Miami City Council
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📹 Meeting Video
📝 AI Transcript
[00:02] I have a call to order the regular schedule meeting for the Miami City Council
[00:06] Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 on to public hearing on proposed fiscal year 2627
[00:16] budget. This public hearing is being called for any member of the public to
[00:21] present to the governing body comments, recommendations, or information on any
[00:26] part of the proposed budget. A public hearing on the proposed fiscal year
[00:32] 2627 budget. Is this my opportunity, Melissa? Yeah, will you declare it open? We'll declare the public hearing open.
[00:49] Mayor, council members, city manager, and city attorney, my name is Wade. I am
[01:01] speaking tonight as a concerned citizen on behalf of the other residents of
[01:05] Miami who want accountability, transparency, and a budget process the
[01:09] public can actually understand before major public money decisions are approved.
[01:14] I want to be very clear at the beginning I am not here to accuse any employee,
[01:18] elected official, or department of a crime. I am here because the city's own
[01:23] agenda packet raises serious concerns that deserve answers before this
[01:27] council approves the FY 2026-2027 budget resolution. Claims, contracts, and
[01:34] related spending items. The first concern is this budget resolution itself,
[01:38] section 2, appears to give the city manager authority to move unexpended
[01:44] and unencumbered appropriations not only between line items, categories, and
[01:48] departments, but also from one fund to another fund without further city council
[01:53] approval. That is a very broad, in my opinion, too broad for a public budget of
[02:00] this size. Enter fund transfers can change the real priorities of a budget
[02:05] after the public thinks the budget has already been approved. I am asking
[02:08] council to table this resolution or amend it tonight so that any material
[02:13] enter fund transfer must come back to the council for public approval.
[02:17] The second concern is that the general fund appears structurally dependent
[02:21] on these transfers. The packet says 24.4% of the general fund, general
[02:27] operations are being funded by transfers. That includes money from
[02:31] the MSUA, capital improvement, workers' compensation, and unemployment. If the
[02:36] general fund cannot balance without those transfers, the public deserves to see
[02:41] that plainly. I am asking council to require a general fund without
[02:46] transfer schedule before adopting the budget. The third concern is MSUA.
[02:53] Utility customers deserve to know whether their electric water, wastewater, and
[02:58] solid waste payments are being used only for utility purposes or also to prop up
[03:03] other parts of the city government. The packet shows the MSUA transfers have
[03:08] more than 14.7 million over a third of the MSUA budget. It also states MSUA has
[03:15] nearly 2.85 million in past due debt, including recoverable, unrecoverable, and
[03:20] written right-off debt. Before approving large MSUA transfers, I am asking
[03:25] council to require a utility transfer schedule, a rate impact explanation, and a
[03:30] debt aging recovery report. The fourth concern is claims transparency. I am not
[03:36] saying that claims are improper. I am saying citizens cannot properly evaluate
[03:41] public spending from summaries alone. The claims packet includes hundreds of
[03:45] thousands of dollars in government claims, credit card charges, vendor
[03:49] payments, professional services, equipment, and payroll. I am asking
[03:53] council to require claims to be posted in a searchable format with invoice
[03:57] numbers, purchase orders, purchase order numbers, departments, funds, contract
[04:02] authority, procurement method, and whether each item was bid, quoted, sole
[04:06] source, emergency, recurring, or grant funded. The fifth concern is public
[04:11] safety technology. The packet references police cameras, Motorola equipment,
[04:16] flock cameras, and guns. These are serious tools with serious privacy
[04:19] and accountability implications. Before Miami expands license plate reader and
[04:24] surveillance technology, I am asking council to require a written public
[04:28] policy covering camera locations, data retention, search authorization, audit
[04:33] logs, outside agency access, federal access, prohibited uses, misuse
[04:38] penalties, and annual transparency reports. Excuse me, Wayne. You've gone
[04:43] over your three minutes by 30 seconds. I don't have a limit. As far as not
[04:48] public, oh, my apologies continue. The sixth concern is outside support,
[04:52] economic development sponsors, utility credits, waived fees, and
[04:55] community support. Some of these may be good investments, but public
[04:59] support should come with measurable public results. I'm asking the
[05:03] council to require annual reporting for MA, MAEDS chamber related
[05:08] support, utility credits, sponsorships, fee waivers, and other
[05:12] community support showing jobs created, jobs retained, private
[05:16] investment, tourism impact, and housing impact and cost per
[05:20] result. Finally, I am asking this council not to rush approval
[05:25] simply because this packet is long technical. It's 244 pages I spent
[05:29] my time on. And understanding this city's own budget message says
[05:33] the budget is supposed to be communication tool, a blueprint, a
[05:37] statement of priorities, a roadmap. If that is true, the
[05:40] residents should be able to clearly see where the money is going, why
[05:43] it is moving between funds and what controls protect taxpayers and
[05:48] utility customers. My specific request is this. Table and
[05:53] continue the FY 2026-2027 budget resolution until council
[05:58] receives and publishes a revised transfer authority section
[06:02] requiring public council approval for material interfund
[06:05] transfers. That means specifically I would really appreciate it if
[06:11] you keep your powers. A full MSUA transfer schedule and utility
[06:18] rate impact explanation, a past MSUA debt aging and recovery
[06:24] report, a claims transparency report with invoice, PO,
[06:27] contract, procurement, and funding source details, a written
[06:31] flock, license, Motorola, plate reader policy before further
[06:36] surveillance expansion, a red line and fee impact sheet for
[06:39] any ordinance changing fees, measurable annual reporting for
[06:43] outside subsidies, economic development support, utility
[06:47] credits, sponsorships, and fee waivers. This is not about
[06:51] stopping the city government from operating. It is about
[06:54] slowing down long enough to protect public trust. The
[06:58] people of Miami deserve a budget that they can
[07:01] understand. Utility rates that they can trust and spending
[07:05] that they can verify. The elected officials who keep
[07:08] final authority over major public money decisions are you and
[07:12] I'd greatly appreciate it if you don't give that up. Thank you.
[07:16] Thank you. Anyone else in the public hearing want to speak on
[07:22] the budget? Seeing none. So we will close the public hearing.
[07:36] We're going to line item three, public input on scheduled
[07:38] appearances. We have none. Four presentation discussion
[07:42] with the MIMA area economic development services. Mr.
[07:45] Shannon Duhon. Good evening, Mayor, Council, City Manager.
[07:54] Thank you for allowing me to be here tonight. I'm going to
[07:57] gift you with a very, very limited presentation tonight.
[08:02] We don't have a lot going on right now that we can really
[08:04] talk about in this type of format. I will tell you that we
[08:09] spent a lot of time leading up to Memorial Day working on a new
[08:12] loan for prospective business. We're still waiting to
[08:15] determine whether or not that process is going to play out.
[08:20] Hopefully we'll know something by the end of the week if we're
[08:23] going to change locations or whatever on that particular
[08:26] project. Maids board will have to make that
[08:30] determination if they still want to be involved, but we still
[08:33] have that project hanging out there. We had a meeting today
[08:37] with representatives from the Qualpa tribe about some
[08:40] projects that they've asked us to assist them with. So we
[08:44] are going to begin working on those projects here pretty
[08:46] quickly. A big part of it falls on them to provide you with
[08:50] some basic information that I need to be able to go out and
[08:53] do that job on their behalf, but we're continuing to work
[08:56] with our tribal partners in any aspect that we can. We've
[09:00] worked closely with several of our tribes now, and so it's
[09:02] something we cherish, we look forward to, and we're happy
[09:06] to do that. Outside of that, our next big issue is, I
[09:10] mean, that issue, our next big event is we're going to
[09:12] be going to Oklahoma City in August. That is the select
[09:16] Oklahoma conference. It's a great annual conference. We
[09:20] usually, there's great breakout sessions on some very
[09:23] timely subjects like data centers and things of that
[09:28] nature, and so we'll collect all the information we can
[09:31] and bring that back and share that with not only my board,
[09:34] but with the council as well. Outside of that, that's
[09:37] really all I have. I'm happy to answer any questions that
[09:40] I can, so feel free, far away.
[09:47] Thank you, Shannon. Thank you, guys. Thank you.
[09:52] Five A discussion, possible action on the claims list.
[09:56] Motion to approve. Second. East step,
[09:59] Dunkel, Jenland side, Barnes side, Parker. All right.
[10:04] Five B discussion, possible action on the minutes for the May 19th, 2026,
[10:07] regular meeting. Post to approve. Second.
[10:12] East step, Barnes, Jenland side, Dunkel, Parker. All right.
[10:17] Five C discussion, possible action on contract with Aaron Rider,
[10:21] the entertainer for the clown performance as part of the America
[10:25] 250 grand programming at the Mima Public Library, an authorized city manager
[10:30] signed. Callie. Good evening. We received a grant
[10:34] of $2,500 from the Oklahoma Department of Libraries
[10:38] for funding to do different events for evolving around America 250.
[10:42] We're doing period event events, so we've got pioneer night.
[10:46] We're going to do a circus night. We're going to talk about all the things around
[10:49] that time period, and so we wanted to have an entertainer that evening,
[10:53] and he's also going to be teaching juggling. So if anybody wants to come
[10:56] learn, you can. So it's all covered by the grant.
[11:04] Make motion to approve. Second. Jenland side, Barnes side, East step,
[11:10] Dunkel, Parker. All right. Thank you.
[11:13] Five D discussion, possible action on memorandum of understanding with the
[11:17] Ottawa County Fair Board for use of the fairgrounds to show Barnes for
[11:20] fiscal year 2627. Zeb.
[11:24] Hello. What I bring for you today is the MOU
[11:28] between us and the fair board for 2627. This just cleans up a few of the dates.
[11:33] They update our third date every year.
[11:36] And just some of the other language, something that they're doing now,
[11:39] is they're going to pay all your, all of their utilities,
[11:43] plus all the upkeep and things like that, the ones, their events that they put on.
[11:47] So generally what we do is we just keep a tally of what they
[11:50] they use as far as paper products, things like that. We read the meters,
[11:54] and then we just invoice them out at the end of the
[11:56] recommended. Most to approve. Second.
[12:05] Hi. Dunkel. Hi.
[12:08] Jen. Hi. Barnes. Hi. Parker. Hi.
[12:13] Five E discussion, possible action on fiscal year 2627.
[12:16] Budget and resolution CC 2026-08.
[12:20] Approving the budget for fiscal year 2627 and establishing budget
[12:24] amendment authority. Okay. So this presentation is meant to
[12:30] try to break this very detailed budget down to
[12:35] as simple of a language as I can where it's we're not here all night. So let's
[12:39] hit the highlights. And if you guys have questions as we go, please stop me.
[12:43] So we went through and we try to hit the major parts
[12:47] of what we're trying to do here. So the three questions we are trying to
[12:52] answer is what is the budget fund? Where is the part, where is the money coming
[12:56] from? And what choices matter when we make
[12:59] decisions on this budget? So we're trying to make it easier
[13:04] to discuss, easier for everyone to understand, and easier for you guys to
[13:09] approve with confidence that you guys have a general understanding of what is
[13:12] going on. So what this budget is built to do is
[13:21] maintain our current services. So anything that we are currently doing, we
[13:24] want to keep at that standard. We want to invest our money wisely.
[13:28] So we have money for the future. We want to protect our stability and we
[13:34] want to support growth. So when I came to the city about a
[13:39] year and a half ago, our money was just setting in some
[13:43] accounts and not doing well. We have taken some steps there to
[13:47] make more out of what we have. So we've went from earning
[13:51] not great interest to we are now earning 3.3 percent interest on
[13:55] all of our funds. Over a year worth of growth that equates to about
[14:01] seven, eight hundred thousand dollars worth of extra revenue coming in,
[14:04] just making our money work for us. So there are
[14:13] three major parts of the budget. Obviously general fund is the city side
[14:17] that is funded by sales tax and some other revenue that has to
[14:20] help support it. MSUA, the utility side, and other funds
[14:25] and capital projects, grants, other things like that. So we
[14:28] kind of have three different pools of money that we're dealing
[14:30] with. So where the money comes from? So 8.8 million
[14:42] dollars in sales tax is budgeted. 1.1 in use tax that's your
[14:47] Amazon, your stuff that's getting delivered for a total of
[14:51] about 9.1 million dollars in taxes coming in.
[14:57] General fund gets supported from other funds by about 3.7 million
[15:02] dollars. That's MSUA, capital improvement, workers comp, and
[15:08] unemployment. It helps supplement that this year and the
[15:10] reason that we are able to do that is because when we do
[15:13] workers comp and unemployment we budget it to the max for
[15:16] worst case scenarios and then when we finish out those
[15:19] budgets we typically have some money left over so we can roll
[15:23] that back into the main budget. You guys can see I'm not
[15:27] going to read every word on these slides to you but for
[15:31] about a million dollars in sales we get about 36,500
[15:37] dollars in that within the city. MSUA's main revenue
[15:42] generators obviously are electric water solid waste
[15:46] and wastewater. And so we know about your next year that
[15:51] also be fiber. Fiber should bring revenue to the city
[15:56] once it's up and running. Yes. Excuse me. Crystal the 9.1
[16:02] million is that not the summation of the 8.8 and 1.1?
[16:07] It is. Should it be 9.9? Okay. Sure not.
[16:18] Thank you. You're welcome. Okay so let's talk about where the money goes. Total
[16:26] expenditure is about 82 million for all funds. The
[16:29] general fund is about 22 million of that. MSUA is about
[16:34] 44 million and then our other pocket of money is
[16:38] about 16 million from other funds and grants and other
[16:40] things. So that's kind of how the major budget
[16:44] categories play out. Let's go a little bit further
[16:49] in depth with general fund. So this is what the biggest
[16:52] expenses in general fund are. Police fire risk management
[16:55] which the risk management budget falls within under the HR
[16:59] budget. That's why that number looks inflated. That's just
[17:01] where it lies. It's it's managed by HR. Insurance is
[17:05] managed by HR. So that's why that number looks so high. It's
[17:08] all of our property insurance and vehicle insurance and all
[17:11] that kind of stuff. Let's see. Once again here are the
[17:20] additional factors that help fund general fund. MSUA CIP
[17:24] work comp and unemployment and this can change from year to
[17:26] year. This is just where we got it from this year. It's not
[17:28] always the same. From a property insurance perspective is
[17:33] that something that we should look at? We are looking at
[17:35] it. We're trying to clean it up as much as possible. We did
[17:38] just get some quotes today it is cheaper. So we're
[17:41] making some progress in that area. But insurance
[17:44] everywhere. I mean I'm on the school board the school's
[17:47] insurances went through the roof. I mean I'm seeing it
[17:50] everywhere when I was at the tribe it was the same way
[17:52] they're just keep increasing it unless you're just making
[17:55] major changes with deductibles and other things
[17:57] like that. You're just 15 to 20 percent every year is
[18:01] common. Counties went up tremendously. We are
[18:05] looking for all options to try to get it down as
[18:07] much as possible but it's something that we're
[18:09] really going to have to manage because it is one of
[18:11] our big expenses that increases increases year over
[18:14] year. Thank you. Okay so let's talk MSUA and kind
[18:23] of what it plays. So MSUA expenditures are 44
[18:28] million and then you look at these revenues
[18:30] well obviously that does not make up the 44 million
[18:33] but we have carryover that we use. We have grants we
[18:38] have transfers so that that 44 million dollar
[18:41] number is not technically it doesn't have to be
[18:44] just revenue that we collected in that year so
[18:46] that's why those kind of look skewed sometimes.
[18:49] That number is so big 11.4 million of that is just
[18:58] buying power from GRDA. So we're trying to explain
[19:11] how the city keeps the budget working across all
[19:13] areas because it is a lot to manage. There are a
[19:16] lot of different funds a lot of different pockets
[19:18] of money that we have to track and keep separate.
[19:22] One big area that we're focusing on is getting our
[19:25] rainy day fund healthy and we're getting better it's
[19:27] getting pretty healthy. Projected for this year
[19:30] we'll be back to 6.1 million. Let's see what else
[19:36] did I write down. I think it's it's important to
[19:39] make sure that we have those reserves built back up
[19:42] for the just what ifs. Once again this kind of goes
[19:46] through some of the transfers between funds
[19:49] and what they fund so general fund goes ahead
[19:52] and funds other departments like CBB main street
[19:57] senior center and then MSUA does more than just
[20:02] fund the general fund. It does the street and
[20:04] alley some airport funds rainy day Coleman
[20:09] and utility improvements which is paying back alone.
[20:13] On this rainy day fund too if we have an extended
[20:15] outage for electricity it helps fund some of that.
[20:18] Absolutely. So so if we're not bringing in revenue.
[20:21] Yeah the goal is to have enough money set back that if you have a
[20:25] disaster or something you've got some reserves to operate off of for a while
[20:29] that way you're not starting at ground zero and
[20:31] trying to be able to pay it with no revenue coming in.
[20:36] So it's it's basically the city savings account.
[20:41] And there's specific things that protect that from which it's being used.
[20:44] That is correct. If you do use it there are there are stipulations to it so
[20:52] and then the third part is the street repair that comes from a couple
[20:54] different places but 1.3 budgeted this year for street and
[20:59] alley and street and alley is where it comes from and the street and stadium.
[21:10] Okay let's talk about people. So this is how many people we currently
[21:15] have full-time positions 202 part-time 15 for a total FTE of 207.
[21:21] And then our community support obviously we want to be good stewards in the
[21:26] community but not with hurting ourselves so that's a
[21:30] fine balance sometimes too. So the general fund budget is 76 percent
[21:34] of that budget is personnel so we have to be mindful.
[21:38] We're trying to do more with less. We are trying to
[21:42] have people pick up extra if we lose somebody and
[21:45] we can absorb that position. We're trying to do that to cut down on the personal
[21:49] expense on the city side but still give our employees here
[21:53] a competitive wage for the community for the region.
[21:58] It's it's tricky it's a balancing game. So in the budget you talk about
[22:02] the employee support did we budget in a race for the
[22:07] city staff issue? We did. There is three percent built in
[22:10] if they qualify and by qualifying is they just
[22:13] basically have to meet some basic criteria not have attendance problems not
[22:18] have certain issues within their work performance but it's
[22:22] it's not really tough so it's not technically probably
[22:25] considered a COLA because not everybody is eligible if they've got some
[22:29] problems on the side but I would say probably just about
[22:32] everybody gets it. Perfect. Unless they're a problem
[22:35] employee. Yeah thank you. That's really all I
[22:43] have for the high level. I'm if you guys want to dig down into the
[22:46] detail I'm more than welcome to answer any question. I know it's a lot
[22:51] it's a lot of information to look at. It takes us a long time to compile it and
[22:54] then try to break it down in terms that is easier to understand because if this
[22:58] is not your daily world it is it's consuming and it's hard to
[23:01] understand and you get lost in it. Tyler do you have anything else you
[23:06] want to add? No we're happy to say that but I
[23:09] love numbers everybody knows that's my thing so it's like
[23:13] I mean you know it's she gave you the printout of all the varmas the breakdown
[23:16] of the budget so. Tyler do we have anything scheduled for a
[23:22] study session this month? Uh well we we always have one scheduled but
[23:27] I mean do we have anything specific on the agenda for that?
[23:30] Can we push this to take a deeper dive? We came but I don't know if it'll
[23:34] mean the I'll have to look at the deadline for it.
[23:38] It's seven it's seven days before July 1st. So we have to look at the we have to see if
[23:43] that meeting date meets that requirement. Yeah.
[23:48] Can we move the date of our study session to meet that? I'm sure we can yeah
[23:51] we can just have a special meeting and stuff. Anybody I'm just I'm just gonna make
[23:55] I just want to make sure we meet the seven days it's really. Yeah no we obviously
[23:58] have to do that but. Is that to be done by the 30th or the
[24:01] 1st? That has to be done seven days. That has to be approved seven days before.
[24:05] The start of the new school year. So it'd be the first 20.
[24:09] It'd be exactly seven days. The 23rd would be the study session.
[24:13] Okay. I can't be here on the 23rd. What about?
[24:22] In Dallas that whole week. Maybe the 18th? Yeah we could do it the 18th.
[24:29] We could just have like a live agenda and then just have a deep dive into it.
[24:31] We could in the past we brought in like pizza or sandwiches or something.
[24:35] Just do like a deep dive into everything. Okay. Sounds good.
[24:44] Thank you guys. Thank you Crystal. Appreciate all the hard work you and your
[24:47] team put into this. I know you've done a lot.
[24:56] Five F discussion possible action on the ordinance 2026-12
[25:00] which amends language of clarification in chapter
[25:04] four. All right. Dang it. I always get that wrong.
[25:09] Six buildings and buildings regulations article one in general
[25:13] section six dash 13 permits and fees of the code of ordinances to reflect newly
[25:19] amended fees and charges related to the permitting inspection of buildings
[25:23] providing severability and establishing an effective date
[25:27] Travis and Misty. So I brought this to you last time to
[25:31] approve. I there's a state fee of four
[25:36] dollars that the funds the Oklahoma Uniform Building Code
[25:39] commission for every permit. I added 50 cents as an administrative
[25:44] cost that goes to the general fund. The way it was written
[25:48] it was in the ordinance that says state fee
[25:51] 450 and then administration fee 50 cents.
[25:55] Well that looks like a total of five dollars extra for your permit.
[26:00] So I had Misty revise it to say
[26:04] four dollar state fee and the administration fee is 50 cents
[26:07] so now it's a total of 450 and that's just some clarification.
[26:16] Second. Thank you.
[26:20] East Step. Jones. Hi.
[26:22] Dunkel. Hi. Parker. Hi. Item six. Other new business if any
[26:26] wishes of business as opposed to this agenda.
[26:31] Seven staff reports. Eight mayor council community announcements.
[26:38] Nine city manager communications. No sir. Ten adjourned.
[26:45] Second. Dunkel. Hi. East Step. Jones. Hi. Barnes. Hi. Parker.
[26:51] Hi.