City Council had their regularly scheduled meeting Thursday morning, March 16, 2023 and there were seven big items on the agenda.
The first item on the agenda was for the Council to approve the minutes from the previously held meeting. They then proceeded to approve the item and moved on to the next item.
The next item was to hear and discuss the Fevuary Financial Report presented by the City Manager Jeff Davis. ” We should be at 6.66% as fat as the annual budget and I’ll go through some of the General Funds we are short 14.5% on revenue which yall have to remember no appropriation has been made from the enterprise fund through the general fund. The Powerline is within 1%, Water and Waste are less than 4%, and the Garbage is .04%. as far as expenditures as far as the general fund we are down about 1.43 % power line has not utilized a lot of the expenditures so we are at 8.43% down. Other than that nothing really stands out”. With Mr.Davis going in-depth with the report the Council discussed it and was pleased to approve the item.
The next item was to check the Investment report for the month of February presented by Jeff Davis. ” If you go down to the fourth line is our general operating fund that the one we work out of every day we got almost 1.6 million and just I know everybody is looking at that monthly interest rate and if you multiply that by 12 we are almost at 4 and a half interest rate on the pool cash. If you look at our reserve fund which is the money we put back for projects and everything that one is make less than 4% I might be looking into some investment on some pools along the state just because some of the pools get about 4,6% so I’d hate to be losing that money so ill look into and then plus the transition with the bank we don’t know how that will all play out so we will just have to see. For the month we made about 24,357 Dollars in interest.” After a quick discussion, the Council elected to approve the item.
The next item on the agenda was to hear and discuss the quarterly update of electric utilities by Cat Gonzalez. The main thing that stuck out of the whole update was a question made by Jeff Davis saying, ” I know we have had some inquires about the times the electricity’s been off on the east side of town and I think it’s been 3 times.” Mr. Gonzalez responded, ” That break that operates that side of town has operated 3 times in the last 5 months 2 of those are in the report. We have got different breakers for different parts of the town We have it separated out so it doesn’t trip the main substation so we got close to 14 breakers out there and it helps it not come all the way back and not mess without a big transformer and substation so we have it separated out. It just depends on wherever a tree falls or anything we can’t control that and it just hasn’t been that one like the 477 breaker was on the report and it was also caused by wind damages.” After some questions were answered by Mr.Gonzalez the council motioned to approve the item.
The next item was seemingly rejected however for more savings. The item was to consider bids for new pick-ups for the City of Brownfield Animal control. Jeff Davis added,” I am not going to recommend that we approve any of these bids here and re-bid because when I sent out the bid pack I sent it out for a 2023 model pickup but there are 2022 year models with a significant amount of saving on them and are still brand new on the lot so we are hoping to get them and save some money so I will resubmit it and include 2022 models and 2023 models”. With Mr.Davis explaining why they should reject the item the Council agreed and rejected the item.
Moving on to the next item is a little bit more intriguing for city workers as the item was to discuss and consider a professional services agreement with Brinson Benefits for employee benefits, advisor-consulting, and advocacy services for the City of Brownfield Employee Health Benefits. Jeff Davis added,” so yall know we started our renewal date last year for TMl health insurance so when we did that we have to look at our budget and yall know that whatever we do insurance rates will still be high and I heard some rumors from TML that there will be a significant increase on the insurances as well I think Michael Tackitt visited with this gentleman one time. On health Insurance, I only have one option and that’s to raise deductibles or decrease benefits so with Brinson Benefits we can kind of go into the market and go see what other insurance agencies have to offer. If yall want an opportunity to go into the market and see what the cost are I would recommend that we go through Brinson Benefits if we don’t want to go into the market and we want to stick with TML, then there are some ways Brinson Benefits can help us and save some money.”
Councilmen Michael Tackitt also added, “When we first discussed what Brinson has to offer we all know last year we set our own budget table and it was a heated discussion, it hit close to home for our employees and it was a huge chunk of our budget and I can tell you on the claims side of it as someone who has to deal with TML’s insurance I have seen better as far as getting authorization approved and finding specialist I feel like there is a better option for the care available for our employees and also I think that what we are paying for is a little high. For the City, I would like is to maybe not see TML as our only option and see what out there in the market and see if can still keep this great benefits package we have but find something that’s fiscally responsible for the City.” The council approved the item and moved into the executive session but came out with no action.
The next meeting is slated for April 6, 2023 at 7:30 am in the Council Chambers at City Hall. Councilman Eric Horton was the only absent Council member.
