Mayor Kaemingk called the regular Brier City Council Meeting to order at 7:03 PM.

Roll Call:

Present: Mayor Kaemingk, Councilmembers Gallagher, Krienke, Lockhart, Marley, Moran, Nick, and Rosman.

Staff: Clerk-Treasurer Swisher.

Public Requests & Oral Communications:

Hisham Othman, Brier, asked for the Council to reconsider their previous decision about using deicer on the roadways during snow events.

New Business:

Mayor Kaemingk introduced the consultants from BERK Consulting for their presentation and analysis of the City's financial condition. Brian Murphy and Chloe Kinsey from BERK discussed the information as provided in the documents posted on the city website.

The City of Brier Administration contracted with BERK Consulting to do an assessment of the financial health for the city. BERK comes highly recommended as they have worked with over 60 government agencies. They presented a summary of their findings at this special city council meeting and have also provided the City of Brier with their report.

Key points of the presentation and discussion included:

-          Brier has not put a levy lift or request for additional funding to the citizens of Brier since 2009.

-          The state restriction that limits the City to only a 1% increase to property tax resulting in roughly only $10K-$12K revenue increase per year and is not close to matching pace with inflation over the last 10 years.

-          Those two items result in the city using the reserved dollars in the general fund. The current estimated usage of $1.7 million of those reserves spanning the 2022 and 2023 budget years.

-          The city's general fund is estimated to run out of funds no later than 2026 and per discussion at the meeting, could be sooner than that. The rest of the funds that make up the city's budget are restricted and cannot pay for general fund expenditures such as police salaries, park maintenance and events, and administrative personnel salaries.

-          The City has benefitted from a 20-year contract with what is now the South County Regional Fire Authority for fire service, but that ends no later than 2024 and a new contract will result in an approximately an additional, one million dollars yearly in expenditures further compounding the city's budget challenges.

-          The city cannot continue on its current financial revenue path.

-          Four scenarios were presented by BERK regarding the situation and the implications of each were discussed.

-          Brier is unique as a city in that we are mostly residential with a small commercial zone. Hence our sales tax revenues are small and other avenues for revenue limited, requiring more income from property tax assessments.

Actions taken:

-          BERK will update the report/scenarios to account for the 2023 approved city budget which was not finalized when they compiled the report.

Adjournment

Mayor Kaemingk declared the meeting adjourned at 8:08PM.