot going on there.

Another inprocess project was we transitioned to asmat for our health benefits and that's been a lot of work getting everything reconciled which will still be ongoing until we finish reconciling everything. Hopefully it'll be implemented fully in the near future. Then can I ask a question on that? How did our employees react or respond to the transition? Have we has it happened yet? It's happened. Yeah.

I don't I don't know if we've heard much in finance, but um Carla Carla could probably tell you how that how they've reacted. Okay. Shorter than this. Okay. So, the feedback that I've received from employees initially was mixed fear of change. Uh what I'm hearing back now is they are elated at their premiums because the employee premiums saw a decrease especially for the family plans and they were also delighted at having the options for choices.

So we have a PO and then we still have the high deductible health plan available for employees. Um the high deductible health plan did see a decrease in what the town was contributing towards the HSA but overall again the employees have been really receptive and supportive. Very good. I was hoping so. Sherry. Um so, um on here, one of the things that um is in process is looking at um potential for increasing bed tax rate and the hotel sales tax rate.

Um I've been working with the Arizona League and expecting to bring some information to you on the September 16th meeting um with these um uh taxes. So the bed tax is currently at 4%. The um hotel sales tax portion is at 3% and our our main base um rate is the 3% for retail and all those those other categories. The statute says that we can um go we can exceed whatever the base retail rate is that 3% by 2% without having the restrictions put on it.

they would be treated no different than the way the rates are right now. So the 4% bed tax can go up to five and the hotel sales tax portion can go from the three to 5%. Um based off of some of the estimations I did during the budget process, each 1% brings us an about 57,000. Um the um the 3% so 1% addition on bed tax, 2% addition on the hotel sales tax. So that total would be about 170,000.

Um another thing to note is um it's very very rare that you would see like a resident paying a hotel tax in the place where they do. I mean some people do stations but um most often it's going to be paid by visitors not um the residents. So that is something that we're looking at because it it would put us in that category to where um it's not restricted.

If we go over the 5% then um there's all sorts of things about the portion that's over the 5% has to go towards promotion of tourism, maintenance of tourism and so we would be obligated um in that manner. I have a quick question. Okay. Is the new uh focus on the family marriage retreat considered a hotel or will we get bed tax money from that?

Um, so I'm sorry I'm not familiar with that, but if it's anything that is um a stay under 30 days, then it's considered um transient occupancy or short-term occupancy. And so if it's considered an occupancy um and less than 30 days, then yeah, it could potentially have a requirement to pay those taxes. Just as aside, I believe it's a nonprofit, so I don't believe we'll be getting that, but we can verify and get back that information. C3s are exempt from bed tax. Yeah. Is that true, Bill?

I don't know that they are. I'll look. I'm right now. Okay. Very good. I've been advised verbally that there they will be taxed. There will be a text. I'll look. I think they are, but I'll look. Okay. It can be also based off of how they're set up. So with nonprofits, they have like a core mission that is whatever that uh mission is, then that activity typically is is not taxable.

But if they're doing anything that is um other business income that's not part of the core mission, those revenues typically would be taxed. So I don't know. I don't know how that I can't speak to this. Uh yeah, I don't I don't know. Yeah, my question is uh do we have any influence on what is determined to be their core mission? Is that something that they define themselves? Yeah, they define it. Let me that's why I think it's a problem. We got to look at that.

I'll call Sherry that is a what is their core mission and how how can they avoid taxes by calling it their core mission? Let me get back to Shar. Okay, any other questions on bed tax? Can we find out how many beds there are there so we would know how much that would generate contain rooms. All right, just to do a little research somebody not necessarily Bill.

So, some more inprocess projects we have are administrative financial policies and we've dealt with the council adopted policies and now are working on new administrative financial policies that we're drafting and future projects. Jerry. Um, so I did want to mention so we've talked about um looking into um a DMO designation for our tourism bureau. So um so there has been um at least a little bit of research done on that to become a DMO.

Um it does require that we have a dedicated tourism marketing budget which in the budget process we did set aside monies to be able to do some of that marketing. Um, in order to participate in the Prop 302 program funding, which is specific to Maricopa County DMOS, um, then it requires that we have tourism marketing budget of for fiscal year 25. I don't know what the fiscal year 26 numbers are yet, um, but at that point in time, it was at least 123,000.

So that number that I mentioned previously of 170 about 170,000 if we increase um the bed tax and the hotel sales tax. So that would be more than that. So, um, if we wanted to use that money towards being able to, um, have a budget as much as that and then be able to get additional funding through the Prop 30 U 302 to be able to leverage our dollars, um, to create a bigger program and be able to promote um, Cave Creek U for tourism related activities, then that is a possibility.

So another future project is evaluating options for field card and discount programs. We're hoping to start this project once a procurement manager has started. Another future project is transitioning business licenses and short-term rental licenses to finance. So implementation of the banking services is key to efficiency in the finance department and this will help us take on additional duties. Any questions on any of the projects even if there was something that we didn't talk about?

I have one. What's the difference between clear gov and smart gov? So smart gov is the um permitting system and clear gov is the budget the new budget system that council approved clear gov smart gov. Yes. Government work. Yes. Everything's something gov. Okay. Um so moving into financial status. So um this is through the quarter uh four but this is prior to the year in acrruval. So this is cash basis numbers here that are here um that I'm presenting by fund.

This includes about 90% of the taxes for the month of May and none of the June taxes um because we don't actually start receiving any of the June taxes until July. So um about that's about 11 months. So that's about 92% of the year. Um, if you look and I can turn on the uh Whoops. Apparently, I can't. Why am I not being able to do a right click? Did it earlier? Oops. I'm sorry. I'm fumbling around with this. I'm not getting it.

Um so if in the if you look at um so the first column is what the fiscal year 25 budget was the amount through quarter 4 for revenues and then you look at percentage of budget. So 11 months as I said is about 92% of the year and we're at 102% of the budget at that point in time already. So, um I did do some looking at um uh acrruels and and anticipation of those and I think we'll be really close to um what I had estimated during the budget process for fiscal year 26.

Um we are at 102% of the budget even with having the residential rental tax go away. So that's the long-term rentals. So um I mentioned on the transient occupancy tax, the bed tax that's 30 days or less. this is um um more than 30 days.

Um so that ended and um we also when you look at the comparison between uh quarter 4 for fiscal year 25 compared to the quarter 4 um prey year and acrruels for fiscal year 24 you'll see a little bit of variance there in the percentages and that's because of some corrections that we had made in the allocations between the different funds. um this slide here.

So um we have um an IGA with the city of Phoenix to uh use their system that they had uh created where they get information from Ador and uploaded the system and you can run reports based off of the different categories and um so based off of that I was able to run report and look at more of the acral basis. So, I'm looking at for fiscal year 25 um and still it's it's not um completely finalized or audited, but I think we're going to be really close to this 14.6 million for the year.

Compared to the prior year was um 13.1. So, an increase of about 1.4 million or 11%. And when you look at the top row, you see construction is went up 84%. So, that's where the biggest part of this change. So, um I know there's talk of like, oh, construction is going to be slowing down. That that revenue that we get from construction will start to diminish. Well, it hadn't really diminished during fiscal year 25. So, it's at some we know it will it will eventually um slow down, but um not yet.

When you look at some of the other um categories here, so you might be a little alarmed looking at restaurant and bars going down 4% um and some of the other um changes there. um the way that the um Ador Arizona Department of Revenue when they do um the sales tax collection. So for the month of June, the taxes weren't actually due until the end of July. So some people are really on it and they pay early and you can start getting some of your June taxes during the early part of July.

Um, but not everybody even pays by the end of July. And Ador has their own process to u just do like um not a thorough review, but at least a a check on making sure things look okay on the forms before they say, "Okay, yeah, I'm I'm putting this in and and I'm accepting this." And so, we don't actually get everything for June. It's about the middle of August before we get all the June revenue. So there's there's quite a long lag there in that that time frame.

So when they're doing their processing, they have a point in time where they say, "Okay, that's it. We're done. We're not putting anything more into that that GL period that represents June taxes." There will be be people who are still delinquent. And I want to advance to the next slide here to show you. So just for the quarter four only. So just for um the uh April, May, June, it was total of about 3.4 million.

And so I've got four columns there of like every one of the tax periods that are being hit all the way back to 1990 that they're still doing adjustments. It is virtually impossible to get to a point to where you could say, "Okay, I'm going to leave the books open until I know that this particular month is totally complete." it's just not going to happen.

So, you're going to have all these um different things and you can see like for tax period 2022, tax period um and there's a few other smaller ones, but those are some of the bigger negative numbers that you see there. I did take a look at some of the um negatives and there's things where um sometimes they're saying I reported incorrectly and I'm owed a refund. Sometimes they make a mistake, report to the wrong jurisdiction, and that it needs to be corrected and move to the correct jurisdiction.

Um, it's sometimes a little surprising that businesses think, "Oh, my postal address is Cave Creek, but they're not in the town limits of Cave Creek, so they don't pay Cave Creek TPT tax because they're not in our town limits, but they did." and then they and then it has to be reversed and given to the right entity or refunded if they weren't in another m municipality. So, u there's all sorts of things that can happen in these adjustments.

Um this is the comparison I had this comparison I've added on the last quarter here for you. This is without construction because construction really skews the numbers, but this helps you see some of the seasonality. And so um for the last quarter, so April, there was a a fairly big spike there in 23, but pretty level for the other years there. Uh May is somewhat level and actually a little bit higher for fiscal year 25, but you can see that decrease for June.

And that's because some of those adjustments that ADOR was doing hit in June. So, um, without those adjustments, it would have probably been a little bit more on the trend that it was, um, on at that point in time. So, I wouldn't say it's something to to like be highly concerned about. It's part of just what happens of these adjustments that need to be done. Um, looking at um, the revenues in total, not just the the TPT revenues. So I'm looking at through the quarter.

So this is the cash basis uh information and compared to budget. So at 81% of the budget without all of the um acrruals in um the quarter um for the previous year 3/4 um actually about 2% below.

So for the special revenue funds when you look at uh compared to budget so budget was about 6.1 million the through quarter 4 about 2.7 million but there was a $3 million placeholder of well just in case we get some grants we want to be able to have the budget capacity and so you put a placeholder on the revenue side and on the expenditure side that we have that capacity if we get a large grant um to spend that.

So, um, that's why we're, um, so much under budget there, uh, because that did not materialize. Um, the Cave Creek water is only at 66% of the budget. Um, part of that is some of the significant grant funding um that is is not in those numbers. Uh, capacity fees um are typically not received on a a consistent basis. U, we treat them as one-time revenues because they can vary quite a bit um, from year to year. and they're only at 36% of what was budgeted.

So, it was budgeted pretty high um in my mind of an estimate for fiscal year 25. Um the usage fees, however, were at 90% of the budget. Again, we had conversations about how um the budget numbers were being over inflated because the estimates were being calculated incorrectly. So, that is also below. When you look at compared to last year for Cave Creek Water, it's also 25% under last year.

Um and but really the biggest part there there was 1.9 million of ARPA funding that was received um in fiscal year 20 or spent in 24 and um and acrewed and recognized in that year that uh was a one-time grant funding. Could I interrupt real quick? Yes. The $2 million infrastructure grant, we haven't seen a penny of that. No, but we have the the final um that yes, we're good to go.

The I mean, we were given the award through the congressional directed spending, but then they assign it to an agency and you have to go through all of this process and so that was assigned to EPA and we did get the notice from EPA. It's like we're all good. Everything's approved and awarded as far as they're considered. Really? Do you have any expectation when we might see it?

um the portion of the Phoenix Interconnect project u there's some costs that have been incurred so far um it wasn't all that significant that we could do uh draw down on but more of it is later part of the project and I think the project is scheduled to be through the end of next year I see so we haven't really even requested reimbursement yet yeah we haven't requested any reimbursement But we've been told that it's approved and we can expect it. Yes. Very good. Yes.

Um so uh looking at the expenditure side so this is looking at by the categories of operating versus capital and so we're at um without all the the year end acrruels completed about 74% of the budget the um comparison to last year.

So we're u 32% ahead but it's primarily capital because you can see on the operating line it's only a 3% so 3% is like inflationary that's not um all that significant uh but the 130% so capital and um the capital includes of course the Phoenix interconnect is a really large project the water meter replacements was a big project fire station fire vehicles we had a lot on the plate for the uh road projects and the skybox So um actually quite a lot accomplished um as far as CIP is concerned.

Um looking at the expenditures by fund. So again that increase really is reflective based off of the CIP projects within the general fund. That's where we had the fire station, fire vehicles, road projects and skybox. And then in Cave Creek Water is where the Phoenix interconnect and the water meter replacements are. looking at um comparison of fund balances. So again this is prior to completion of the year in acrruals um the beginning balance for the year. So fiscal year 24 was audited.

So those are beginning numbers there. Um and so that was about uh 38 million where we started. Right now where we're at without all the acrruals in is about 35 uh million. And um you'll notice a fairly significant deficit um right now that's showing for Cave Creek Water, but um as I said, it's pre-acrru. And so we have uh an acrruel that um will be booking for uh the receivable from WIFFA on draw downs for the um Phoenix Interconnect project.

Of the expenditures that are uh represented in this number here, um there's about 5.6 6 million um in uh receivable. So it would be a positive balance in the K Creek water if that was there. And there's other approvals on the expenditure side for um the Phoenix interconnect that are not in there yet, but the total um that we have um uh requested uh and receivable from WH is 6.4 million. So quite you expect the 35 million fund balance to go up.

The number there will be better than what you've shown. Yes. so far. Um, as far as CIP projects, so here's some highlights of the the bigger projects. The Phoenix Interconnect, it was budgeted in fiscal year 25 at about 13.7 million and um, so far without all the acrruals, it's at about 9.4. So, it's still a pretty good chunk of that project um, has been done. The project to date is at about 12.8 8 million um the uh water meter replacements.

So that was about 540,000 there and that project is complete. The total project cost including all the grant funding ended up being about 1.2 million. Um and this is Cave Creek. There's still um some work that needs to be done with uh water meter replacements in Desert Hills. Um the fire station. So, um, well under budget for fiscal year 25 and I don't I think that probably includes everything. I don't think we had much in the way of acrruels if if there were it's small.

Um, the total project cost um is about 5.1 the fire engine and this is in my mind such an incredible price about 756,000 um because of the cash prepayment that was done. Um, we pay a lot more for a fire engine today. The fire tender truck. Um so that cost 436. The skybox is completed that ended up being about 606,000. The road projects um budget was about 3.2 through quarter 4 about 2.2 million.

Um and um it was mostly done um there was some permanent striping and some final acceptance things on some of the projects pending but um mostly done there. And then there was budgeted for open space land acquisition about 1.5 million and that's carried over to next year.

Um in the debt management policy um that Bridget had mentioned that um we did some revisions and council approved that um one of the requirements is that in the quarterly reports we um identify where we stand on our outstanding debt. So that's why we have added these um couple of slides. So this is reflecting as of and I did it as of July 1. So our payments are due July 1 and January 1. So I could do June 30, but I think you want to know like okay but July one's passed. Where are we actually at?

And so Cave Creek Water um there's outstanding of about um 16.5 uh million on the debt there. And that does assume that the Phoenix Interconnect loan is fully drawn drawn down. Um when we talk during the budget time, we think that there'll be a little bit left there that we could then repurpose to um some additional um projects and U Desert Hills Water. So there's about 2 million in debt outstanding and wastewater um not quite 6 million there outstanding. and looking at future debt payments.

So, here you can see how much those payments would be. Um, I did group for Cave Creek Water because it goes all the way out to 2053 because the Phoenix Interconnect was set up as a 30-year loan. So, I grouped those in 5-year increments after 2030, which is why you see that that spike in the numbers there. Cave Creek Water.

Um after um fiscal year 27, then you'll start seeing the current debt drop down, but we're we are talking about issuing more debt for um projects um in the fiscal year 26 budget and going forward. Um Desert Hills Water. So there the whiffal portion would be paid off um through after fiscal year 27 and private placement fiscal year 28. and then wastewater goes until um fiscal year 29.

So existing debt is getting fairly close um to being paid off with of course the exclusion of the the Phoenix Interconnect, but we are expecting to issue more debt. Um the quarterly investment report. So this is as of June. Um and so um you'll notice here a a line that is new compared to previous reports for the sweep account with Wells Fargo. That was one of the things we talked about when u we asked council to approve the banking services. So you'll see there the sweep account.

So they sweep the um balance that's in the checking account and um so it goes into a much higher uh earnings and that's at 4.2% on that sweep which is very good uh compared to the state treasures pool at 4.3%. That's uh really good and um there is quite a large amount there in the sweep as of June 30. Um and that was because of um the debt payments that needed to be paid on July one. And so that was about $4 million of that u that we had ended up using.

Um you do see on the checking account side. So as Bridget talked about of some of the things that we've transitioned from Beimo to Wells Fargo, there are still things that are going into Beimo um at this point in time. So there is money there too. um looking at the um yields um of where we're at. So definitely some increases there in the last quarter of um our portfolio, which is the blue line compared to the benchmark of the three-year Treasury.

The end of April is when we got the um sweep account uh implemented. So there was a a small portion of April that we got a boost um from that, but for sure the um the May and June um the sweep account was a nice bump there. U this is um looking at the transactions for the quarter.

So looking at um the increase um adding the sweep account um we did do some withdrawals from the local government investment pool in order to be able to pay our debt and some of the significant construction invoices that we've been having. Um and then um and then there was the the net withdrawal and the earnings. Um so on LGIP about 340,000 for the quarter, the sweep about um 14,000 there. the net for the quarter is a reduction of 1.1 that I did mention that we have the receivable from WIFA.

Um so some of those costs for the construction that cash basis we needed to be able to pay the vendors but with the way it works is it's a reimbursement after the fact. So um it's a big part of why those went down. And our next slide is per performance measurements. Um, so in April we were able to close the general ledger within two business days and in May we did it in two business days but in June we did it in 11 and that's because we had a new person in accounting and we were training her.

Um, so the GFOA award for the AER is in process. The GFOA award for the budget was awarded um percentage of AP invoices paid within 30 days was 99% in April, 100% in May, and 98% in June. We're working with the department directors to have their invoices forwarded to finance instead of directly to them. And I think that'll help a lot. Percentage of utility accounts over 60 days is 5% April, May, and June.

investment return versus three-year Treasury, 3.95% versus 3.58% in April, 4.24% versus 3.87% in May, and then 4.04% versus 3.68% in June. That's what we have for you tonight. So, if you have any other questions, we can take those. How are you feeling about it, Sherry? Are you is are you and your staff meeting your goals? Um I I would say we're um juggling a lot of balls. Got a lot lot of plates spinning, a lot of balls in the air.

Um and very small staff and we went for um about a year of not having the accountant position filled. And so um trying to do all that that work without a body there and now we have somebody but it it is a long process of doing all the training. So trying to do all the training and still get work done and get a very very long list of projects done. So um we do feel a little bit like we're drowning in projects. So I have to say I've seen more new projects.

I mean, there must be two dozen projects here that weren't. And I I can't recall seeing any uh maybe isolated one here or there, but but you really got um you got improvements written all over everything you do. So, I want to congratulate you and your department and we got a lot of confidence in you and so Thank you. We're glad you're here. Thank you. Voice and all. Yes. Both of you. All of you. Yes. Thank you, Bridget. Yes. Yes. Bridget is amazing. I love working with her. Oh, good.

So, Sherry's the best. You have to ask for a raise. Anything else? No. Anything else? I do want to just mention um that the beds are taxed are going to be taxed. Oh, good. And do we know how many? I think there Luke said 16 or 18. So, they can clarify clarify the next meeting. Sherry, do that math real quick. Well, we've completed our agenda. So, by state law, this meeting is adjourned. Very good. Unanimous vote. Flavor.