Work Session

We'll call this work session to order. I want to thank everybody for being here this evening. Uh Carissa is out of town on business, I believe, and she is calling in today. I want to verify that Cararissa can hear us and we can hear her. Carissa, are you on?

I sure am. Thanks so much.

Absolutely. So, at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Russ to recognize I'll recognize you for the agenda review.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. Um, on tonight's agenda, we're going to review the upcoming meeting schedule as we always do. Um, and then Heather Willand's going to provide a housing update and probably more specific to that is talk a little bit about Chattam Estates and how that's been in the news and what we're helping them with our partners do. Um then we're going to bring Liam back and do some budget review and specifically you've got a budget document in front of everybody and we're going to actually take a look at um kind of the budget from past or even this year um and see what's in it and call it a bit of a learning exercise and ask any questions you have of the current budget and then Liam and I will go through some of the schedules a little bit of what's different this year um and answer any questions you have from that. got a few announcements. Um, and I'll save those until I get there and then I believe we're having a close session. Correct, Lisa? Yep.

Wonderful. Thanks, Russ. So, at this time, I'll call on Jenny Johnson to uh update us on the meeting schedule.

So, um, as you can see on the screen, this is our upcoming work session and regular meetings. Um, starting with tonight and then Thursday, um, we just having a regular meeting going into February, the work session, regular. Then Friday and Saturday is the retreat. Um and then the rest um March and April are laid out on the screen.

Thank you. And for those watching, the retreat means all day, two-day council staff working.

So, okay. All right. Uh time for Heather. I guess you're up.

Okay. Well, good evening, Mayor and Council. Um as Russ said, I'm here tonight to provide uh share an update on stable homes carry program and and Chattam Estates. Um, do I have a clicker? Yeah, sorry about that. Um, but before I talk about the details um of those, I want to provide just a really brief bit of context for this this work. Um, everything that we do here in Kerry is rooted in our community plans from the services we provide to how we support our residents to how we guide development. Um the Kerry community plan was adopted in 2017 with substantial updates last year which included the integration of the Kerry housing plan adopted in 2021. So that was integrated into the larger Kerry community plan live chapter and that chapter talks about how our residents um live here in Kerry. Talk really quickly about this term the term housing. Um sometimes we we use this term and think just public housing or subsidized housing or section 8 housing. Our community plans really talk about this um housing is all housing in Kerry and so all forms single family homes, detached homes, mobile homes everywhere that our residents live. So the the very broad um range in the market including but not not just affordable housing. So the vision for housing and carry as it's laid out in our plans is high quality um sustainable. So not just the building materials but also sustainable by our our community's infrastructure and um public safety, water resources, all of that sustainability. Um also that we have diverse choices to to suit the needs of our diverse residents here in Kerry. Um and then the plans call for us to take an approach of doing this work through partnerships. So capitalizing on the expertise of our market developers and our um rich fabric of nonprofit organizations here in Kerry to help us um to do to do this work. We know that there are gaps and lots of kind of sectors of society. Um the

market does a pretty good job of providing lots of things including housing for our residents and households at kind of 80% of the median income and up. And we know that the market nearly almost always fails at providing as many options um for our low and moderate income households, our senior households and um households, individuals with disabilities. So our programmatic work and our pol additional policy work and partnerships really focus on those areas um where there are gaps and trying to narrow some of those gaps. we do that work and kind of building from the recommendations, the vision and the and the goals laid out in the Kerry housing plan. Um we're implementing a kind of multifaceted strategy um that works across the housing continuum to create new units, new housing opportunities, uh rehabilitate the existing housing that we have. So, rehabilitate and preserve our current housing supply. Um, and then create housing stability throughout Kerry, keeping people in their homes. And then, of course, um, supporting and growing the nonprofits that we have in our community that are that are helping us, um, implement this work very effectively. So, the program that we're going to kind of start to focus on is stay homes Carrie. It really falls within this um, kind of strategy area. It's it's one of our efforts in this area, this area of promoting housing stability across the community. Um, Stable Homes Carry is a partnership with Dorcas, which now, as you most most of you may be aware, is um called Neighbor Up. Late last fall, they of rebranded themselves to reflect the store is still called Dorcas, though, right? Andre Anthony, the director, is with us tonight. Um, so the store is still called Dorcas, but NeighborUp is a reflection of that. they um merged with another um nonprofit in Western Wake that provides crisis assistance and so um also reflecting their continued growth in providing these services kind of across a region. So we'll talk about stable homes um and NeighborUp is our

administrative partner in that. I want to talk a little bit about what the program is and then I'll rewind a little and talk about how we got here, how we created the program. Um it's a multi-pronged program council approved in March of 2024. It includes um emergency assistance, so rental emergency rental assistance, clothing, um anything that someone needs when they're in kind of an emergency crisis situation. It also includes um or kind of provides case management. So to help help a household understand um what what are the circumstances in their lives that maybe led them to get there? Are there additional job trainings? what other resources um could they could they benefit from to help them kind of move away from being in that same crisis situation again? And then referrals. It's not as easy as you might think to find these other resources that are out there. Um people are stress, you know, strapped for time. So part of the program is also just letting people know where there are other resources that could help them at that at that time. really it's a program aimed at promoting housing stability and preventing homelessness all across Kerry and um adding this element of um relocation knowing that um there may be neighborhoods that are facing displacement um or kind of impending relocation um upon property redevelopment such as in Chattam State. So we'll so so I'll get a little more specific about Chattam Estates in a moment. But in addition to providing services um NeighborUp has um been a longtime kind of leader and facilitator of this discussion around coordinated services and crisis prevention services across the region. So for um many groups have been have been talking about how do we continue to support and grow the support for residents um that are experiencing pressure from the housing market. So kind of from that coalition of organizations um several organizations gathered at the beginning of 2024 to really amplify this increased dramatic increase in need both from the housing market pressure from the housing market and then specifically

around uh concern for um Chattam Estates that was um the the news of the property being being listed for sale broke at the beginning of that year. So kind of at the same time, council um expressed deep concern for the residents of Chattam Estates. And so we started the process, staff started the process of researching how could we create a program to both support our residents broadly that we know are experiencing housing instability and um homelessness, sheltered and unsheltered homelessness. And then how could we also earmark some funds and some um support for neighborhoods that are potentially facing um relocation like Chattam Estates. So we we went back into conversations with um NeighborUp specifically and a doorway to hope is another smaller nonprofit that had been working has been working in a really focused way in Chattam states for many years. So had garnered um a lot of trust from the residents um which is you know um not to understate the the importance of that you know creating a program and then having residents trust um to to speak with someone about their personal situations is a is a big deal. So um we we really trusted their opinion about you know what what could be helpful in this situation. And then and then one wake, which is a faith-based coalition of of churches who at the time um was advocating um on behalf of the residents of Chattam Estates. And so we included them and then there were um several several residents as well um a part of those early conversations. So ultimately, oh and at the same time, we also acknowledged that NeighborUp had been administering two two of our other programs that support our low and moderate income households. Um Play It Forward through our parks and wreck. And so, um, and Oasis utility bill program that takes, um, philanthropic donations and helps folks if they have, um, a need to have their utility bills, um, subsidized. So, we kind of wrapped all of those in to acknowledge, um, NeighborUp's role in helping us with all those programs. And we got to this this

model that was really building off of Neighbor Updorcas' successful rental assistance model and adding this element of relocation support. We identified um some general funds, some ARPA funds, American Rescue Plan Act funds, and some CDBGCV community de development block grant funds that were specifically allocated for COVID relief. And uh those buckets had already been um allocated for housing initiatives. So we were able to pull those out, bring that to council. Um council approved a three-year allocation for those kind of core housing stability services and then also um seated a fund um that was set aside specifically to help um neighborhoods that were facing relocation. So that was in March of 24. Um since then, Neighbor Up has been working to increase the number of counselors that they have both in terms of um quantity of counselors and um expertise and capacity and language skills to be able to serve kind of the broad range of folks that that are um facing housing and stability and and the folks that we knew would be looking at redevelopment specifically within Chattam states. Since then, over 2,000 households have been assisted even just with with the stable homes portion of this of of their um rental assistance program, direct assistance, food, rent, um counseling, clothing, all of the things again that people need when they're in a crisis situation. Um counselors from Dorcas and staff members from Dorcas have also walked alongside our public safety officials during the point in time count, which happens one night a year in January across the country. Communities participate in this night. Um it's actually happening this Thursday is this point in time count. And so um the uh Wake County continuum of care kind of leads that effort. We participate and um neighbors counselors have um participated on Car's behalf. Um folks visit known encampment sites,

bring supplies, water, food, and also um it's an opportunity to gather data and understand um who is living unsheltered in the community and um use that to guide policy and resources moving forward for the region. Um a few other just examples of situations where our stable homes carry program has been um really supportive. there's a fire at a motel and the counselors and the um program was able to help us um get those folks into transitional housing immediately and help them with kind of those immediate needs. Um we had some residents that were being rented a space in a commercial building illegally, so they were in a very unsafe situation. So, you know, in addition to having our public safety have to go in and um remove those folks and get them to a safer environment, we were able to have neighborups counselors provide some other options as as well to move them into a safer um situation. And then periodically there'll be a construction site where we learn that there are some um unsheltered people um camped. And so it allows us to kind of tap tap someone to help us go in and um provide a um empathetic kind of people focused way to remove people from an unsafe situation where there's active construction happening. So that has all kind of been happening throughout um the past year. But now I want to pivot and talk specifically

take a pause just a second to see since that's a great um stopping point of program overview. If anybody has any questions to this point, might be a good place to ask.

The 2,000 households that have been assisted, does that mean that the pot money as we enter stable homes carry is significantly less or was that using other money associated?

So the total amount of households that Dorcas helps in a year is more than that. But if you look at the actual rental assistance and staff, so we tried to isolate that to say the amount the the the amount of money that stables contributed to that program has helped 2,000 households. So rent, clothing,

counseling, all of that.

Okay. So you'll kind of let us know how much is available specifically out of that original.

Yeah. Well, it was 1.65, but that's not till 2027 that we have it all. So it's only 500.

So 500,000 has been um reimbursed to Dorcas for services provided, increased capacity for staff, increased um training for staff, and then also direct assistance. And we're about halfway through the 550.

Okay, good.

Yeah. And we and we do that um on a reimbursement basis. So Dorcas gives us a quarterly Sorry, NeighborUp. It's going to take me a while. NeighborUp gives us a quarterly report that, you know, itemizes here's everything the money went to. Here's who we served with it. Um, we get we don't get names. We don't but we get kind of overall demographics and so we we have a a really good idea of exactly, you know, what those funds are supporting.

Great.

Thank you.

Do we know

Go ahead. Do we know if any of the relocation support money has been used or has it been out of those 2,000 was it out of the pocket on the left?

Yeah. Um out of the pocket on the kind of foundational program services and then I learned just just today actually Andre gave me an update and I'll talk a little bit more about the Chattam State's kind of relocation. Um but they have as of um this week um helped two residents from Chattam Estates kind of um secure first to last month rent for an apartment. So that we haven't reimbursed them that yet. We still have that $800,000 here in Kerry. So they haven't submitted any of those reimbursement requests yet, but they are starting to um to help residents with that bucket. Yeah.

Thank you. So Heather, with the money that has been already spent on hiring and training new staff,

how does the outreach look like um from

neighbor? Neighbor

neighbor up.

Neighbor up.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's it's going to take time.

I know.

But from neighbor up like how does the outreach look like? Um because I don't know how many total residents are there in Chadam estates versus what is the effort? So many questions bundled up together.

Um I if I can come I'm going to talk about that in just a minute who's there and kind of what we've done specifically at Chadam Estates. So um I think I will answer that in a minute. If I don't then I'll circle back and ask you. So, um, Chattam Estates, um, 27 acre property, um, at the corner of East Chattam and Maynard, um, just on the eastern edge of Kerry. I think you're all familiar with where it is. Um, and before I talk about the property or the redevelopment anymore, I want to talk about the people that live there right now. Um, there's 144 mobile homes. Um, we think there are about 700 residents that live there. From census data, we know that the majority of them identify as Hispanic or Latino. We also know that the median household income is less than 85,000 for a family of four. So that's about 60% of the area median income um for the Kerry Raleigh area. And we also know that there's a really high percentage of households that are under the poverty level, which is $32,000 for a family of four. So, I talked about I'm just going to frame sort of how we're looking at the the redevelopment a little bit. Um, and then I'll circle back to kind of how we're helping the residents. But imagine Kerry community plan, the housing plan, those are our vision documents. Those are our policy documents. Ultimately, they're not regulatory, but our our regulations around land development live in our LDO, our land development ordinance. So as we um review development as it comes in the door this is the set of um laws. Is it fair to

call it the laws? Okay. Yes. These are our laws around development and they are not just what can be developed there but also height and density and all of those very specifics around around land use that lives in our LDO. This property which is the one outlined in yellow is the residential portion only. So, I want to kind of lift lift that up as a point. Originally, when the property was listed, it included that portion that's in red, which is the commercial portion as well that kind of fronts the street and wraps the corner. And then at some point, um, the list the the property owner decided to to just have the re, you know, just list the the residential portion. So currently what we're kind of talking about is just the mobile home piece um which is currently zoned town center MXDR which is mixed um density residential and within that district is a wide range of permitted uses um residential, institutional, commercial. So um and with a maximum um residential density of up to 50 dwelling units per acre. So there's a wide range of things that the property the current property owner or a future property owner could do on this site by right meaning without a reasonzoning. This is a snapshot of the development plan that's currently in review. It's called Maple Avenue 25DP 7490. It's in, you know, it's in our someone could log in and and and review this if they wanted to see more detail. Um, Kennedy Wilson is the developer. Uh, this is a company that acquired last fall the Toll Brothers multif family division. So, Toll Brothers is a a name that a lot of folks know. Kennedy Wilson is is the company that acquired Toll Brothers multif family pipeline. The plan currently shows 330 multif family units and 97 town homes. Um, so this proposed plan does not require resoning and so this this will not come back to you as it is currently shown. um it's in its

third round of review and it will require zoning board of adjustment approval because there's over a hundred units. So that would be and I'll kind of circle back at the end for the process but that is um that is where it is in the development stage.

Do do you know the height by chance of that building?

We do but I don't know Scott four stories. Thank you. Four stories. So um Heather, could you explain this a little bit? You said that it may not require the reszoning request, so it's not going to come to the council, but it would require Zebo approval because it is more than 100 units. So um as part of like the plan, the current plan, it's there only 100 units that are permitted and anything beyond that need like how does this work? No, just in order to approve the development plan that shows more than 100 units, they would need the the sum total of the development plan needs to be approved by Zeboa. So you it's you can't they wouldn't be able to say the development plans approved but only 100 units. So they couldn't develop any of it without zoning board of adjustment approval.

And that's only for this site or that's a standard rule.

That's a standard rule.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. And So, kind of circling back to stable homes Carrie and specifically I shared earlier kind of what the program has done communitywide um in terms of housing stability and homelessness prevention, but really focusing in on what the program has done around Chattam State specifically. So, you know, since council approved in 2024, um there was an initial meeting at St. Michael's church. Um, very well attended. Um, one week was there. Lots of folks were there. And you know, this was Dorcas' counselors at the time just providing information. We're here for you. But at that time, the property wasn't under contract. It was just listed. So, it is it happens that

properties go on the market and they never materialize. So, there was a long period of time where there wasn't much more known. We didn't know anymore than anyone else did. Um and at some point the developer submitted a development plan and there started to be which also still happens and then things don't materialize but at some point the property owner started to prop current property owner the Westbrook started to communicate to the residents and to neighbor up that they were intending on moving forward with a sale and that that they were closing in on a date of next June. So on December 29th um the the residents received a notice to vacate which in North Carolina property owners are required to give 6 months um in mobile home um park ownership situation. So December 29th, uh residents received that letter and NeighborUp went doortodoor um also on December 29th with individual flyers to make sure that every single resident um was reminded or knew that Stable Homes Carrie was there and that now is the time to go ahead and come in and initiate that conversation. Um at the beginning of January, that first week in January, maybe the second week, I think it was the 11th um or the 5th, right away in January, there was another meeting at St. my goals and they framed this as a neighbor framed it as an application meeting. So really the intention was um please come we want to get you kind of start looking at what your needs are. Um and so uh residents had a chance to sit down with individual counselors and sh you know start to provide the information that neighbor up is needs to start to to allocate the resources and reimburse people um for the moving expenses. And then of course just that support is going to continue um through June. So so far um and Andre shared a little bit more with me, but so far we think there have been about 124 applications for assistance received. So that's 124 out of 144, not out of 700. So one household is one application. So that is a pretty phenomenal rate. um

which I think just speaks to the the trust and the kind of ongoing foundation that um they built with the residents to to get them to trust enough to come and and um share their information to apply. Um counselors are now kind of sitting with those applications, looking at them, reviewing um to allocate as equitably as possible the resources. So acknowledging that there are some households with one, some households as many as 10. So really um giving them as much latitude as possible to allocate resources based on what the community's needs are and then um you know there's philanthropy and other um resources that you know they're going to do their best to puzzle together um as as much as they can for each resident. Um they're also assisting with you know daycare and school. Wake County schools knows that this is happening so they're in communication with Wake County schools. um housing navigation, you know, here are your options. Here, here are some potential options. And then, of course, the move logistics. Um it sounds like, and we've been, you know, residents have expressed many times that their preference is to stay, that their second preference is to move their mobile home somewhere else. And so, that's that's an option I think that the counselors are working through the feasibility of with residents. Um I think Andre, correct me if I'm wrong, you said at least one resident has found somewhere else to move their mobile home and um is pursuing kind of the the logistics of that and they've uh neighbor up has started to to talk with our other partner preserving home because there are you know connection and some kind of foundational types of repairs that would be needed even if the mobile home is able to be moved. So they're working with um preserving home to leverage, you know, even that kind of relocation of the mobile homework to make that as affordable as as possible. So ultimately um what was the other the other details that you want to Oh, I know what else. Thank you. On um just looking at you reminding me of the other

details is that one resident was um submitted a successful application to Rose Park Manor which is um very close to getting their certificate of occupancy um 81 units of affordable senior housing very close to Glenn Air. So that timing is working out well. Um and so they're, you know, looking at what's available, what's possible. Um, and then two, as I mentioned before, two residents have secured apartments and um, they've helped them with first and last month's rent. So, they're going to continue to update us on that as it as it happens, but they're really working individually with each household to help them figure out what's possible, figure out what's feasible. Um, and in terms of the fund logistics, as I said, we we are holding that money here in Carrie, and then they will submit reimbursement to us. Um and neighborup will either pay the the resident directly or pay a contractor depending on sort of what the type of um expense is. Did that answer your questions? Mostly

yes. Um so what I gathered is that you know we have helped two um households or two people

to

I mean I I would say they've helped hundreds of people already but they're assessing you know we 124 people are going to receive assistance. Um I I would hope that all 144 households at least submit an application. Um, we do know that there are some some households that may be over income. The income limit is 300% of the poverty level, which is roughly 80% of median income. Um, so they might not that those households that are over income are not going to get a dispersement from the relocation fund, but they're still engaged in counseling and assistance. Um so um I think over the next couple of months we'll have more you know exactly what how many people that relocation fund has helped and who they are and you

know or you know what the demographics are specifically and and where they went to. I guess my question was also about like I know that these are the things that we're doing but how is the um there are people with probably cannot speak English.

Mhm.

So how are we creating an outreach? How are we is it like I just want to understand like does someone go there visit the site

talk to people explain them you know what they can uh the options that are available like how does it work?

Yeah well over the so a doorway to hope um is a again a small nonprofit that's been working in the neighborhood. Maria Young is the director of that. She's Latina and works in the community and her her team um they all speak Spanish. They also have a lot of um student volunteers. Um so there is a language interaction. There are counselors neighbor up hired counselors that speak Spanish as well. Um the flyer was provided in English and Spanish. So we are well aware that many of these residents Spanish is their primary language and some of them the only real language that they feel comfortable doing financial business in. So that is absolutely um top of mind in terms of how we're how they're communicating.

Heather, can you help me understand the ownership dynamics here? Do most of the residents own the mobile homes? And if they do, are they owned outright or are they mortgaged? Because I'm just thinking, if only two are being relocated, then the vast majority are unaccounted for. So what happens

physically to the units if they walk away? Are they defaulting on mortgages if they walk away?

So I would say two so far. Two so far, but um you know, and we'll continue to update you. Some of some of the units have been there for a very long time.

So, um, part of that feasibility assessment is what's the value of that home right now and how much will it cost to move? So, the the resident will have some decision- making to do around that. Um um I don't know for sure but at one one wake I'll I'll use I'll kind of anecdotally share this is that one wake did a and the Congresso Latino which was working they were working together to gather information about like who who lives there and exactly this who owns how many people

um and their um kind of doortodoor you know censusing of the of the neighborhood. Most people do own their do own the mobile homes outright without mortgages. some of the people who own the mobile homes don't live there anymore and they're renting out their mobile homes. So, they are cons there are people that are concerned about it as a as an asset that they invested in. Um, that's a minority, but we have gotten questions around around that, too. So, um, you know, they are required to be off the site by that date that they were given in in the letter. So, um, you know, I'm I I would have to defer to kind of legally what would happen, but, um, they're they're required to to have them moved by then. Yeah. So, they don't they don't own the land under them. I mean, just like basic, you know, they own the they own the the structure and all of their personal possessions, but they don't own the land under Yeah.

Do you uh, as you're working through this and maybe here, do you have more slides? Sorry.

Do I have more slides? Okay, this is the last one. Okay. Yeah. So, next step in terms of the residents, we continue to submit applications. Um, we're going to continue to have, you know, outreach into the communities. Um, and if we if there's not 144 applications, it's because we know someone doesn't want to do it or they know they're not eligible for whatever reason. Um, neighbor will continue to evaluate those applications and have individual meetings to, you know, kind of tease out

what residents need and assist with that coordination. Um and then the residents will receive you know directly either a check based on you know or or or the funding based on that that um budget estimate for their um expenses or neighbor up if they have a relationship with a contractor will will pay that directly. In terms of the property um there's a development plan in review as I said that's it's in its third round of of review which is pretty far along. um zoning board of adjustment would be required as I mentioned. Um and then they would go through so if they secured that they could get development plan approval. Then they would go through a permitting process which would include demolition permits and all of that um and erosion control. There's a fair amount of steps in the permitting process and then ultimately the land could be developed. So

no council action as a result of reasonzoning is not required for what they wish to do. Just to make sure that's clear

for people watching. Correct. So

was done in 2001 or five or does anybody remember

2003 somewhere in between.

What was your question?

Uh the original resoning for um t the town center plan for MX

DR

DR mixed density res

res. Do we hear like mixed stories and we I we mean I read some um on social media that this land has already been like it's sold or like what is the real status? Do you know? the West Brooks still own the property and um they've notified that they provided notice on December 29th that um that the residents would be off you know had had to be vacated the land by 180 days after that. So that those are the facts that we know whether or not they have a closing date scheduled or choose to, you know, schedule a closing date the day after that 6 months or a year after that 6 months. That's we're not in control of

that. Um we're just we're reviewing the development plan and um sometimes they correlate those things and sometimes they don't. So it the property hasn't been sold. You know, the tax records still reflect that the West Brooks currently own it. And um you said or maybe you didn't. How many um specialists do we have in neighboring up to support this?

Uh well there are and I'll maybe I'll let Andre he's saying seven counselors. Yeah. Seven counselors.

Yeah. Yeah, and I would say those seven counselors are not just for Chattam Estates, but they're for the stable homes carry program, but also knowing that this is the major redevelopment that's happening right now and they're, you know, available to any Chattam Estates residents. Um,

do you think um we have enough support to provide coverage in such a short notice like 180 days? I mean, we've already probably passed one month. So,

yeah. Well, that over the past, you know, 18 months, that's part of what NeighborUp was kind of preparing for and had that meeting, you know, within two weeks of the residents getting getting notified. Um, so I think they're working as quickly as residents are able to, you know, able to get to them. Um, it it it feels like a, you know, it's it's the it's the time that they're required to provide. Um in terms of the property owner

is there any feedback Andre from the residents like what's any counselor feedback that you know people are people understand what is being asked and

I'm rely on somebody to tell me where to go.

All right.

All right. Can you pass that again? Uh do do you like what is the general feel

from the counselors like do you do residents understand that you know what is the ask and they they will be required to move and within a very short period of time and how does that transition look like for them?

Yeah, every so every situation is very different but to specifically answer the question yes every resident that our team is working with understands that at the end of June they've got to they've got to move. Yep. So that that level of that sense of urgency exists. Everybody's on the same page about that.

And how comfortable is your team and how how ready are you to

lead this?

So one of the reasons why we stepped up and are partnering with the town of Kerry in doing this work is this is what we already do. Um so our our team is very very very comfortable in having these conversations. Our job sometimes is to um have tough conversations and help people right to to what comes to what comes next. So, I just met with I happened to walk into their staff meeting um couple of hours ago and you know there were a lot of there were a lot of people in the room working on I mean I saw well I didn't see case files cuz we don't we don't we don't violate trust that way but there were a lot of conver good conversations happening throughout the team about each you know we're working with families on an individual basis right so there's there's no oneizefits-all um response here. So,

and Andre, you must be thinking, what happened to Sera? Why is she asking all these questions? She already knows the answers. I think it's an intentional effort to ask questions um and make demonstrate

um diligence in front of people who are watching because everybody's concerned

and I think based on the feedback that we have received we have to

ask these questions which we already are maybe aware of or we have addressed in

the past and I know that your organization is doing a good job but you know it was intentional. Oh, absolutely. Ask ask away. Transparency is the is the goal. So, no worries.

Thank you. One of the other things that um because we've been watching the conversations online, it's really inspiring to see how many people are concerned about the Chattam State's neighbors. Um and the very often the the great people of Kerry, you know, they're providing food to neighbor up or is that part still neighbor up, right? To neighbor up. uh but there are a lot of folks who want to help in other ways and one of the great things about leveraging NeighborUp is because they are a nonprofit. Can you explain about how um working with them how other people within the community can help?

Yes, thank you. Um I think I called the reloca maybe I said the word seed fund. I think you you know when you when you allocate when you approve this program, the words that we used were that the relocation fund was a seed fund um that could potentially be contributed by the general community at large. Um and there have been discussions um you know that the the property owner or the potential developer um you know may have an interest in in contributing as well. Also part of the intention of the program was to set up a structure through which um our community at large and or you know a potential developer could um kind of channel that support through through a nonprofit productively. So we're not brokering or aware of any formal conversations um but we but we know that the developer um came and took a tour of of NeighborUp and to to understand kind of what they do there. um and um you know there may be interest of them contributing to that fund as well but yes the the community at large could donate and I would expect that that neighborup would receive that

directly kind of and earmark that for this this effort as well

I think that's helpful

so Andre I have a couple of questions pardon me um first of all neighborup does an excellent job and I have some comfort I worry but I have some comfort

that these people can be taken care of um so then I think beyond that and I think about the community. How many of these people are leaving our community by force is kind of how I look at it. How much of an impact does that have to carry because they're workforce people. These people work um low lowpaying jobs and that has a big impact. I don't know if you guys have that data or collect any of that data but I would love to know if you have any knowledge on that. So, we don't have the data right now in terms of, you know, where everybody's going to be working. In reality, there is nowhere in Kerry where you're going to be able to pay $400 lot rent, right? So, the reality is that a lot of our neighbors are going to be moving out of Kerry. And that that part, I mean, I don't have an exact number, but that that I think we can all we can all agree on. And again, I'm asking the question and I already knew that.

Yeah.

But I I wanted people to hear that.

And we're we're just trying to help those people as much as we can.

Correct.

Andre, I have one question. So when we gave the seed money and because you said seed money, it just kind of came back. Um there was an expectation that other people, other partners will also step up to help. And um we were hoping that you know because town of Kerry has invested in this program we hope that Wake County you know does some investments and other organizations. Have we seen like any help from other organizations or Wake County?

Yeah. So, we're working with Wake

Countyy's housing department to help navigate, right? Because they have a lot of real time information on what's available out there in the market better than we would just because they're countywide, right? So, we do have, you know, Heather mentioned Preserving Home. You know, Dan and his team have been in contact with us. We have a lot of different partners that we're working with to make this happen because we can't we can't do it alone. We get to we we stepped up to the plate to coordinate it, right? But that's not the same thing as us doing all the work ourselves. So, we're working with a lot of different folks to make this happen.

Thank you, Andre.

No problem.

So, again, for for the benefit of the public, $800,000 is not enough to meet the full need of these 700 people at Chattam State. And I have full faith that neighbor up and the other partners will assist all 144 family units. It won't be enough. So when you have if you already have I'm trying to talk to you, but the microphone's here.

You want me to give you this mic? Do you already have a mechanism set up for people who are right now ready to donate

or

Yeah. Is that posted somewhere that I've missed or how can we I'm ready to share immediately with people how they can make.

The way we have this set up right now is just like any other philanthropic effort in our organization right you can go on our website you can give people have the opportunity to earmark not airmark that's probably not the right word um label where they want their designate thank you I couldn't think of the word what time is it okay um people, you have the it is still early. Uh you have the opportunity just like you would in any situation. We're trying to keep this as simple as possible, right? So just like you would in any in any situation where

you're you know you're you're giving dollars, you have the opportunity to designate funds specifically for Chattam states if you like. So would that would what they write I've donated on your website so I know I think I can't remember if there's like certain places you click on but there's also like a other or write in or something right

so would they write in chatam estates or would it be stable homes

either one okay

either one would work yeah

all right

again the goal is to keep it as simple as possible yeah

I want I want to check in with Cararissa and see if she has any questions or thoughts I do. Thank you. And I hope I hope uh Mr. Anthony has not sat down um because when I think it's for him.

Did you just Mr. Anthony me?

Yes. Just for clarity. So, you know, these are my neighbors. I've been very, you know, concerned and engaged. You know, that this is the end of my street. You know, their homes back right up to the homes on my street. Um you know, so they've been my neighbors for about 20 years. And first I want to extend my personal you know thank you thank you to our town of Kerry housing and community partnerships team and your guest renowned neighbor up that team and there's also a lot of you know concerned citizens and housing advocate networks and groups that have also been involved and this I think this entire you know solution set and this stable home security program is is you know was from that and I I'm just so proud of the work that everybody's been doing. It's just it's wonderful. But um last week so representatives, a handful of representatives from Chattam State joined a monthly precinct meeting um that we have with the neighbors, you know, right in the neighborhood and they're part of of our precinct. And they shared some of their firsthand concerns and and their primary concerns were they want to stay together. So there's extended families living near each other and others that have formed really tight, you know, community bonds. Um, so I was wondering if there's any if

you can advise and if there's any possibility of some of these, especially the the families that if they could live um near each other. Um, but secondarily, their their other big concern is many of them do own their homes. The honest truth is they're really eager to see their equity preserved or compensated for the investment that they're losing. Um, and I and I know that's a very big ask, but what I wanted to to ask and just I I'm looking for a number. I have I've spoken to a lot of people that want to help, right? And there what I what I want to understand is what perhaps that funding level would need to be if if if there was a way to compensate the mobile home owners for their for the investment and equity they have in their homes. Do you have a even a ballpark idea of what that number might be or do you think you can perhaps get to that number so that the the concerned citizens and potential donors and and folks that would like to be part of the solution perhaps we could have some kind of of funding goal.

So the answer to the question is no. We don't know what that would be. Um, I believe we can find out, but I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to commit to that quite yet because I got to go back to the team and see what's see what's possible. Um, but yes, that is a that is a worry when you own your home and now you might you face the opportunity of having to relocate it or even worse um leave it. That that is a that is a worry and that is a concern that we've heard a number of times. Um, our primary focus has been, you know, we've got now nine months. Wow. We got five months now to help folks relocate and that's been the primary the the primary concern. But, um, that's definitely something that I'll look into with the team and see if we can find out what that ballpark number would be. That's a good question.

That would that would be phenomenal. And, you know, it for example, I do know

a fair bit about mobile homes. Um and and really it's it's sort of a question of what did you pay for your home and understanding that there you know while a mobile home may may not or or does not appreciate the way a typical uh home does there is still that investment that was made and just getting a kind of a level set understanding of what those individuals that live in Chattam states what they've what they've invested in their homes would I think at least help guide maybe some of the goals especially if we you know as a community want want to go big. Um, understanding what that number is would be very helpful, especially as we talk directly to those those neighbors. Um, just just hoping for more information and and I appreciate that if if perhaps that could be something we as we talk to people ask.

Okay.

Um, I have a couple couple more questions. Just a quick question and and Heather, you could probably answer this. does preserving home um does they have experience with mobile homes specifically and their unique challenges especially in moving them or is this uh sort of a new muscle they're developing um and and learning as they go?

Yeah, good question. So, preserving home does um a version of healthy homes carry um throughout not just Wake County but Orange and Durham counties also and there are a fair amount of mobile homes that they've repaired. I don't know if they've actually assisted with the moving of one, but they do have expertise and have worked with mobile home repairs. So, um they are good partners in information providing and I don't know that they've committed to be the workdoers, but at least to um Dan Sergeant knows that whole community of rehab very well and can um can help steer in the right direction and um gain good pricing.

Yeah. Excellent. That's wonderful. Um, and two more clarifications. Uh, first, can can you or Right. Well, I think maybe um

staff might might need to answer this question who a little more they're a little closer to ZBA. I'm wondering what are the parameters for ZBA to approve or not approve a development plan. What I want what I want to clarify for folks because what what we hear all the time is we're told all the time, don't let them do it, right? just stop the development or tell them no. What I'm hoping for is clarity for anybody that may be, you know, paying really close attention here. What is the parameters for what the BOA can consider and cannot consider when they are, you know, approving that development plan for that 100 unit or more development.

Hi Carissa, it's Lisa Glover. Um, so the board of adjustment, there are six criteria that they look at when looking at a development plan like this. And if the applicant provides evidence in favor of each of the six criteria, then the board is required to approve the plan. Um, the criteria range from things like some transportation um, impacts and pedestrian access and things like that. um we can we can get you the exact wording of the criteria but if the applicant presents information evidence on all six of those criteria then the board is required to grant the application is a quasi judicial process so people are testifying under oath there are evidentiary standards um and so it's kind of like a mini court proceeding and if the standard um the u standard is met then the board has to grant the application

and that whole process is and can

detailed in our LDO Right.

Right. And and can we share just for those that are listening or paying attention here again how the individuals that are on the ZBA end up on the ZBA?

Um so they are appointed by the council. Um so you appoint them every year when you do your board appointments. Um they are most of them are attorneys I will say of of the board. Um, and also just

as a reminder to folks, because they are acting as judges, they are not permitted to have contact outside of the hearing process with anyone. Not the applicants, not anyone interested in the case, not a council member. Um, they are not permitted to have outside contact with anyone. They only hear the evidence that is presented to them that night at the hearing on the case.

And I'll just add,

thank you so much. the seat that I had when we did quasi judicials. It was very frustrating to have people attend and start speaking and having to interrupt them and say that's an opinion. We cannot listen to your opinion. It has to be fact-based or

something that can be submitted as facts. And so if anybody's planning to attend, that's what they can expect. And it's very frustrating. And when the agendas go up for those, we do have guidelines for speakers that go up with the agendas to let people know these are the six criteria the board will be looking at. If you have comments, they have to be about these six things. They have to be facts known to you. Those sorts of things. So, we try to give people guidance online with the agenda ahead of the meeting.

Do we have a target date for the ZBOA meeting? Um we don't have a target date because that's you know in the control of the as as the developer submits a development plan that is ready to move. So staff tries to evaluate and get the development plan um pretty final um which happens not typically in the third round of review but there are still a fair number of outstanding comments um around this development plan. So they're not ready now. Um my understanding is that they would like to go before um before June.

Um but we we just um review the plan, resolve the comments and then um provide them with that and then you know they resolve those in the next submitt.

So they haven't made a request for a meeting yet for ZBA. They're not ready

yet.

They're not ready yet. Okay.

And they're in third round of review.

Third round of review.

And are all their units market rate? They have not com. That's Yes, they're all market rate.

Okay.

Yeah,

just checking.

Yep.

Good question.

Any other questions?

A lot of great information. Thank you, Heather.

Thank you.

Heather, thanks.

Thank you, Andrew, Mr. Anthony.

All right. Next, we're going to hear from Liam and Dana on the budget. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council. I'm going to give us just a second to uh let our minds rest after all of that. Um

before they look at numbers.

Yeah. Before we get bored by the numbers. Um I'm in front of you today to do a run through of the FY2026 budget. Um, we haven't done this before, but it's really high level of what you should be looking at in maybe your first 20 minutes, 30 minutes of reviewing a budget document. It includes some of staff's favorite schedules or the schedules that have the most bang for the buck and also um explains kind of in depth why you should be looking at these. Um, I would recommend that you read every page of the budget, but it is quite long. So, um, if anyone in the audience only wants to read a couple pages, these are the pages you're going to want to look at. And you all have budget books in front of you that you can review. This will be a little interactive. So, follow along. Um, I'll have page numbers.

This is different from what we got earlier.

This is the exact same book.

Okay.

I'm just giving you a copy so you can follow along today because I realize a lot of your budget books are at home. Um, anyone watching online or in the audience, you can find the Cary Budget at ww.carnc.gov/ /budget. It's nice and easy. And then you click on here to view the FY2026

budget. So these are the seven most important sections. We have the executive summary, the budget ordinance, the summary of operating and capital budgets, the general fund and utility fund summaries, the capital improvement budget by funding source, the fees and charges schedule, and then the revenue sources and trends. though that's for every single fund. Getting into the executive summary, this is on page 2 to 11. This is actually the last document that we'll put together for the budget because it summarizes all of the decisions that council and staff have made along the way. So, it includes a summary of those key budget decisions made this year in the FY2026 budget. There's a lot of talk of pillars and levers, which is something that we talked about in a lot of budget discussions, as well as an analysis of trends impacting the budget, like the influx subsidy era being over, inflation, sales tax rates, etc. Um, we also talked a lot about aging infrastructure in this most recent budget. And then at the back of this section, there's a highlight of your major funds and capital projects and trends um related to those. The capital projects is not a full list of our capital projects. It's a highlight of some that we're maybe most excited for or happen every year. One that I think is always in there is street resurfacings um and the amount of money.

Pam, can I interrupt quickly?

Yes, please.

So, you're giving us a run through of things that you know you're highlighting to us from on this exam for example from page number 2 to 11. Is this a recommendation or like do we make a note like how what are we

Yeah, that's a great point. So, there's a checklist in front of you that has all of these sections.

Our recommendation is you save that checklist and we can print you out another one when you we give you the recommended budget. Yes, that one. Put it in the front of your FY27 book and then as you're reviewing it, actually check it off to make sure you're looking at all the most important

suggestions. So, what you're covering

right now is in this

it's on the checklist.

Yes. So, it's okay. Got it.

And we're talking about fiscal year 2026, which started in July.

Yes.

July 1st.

Yes. Just to be clear for everybody watching, this isn't upcoming. This is what we're already doing. We're halfway through the year.

Yeah. And we wanted to go through the FY26 budget now so you're familiar with the document that we'll hand to you. And in May when the recommended FY27 budget comes out, you'll be ready to review and and get into detail.

Yeah, we probably could have done this earlier, but we're where we are now. Um and the point being is we spend so much energy on developing the budget. We really don't talk about the budget post July after it's adopted. Um but the thinking being that this will obviously with the being televised and for all that. Um give folks a better understanding of possibly what questions to ask as we start developing and then sharing the FY2027 budget. The numbers are confusing and the dates are confusing but um good good points all around.

Yeah. One of the other things that I learned through reading the budget is what we get is a a bit of an abridged version because we're working through it, but that there's some great information in the final budget that we might not see that explain things like debt service that really dive into it. So looking at the older ones is good because you have the final one. What we actually approve is a bit of a an abridged version.

Recommended budget.

The recommended budget, but the detail behind it is really great, but you have to look at the previous years.

Yeah. So, the budget is approved by July 1st, and then staff take about 90 days to add. It's 100 to 150 extra pages of schedules in there. Um, and we have that 90-day timeline to submit for the uh GFOA budget award, which we've gotten, I think, for 20 years, 30 years or something like that.

Years. Yeah,

something like

a very long. It's in the book. Uh, just read it on the page. Any more questions

on the executive summary? Um, this is traditionally written as a collaboration between the town manager, interim town manager, and the budget office. Our next section, if it can move for me, is the budget ordinance. I'm going to say this is Lisa's favorite section. Um, it is our statutory authorization of the town's annual budget activity. So, every town in North Carolina is required to publish a budget ordinance. They're not required to do all of the other 380 pages because this is what actually allows staff to spend and collect spend money and collect taxes. Um, it includes functional summaries of revenues and expenditures and is the source of truth that all of the other documents are based on. So, if you are looking for a number, you should find it here first. And then Russ briefly mentioned this two weeks ago. Um, but sections 13 plus include authorizations that council delegates to staff every year. And this includes authorizations that you give to the budget officer, which is statutoily the town manager or interim town manager. Um, I would refamiliarize yourself with all of those. They haven't changed a lot in the past 10, 15 years, but we do tweak them every year, and it's it's good to know the authorizations that you're giving us. Um, the most important one of that, one of those is probably to do with budget adjustments every year. That's different by town, but um, in Kerry, you give us the authority to move between lines with some flexibility and have that flexibility throughout the year. Um, so this is on page 51 to 64. And just to get really into the weeds of it, it's by our fund, right? We're in we're a government and we use fund accounting. So at the top it has your general fund and then you get to see your utility fund and um some of your sub funds, your special revenue funds below that. And then we also have capital um ordinances for utilities and general government. I'm going to pause here in case there are any ordinance questions.

So from the uh summary checklist, this shows the municipalities may only spend monies that have been budgeted.

Yes.

So if the budget is passed, so the town manager has the responsibility to follow the budget to spend. So even if the citizens will see why do we spend money on this project or on other project that's the staff town manager's responsibility to follow the budget to spend the money right yes

it's not the town council members responsibility to look into that again because we already passed the budget

correct as we

just to clarify that

uh in between funds and some of this is in the ordinances that I shared specifically last time So you can um that you delegate the manager or budget officer the authority to move between funds. Then other policies that you have um kind of dictate, require, give rules as to what like a contract, a bid that of of obviously now with council initiated items, things we're looking into, but bringing those types of things back as to how you spend the money and what you share a bid award being a simple example of something that would come back to council being within a certain threshold.

And those that's great questions. I'm getting that all the time now. So, I want to throw in an example that I've been using.

Uh people think we should be following every line item,

but we're set up like a corporation. We're a board of directors and then we have a CEO who handles all the operations. Much like a hospital, they have a board of directors. Do they know what the nurses and doctors and all that are spending, what they're doing? Not necessarily. They base it on performance on what they've approved, what they've seen. If things are performing the way they think they should be, then the board of directors is usually happy. So, that's kind of how we got to where we are today. I'm talking about a whole different topic. But, uh, just so that people understand, we are set up like a

corporation. We're board of directors. And like you said, once we pass the budget, now we rely on the manager to operate that budget. So,

yes. Uh, mayor, um, what we always say in the carry 101 class is, uh, municipalities are municipal corporations by law. So, we are a form of a corporation. So, your example is perfect. So, Ross, for the benefit of people that are watching, and I know there's so much more scrutiny now over a council's role versus manager's role, but especially budget is the highlight of most of these discussions. Could you explain like what we are doing right now? How why is it different from what we did 6 months ago and like what was what has changed now with what we are doing?

Nothing's changed with the budget. If you're talking specific tonight just highlighting some sections that are important to staff Liam that we believe will help in asking questions for the budget development. Um we could

this was not covered in in before we approved

the budget in June or July, right? Um, I don't know that we've highlighted all of these sections. You've probably highlighted some of them, but as you were saying, it was it was different because some of these aren't developed yet as you adopt the budget, the summary specifically, but all the uh this is probably a good example, the funds that's you're seeing that with um correct me if I'm wrong, Liam, but as some of these summaries, you'll be seeing um expenditures, revenues, as you get pieces of the budget and start looking at the budget and giving input to the budget um as we develop it this spring or you would have done last spring. I'll just share my experience. Yes.

I don't think we went this deep

into the budget um back in July. I think that probably is a change from my perspective. Having this deeper review is good because it'll help us plan for future. But um maybe that's a difference that I can see. I don't

right. Um so in budget develop because I

I don't this is not budget development. So I want to draw a clear line. It's just this is a look back at the current budget year. In budget development, the thing we're trying to do, we've talked about is uh like page by page. I think we've done summaries um given you a a a budget preview or a manual at I believe quarterly meetings and then uh have you bring us back questions. We yes, we're talking about doing u a more in-depth review of the preliminary budget as it's being developed this year than maybe we would have done in years past, but the budget itself um was not inherently different.

Got it. But the review process was different. I just want to make sure we highlight these things. I'm aware of this. I was part of that process, but I just want to make sure that we are kind of sharing this information with people as they're watching it.

Yeah, good, good points.

Um, before we move on from the budget ordinance, can someone tell me total general fund expenditures? I think it's on page 51.

It's a test.

You will get a gold star. It will be um in your imagination, but you'll get it.

It's on the It's on the page. 295,000. Oh, no. That's a million.

Yes. 295 million and a bunch of down to the dollar. Um,

don't read those big numbers.

Yes.

It's a very It's a simple test.

Yes. Um, gold star. I highlighted that because that number is not going to appear on this next summary. Um, which is the summary of operating and capital budgets on page 65. This is Stacy's favorite section. Um, and it's been in our budget for longer than most of us have been alive, probably. Um, it is the most important page in the entire document, and it shows year-over-year expense changes.

That's clear. Just you

some of us, um,

year-over-year expense changes by fund. So, the top is the general fund, then

you go down to the utility fund, you can see our other major funds, and then it gets into the capital section. And this takes the information from the ordinance and summarizes it in one page and also allows you to very quickly communicate what is the year-over-year change in our budget. So down at the very bottom you can see the total budget year-over-year change and the percentage. And then you can also see at the top how our general fund changed um year-over-year. So if anyone will read what the FY26 general fund is on this page, that would be helpful for me. you testing this gonna make me open this book.

You got it, Michelle.

Yeah.

290 million.

Yes. And if you'll notice, that's different from what we just heard in the ordinance. There's an asterisk on this page. It's because this page is um net of transfers. We don't want to double count a transfer in its originating fund and the fund that it moves to. An example of that is when we fund capital out of the general fund, we move from the general fund to a capital project fund. And we don't want to count that dollar twice. So we just count it where we end up spending the money. Last year we had a little over $4 million, a little under $5 million in capital transfers from the general fund. So that 290 is 5 million less than what it was in the ordinance. But just the numbers might not match exactly, but the budget staff, we reconcile it multiple times every year.

Any questions on this one? For those watching, explain the difference between general fund and operating.

Our general fund is our major operating fund. Um,

thank you. That's all I want.

Oh, great.

Because those terms are interchangeable and I always say operating and others say general fund.

That's true.

Yeah. Uh, we would we have two operating funds mainly our general operating fund and our utility operating fund. But um,

now you're getting questions. There's a lot of detail that we can get into. Moving on, we have our general fund

summary and our utility fund summary. This takes that highle functional information from the ordinances and breaks it into the department and division categories and specific revenues that you probably want to get the detail of. So, this is where you can find trend information, more specifically for that department, that function or that revenue source. Um, this is Dana's favorite um section in the budget. Um,

yeah, trends are like the trends. Yeah.

A a good note for this one is the budget department is not incredibly large in carry and so we do not update the estimates after the recommended budget is proposed. Um, so if you're looking for what actual expenditures were for a year for 2026 or for 2025, um, the ACER is where you're going to want to go for that. If you're looking for what staff thought the expenditures were going to be at the end of the year as of May of last year, you can come and look in the budget book.

But you can also say because our revenues come in later.

Yeah. Yeah. Um and every fund has a summary. I'm just highlighting the general fund and utility fund here. Um another quiz. Can anyone tell me what sales tax was in 2022? No, 2023.

35. Mhm.

536 35 35 and a half.

I don't have the document in front of me and I can't read this. So I'm assuming you're right. Congratulations.

He was guessing.

I think it's actually 57.

No, that's with the county probably. We're in the 30s.

23 sales tax was 57.

Oh, you're talking about I was talking about tax rate. What are you talking about?

We're talking about total revenue.

Oh, sorry. I missed that.

Yes.

I thought we were talking about tact.

Great. Any questions on the fund summary? I would spend a lot of time on this one when you're reviewing and looking at trends.

Questions. I just I can say this on any

page, but this is really helpful looking back at this current year at I know this was the point, but to say it out loud, but as we're preparing to start the next cycle that it's this is really helpful. Thank you.

Yeah. And I think if you have any questions, feel free to ask at a later date or by email or reach out to Russ because we'll be happy to dig in deeper to the detail behind why we made these decisions last year.

It's all out there for you or the public to see.

Also, two of us have not

Yes.

seen it probably quite as in

Yes. So, Cararissa checking in. You have any questions, comments?

Um, no. Actually, as usual, doing a fantastic job. Uh, very clear.

Thank you, Cararissa.

There will be a quiz after this guy,

and you can't use your checklist, so um, moving on. The capital improvements budget by funding source on page 276. We're skipping over a lot of department profiles to get to the capital section of the book. Um, and this is a list of all the capital projects that were funded in this budget.

Is this Russ's favorite chart? Um, mine is the one that has

his is traffic

all the years of projects

and trends.

We're going to say this is Margaret's favorite chart. Um,

um, this is not a list of all capital projects. Russ Russ alluded to that because capital projects, unlike the operating budget, that funding remains until the project is closed. The definition of a capital project is that it usually takes longer than one year to purchase the good or construct the service or building and um it's of a higher dollar value and has a longer useful life. Um so this is all of the new capital projects or funding added to existing capital projects for the year. Um, elsewhere we have the list of all of the capital projects, but if you're looking for what did we fund for capital for FY26,

this is the list of all of the general government projects. Um, it's split by the capital project funds. So, there's parks on there, there's downtown, there's general government, there's fire, um, and there's transportation and transit. And it includes some highlevel funding restrictions. We can get into more detail if you have questions on that, but we have restricted capital sources like PAL bill, vehicle license fee, um, parks, reckl etc. And those are split only to the projects that are eligible for them. Any questions on the capital list? So um the that funding um the second column

yes

is uh the first one is uh for example the heavy duty equipment replacement is 1 million 95,000 and the debt fund is from the debt. Yeah. Does that mean that?

Yeah. So, we have two types of debt primarily in that debt funding. There's going to be bond projects which were authorized by a bond referendum, in this case 2019, and then we also have installment purchase debt, which we primarily use for vehicle purchases. That's um restricted in state statute based on how we can use installment purchases. But in that heavy equipment, it is a vehicle or it's a bunch of vehicles. And so when we actually purchase the vehicles, we'll go and take out a loan against the value of those vehicles. Um that usually happens in the spring and comes for before council.

So as we review this, I'm thinking one of the benefits of this is to get feedback on how we can make this clearer, better.

Yeah.

For not only us but the citizens next year. So you guys have at it if you think it could be clear. I love the trends.

I want to see more trends. I love that. So

is that Dana's favorite?

Yeah, I like that.

It's also possibly thinking what we

share at our um budget, you know, sharet town hall, whatever we decide to end up calling it. Um as part of kind of an education learning process because you don't just pick up on how to do a budget and look backwards and actually see what we have in the budget. that that might be helpful is we're trying to also teach citizens how to review what we share every year.

One of the other things that I think might be helpful too is how close our actuals are to our budgeted overtime because that one trend chart is great. It shows the actuals which is which is really helpful. It would might be interesting to see um with our budgeted numbers how close do we come with the actuals and what does that look like? Yeah, I think that's a good chart to add.

I think one conversation that um Lori, you brought today during our 3x4 meeting was also I think I'm kind of like combining that with budget discussion is the fund balance policy. I think the we should look that more in detail about the trend compare it with other municipalities what they're doing and since we are growing where do we stand on that right that was a good suggestion too maybe we can lump that at some point

well I think I agree I think one of the interesting items here is if you look at the general fund and the general fund balance you'll see that it the number goes up substantially higher than our expenses and expenditures and it's because it's a bigger number.

Mhm.

Right. So it's the difference between you know we spent 10 million more last year let's say because we had more capital purchases which also means that we also had to have more in fund balance because that number was bigger. So, it might be helpful to to showcase because we had a big capital investment year,

but this year we will not have well, I'm guessing as large a capital investment.

We'll determine it together.

Yeah. For every dollar in expenses that we add, we have to add 33 cents in to revenue to support the fund balance.

Exactly. Exactly. Which that number gets bigger as our as our budget gets bigger.

Yeah. And to follow up on that, the amount we have in reserves, I would love to see how we compare with other municipalities, our size, bigger, smaller, uh because we carry a large amount in reserves. So,

exactly. And how do we trend forward, right? Like that was also one of the suggestions in future,

keeping our AAA bond rating.

Yeah, keeping our AAA bond rating. So, I think that those are good conversations and I agree.

Yeah. to go back to the fund summaries as we're talking about um fund balance. This is the summary that you can see our projected fund balance for the upcoming year as well as

Dana's actual

Dana chart.

Yes, Dana's chart.

We're going to call them the

We're going to learn what your favorite charts are.

Then we'll name them after you.

You you were quizzing us earlier. I have a I have a quiz for you. Um Heather was talking to us earlier about the stable homes carry program.

Yes. And in the capital improvements project, we see $250,000.

Yes.

Where I'm recalling $550,000. Can you talk about the difference?

Yeah. So there was already money in the program that had been allocated and so to get to that yearly allocation we needed to add 250,000. Um, I think she mentioned it in her slides how it was kind of a mix of CWBGCV co money. So, it it wasn't an annual allocation, but I believe in the upcoming year we're going to be asking for the 600 um to fully fund that program.

But I also see $50,000 for neighborhood improvement grant. Is that separate from

Yeah, it has to be separate. Sorry.

Yeah, that is separate.

Good questions. Yeah. Or observations.

Can I ask for a point of clarification here? And this is what I want to get at is a little bit more uh fundamental to make sure I completely understand. When I go to carryc.gov/budget, I understand that that is our approved budget. Can you address for me with how we approach our rolling budget? And what I'm I think what I'm drilling at is is this a static document? If I'm a citizen or a council member and I look at this in August um of the fiscal year or in February of the fiscal year, does this budget document change to reflect allocations or changes in what we're doing? And if and if it you know I don't believe it does change, right? So, how can we get better visibility into where we are throughout the fiscal year versus the budget that we, you know, passed? And and I don't mean that. Um, I really mean when we especially council changes or or approves changes, is there a way for us to get visibility in in sort of that year-long difference between what we planned and what we are needing to do throughout the fiscal year.

Yeah, I think there are probably two points to answer there. The first is um when council takes an action at a a council meeting that's appropriating money or moving money around. An example of this would be the Dixon AV convenience center that council approved recently that is changing the ordinance and so those council minutes are the actual action that took place where council moved money in between funds. Um but on top of that Carrie puts out a quarterly report every quarter. The second quarter is being drafted as we speak, which summarizes financial trends through the first two quarters of the

year. And then there's also a budget section that includes interfunctional transfers and interfund transfers year-to- date. So that's where you can see what council has done so far allocating additional funds or moving funds around as well as staff transfers interfunctionally that need to be reported to council after they've happened. So those uh quarterly reports are where you want to go. And maybe I'll add rolling budget as a philosophy came in where you actually um put aside some money that's not allocated to a specific expenditure. Um this year the examples of $1 million and then you at least have that rather than having to um find changes in the budget documents or or uh reallocate funds within the budget is unallocated funds that you can push towards some allocation that you want. and you'll actually see some of those on Thursday night at your council meeting where we're actually giving you a summary of the um remaining u funding in the midyear appropriations. The other thing I'll say, Dina Mike can say this more eloquently than I, but when you adopt your budget or you develop your budget and largely budgets a year round, so we're in it now forecasting revenues for the through the end of next year projecting expenditures. And so Dana, you said some version of this is our best guess. Maybe I'll just let you say what you told me. I I thought it it worked for me very well.

I think you're referring to when when we're projecting, we're it's our best estimate of what's going to happen. And then um of course when we get through the year, we actually see what is happening along the way. But before we're done, we have to we started all the way back in January. So right now we're starting this year's with projections. And the last time that Liam will take and make revised projections is in May. And at that point, it's just a snapshot in time. And of course, things change in particular with revenues. Uh because we have revenues coming in all the way through September. And so, um so his, you know, best

projection is based on the trends that are happening. Um we have multiple ways of of doing that, but um and but they're not exact. They're just the best projection at the time.

And to go with the example of the convenience center, if we had known that the convenience center was going to hit us in the next year, we would have budgeted for it.

We didn't. So, you were asked to um move monies around. So, it's best to probably say, in my opinion, obviously the budget document is it's your best guess when you adopt it, but it's not static throughout the year. It just means that you have to make appropriations and take council action to move monies around as priorities change. And probably a really good example too is um because I think I told Bella and Britney coming in midyear budget um as a new council member is probably tough. You talk about what are your priorities? Um and the best example to work on your priorities for the coming year is in the budget process unless uh you wish to move monies around and take council action during this period of time as some version of a mid-year appropriation or change the parties that you have. So, it's got to be interesting interesting as a as a elected official as you come in halfway into someone else's adopted budget in the year.

That's right. This hard for us to understand a thing 400 pages that is the same for us. So, trust me.

Um, yeah. And just some scheduling. I think we mentioned this last time, but capital requests were due from staff in Thanksgiving and today is the day that our operating requests closed from staff and we're able to start refining those to a recommended budget. So, the budget process has been going on for months at this point and we're just now getting council involved to start doing that prioritization and refine it for the recommended and then adopted budget. This is my second to last one. This is a full 71 pages. So, I'm not going to recommend that you read all of these 71 pages, but the fees and charges schedule is kind of an addendum to the ordinance that we put in the appendex, but this is the authorization for all of the fees and charges carry charges to residents

and um people in Kerry for services and development fees and such. So, if you have anyone that you're interested in or you want to know more about or what it is, this is where you go and look up that fee. It includes things like transportation development fees, water and sewer development fees, all of our parks charges, um all of our sewer and water rates, etc.

This is the one that I remember is always the red line one that when we get in a recommended budget.

Oh yeah, that's

always really helpful for somebody who looking at it for the first time. Did it go up? Did it go down? I've always appreciated that.

Yeah. So, the recommended budget has um the past year's fees if they were changed in red and crossed out. And then the recommended changed the fee in black next to it. And then for the adopted budget, we changed it all to the black so that it's uniform and nice. It's

really helpful. I remember as a new council member thinking, well, what did it go from? What was it the fee before? And then you can always ask, well, why did it go up?

So, I found that really helpful.

Yeah. And we did a um or we parks did a pretty substantial parks fee study and change last year. So there were quite a few changes in the parks fees there if you want to go and look at them.

Yeah. And just to be clear those are watching any fees we charge to developers has to be given to the authority has to be given to us by the legislature.

Yeah.

So some municipalities might have authority to charge different fees or fewer fees but it just depends.

Yeah. And our fees are backed up by studies that we have to do regularly to make sure we're charging the correct amount.

And we have the numbers of how much we recover out of the cost percentage wise, right? I

I believe so. Yeah.

Other rules, some fees can only be spent in the department you collect them in. Uh for example, so there's yes, lots of specific rules to fees, fee revenue.

Yeah. Um, if you go back to the general fund summary, there's a whole section for fee revenue. Um, where you can see what

these fees are actually bringing in. Uh, and then the final section, um, let's say this is my favorite one is the revenue sources and trends. The general fund revenue sources and trends is page 98 to 108, but the utility fund and the um transit fund and the fleet fund have their own sources and trends. But this is where you'll get some of the detail of what this revenue source is, what is the authorization for carry to charge to that revenue source and then a large history of or a long history of um what that revenue source has looked like over 105 years. So here you can see other taxes and licenses. Our primary other tax is sales tax, but this also includes occupancy tax, ABC revenue, um, and a couple other small service charges. But we get a lot of questions about say sales tax, what is the authorization behind that or what is this specific fee, what is this specific revenue? And this is where you can go and dig into that detail. This is my last section on the checklist for now. Um, so if you have any larger budget questions, if you have any documents you want to highlight, if you just want to talk to me, this is your opportunity to do that.

And before you ask questions, just wanted to highlight that it is 7 o'clock and we um typically have about 30 more minutes of programming time.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions for Liam?

Thank you, sir.

You're welcome. I'm I am going to stay here, though. So,

he's now pivoting to this year's budget, the planning. we were talking about 26, now we're going to talk about FY27 and specifically the calendar. Um, so I think you'll recognize this dot chart from last time. We filled it out with some more detail. Um, starting with this work session, which is the budget document review as well as the community engagement plan. And then we're also going to come back to a work session on the 5th and do a preliminary model

exercise. It I just told you that we got budget requests today. I am human so we won't have all of the details um figured out by February 5th but it will be a preliminary model of what are the levers that we can pull on property tax and how will that impact our expenses and ability to contribute to capital and operating. Um then we'll come to the retreat on the 20th and 21st and we'll do some financial fluency and priorities policy work as well as talking about the pillars and nailing down what council priorities are for this upcoming budget. Um then we'll do small groups in March which will be that budget packet preview that I talked about last two weeks ago and then we'll come back for work sessions in March on um capital projects. We have all of those requests. April probably won't be budget work sessions because I have to make a document with my team and so we'll let other staff take those work sessions unless we have really urgent budget questions and then the budget will be delivered to council. That's the interim manager's recommended budget on May 7th, a week before it's presented formally at the quarterly on March 14th. Um I'm going to let Russ take the two bars at the bottom.

Well, how keep going and I'll hit them. um when we do the

great two slides from now.

Um so then we'll get into May and we'll have three operating budget discussions talking about the general fund and the utility fund and then as we have every year we'll have two budget public hearings, one more than is statutoily required on May 28th and June 11th and then budget adoption aimed for June 25th with the first day of the budget year being July 1st. and a reminder that we need an approved budget by July 1

and a vacation on July 2nd

for Liam. All right. Uh I'm gonna take these couple of slides, but boards and commissions, um this would be the

proposal. We did this last year but talk about how it can be a little different this year because last year we really focused on levers and understanding the model which we can still do this year but you can also now that some have done that is possibly get a little more budget feedback from the boards and commissions that was something that council seemed interested and then having learned that maybe we didn't go to all the uh boards and commissions that we make sure we do that um this year. So this would be the meeting dates we're proposing to do that. We don't want to pit all this on Liam and team. So this would be split up and spread out amongst uh directors, myself, other staff to so that Liam is is not going to each one of these meetings and quite frankly he couldn't go to three meetings on one night.

Um this is also considerably earlier than it was last year. Last year was a lot on budget education for the boards. This way we can actually get some input and feedback earlier in the process.

All right. So I'll highlight on the next slide. Thank you. is this is um what I this is a little bit of um if you look at what was on the schedule slide with the dots is just calling out some attention to some things that we'd call adjustments to community engagement where we're doing more community engagement or something new this year. Um but obviously we've got the input that will be collected through 311 and not set up there. Anyone could come to public speaks out or send u budget information request at any at any time. Um, work session presentations I I put on the new because they're televised this year. Um, so you're sharing information with possibly more people than you would have ever done in years past because they can see what we're doing at a at a budget discussion. Boards and commissions while you did that um last year um you know staff can last year the staff that were there gave feedback that was learned um to the to the uh budget staff. this year kind of suggesting if desired uh each of you are a council liaison to those boards so uh you could report back to each other and one one of these if if you desire to do

so. Um there was some discussion about you know what you do with your boards and commissions. So I just want to spend a little bit of time with you thinking about how you use the groups you already have to get more feedback on the budget. Um since hopefully you you will be there as well. So, I don't know if you want to talk about that now or we can come back to it. There's only one more slide on this. New is the community budget town hall or whatever name we interret or whatever we land on. We're looking at the week of April 6. Uh looking at a location of Bond Park Community Center or the senior center that that's the very center of town as it turns out. um and with a time frame that would be a rolling style meeting um and have a time where directors are there and can present and then get feedback from anyone that wishes to attend and something we just haven't done before. I think we'll learn a lot from that and then next year if we choose to do more or at different locations and based on different staffing models hopefully in a year maybe we can do more. But that's something new we're proposing this year. Carry 101 which we're going to do um ask Liam this today. We've typically treated it as a learning exercise with area 101. Uh but we can ask for budget feedback and then we can take that feedback and roll it up into uh budget discussions with staff and then obviously we do public hearings. Uh that would be three. That's not new. But I think it's um a good balance of some new things to try along with things that we've always done. Learn from that this year. Have a discussion with you going into even the following year's budget. And if you wish to do more, we could do it then. So, in in your timeline, you you had two small group meetings. You were talking about small groupoup council.

Small group council um more if needed. Those are the ones that are currently planned to be scheduled in the weeks of um council meetings. If we need to add more and obviously that would be kind of your page by page preview. Um if we don't get all the pages, we'll need more meetings with you.

Yeah. and happening in March. We won't have the recommended budget for you to review yet, but we'll have those that preview pack in

and also the thinking being a preview. So, we talked about so cannot and team can't get you the recommended budget by that date. So, just sharing what we have at that moment. You'll be seeing insights. We'll have to make sure that we're very clear with with um with everyone who wishes to see it that it's where we're at as of that date. It is not the recommended budget at that point in time, but it just offers a point in time focus of discussions.

So the I forgot what you call it. There it is. Community budget town hall. We're only holding one that week or we think

we would hold one one day of that week and uh promote it very broadly.

Okay. And could that be streamed so that

people can have access to at least the information? I know it's a sharet type.

So it makes difficult, but it's at a time when many citizens have family engagements. 4 to 6 p.m. is dinner time. How do we how do we really

get the kind of feedback that we want from families?

It could be longer. That's that's thinking as of this moment, we haven't put um you know the final pieces together and communicating it or not. Um, we actually were talking about possibly, you know, maybe you could do some videos from it. I don't think we've talked about streaming it. I don't know the logistics of streaming. Susan might be able to help with that.

The first thing that we probably should do is consider tweaking that time to be more like 3 to 7. The idea being at the end of the day and the beginning of the day. You remember how we used to do those open houses? So, that's number one.

Number two, recording it. If you imagine a room like this where we have a bunch of tables set up and people are one-on-one going to tables, we could set up a camera and people could see that. They won't be able to hear the interactions at least in that part. But it doesn't mean we couldn't set it up,

figure out what the cost of that is and put that in there. We can do that. We also talked about uh we have talked

about but have not finalized this thinking because we wanted to hear what you had to think about dur during those during that openhouse time having a rolling presentation. So every half an hour right there's a presentation people can come and hear it. That would be something that we could stream or we could record and show.

Okay.

As an as examples. I I love these ideas, finding a way to hit, you know, more people with the right information the way they want to consume it rather than

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah. 100%.

And since we haven't done it before, we'll likely learn this year of possible other ways that we can come back in in future years and do more.

I also think it'd be a great idea for us to focus a few more of your Carry Matters discussions on the budget. that that would be helpful and trying to get feedback and we can help brainstorm with you different topics, different ways to kind of pull information from that and set up I don't know little um ways for people to give feedback directly and and these meetings are great because a lot of people have been tuning into these great Russ um in our last meeting we discussed u a focus group so I didn't see any plan for a focus group that was a conversation that we could potentially pick people from our existing boards.

Mhm.

Who could be like, you know, kind of sit in these meetings while council is reviewing the information and they can provide feedback and they could help us kind of

think through some of these like uh do we have any plan for this time?

Not proposing one if y'all wish to talk about it more. I think there's some difficulties to it. If it's a new group, a new group of people, we've already discussed how we're have a limited amount of time. we're already doing more and a limited number of staff. Um, if you were to recruit for this, determining what the criteria is, you've got weeks, months, you've got to figure out who it is. If it's from the board, you could you could possibly do that. But we're going to hit all the boards and then you can share the feedback from the boards. I think it's something that

um if you wish to do, probably next year is the better year for it.

Sure.

Um,

that's what I thought. I mean it's maybe too soon to you know implement the plan but I think we should definitely think about this.

So that we have more feedback more engagement. I understand the advisory board but I did share the challenge last time that 30 minutes is not enough to review the entire budget of town of Kerry.

Correct. Um but maybe if people will come to this um town hall sharet and we get more learning this year maybe the following year will be easier for folks to follow along. And I I do believe we'll learn better tools to use in the future.

Yeah, I had a similar question just echoing uh the sentiments my council members both uh with council member Bush agreeing that more engagement is always a good thing, but council member Bol, we've heard I think all of us on council, a lot of interest from residents in perhaps some sort of standalone board or committee dedicated to the budget in particular. And I agree. It seems fiscal year 27 is probably too ambitious to start that from scratch, but just surfacing that we're hearing a real desire from residents for something like that.

And maybe we start it at the town hall and maybe the town hall even has some sort of focus group type activity included. Um just something for us to continue thinking about for future budgeting years.

And we're running out of time so I don't want to dig too deep.

Um but would a temporary board make sense? Don't we appoint in the summers

like task force? You mean?

Yeah. And then you know they can review the budget just like we did and then by the time budget comes around they're ready to hit the ground running. confused.

One of the things you asked me to do, actually I think it was Susan's idea, was to ask the ISAB and they're prepared

to talk at this next meeting about communication um how to do better communication about the budget and get insight. So, I know that's on their agenda for next time, but I agree it might be too soon to do for 2027. Plus even just boards in general take us well take us three months or four months to do appointments and interviews

and train

train.

Lori, one of the things that it might be really helpful given to the discussion is is um maybe you and um Nicole and the group can talk not only about this year but the idea for next year too. So what can we be doing right now? What should we be thinking about now and putting into place that we can start working on this summer to get something in place? Another thing that uh Russ talked with us about was um his understanding of council's interest to involve Kerry 101 and previous carry 101's

and um we we're considering we throw it out there for your feedback. Um we should have a list of all of the past members. And while we wouldn't be suggesting that we have a separate um night for them, we could do some targeted um invitations to the previous Kerry 101 participants and really ask them if they can step up and come out and participate in the town hall and and from that in that group maybe be able to pull them aside and do some kind of focused questions since we know they're very um they already have a great knowledge base and kind of maybe try to comb combine those two things for this year. It's not adding to the day and it's just a little more outreach where we could pull it out. Don't know if you all have thoughts about that. How that sounds. I think that's a great thought but you know we should definitely also engage some of the advisory board members because after our last meeting a lot of people from our existing boards did send an email and I did forward it to you because your request was that the

council member should not get engaged and you know um you want to keep it very independent so that makes

no promises yet.

No promises yet but you know that was the direction at least from your end. So I did forward that to you. So advisory board members who have been plugged into the system for a long time.

Yeah, for sure. We can make sure that

them up to speed is much easier. So you know my recommendation would be that we should try to roll this idea across the board. Well, one of the things that we can do when we're putting together the outreach plan for that meeting is to look at these um special groups um of people who've put in special time over the years to to learn and grow and to in addition to the general outreach that we would do with all of our citizens, make sure we put a little extra effort into inviting them to help us a little more.

Great. And now from the manager.

Thank you, Liam. Uh, more to come. As you can see, at every work session, it would seem on the budget. Um, all right. If you like snow or winter weather, you should love the forecast for the next two weeks. It's going to be frigid. Um, Mike, I don't even um chief meteorologist, Chief Cooper and Chief

Cooper is here. Uh but as you've seen in the past, he'll be send he and his team and Jimmy and public works will uh form groups if they haven't already started. They probably have um to talk about what's what might be upon us. That's really a quick update. If you have anything quick to add, feel free.

Uh no sir, just as you see um and probably heard there's a winter storm coming. Don't know the exact bounce yet. Uh still too early. We're monitoring it. Uh the timeline is is Saturday through probably Sunday or a little bit later. Public works will begin treating the roadways and streets tomorrow. We will begin emergency operations planning Thursday morning. We've been in contact

with uh Wake Durham and Chadam County to coordinate our efforts with emergency operations. Um, and then finally, since we are streaming uh this event, I want to remind all our citizens to please make sure you're checking your home, check your car, make sure your schedule, if you can rearrange your schedule and stay at home off the roadways, that would be um preferred. And then finally, make sure you're checking on family and friends and um making sure they're okay and loving Carrie residents. So, thank you very much.

You forgot um buy bread and milk.

Fair.

Yeah. Yeah.

And toilet paper.

Yes. Is it a two loafer or we'll see.

Okay,

it's definitely there's some excitement around winter weather. Uh real quick, uh myself and the staff team are working on just a way to bring you your council initiated items probably at work sessions and quarterlies and share. Uh real quick just to I'm not sure this will be the tool. Uh this was just an example. I know there more, but just to show you, you know, some way of tracking and putting information out there with what your initiated uh items are. So, that was just an update for you all. And then, oops, I had one last one. Um, and then last but not least for tonight is Dana is going to come up and give um information on sales tax revenue.

So, while we're waiting on Dana, Carissa, you have anything right now?

Nope, I'm good.

Okay.

Ready for a winter storm?

Okay. So, these uh this information is going to look familiar to you. We're trying to bring it to you every time we have an update. And the cool part about this update is uh it's effective basically 6 months into the year. Now, uh it doesn't exactly look like that for sales tax because our sales tax has basically a three-month delay.

And um but the good news is the green line is this year. And so um so we're not we're not calling it success yet,

but uh but the numbers for sales tax are looking much better than we had projected. I'll go back just so you can take a look at that. If you look at the orange line, that was what we what Liam had been using to do the budget. And if you recall, there's a um a state recommended amount that they say it will likely increase in the next budget year. The state had said 2%. We said we're not seeing that here in Kerry. So we did our budget at 1% above that orange line. You can see that the green line were significantly above that. Um so November sales tax receipts are up 8% uh from a year ago. um November sales tax receipts are up 1% from October, which is great. Uh the and that and then um it's the third straight month of higher year-over-year sales tax revenue. So, that's that's pretty good news. That's starting to look good. And um and in fact when you look at the totals it's a full as of right now a full almost 7% above last year. So we budgeted it to be at uh 1% above last year and we're a full almost 7%. So very optimistic um as of right now. So we're kind of hesitant to call this a trend yet just a few months in. Um but it it does seem safe to say that we are probably going to exceed the sales tax um revenues that we projected within the budget and the exact dollars are on the left hand side there. So last year was at 19.4 million. This year we're at 20.7 million.

Now last time we spoke of this you asked for more detail about what how sales tax

is done. So if you look at the detail in this um there are three lines where there's a star at it. Those are the only three lines that go directly uh and a portion of it go directly to Kerry. So there's a full 4.75% of sales tax that is state only. And then there are um in all three of the counties that we're in, there's a 1% uh and then a 0.5% and then a 0.5%. I I made a little error on that that line. The um the 40 article 42 is actually 0.5% and then the article 43 in Chattam County is actually zero. So those those two numbers are flipped. Um, so when you look at that, we're only getting a portion of 2% of sales tax revenues. And how that is done, I've provided the information um down below if you you can link in it in the in what you have so that you can go directly to it. But essentially, the state distributes distributes it on a per capita population base to the counties. The counties then have the option of doing it one of two ways. And the three counties that we're in do it all the same way, which is also populationbased. I'll stop to make sure there aren't any other questions on that.

Which one is 1%.

Pardon?

So we have three county and city, right? Article 39,40 and 42.

You got it. Yep.

So is this um different like it's for V Chadam and then Durham?

Yes, that's correct.

Which one is Wake?

Wake is the first column. Um and it is the one we get the most from.

So it's 39.

It's um article 39 is uh throughout the state. So throughout the state art any any county is 39

um is applicable to article 39.

Got it.

And then within Wake Cadam and Durham then they they those particular counties to choose to allocate it based on population. Durham is only one property if I recall

and we have zero population. So just so

Yes. So the the population based in zero in Durham is zero. So we get zero from Durham.

So we have make sure I read it back to you. So we have a total or or the counties have a total of 2% of the sales tax in which they can distribute money based on popul population for the 12 or 13 depending on how you count municipalities that are in Wake County.

Correct. A portion of it.

A portion of it.

Yes. Yep. A certain portion is required to go to schools. So there's different allocations and each municipality gets a portion of that. And that helps us with our property tax increase as well. Yes. Just for the education purposes.

Yes. Yes. Exactly. That was the revenues that we were just going through there. That is based on this and the majority again is from Wake County, but there is some from

Chadam. Okay. Now, uh this is probably the more significant one. Now this is again showing fiscal year 26 in green with last year um fiscal year 25 in orange. So you can see that our receipts in December were up and in fact in real numbers our receipts in 2025 fiscal year uh were 132.5 million at this point in the year and then this year they're at 143.7 almost8 million and um so what that looks like in real terms is December was up 14% % year-over-year. Uh it was down from November. That's simply because

most people pay in in November. That is the peak month of payment. Uh and so December property tax revenues were down 20% from November. And then um and then the year-over-year receipts obviously are relatively significant. The actual percentage is 8 and a half% above. So So again trending in in the right direction. And in fact, um, it's slightly above what we had forecasted for this. So, we use all of this information to monitor what's happening right now as well as to project what will happen next year. So, Liam's using this information for next year. And then you'll get a full you'll get not only the these revenue n numbers, but expenditure numbers uh as soon as Kim has them available, which is going to be very very soon um for the year end. And it does it these numbers are showing the revenues are are are showing above um budgeted amounts and as of right now the the expenditures are showing below budgeted amount.

That's what we want.

So another positive yes that's where we want to be

and that's it.

Or other questions.

This is helpful. Thank you so much Dana.

Thank you.

And if none that's uh it for tonight. Thank you, Dana.

You're welcome.

Carissa, you have anything else this evening?

No, just thanks so much to everybody for accommodating me while I travel for work.

All right, safe travels. Bring warm weather with you.

I'm going to try.

All right, take care. All right, council. Time to go into close session. I would entertain a motion.

I can I can put the motion. Pursuant to GS14 143-318.11A1 3 and six, I move that we hold a close session to consult the attorneys

employed by and or retained by the town in order to preserve the attorney client privilege between the attorneys and the town. prevent the disclosure of information that is made privileged or confidential pursuant to the laws of the state including GS143-13 318.10E or not considered a public record within the meaning of chapter 132 of the general statutes consider the qualifications competence performance character fitness conditions of appointment or conditions of initial employment of one or more individual public officers or employees. There's a motion. Is there a second?

A second.

Discussion. All in favor, please say I.

I.

Any oppose? Motion carries unanimously and we'll move into close session in five minutes. Can I say that?

Yeah.

All right. So, so we can take biological break.

We'll reconvene our work session after the close session. We have no further business. So I declare this work session adjourned. Thank you.