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ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — SEPTEMBER 22, 2025 18 City Administrator Jagoe asked if the City were to use that $165,000 from the franchise fees, would it change the debt service payments or the schedule we had looked at for paying off the amount for the fire station early. Finance Director Yang confirmed. Mayor Grant said there isn't much value to pay it off early. Councilmember Monson said these are the things that can be ironed out between Preliminary and Final Levy. She thinks we should look at how the $165,000 can help support fire, in some way. She thinks we all want to keep that earmarked for the fire department. We don't have to decide what we are doing with PIR fund today. We have the possible range, to set a Preliminary. We have to add the Sherrif s cost. Councilmember Weber said we need to leave today, with a number for next week. Councilmember Monson said she wants to cut the maintenance worker. Councilmember Weber agrees. He doesn't think we have a choice on that one. Council agreed. Mayor Grant said we need to figure out the $159,000 and determine if we want to use the franchise fees for that. We've turned a few of the financial dials. Finance Director Yang will tell us what that means. He still thinks we need an annual incremental amount for the PIR Fund. He said this is a heavy increase. There needs to be a time when we take care of our own business but we need to be cognizant of County increases and the possible School District Levy. Councilmember Weber said the only way to avoid that is to bond next year. We are going to have a large levy increase. No matter what we do, it's still going to be a double-digit number. It will be difficult to keep it under 15%. We need a maximum levy increase number today, so Staff can prepare for next week. He thinks it falls in the scenario D8 and D10 as a maximum. That would allow opportunity for the Councilmembers who aren't in attendance, can share their opinions. Mayor Grant said he thinks we're looking at D 1-D 10. The numbers will change after the shifts discussed tonight. He said Staff can get back to us. Councilmember Weber thought we needed a number today. Staff needs to know the number to have things prepared for next week. This is the last work session. Mayor Grant said on September 29 we will set a number. City Administrator Jagoe said we can come back with a couple of options. She said last year there were three options and Council gave direction from the dais for which one to adopt. Coming back with 1 through 10 is more than we've done in the past. Councilmember Weber clarified that he thought we were trying to leave today, having set a maximum. He said D8-D10 are not his preference. He chose those options because they are on the