tons of times where I'm like, it's just like no one's home for dinner. It's just Kate and I and it's like, oh, okay, I guess what are we going to do? >> Yeah, exactly. [laughter] >> You have to talk to each other now. >> [laughter] >> Well, less things on the calendar I thought, but it's really not. You still find a way to >> Yeah. Yeah. >> get busy and do stuff and which is okay. >> Yeah, there's always good stuff to do. >> [laughter] >> One is one. Ben went back to Nebraska. Zach is going back Friday. >> Cuz what years are they? >> Uh juniors, both juniors. >> Well, that went fast. >> It just they start later. >> Yeah. >> About a week apart. Yeah, it did go fast. >> Will they get done in four or will they have to go a little early? >> That's the plan. >> [laughter] >> That's That's the plan. >> Did they stay the course? Did they >> So far they've not >> what I want to do and this is what I >> They've not changed majors. >> You're getting the one minute finger. >> Oh. Oh, she's >> Look alive. >> Is that Dan's AI? >> Yeah. Yes. [laughter] >> Okay, I better shut my phone off. >> Good evening. It's now 5:30 and I call to order the workshop of Victoria City Council. Our workshops are informal so that with that we're going to dive right into our agenda this evening. We have just one item on our workshop agenda this evening and that item is to discuss the proposed 2027 fees and charges and our preliminary 2027 general fund budget and levy projections. Kicking us off on that item this evening is our assistant city manager and finance director Trisha Pollock. Ms. Pollock, welcome. >> Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and members of the council. Abby and I are going to be tag teaming the presentation tonight. >> Perfect. Welcome Abby as well. >> So, this is our third workshop and the final workshop before our max tax levy adoption in September. And our first topic is fees and charges for services. So, our sources of revenue are primarily property taxes, which are 83% or 8.2 million of our total revenues of 9.8 million. The charges and services include permit revenue, park program fees, and facility rentals that make up 15% or 1.5 million of the total revenues, and then other sources make up 2%, and those include intergovernmental revenues such as police aid and grants. Um includes interest earnings and other miscellaneous refunds and reimbursements. The criteria for adjusting fees include market comparisons, which are set at the mid to upper quartile of the market. Some fees are also set by legislation, such as international building code. And many of our fees are cost recovery and self-supporting where possible. So, how do we project the revenues for the 17% that's not levy or franchise fees? We begin by looking at the 3-year average. So, in this case, the 3-year average is 2023, 24, and 25. And then we also look at our year-to-date for 2026 to determine whether or not there are any trends that have been changing. Our largest revenue for services is building permits, which can be difficult to predict. However, we we look at both the available lots in the city and weigh in the projections from the building department and planning staff to come up with an estimated number of building permits. We are budgeting 130 new homes for 2027, which is 14 less than 2026 and decreases the revenue by $49,000. It does reflect a slower pace of new residential homes next year. However, we did increase the plan check fees, mechanical and plumbing permits. So, this incorporates some additional budget for expected commercial permits to come in next year. And then, we are also reducing our budget for facility rentals and recreation fees. While facility rentals continue to stay stable, we've been reducing the number of programs and therefore reducing the overall revenues as expected. So, I am going to pass this over to Abby unless you have specific questions about budgeting and these revenues. >> Thank you. Council, questions for Ms. before we volley over to Abby. Uh I think we're good here. Whoops. >> I I unplugged us. We're just having a moment. >> We are We are having a moment. >> Bring out Alyssa. >> Here. Oh, there we go. >> We're back. We're back. >> Back in business. >> All right. So, these next few slides will detail out the changes to the 2027 fee schedule um that don't include water, sewer, stormwater, which we'll discuss in November when we look at the inner enterprise budgets. So, for community development, we're increasing tree replacement from 100 to 250 per caliper inch. That's the circumference at 6 in from the ground. For miscellaneous licenses and charges, we're changing the annual solicitor permits from 70 per solicitor to $100 per company and then plus a $40 per solicitor on top of that. So, for a 10-person crew, this would be a reduction from 700 to $500. Um we're no longer emailing references for each individual crew member, so staff time is reduced there. We're also removing the weekly hawker peddler license in favor of having only an annual license. And the reasoning here is that staff time required to process the license is the same regardless if it's weekly or annually. And additionally, we have not received a request for a weekly permit in the last 4 years. The council candidacy application fee is set by the Minnesota state statute. Uh staff is proposing to include the fee for transparency. And public works, staff is proposing a new fee for a water shutoff and turn on that is outside the regular hours. Minimum pay for a callback is 2 hours. And callbacks are paid at an overtime rate. And so to recover the cost for the 2 hours of overtime pay, we're proposing a new fee there. >> I have a question for you. What's the difference between our solicitor and hawker peddler licenses? What's What would be the difference between those two? >> I'll pass it to Claudia since our city clerk is so handily right here next to me. >> Claudia, thank you. >> So, a solicitor permit would be someone who's going like door-to-door for um items that will be delivered at a later time and date. Um and then your your um your other one, the hawker, is like the ice cream. >> Oh, so they're delivering to you right now. You're going to purchase something. Oh, and it's food. >> the hawker like ice cream is food or it could be something else. That's normally all we get for the hawker is like the ice cream or but it could be something else, you know. >> Food related. >> usually a food. >> Do we like a would a food truck come under that license? >> No, that would be you could license a food truck. But they're also licensed by Minnesota Department of Health. >> Okay. Okay. Um, so the solicitor permits, those would that would include um, people who are selling pest control services, window washing, any of those things. So folks, [cough] if they're coming to your door, you should ask them for their solicitor permit. >> Correct. We also have them posted on our website. >> Okay, very good. And if they don't have one, send them down to City Hall to get one. Okay. Thank you, Abby. Any other questions, Council? >> Just had a How often do we have a water shut on shut off outside regular hours? Like 10 a year, 100? I'm just curious. >> Um, thank you for that question. Um, we don't really get too often. It's usually an emergency turn on and shut off. Um, where the pager phone will get called and they'll have to respond. Um, you know, usually after late in the evening and they have to have like a plumber come in. The plumber will um, call the pager phone to have that turned the water turned off. >> Because it's probably a flooding situation. >> Yeah, exactly. So, um, we just recently had a couple of them, but I can't recall that we've had any other ones this year. So, it's it's not real common. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other >> Dear members of the council, I just want to add for transparency purposes when that happens, when we the way that our callbacks work for public public works, and Trish can talk to this, too, if I'm either misspeaking or not clear, but um we have a minimum time that we have to pay when we're doing callbacks and overtimes, so it's a minimum of 2 hours. >> Correct. >> Um so, if they show up and it's a 5-minute fix, >> [cough] >> we're paying for those 2 hours. So, we're trying to recover those those costs. Um >> Got it. >> Thank you. >> Right. Okay. Carry on. >> Excellent. >> Okay, the next two slides are Park and Rec in the VRC, so we'll start off with the Victoria Recreation Center. Um the VRC chain charges Sorry, the VRC changes um they center on a new discount rate, and so the discount rate would be for youth, that's 18 and under, seniors, which is 60 plus, military, and first responders residing in Victoria. And so, for a one-time daily pass, it would be a $5 fee, and for a multi-day 10-punch pass, it would be the proportionate $5 fee. Um with the transition to cashless, staff would like to provide an option for discounted users for entry without committing to a membership. Additionally, staff would would be tran- transitioning open pickleball from a program to an entry fee option to allow consistent guidelines around the activity. Staff is proposing to remove the advertising kiosk in the VRC. The city's bond attorney has recommended against any advertising at the VRC until the bonds are fully paid for. And staff is also proposing changes to the multi-purpose room. The half room service is not regularly used due to the small size of the half room and in cases where a half room is rented, typically the other half remains open. Um additionally, this creates additional staff time to prepare the room for each renter. Any questions on this slide? Council? All righty. Self-explanatory. Go ahead. Okay, and the next one is for park and rec. So, for park and rec, staff is proposing to revise the shelter rental structure for simplicity and consistency. Staff is proposing to reduce the cost from prior year as staff received significant reduction in usage, potentially due to the cost barriers. We're also proposing to break out the shelters into two groups. The first are for the four post park shelters with limited services and amenities. That would be like Madis Madeleine Creek. And then the second group of shelters would be the ones with restrooms. So, both groups are proposing decreased fees. The second chunk here is in relation to Lions Pavilion. Staff is proposing to decrease the weekend rentals for residents from 350 to 300 a day and increase weekend rentals for non-residents from 350 to 400. And for there, we're we're actually just trying to make the premium of a weekend rental consistent across the board. So, the premium on a weekend rental would be $50. Um up next is the athletic fields. So, field rentals are currently not being charged consistently across the city. Staff is recommending removing this item as it does not cost staff additional time to reserve the fields. However, field prep is a is a rare service, but it does take significant time and cost. As the city would allow the use of the fields at no cost, we would charge them for the additional labor, such as field prep and lining a space. And lastly, we're proposing to remove the ice arena packages as the city does not have the ability to determine and schedule ice time to the requirements needed for this type of service. All right. Council questions on this? Okay. All right. Um we did do a special deep dive this year. Um we did a market analysis of our Parkland dedication fees. We compared both our industrial and residential Parkland dedication fees to the market cities in the area. A brief overview of Parkland dedication fees for anyone watching at home is that the city of Victoria and other communities, as you see here, require a certain percentage of each new development to be dedicated to park space. A developer can choose to pay a Parkland dedication fee in lieu of the land for the park. For the analysis, I reviewed the fee schedules of our market cities uh and compared where Victoria falls within our neighboring communities. On this slide are the Parkland dedication fees for residential developments. Uh here we Here we have the green bar for single family, pink for duplexes, and blue for a multi-family. Um for the For the single family, the green bar, I found that we are close to average. We're very comparable to Chaska, Carver, and Minnetonka. For duplex and multi-family, I found that we're a little bit below average here. And I included a table there at the bottom with the average and the median. >> Council que- questions on this. Now, this is something we've been talking about. Council member Wright, you've got a question. >> Well, I was just it's more of a comment. I didn't think we were that low on the duplex and multi-family side. To our peers. >> Yeah. I would I would also favor boosting those up. It feels like most other market cities all have the same rate for Parkland dedication regardless of what what the housing unit is. I I would favor us going consistent that way as well. >> W- Where Do Do we survey Waconia? >> I don't see them on here. >> I don't see them on here. >> I don't believe Waconia is in here. Um >> I think were they were they one of the ones that had kind of the anomaly of the way that they >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> You're right. So, Waconia did not have like a flat fee in their fee schedule. It was very formula-based. It was like 5% of something something. And so, it wasn't easy to have a consistent um comparison with Waconia in there, but I definitely could pull Waconia for you if you would like. >> Yeah, and then how do we Do we Do we have Minnetrista? Do we have Mound? We have >> I could add Mound, yes. And I could also add Minnetrista if you if you'd like. Yes, absolutely. >> So, like Minnetonka is five across [snorts] the board and Carver's about 4,800 across the board, it looks like. >> Correct, yep. >> Chanhassen >> Chanhassen about the same. >> Those are the three that I >> Chanhassen is higher. >> I mean my my thought is we need to be more in the zone of Eden Prairie, Rogers, Corcoran, Chanhassen, Shakopee. I mean the It's It's one thing to look at the averages of these communities. It's all It's a completely different um view to look at the utilization. I mean we we have so much more of activity going on here and we have so much more of um parks that we need to pay for. >> I think Minnetonka is a good one to look at, too. In some respects, but they're more built out, but it's >> Right. >> Yeah, I mean the we we we seemed and it seems that the project after project after project after project after project is not committing land, they're dedicating >> Mhm. >> fees. If If that's the direction that developers want to go, then I think it's incumbent for the city of Victoria to be able to use that to provide its residents with the benefits that they keep telling us that they want, that they need, we know that are outrageously expensive, and that we routinely routinely make compromises to what we need to do um because we just don't have the funding to do it. So, if we have a captive audience that is is looking to um utilize fees in terms of dedication, they don't want to dedicate the land because they're making a decision that it's more profitable for them to chunk another property on there, let's start to shift that balance of the equation towards maximizing the benefit for Victoria. We should be able to find the inflection point of where somebody says, "I think that that's a a high and I maybe don't want to develop there." I don't think we're at that problem. And we certainly are one of the communities in the Twin Cities that have the space to do it. So, um and and then on top of it, we continually get pushed and this is to my good friend Council Member Patterson, you you as well as I know the constant pushing on this council and planning commission and staff to continue to shrink down these side yard setbacks so that a particular parcel of land can put that many more profitable homes on it. The that that should come at a cost to the developer that hey, Victoria's not the place to run over on this kind of thing. We want these services. This is our time. Uh you know, we should be really um almost adamant on being able to push these high these fees higher to pay for the things that we know we desperately need and our residents desperately want. >> There is a statutory limit on this, is there not? Yeah, Ms. Hardy, please. >> Mayor and members of the council, we don't have the benefit of our attorney being here, but if I recall from the conversation that we last had about this earlier in the year, and you might notice on the chart here, we did include Burnsville. So, there's not necessarily a statutory limit. My understanding was that there was a court case with Burnsville that essentially set this I'll use in quotes a ceiling for what is acceptable. And so, we wanted to put the Burnsville information there just for visibility into what that ceiling would look like. Um >> Is there a formula to that ceiling? >> That I don't know enough about the court case or I have not read through all of that and maybe Bob could talk more to that, but >> I think it'd be instructive. Madam City Manager for Bob to bring that to us because my recollection of the conversation with him about is that this was a disparity between how commercial developments were being assessed Parkland dedication fees versus a multi-family or a duplex because the I think the underlying crux of the argument is that well, I mean people are going to be here. They're not going to be using parks and trails and things like that cuz they're going to be working. They leave and they go home. So, it's not necessarily fair to a commercial property to be assessed an outrageously large Parkland dedication fee. Where we're going with this is we are tying the the use of those funds with the source of the funds better in a residential setting versus a commercial setting. So, if we could get if we could get that clarity so that we're you know, making value-based decisions on the right basis would be helpful. >> I guess I would just say I mean, I completely agree with everything Councilmember Urbanski has said. Um I wonder where and this is obviously what staff is probably going to have to look into is that like where's that right line, right? Because we don't want to get to a point where it's so high, you know, that yes, they're just giving you know, the minimum amount of land that's just going to be like they're not going to really do anything with it, but now it's you know, our like we're going to have to take care of it. We're going to have to right? So, we don't want just there's got to be some I don't want to say negative, but like there's like a give like a push and pull here with this. So, I I completely agree with you that we want to get uh as much as we can, right? And we want I'd rather have them, you know, build nice big beautiful park, but um you know, what like you said, right? Like right now we're just it's, you know, we're not going to do it because the fee is low enough where they're just, you know, we'd rather put another house on a lot and do it, but um, I guess I'm just curious if whether it's uh, you guys or Ms. Hardy, like if there's any if we've looked at this enough to know if like what would be the downside of I guess raising this to a point where you know, it like what would be the downside? >> Mayor Council Member Roberts, members of the council, no, we've not done a deep dive analysis on that, but just from the things that you're saying are are exactly the things that we would likely be flagging. So, if the council would like us to do a deeper dive in this and do some additional analysis, we can certainly do that and bring this back for um, your budget discussion this fall. >> Yeah, I think >> And I think it's similar to like look at a couple spotlight cities. I think you brought up some Council Member Wanski to add I think the other thing is Delano, Buffalo. Some of these areas that are a little farther away, but they're growth communities. >> Right. >> And and look at it from that perspective. I mean, I'm I'm looking at multi-family. I think we're not we're the lowest. Yep, maybe Chaska's just one slot below. And then duplex we're pretty far we're as you said, we're pretty um, close to average or above average on the single family. I'm just wondering I just was surprised at the discrepancy. >> Yeah. >> Sorry. I was just curious and you probably don't look into it um, you know, most of these the single family is either the highest or you know, even with the other ones. I'm curious why Burnsville and Elk River are basically the exact opposite of the like what I mean, I know like Burnsville's a much bigger city, right? So, um, but I'm just curious as to why that would be. >> You know, I think things also like we perspective again is like utilization. Um, I I think that we're probably at least in sort of our current vision and alignment on the balance of multi-family and duplexes vis-a-vis residential in the city of Victoria. We've heard from our residents on, you know, their um desires on the the mix that we have. I think we re- I have a There's little daylight between us on we feel like we have the right balance. So, while the the bars tell a story that we're below, will we actually have that utilized? Possibly not, right? So, we don't necessarily need to get that as right as where the next development is going to come from and that next development is leaning its way towards single-family. And we should like Councilmember Roberts is alluding to, what's what's the choke point? Where does a developer say, "Hey, I want to give you land because you charged me too much to buy it from you." Um, it would be I think instructive for us to look at the last the last 2 years of developments that have taken place in the city of Victoria and say, "What percentage of those projects have these developers come to the city and said, 'I want to buy land instead of giving you Um, so and you guys have heard me with my smart-ass clique, "We all I want to be known as the city of lakes and parks, not the city of lakes and parkland dedication fees." So, um I think that we we can't we can't build parcels of land. We can really shape what we do with the parcel of lands to the best of our abilities and part of that ability has to deal with how much we have in terms of financial resources to do it. If we don't ask for the resources, we won't get them and we'll just be saying, I I would have loved to do this, but I can't. I mean, I >> Any other comments for staff? >> I would just say what what's the negative of of doubling the duplex and the multi-family park dedication fees? I mean, it to me that looks like that's going to get us in line with a lot of the other cities that we're comparing ourselves to here. Um I guess I can't figure out what the downside would be other than they choose not to develop here, but they're not getting any better deal anywhere else for it. So, why not be even with everybody else? >> I I'm I'm aligned with you. There There's we can certainly you know, bring us in line with other communities there. Again, I think that utilization as we've all pointed to may not be there, but yeah, the the consistency would I think it'd be a very noble cause in this. >> All right, staff, I'm seeing consensus around let's take a look at a couple more market rate or market cities. Um give us some ideas about where we can where that inflection point is and then we also want to hear from Bob about what We don't want to see ourselves in court over this either. So, um everybody staff clear on that? Great. Okay. Any final thoughts? We're moving on. Excellent. Thank you. >> Okay, so while this slide is for residential fees, slide is the same Parkland dedication fees. It's a market comparison, but it's for industrial and commercial fees. Um Victoria, as you can see here, is the second lowest, higher only higher more only than Carver. So, I've included Burnsville here, also way at the end. Um Burnsville is not considered one of our market cities. Um and so, it's not included in the average in the table below there, either. But, I just wanted to include it because of the discussion around it. Um looking at the table, Victoria is well below the average and mean for Parkland dedication fees for our market cities on the industrial and commercial uses, too. >> Okay, so this was the These were the fees that we just said we we can collect Parkland dedication fees from these folks, but these are people who are here for work and not I mean, we certainly could Could we use these for to create a plaza where people can have lunch, those kinds of things? Is that considered Parkland? >> I think so. I >> You know, if we had a market >> or >> Yeah, if we had a, you know, an office park to create a plaza or an area where people could you know, with benches or picnic tables, those kinds of things. >> Mayor and Council, I do think if you're calling it a park and actually naming it and you accept it as a park, you could certainly use Parkland dedication for that. The only restriction on Parkland dedication fees is that you can't use it for ongoing maintenance or to do replacement of existing amenities. >> Obviously, I think it's like a good spot where we can get ahead of this by bringing us up the average to the place that I think we're going to see this kind of activity. Downtown West is largely done, so um certainly, we're probably not going to be able to garner much in that space. Um but, the South growth area is a place where these where we where we one would expect we're going to see this kind of um commercial development and we we would be well served with having those areas develop and um get in line with other communities on this uh again cuz we we we know that this stuff is expensive. We know that it's needed and this is our place to get it if we're not going to get land. >> The only thing I would say, I mean we definitely have obviously room to grow here based off of these numbers. Um I do think we need to be careful in this area of getting too high. I I think we want to you know, residential I think is a different beast. We have plenty of people that want to build houses here. We keep searching for the right commercial developments and I'm I do think we want to be careful and be more cognizant of trying to entice commercial development here. So um you know, that could be a factor in yes yes we're still lower than most these, but our land prices are also probably higher than a lot of these places as well. So we know our land prices tend to be high in Victoria. So um you know, we've wanted to get more commercial development to help take the burden off our taxpayers. So um I would just say although we want I think we have room to maybe raise this a little bit. I also want to be careful and not uh dissuade commercial development or industrial development from coming because of these additional fees here. >> It's a good point. >> Any other comments on this? Okay. I think we see some room for growth here. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> I'm going to pass it back to Trish. >> Okay. Okay, so next up um this slide is looking at our utility franchise fee fund. Um it's a 10-year projection. We currently are building about 100,000 annually in fund balance. The original undergrounding debt will be paid off in year 2031. And then the Wasserman Park bonds will be paid off in 2036. So, staff are not recommending an increase in utility franchise fees at this time. Um, and just for added information, the franchise fee agreement does sunset after 20 years. So, it would be at year end 2036 when it would need to be renegotiated. >> And so, currently those are the only two obligations we have to the franchise fees. >> That's correct, Mayor. >> Council, thoughts, comments, questions? >> Okay. >> I'm a little uncomfortable collecting fees if we don't have a purpose for them. Um, I'm feeling like this is something we might want to revisit once we've once we've been able to service our debt that we owe. Um, unless we have another purpose for using these franchise fees, we could um, pause them. We could set them early. Um, Council, any thoughts on that? >> The fee's for burying cables, right? And then we used it for Wasserman Park or Wasserman Preserve, which could be considered outside of the original purpose of those fees. Um, I'm with you. I think it should be sunset once we paid off our debt for these two things. I know that's not what staff wants to hear, but >> [laughter] >> I mean, just to be just to be clear though, the the 20 years will align with the bonds ending for Washington Park, so that but once that when that sunsets, we're going to have a fund balance of $2.6 million. Um, that's correct, Mayor. That's the projection. I mean, we are projecting what revenues will be, so I can't say that that's going to be exactly what the fund balance will be, but approximately according to projections and continued growth in the city. >> Right. >> Um, that's what we would anticipate. Um, I did have a conversation with Cara asking about additional undergrounding projects and at this time, unless we want to bury lines that are already above ground, um, we wouldn't have any additional projects that is on their radar, um, from an engineering standpoint, so. >> Let me ask this question. So, we are currently collecting a franchise fee and that's a fee that we have set. So, we have the ability to either raise or lower that fee and that fee is um, spent based on council direction or council policy. I'm seeing a nod from our city manager that that is true. So, we could, um, we could reduce that fee, so we're not with a, you know, we don't have that fund balance that high that has no assignment to it. Um, we could sun- we could carry on with it and then sunset it, let it automatically sunset in 2036. One of the things I think that's in is interesting about franchise fees is every member every community member pays them. So, if we have projects that we feel like everybody should have a part in, this is a good way to pay for some of those kinds of things. So, every, you know, nonprofit that isn't paying property taxes does pay franchise fees. Um so, that's that's something to consider, but this is a policy conversation for sure. So, I would encourage I don't know that we want to make any changes at this point, but I'd encourage Council to give this some thought. >> Yeah, Mayor, I mean, I I share with you on your thoughts on that. The um there is certainly a great benefit to have something where, you know, effectively, what you've said is it's a head tax. Every head that walks around. They breathe the same amount of oxygen regardless of whether or not their house is worth 500,000 or whether it's worth 5 million. So, that there is a certain fairness to it. Um we don't really start to accelerate on this till we get to 2032. And so, that's 5 years forward in the future. Future. We do like run up against a little bit of like we don't have a crystal ball here. >> Mhm. >> Um we we don't know what potentially could be around the corner. Certainly, uh if we pay attention to the headlines, those of late are things like where is this enormous amount of electricity going to come from to power the latest and greatest AI boom that's just right around the corner that's going to make us all very productive and we'll be able to sit and do nothing and just earn passive income. Um Um somehow or another those those projects are going to make their way into an infrastructure need that we might have to face that we we can't foresee today. So, I agree that um a policy perspective is good. Uh it's a tool in our toolkit that we just uh need to be judicious about, but we've certainly have uh made a good amount of benefit to the citizens of Victoria over the years by having interfund loans as well that have, you know, really made the burden of uh other large projects that more uh that that that, you know, bringing benefit. So, let's I mean, I Again, you make a great point, but we don't want to necessarily artificially hamstring ourselves or uh take away from some of our tools. >> Okay. Other comments? Thoughts? >> I think Ms. Hardy has one. >> Thank you, Mayor, and members of the council. I just want to say from a staff perspective, we 100% understand and know that this is a policy decision. So, whatever the council decides that we are 100% comfortable with that. So, when you're ready to have that policy conversation, we'd be happy to do whatever research that you would like and bring that information back for you to consider. Um I think all the things that you have said here are all very good things to consider. I will note that um the franchise fees are allowed for any public purpose. So, as you look for alternative funding sources, you heard earlier 83% of our property taxes or our revenues are property taxes. So, um if you're looking at um having um this is essentially a tax, a tax that is collected not only by property owners, but everybody even those who don't pay property taxes would be subject to paying these fees. Um cities, for example, will use these types of utility franchise fees for things like sidewalks and trail maintenance replacements, trail gap uh construction, um some of the road so mill and overlay projects, things like that. Um it could be for the recreation centers we're looking at to have property tax support for those. So, there there could be some policy decisions where you're looking for uh property tax relief um where this could come into a policy decision, but um noted that that's in the future. So, as you're thinking about those things, I just wanted um wanted you to have some additional context to think about. >> And those are good alternate uses, what you're discussing. Um what would be a good next step? Would it Is it a Is it a workshop type item, do you think? Would that be a benefit? I I think it would be a benefit to me personally. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Mayor members of the council, I think this would be a really good all-day workshop discussion cuz then you could align it with your strategic priorities and really take that deep dive. >> I I I tend to agree with you. I mean, I I hesitate to just stockpile money because we can without a purpose to it. And I feel like we with the changes coming up with the rec center and all of those kinds of things, that that would be really a good and useful exercise for us. >> I I would just add I mean, I I agree with Council member Vanski, right? Like this is you know, we should be looking at it now, right? And and and and figuring these things out, but you know, we're 2036, 2032, whatever is aways out and you know, a lot can change in that time. We've also got being that they can be used for pretty much anything it sounds like or most things that, you know, we've got the uh uh cold storage unit that's down here that's going to have to be replaced at some point, right? We're going to need funds for that. We have um you know, what what might we have to do to the old fire station to um you know, make it usable for whatever is determined that we need to use uh the rec center. We've heard parking a lot, right? It could be used for you know, whatever is determined with parking. So, um I I just I hesitate to say like, "Yeah, we shouldn't we should just stop doing these because they're it's not these aren't dream things that we're thinking about. There are real things that in the near very near future we're going to have to start figuring out how to pay. So. And it's another option where you're like, "We don't have to take out a loan. We have the money, right?" So, we're not paying interest. We're not you know, so. >> We don't have the money right now. We have $677,000 right now. >> but I'm saying in by 2032 we will, right? Right? So. >> I mean, it's we're looking at 10 years down the road and I'm just saying as a tax, which is what it is, if we don't have something or an area to put it, there's no reason to continue to charge for it. That's my point. >> All right. More to come on this discussion. All right. Trish, carry on. >> All right. Okay, now we're going to look at the updated 2027 general fund budget and levy. So, in June the preliminary budget levy projection was 3.31% increase. After considering the guidance given from council at that June workshop and additional budget reviews, we are proposing a max tax levy increase of 4.85%. This doesn't mean that property taxes will increase that much. Um that is the amount that it will increase over the 2026 um levy. And the changes that have been made since June are um per council direction, an additional parks and rec full-time employee was added back into the budget at $91,000 annually. Um this position will manage open space open space corridors and capital assets. This position was included in the current year's adopted budget, but had been removed from the proposed 2027 budget presented in June. And then the next item, even though um this request won't have a general fund budget impact, we wanted to present the utility department full-time employee request. Um one water operator is going to be reducing their hours to 32 hours a week beginning in January, which will be creating a staffing gap for water on-call coverage and snow plowing responsibilities. Um so by requesting one additional FTE, um the position will additionally support a planned reorganization of public works duties, um as the operational and technical responsibilities are continuing to expand. And this will allow um some existing staff to absorb higher-level technical work, which will then provide a greater support to our public works director and our public works superintendent. And in addition, streets and stormwater duties are going to be um aligned to improve efficiencies on shared activities, uh such as street sweeping, blacktopping, milling, and pond maintenance where um, a larger crew is needed to perform those duties. And this position allows us to maintain our service levels, improve operational flexibility, and supports uh, growing public works demands um, with a single additional FTE. Again, no increase to the general fund budget, and we will discuss the further impact um, that this will have to the enterprise funds at our November discussion. Um, the next is the fire department wages for paid on-call and duty crew. They have fallen below our market cities. So, we are planning a 7.7% increase versus the normal 3% increase um, to begin uh, plan to get the wages closer to market over the next few years. And then, in addition, one paid on-call or duty crew firefighter will be added to the team. And then, in 2027 elections, um, which we normally don't have, we may have to hold a special election um, at a estimated cost of $17,000 if Senator Klobuchar wins the governor's race. Um, and then, per council direction at our last workshop, we added in wayfinding signs for a total of 75,000. 35,000 will be coming from the general fund, and the um, remaining 40,000 is going to come from the shared parking fund. Um, we're removing 15,000 for a um, laser fiche upgrade project. Um, and then, finally, Southwest Transit will be removed from the 2027 budget. Um there have been some discussions at the county level of possibly subsidizing this service to Victoria residents. And in the next slide, Abby's going to take over um and will give you more context into who is currently using um the service and other options available for um transit services in Victoria. >> So, just a quick question on the election thing. >> Yes. >> Is there a decision somebody makes the decision about whether to appoint a a replacement for Senator Klobuchar or to hold a special election? >> So, apparently in state statute, which I recently learned is that this is a position that they are not allowed to appoint. >> Oh, okay. I just learned that too. I did not know that. Okay, thank you. >> The county I had a meeting with the county and that's what they said. So, there will be is what they're telling us, an election if um governor if she does win the governor's race. Um there's still some talk about the state maybe providing cities funding, but they're not going to make that decision, I guess, until probably they know for sure if she if there actually is going to be an election. So, we're just all the cities are just planning on that there's going to be an election just in case for budgetary purposes. >> Okay. Thanks. All right, Abby. >> All right. So, about a year ago, we completed a large analysis to find trends in the ridership data. We looked at all the rides for the 12 months between August 2024 and August 2025. In that time, there were 1,391 total rides picked up in Victoria. What we found is that a lot of those rides are repeat individuals. In fact, the top 30 riders made up 80% of the rides. Uh in total, we saw 147 individual riders, which is about 1.2% of the population of Victoria. How are these riders utilizing the service? Um looking at the trends in the pickup and drop-off addresses, we can surmise that people are coming in to work. We can see in the data that the same individual riders are being picked up at the elementary school, downtown restaurants, downtown businesses, and being dropped off at apartment buildings in neighboring towns. Um Southwest charges the city based on the pickup location. So, neighboring cities are billed for transportation into Victoria, and Victoria is charged for transportation back home. And we also saw riders being picked up at homes in Victoria and being dropped off at retail, grocery stores, and medical facilities in the area. 10% of the pickups for the year were picked up at Able Light. There is an alternative to Southwest Transit that is currently operating in Victoria. It's called Transit Link. And it has a similar cost to the rider, similar coverage area, and there is no cost to the city for residents to use this. In summary, a small percentage of Victoria's population use Southwest Transit, and the people who use it use it for necessary travel. There are current alternatives that will not impact the tax levy, and depending on where the county lands for funding may continue to be a service available to residents. >> Okay, so I have a question on So, currently we are subsidizing the Southwest Transit rides. Will those rides still be available, but without a subsidy if we choose not to fund it. Do we know that answer? >> So, Mayor and members of the council, I'll jump in here. So, Transit Link, so we'll start with that, the Met Council service will continue to operate um as far as we know. Um and that will not have a property tax contribution. So, that the rider calls or schedules their appointment, they get picked up, they pay their fee directly to the bus driver um when they get on, and we just get ridership data, we don't get a bill. On Southwest Transit, if the county decides that they will continue to fund the service for Victoria, um and pick up our share of the cost, so what we've been contributing now with property tax levy, um is the ask on the table. Um and so, if the county makes that decision, which it sounds like they're going to make that decision by the end of the year, just not before max tax, then that service would continue in the similar fashion as Transit Link, so the Met Council Transit, where the rider would pay their fee, we would get a report, but we would not be paying that subsidy. In place of that would be the county paying that subsidy for us. And so, if the county decides not to do that, it is my understanding that Southwest Transit will cease their on-demand service here in Victoria. So, that doesn't mean that those transit services go away, cuz the Met Council, the Transit Link services will continue. >> Does Does the Transit Link, I mean, when you say it's similar or just like Salt Lake. I mean, they're all able to take wheelchairs cuz my biggest concern is you know, yes, it's only 1.2% of Victoria's population, but as we see, 10% are from AbleLight. I'm sure a lot of them are people who can't drive, who can't especially right, whatever. I'm just concerned about the ability for our more vulnerable residents to be able to get to the places they need to get to. >> Mayor members of the council, my understanding is that it's it's similar buses and similar services. The only thing that would change would the biggest difference is Southwest says you can go on an app and literally do I need to to be picked up in 2 hours and they will try to accommodate that as best as possible. The difference with Met Council service is that they request 24-hour notice. They will try to accommodate any if I need to be picked up in 2 hours, it might be we can't get there for 3 hours, but to guarantee the ride, 24 hours is requested. So, with some of the um the the data that we've collected and how people are using it, a lot of it is to get to and from work. Those are fairly predictable jobs. You know your schedule probably 24 hours in advance, so we feel like with some education um and some direct, I'll call it marketing or outreach to those individuals, we can help them make that transition if Southwest is no longer funded. Part of what's driving this change is at the Southwest board level, they have said that they really want to focus on recouping their costs for um for operating, and um to operate uh per ride, they're telling us it's close to $40. Um so, we're paying $12 a ride. I think the rider's paying four or five dollars, so um there's a significant gap there. Um and so, it would be very challenging for us um to continue to to pay $40 a ride or $35 a ride. >> Two two things. Uh I'm not seeing a lot of downside in Transit Link as an option. Number one. And then, you said the county if decision by the end of the calendar year, roughly? >> my understanding. >> Okay. >> Not before Max Tax. >> Got it. >> Do we have individual rider data? Like, do we get that data at all? So, like we could try and, like you said, reach out and you know, see provide that data and then I'll obviously also our Kendra and her team is are great at social media, so we can pump out as much information as possible to the public about this change, you know? >> Yeah. Okay. Other questions? Thoughts? >> I would just add that part of that I would like maybe just because not some of these, you know, this our seniors and stuff might not be on social media, so like visiting whether it's visiting AbleLight or um you know, getting a pamphlet to AbleLight, like just making sure we're uh doing our best to reach out to those. Seems maybe it's even one of those uh donuts, you know, in Victoria type thing where we're doing something. >> Mayor members of the council, just a quick note. Um I know that we're short on time, but I just want to say that we have met staff have met with um the Transit Link people, um and they are very much in support of coming out. They actually donuts was one of the things that um they said that they would be interested or even going um and come like if, for example if we have a lot of right writers at Ablelight that they would be willing to go to Ablelight and share who they are and how and help people get connected. So they've been really good partners. >> And this all could be moot if the county the county decides to fund it this so. >> All right, go ahead. >> Okay, so um back to the levy. So the breakdown of the projected levy um is as shown the overall increase in the levy is about $475,000 or 4.85%. And as you can see here we're looking at a fairly steady levy over the next couple of years after returning to a level similar um to 2022 after having a few recent years that included investments in higher cost infrastructure. And what does this 4.85% increase in the city's levy mean for your property tax bill? Um this chart shows a projected tax rate with the updated market values I received from the county last week. Um the adjusted net tax capacity um increased by 7.9% um which does include new construction values. So as you can see the projected tax rate um will decrease resulting in a decrease in taxes if your home value remained stable year over year. Now if your home value increased by 3 and 1/2% which reflects the overall market value increase um your taxes should stay close to the same um because of the lower tax rate. Any questions on the levy numbers? >> And this is based on the 4.85%? >> It is, yes. That's great news. >> [snorts] >> Okay. Any other questions, comments on this? No. Then um as stated earlier, our September 14th meeting will have to set our max tax levy, um which needs to be certified to the county by September 30th. Um we will continue to review and refine the tax levy throughout the fall. And then just a few questions. I know I think the first question we already answered with the parkland dedication fees. Um I think we're all pretty clear on what you are asking about that. Um but the next question is asking council if they wish to proceed with a max tax levy of 4.85%. And then if there's any additional information that you would um like to see um before that's approved on the September 14th meeting. Council, anything more than what we've already directed for staff? >> Not for me. >> I think we're all set then. All right, that's the end of my presentation. Thank you. All right, any final thoughts for Trish and team before we adjourn the workshop. >> Okay, there are no further items on our workshop agenda this evening, so I will entertain a motion to adjourn. >> I make a motion to adjourn. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. We stand adjourned.