 Welcome, welcome. My name is Lily Weinberg. I am a program director of our community and national initiatives team and thrilled to welcome all of you on a Friday this conversation around building resilient city budgets and really linking this to the recovery in our city. So before we start the program, I want to welcome Kelly Jen, our new or not so new vice president of our community and national initiative. Kelly is the former chief analytics officer for the city of New York and head of mayor's office of data analytics. Welcome Kelly, how are you. I'm doing well Lily. I am very very excited to be here on a Friday afternoon with all of you thank you for the introduction, just to kick things off here for the afternoon. I just wanted to open by saying having worked in government budgets really are kind of ultimate expression of our priorities within communities and across the work that we do, and as many of you know, the communities portfolio. The night foundation invest in 26 different cities across the country, and we know that many of our communities but also across the country many cities, counties states and at the federal level as well, are currently grappling with how do we spend a pretty significant influx of dollars, federal dollars that include the American rescue plan act, as well as more dollars that I think will be coming in the forthcoming months and years and so we really heard from all of our communities, and heard from our broader group of leaders across the country that this was incredibly important. We went ahead and funded an investment, working in partnership with city fi across five of our night cities. I'm going to list them very quickly Detroit make in Miami Philadelphia and St Paul to really develop solutions around equitable budgeting and broader strategies to help support the recovery and rebuilding across our communities there. But also more broadly, so we're very excited today that city fi will be joining us will be colleagues across the country that will be joining us to really talk more about these frameworks. And also that city flight has developed a public playbook for leaders, Lily knows that I love a playbook, a good playbook because other folks can pick those up and to be able to adopt and use those practices across the board so please please please share the playbook widely share this video recording and best practices widely, we will be linking directly to the reports in the chat and I see it now, popping up so just again a big thank you to all of you out there for joining us today. With that, I hope you enjoy the program and I will turn things back over to you Lily. Thank you so much Kelly and and that was really powerful. A budget is a reflection of our values and our, and President Biden also said something very similar. You know, we're getting flushed with money and, and so it's incredible time. So with that, thank you Kelly, I want to invite Gabe to the video. And, and Gabe Klein is a partner and co founder of 55 a firm in the business of urban change management. How's it going Gabe. It's going pretty good Lily how are you. I'm doing well. I'm doing well. And, and really excited to talk to you I think that I can't remember gave if it was like in last fall, but you had this, this, this great idea about working on budget resiliency and our cities across the country. And so quickly I would love to hear a bit more from you about the why. And the what like what does this even mean budget resiliency, and then just some of the key, you know, lessons learned that we had from working with these five cities in this friend. So, so you want to start with, with the why. Yes, absolutely. And also, I just want to thank you and in particular Kelly and the night foundation for for supporting this because, you know, it was a gamble, and it turned out so well and it was, I think, I mean we'll hear about cities later. It was enriching for us. We learned a tremendous amount as well and so you know the, the impetus for this was to create like a workshop type in environment a cohort, because we've all worked in cities. So many of us or most of us at city five I've worked for mayors. And we just, we felt for them so much, because we know how hard it's been since 2009, during the last crisis right. And a lot of cities haven't recovered financially you don't have the staffing that they need, even now. And so they were sort of, in many cases, just recovering it took many years. And we got hit with this. So COVID-19 and the crisis was the main impetus for for the five week sprint workshop. And you know we knew that cities were going to face a big revenue loss. We knew there was going to be some influx of money but at the time we didn't know how much it was going to be. And as the situation evolved. Their situation has evolved, and it turned from a five week sprint into almost like a eight or nine month workshop which has been wonderful. But it really beg the question of like how can cities develop a budget practice this is not going to be the last hurdle that cities face right. How can cities develop a practice that allows them to respond and rebound from these types of issues more quickly, proactively prepare for future budget challenges, and do it in a way that really puts equity at the center. You know Joe Biden talks about build back better and I think build back better means a more resilient and equitable framework. So, so, so I heard a couple of things so so when we're when you're talking about the budget resiliency, I mean you're, it's about building like a framework and a practice so it's like kind of a muscle, and then that allows cities to be able to handle crises in the future to, and then really thinking about that embedding the equity piece. Yeah, actually Lily, let me just give sort of the definition that we came up with, which I should have in in my answer. So the definition that that we worked on with the cities and came up with this budget resiliency is the practice of equitable planning, collection allocation and distribution of revenue and programmatic spending to support long term sustainability and equity in communities so that's the definition that we came up with and then the challenges how do you, you know really practically execute on that of course. So tell me, what are some of the key lessons learned that that you saw over the supposedly five months, five weeks friend but it really has turned into eight or nine months. Yeah, which is learning. And it's turned into into something longer because I think the the city's really valued it. And so we want to keep a discussion going as the world's evolving and changing. You know, I think, first and foremost, I think it's about outcomes and you hear this a lot like everything's about outcomes. But there is a difference between outcome based budgeting and just fiscal, you know, annual budgeting. And, you know, I think it's very easy for folks in the departments and cities and in the budget office which by the way touches almost every department in in the city to get caught up in like okay what holes do we need to fill now, you know what are the reactionary sort of problems that we need to address now. And it's not that that goes out the window. But when you have these once in a lifetime challenges and opportunities. And you have to think more strategically and so thinking about you know from the mayor, the council, the public. What are the outcomes that we are saying are like these are our values. This is our vision this is our mission, and how can we take this influx of cash. And how can we do something really different or as as as Joe Biden says how can we build that better. So I think that was one of the big big lessons. And then like assessing who's at the table when making these budgetary decisions and how equity is like intentionally instilled into a budget process, it needs to be baked in it can't be something where it's like hey let's go through the process. And then let's make sure that it helps everybody. You have to start with equity at the center and be cognizant and aware of it it has to be very visible. And then I think, you know also considering where the funding comes from, for instance if you're going to, you know, do an experimental parking zone, where you're going to be charging by the minute in a particular neighborhood and it's going to generate another way that we can take that money and put it back into the neighborhood into visible community assets new park benches, whatever it is that the community thinks they need or maybe it's public safety, better lighting right, but I think there's a better reaction from the community when they say okay, we're going to try something new we're going to charge differently, but we're going to see the benefits of that right here, right. Last I would just say when thinking about like equity and budgets and really when thinking about the budget period, think about return on investment. We often think like hey, let's figure out how to spend this money, the stimulus money is coming let's spend it. Let's think about how to invest it in a way that benefits us for the long term, including the fully loaded social cost benefit looking at environment right looking at well being health equity. And so there's a difference between just spending the money and getting it out the door, and sort of investing in projects that are shovel worthy not just shovel ready, and looking at over 30 years how does that benefit the community and all people versus just a subset. So, so it's really looking at the long term impact and and and really making some calculations around the return on investment. I also heard aligning outcomes, really asking yourself who's at the table, and really considering where the funding is coming from so these are great lessons learned. I do. I want to thank you Gabe for for for talking us through that and I want to invite our cities here and introduce story, who will be moderating this conversation story Bella is a partner at city by and story you had the pleasure to be able to lead this work and know it really in and out. So, so thanks for being here and for the audience. Please remember, keep your questions and your head and then you can put them in our Q amp a box, because we're going to be moderating the Q amp a and we're going to be a reserving time at the end to be able to elevate a few questions so story I'll hand it off to you. Great. Thanks so much Lily and thanks to the night foundation and to the city by team who, as well as HR and a advisors who worked with us and our five amazing cities. I can say that this has been such a privilege to work with these cities over the course of now the last like eight or nine months. And so I'm really excited to introduce three of the folks who we've been working with. This is Sadia sitar who's the deputy budget director from the city of Philadelphia. Laura Logston, who's the senior budget analyst in St. Paul, and Sherita Sims Jones, who is grants grants manager for making bid. Thank you ladies. It is also really wonderful to be moderating a panel with three fabulous women who are leading budgeting practices and activities in their cities. And I want to start by asking each of you two questions, which the first is really what led you to a career in city budgeting, which is a field or budgeting and finance often male dominated fields and I think it's fascinating, although this is not the core topic of this conversation that we do have the three, the three of you here today, and then to really get us started. Can you share a little bit of the roller coaster ride that your city has been through over the course of the last year and a half kind of where did you start. What have you been through and where are each of you. Now, so let's start. Thank you, please. Well, thank you so much. Story for having me on today. Good afternoon everybody I'm Sadia sitar I am the deputy budget director of analysis and communications for the city of Philadelphia's budget office. What led me to a career in public service was I was actually doing a master's in East Asian studies at the University of Pittsburgh and realize very quickly that I was totally not suited to become an academic. I was taking a class in public policy and the rest is history. I got a second master's in public affairs from I use then school of public environmental affairs and here I am today. I have been with the city of Philadelphia's budget office since November of 2019. So just about three months prior to coven 19 making its appearance. It was very, very boldly in our budget planning process for fiscal year 21, which we were doing at the time. And it was actually literally a few days after Mayor Kenny had proposed his fiscal year 21 budget that we were sent home, which we thought was for a very short two week stint but ended up being into, you know, the present. Some of our challenges are that we are the largest poor city in the United States. And despite the influx of a very healthy $1.4 billion in our funding, we are still looking at a big budget gap, about a $1.5 billion budget gap for our five year plan that we just introduced this year. We have a lot of needs, like a lot of other cities, we are also restricted by some pretty strict revenue regulation regulations, a very archaic revenue structure in our city. And again a population that the majority of which is under the poverty line. So very low revenues and very high needs is the lens that we look at unfortunately when we create our budget for the city of Philadelphia. Thanks so much, Sadia. Laura, if I could turn to you to tell us a little bit about yourself and St. Paul. Sure. And thanks, story. Thanks so much for having me today. This is a super interesting conversation. I'm glad to be part of it. So I'm Laura logs and I'm a senior budget analyst for the city of St. Paul, and I've been in this role just for two years. And I, similarly to Sadia started with the city, you know, just not very long before COVID began so it's the majority of my time I've been working remote. I was I became interested in working for cities and with budgets, kind of early in my career when I was working as an AmeriCorps member, and just became really excited by how cities work with the nonprofit sector and then I decided to go to grad school for public policy, ended up doing some work in program evaluation for a few years but always kind of had my eye on local government and how to, you know, to get into local government because of the impact that it really has on communities and people's daily lives. So really happy to have been able to join the city two years ago. I would say the roller coaster for St. Paul has been probably, you know, like, like everyone else's experiences. We were just sort of getting started on our 2021 fiscal year budget when COVID began, we had developed kind of a new process for developing the mayor's proposed budget. And then when COVID hit, it kind of threw all of our plans out the window and everything had to go virtual and we were talking about significant spending cuts while we were facing so many needs. The mayor, Mayor Carter set a goal for us that we would have zero city layoffs, zero percent property tax increase and zero usage of our reserves in responding to COVID. So those were some pretty intense restrictions as well through the budget process. And we had to look a lot at spending reductions, pretty severe spending reductions to achieve that as well as really strategic use of the CARES funds that we received to kind of shore up some of the gaps that we were seeing in our revenues due to COVID. So, you know, really been a major challenge and then kind of at the same time then we were managing CARES funds that we did receive and getting those out, getting those funds out to the community in direct aid and support for a nonprofit community. So yeah, just like you said, definitely a roller coaster. And last but not least, Sherita. Hi everyone. Of course I have been with the county for over nine years now I started in October 2012. And let me just say I never thought government would be where I would end up. I've always been interested in business and finance since high school so I was in your future business leaders of America, clubs, and just always thought, Oh, one day I think I want to be able to do meetings, because it seems fun and seminars and conferences. And that kind of kept me on track with the business field. I did get my associates in business administrations I have a bachelor's in business and information technology. Also with a concentration in marketing, and then I have a master's degree in project management. So that really helps tie a lot around budget and grants opportunities together for me. So it's been quite interesting. Since I've started in October 2012 I learned a lot. I started out as a grants accountant, which was quite interesting because of course governmental accounting is very different compared to everything else. But it's fun. I must say it really gives you a keen eye on everything that's happening within your county and city. So that's really good to know. And then as we continued on I became a grants manager and the budget and grants manager as well so I got to really learn a lot between writing the grants accounting for the grants on the back end which I'm that person it seems like I always see the back end of the picture but somehow I get back to it where we're starting the front end and now it makes sense as a whole. So it's been pretty good overall now as I've started the roller coaster has always been we had tax increases throughout the years in the budget, especially and then this particular year we were we got a new mayor. So we see a whole different perspective now as well. And he did a great job at coming in creating a transition team to help us really change and you know focus on the community on various things that are needed in general and bringing everybody together at the table. So it's been a huge change overall we've had a lot of COVID hit. And of course, as everyone else would expect reductions in revenue we were surprised that we did not have as many reductions as we thought we were going to have. But the previous the previous mayor did at least work with flexibility of scheduling for everyone. And so that everyone is not on at work at the same time with COVID and we were out for a few months. So that was also really, you know, interesting, especially when you just don't have a lot of the paperwork for certain things that you do in government because let's be honest a lot of us don't have just the automated systems to do a lot of things. So it's been really good overall I really enjoyed it and it's been channel every year there is a different change no matter what you just cannot expect what may come each year, except to kind of just roll with it. So it's been great. Thanks. And so as someone who has spent time in government, I know that you always pick up the phone when the budget office calls. We also have levers that you can pull across an entire city that many other departments do not necessarily have and so as Lily mentioned, you know, we talk about a budget being a reflection of the city's values. In addition to COVID being a huge issue I think, you know, multiple of you have mentioned equity being a real critical issue for us to address in our cities over the course of the last year and a half and obviously going forward. So I'm wondering if you could talk and probably Saudi is starting with you a bit about how are you addressing equity issues in your budgeting processes. So I think moving into this year's budget. You know, I feel like for fiscal year 22 we made a conscientious effort to ensure that our budget not only supported the city's long term fiscal health, but it also advanced equitable outcomes for all of us. And how it does, it was, it did that was not only not only about, you know, how the budget process unfolded but it was also about whom we brought forward in the process who was at the table with us. A couple of things that the city of Philadelphia did was that we released a survey about, you know, asking folks about what they would like to prioritize in the upcoming budget for the city. And we were fortunate enough that we received about 13,000 plus responses to our survey. And that helped identify you know what folks would like to see in our budget. One of the other things that we did in the budget process to make it more equitable was that we have now started to create a abbreviated versions of our five year plan so we do a massive five year plan which is like an 800 page book, but then we also create a five year plan for languages and be translated into several languages. Something else that we've done to advance equity is that we actually initiated participatory budgeting in the city of Philadelphia. In January of 2021. This was a pilot program that we've started since then. It is a million dollars in capital funding for projects around the city and we were really fortunate that we convened a steering committee with the Citizens Planning Institute of the Department of Planning and Development. They are partners in this. And we've been working with the steering committee as well as our consultant to determine, you know, how the people of Philadelphia would like to spend that million dollars. Something else that we've done internally is that we have a, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is working with the city departments to identify racial equity plans. We are looking at departments performance measures to identify, you know, which what they're doing and what the, what those outcomes of those work are that are impacting racial equity in the city. And then we have identified internal goals with departments related to their, you know, and WDSCB participation rates. So those are the kind of things that we are doing on an internal and external basis to advance equity in the city. And, Saudi, I know some of that information you've made public is that the two other departments or is that outside of the city as well in terms of the racial equity goals and progress that you've made. So our racial equity goals, actually, all of our, the infographics that I've mentioned, I've been finding four pages, they're all available in the city's financial, you know, finance website. If you go to our tab that says financial reports, you'll find all of the information there. Another thing that people will be able to see is that during the budget process, we actually started a new, you know, a new aspect of departments asking us for their asks or increases or if they wanted to provide us with a cut to balance the budget. We actually asked them, hey, how is this going to advance equity or how is this going to do the opposite. So all of that information is present in department budget details, where they tell us how, you know, whether this would positively or like negatively, you know, impact equity in the city. So all of that information can be found online. And thank you for reminding me of that. Awesome. I think, you know, releasing some of that and making sure that people are talking about it, and have the opportunities to learn from what other departments and other cities are doing is something that I think we've certainly found as both a critical need and opportunity from doing this work is just bringing people together to have the opportunity to share some of the challenges as well as the best practices that we're all developing because obviously this is a changing landscape that we're all learning as we go and nobody has absolutely nailed it and, you know, come up with the perfect response to all of this. Sharita, I'm wondering if I could turn to you to talk a little bit about how you are infusing equity in your budgeting processes in making bid. Okay, so this we're only in the month of June now and I must say we it's felt like a year already. But the good thing is, we had a new mayor start January one so we had to kind of get used to you know his tactics and what all he wanted incorporated and infuse into the budget. And he started out with an actual transition team, which included various partners, community leaders 31 different community leaders that helped engage our overall community as a whole. They had five different meetings where they held they were held face to face on on the table events and virtual. And I must say we out of a population of 155,000 people we had over 140,000 participate. So that was exact we were that was very great and we were ecstatic. We also had excellent community engagement which left us with 20 goals to start out because again this is only January one, but we're in June now. So 20 goals to start out and 58 action items to address based on the 2000 plus surveys that we receive from everyone. Those surveys suggested that we address various situations such as blight pandemic response types of businesses needed in the area. Public safety solutions building upon our education systems and creating more ways to engage the community itself more inclusively and equitable. So it's been pretty good I must say with that leadership team it had people from it's very diverse with a 31 transition, members from the 31 transition team, but I must say it had maybe somebody from the hospital I think it is our making chamber of commerce, some of our local community partners, the five certain department county departments community foundation, and those are just a few to name the department education so it's just we were able to really touch a lot of the entire future within the community overall. Absolutely thanks Sharida and Laura, obviously the twin cities are a place where many of these equity issues that have dominated national discourse over the course of the last year have really been centered. So I know you guys have been doing work, not just in the last year but before that, to make sure that equity is built in I think you have one of the more sophisticated approaches of cities, you know, in the country in terms of how you're looking at infusing equity in your budgeting practices. So I would love for you to share a little bit about what you all have built in St. Paul. Thanks. So when Mayor Carter took office in St. Paul he established three key pillars for the city which are equity innovation and resiliency and those three pillars really are infused into all of the work that city departments are doing. Not that that you know those things were not involved in the work before but they've really been centered in this I think in this administration. One of the ways that that has really come out in budgeting is a much more public facing budget engagement process. Prior to the pandemic that happened in person we called them budget games. We would go out to community organizations, bars, breweries, schools, and the budget team would host this, you know, budget game which was a paper process and we would give them, you know, a $10 million budget gap and here are ways you can address it and here are things that you might want to invest in. And it was this really interactive participatory process to get priorities from the community. And then our team would analyze that data at a really detailed level and provide a report back to the mayor that helped inform decision making about about the budget and kind of get that that community input about, you know, what the community is really doing. When the, when COVID hit last year, all of that had to go virtual and last year that became a very, you know, it was kind of a discussion process and it was, you know, still super valuable but then this year that has really transitioned the finance team and our technology team have worked very closely together to create a really interactive tool that we can use virtually. And having these budget engagement roundtables with the community now they just started last week and they're continuing for several more weeks so our goal is to, you know, really engage the community again and that like deep level of participation around prioritizing, you know, kind of large areas of investment that are important to them, and also getting them to understand like restrictions that we have so you might need to cut some spending if you want to invest a lot more in one area, or you need to raise revenue and here's what that could look like. So that's, you know, that's been a super important part of the budgeting process. I would say, similar to something else that was mentioned earlier was that, you know, a question about equity is included in the budget materials that departments submit as part of the budget process so, you know, how is the work that we're doing this year, advancing the city's goals related to equity and how are any changes you're proposing, you know, going to impact equity in the city. I would say also I think maybe the last thing I would add is there are a lot of conversations happening in the budgeting process this year about the, you know, pretty severe cuts that we we took in 2021 that impacted a lot of our direct services to the community so we have way fewer library hours than we used to you know our 13 branch or 13 branches, and none of them are open seven days a week, many of them are only open four days a week four or five and that has a huge impact, all across the city. You know a lot of our parks and none of our pools were open last year and so like, you know those those really direct services that everyone in our community needs but often, like community members with the most need are being impacted by the direct services that were cut so we're really trying to figure out, like how do we bring that back how do we restore services so that we're you know providing equitable service to to our community. I'm wondering, particularly as we talk about community engagement and the idea of building trust. Are there, have you changed or have you seen that departments are changing some of their proposals based on this community feedback. feedback loop so that you're actually going back to residents to engage them. And this is sort of open for all of you beyond just some of their inputs in the budget process but are you thinking about, you know how you go back to them to share with them what is happening on the on the back end of that. I would say for us. Yes, we are as we hold various events, we consistently get the community's information and input, just to make sure we're addressing what they feel like should be involved within it within their environment they're at home area. We have several things that we're working on as far as various events and we make it a point to make sure we communicate through media various, you know local pages itself as far as like the newspapers and so we just we try to make sure we cover everything to make sure that the full community is engaged, and we have certain systems where they can submit for certain complaints and other things that they may have that helps us, you know, kind of keep track of maybe what needs to be corrected or what needs to be fixed. And as we continue to monitor those we of course continue to try to implement new and innovative ideas. I know that some of you are infusing sort of the ARP funds into your existing budgeting practices but I'm wondering what are some of the ideas that each of your cities are sort of forefront putting at the forefront for how those, how those funds are going to be and have there been any additional conversations if it's not part of your standard budget practice to engage your communities in how those funds may be spent in each of your cities. Laura could I start with you on that one. This is something that I'm working on basically on a daily basis at this point. It's been the timing of when we receive the ARP funds really lined up exactly with our 2022 budget process so which I think is both a good thing and a challenge, because from the budget perspective. Like, okay, this is, you know, this is a huge source of funding it's the same amount as our property tax levy, but like it's another source of funding we can you know roll this into the budget process. And maybe that'll be the easiest way forward, but you know as you kind of dig into it like these funds have, you know, their first specific purpose. There's a lot of encouragement to engage the community and how these are going to be used. And it's just such a such a massive infusion of funding it's, it's been, it's challenging to just kind of like layer it on top of the process that we already have. So I think what we're working through now is understanding, you know how do we be most strategic with these funds how do we set up a plan to receive proposals how do we engage the community in that process. So I think it is, it is possible that there will be decisions about using some of the ARP funds that will be part of the actual budget. The you know the mayor's 2022 proposed budget and then the adopted budget, and then I think there will also be a separate process for soliciting proposals, and on or like a rolling basis over the next couple of years, figuring out how we're spending these funds. The mayor has said publicly that he has sort of key strategic priorities for the ARP funds. And those are neighborhood safety, housing, jobs, mental health, vaccines, modernization of city services and then city financial stabilization. So what we're looking at now is sort of creating working groups basically around each of those key priorities. And we'll be soliciting proposals, and then those working groups will be creating a plan for you know how can we use these funds and potentially other federal funds or other sources or you know partnering with our county or our school district in the area of neighborhood And in addition, you know the the White House announced just this week this effort to reduce gun violence and address public safety in America's cities. And there's a collaborative of I think 15 jurisdictions that are going to be involved in that and Minneapolis and St. Paul are involved in that so I think there's just. There's a lot of attention to ARP funds being used to address neighborhood safety, which is one of Mayor Carter's key goals so. So I feel like I've gotten a lot of different directions but I think that kind of represents the myriad challenges that we face in trying to line up these funds with the budget process that can, you know with with a budget process that can be you know that's set up on a pattern that's set up to operate in a certain way that may not be as flexible as we need a process to be for something as huge as these federal funds. Right. I'm sure you that about you. So we have quite a bit of ideas that we are floating around. We want to replace the loss of revenue and I'm sorry my light went out here so it's there you go. We're replacing the loss of revenue through our hotel motel. General revenue and our Lake Tobosovki area, which is a recreation center here where you can vote fish camp picnic and slim. We are also doing government update upgrades like cyber security to the shares buildings, EMA buildings mobile units, public safety. There is a program that the mayor just came out with and a bunch of community leaders in general. As you said to reduce violence within the area so ours is called making violence prevention, and it's MVP. So we're going to look at funding that more as well. Then we have public facilities upgrades so especially due to cove it which was very unexpected for all of us and made us all think about things in a very different manner. So if facilities upgrades we're going to put touch the sinks we're thinking about putting touch the sinks into our city auditorium and Coliseum. So those will be helpful to tourism upgrades creating grants to various tourism, tourism to the Convention and Visitors Bureau, and then blight removal of course. And that's another thing that it's a kind of two part situation to because as we continue to remove blight. Basically we want to create affordable housing as well affordable and transitional housing. So we feel like that will be helpful so and we can also maybe do longer grants towards getting those affordable housings created educational services such as mentors big brothers big sisters, Boy Scouts of America we're looking at that. And of course that we have what we call a Brookdale warming center which is a homeless center. So that we have for about 150 plus people in there right now, which our goal is overall again to maybe somehow transition and those into that affordable housing and somehow exit and maybe access of hood vouchers over time. There's not quite a bit of ideas going on that we're interested in and we're still engaging the community even more as we go because we all have everybody wants something right now and wants to make sure that it, we move forward all together. Yeah, last to you. Sure, so I think with the ARP funds, obviously, you know, in fiscal year 22. In fiscal year 21, we were looking at a, we closed a $700 million budget gap, and we were looking at a $450 million budget gap and fiscal year 22 with ARP funds of course we were able to close that gap. We are also using ARP stimulus really refunding to fill the shortfalls in our spending and essentially we're using it to, you know, reopen the city. We are also using it to keep people healthy in the city and keep people safe. So some of the ways that we are using these funds is to make up for lost revenues just like Shreeta mentioned in making Georgia. The Philadelphia unfortunately has a very, you know, archaic tax structure where the majority of our revenues do not come from property tax revenues but from wage tax revenues and of course, with the majority of us working from home over the past 15 months, our revenues, wage tax revenues have been deeply impacted by that. So the majority of ARP funding is being used to recoup those lost revenues. One of the other things that we're doing that we wouldn't have been able to do was we are opening, you know, our pools, we are expanding library hours, opening rec centers around the city. We are also able to increase paving on our city streets, you know, and then we are also able to create new programs in the city such as COVID containment, provide tele-lactation services. We also had a lot of community grants that were expiring that we have been able to restore and then of course we also put some money forward, budget forward for anti-violence efforts in the city. And then we also were able to provide funding for 911 Corresponder Unit and other triage units as well. So we were able to do all of these things, avoid layoffs, significant layoffs, and of course asking departments for, you know, upwards of 10% cuts had we not received ARP funding for the city of Philadelphia. Great, thank you. And I'm going to ask one more question before turning to the audience question. So please do add anything that you would like to ask our esteemed panelists in the Q&A. And one of the comments that I heard in our last cohort conversation, someone said that their predecessor had mentioned that it would be a whole lot easier to cut $10 million than spend and reallocate a couple hundred million dollars. This is not something that we're actually set up for. And so I'm wondering, you know, this is, this is a time of abundance, but that certainly doesn't make this an easy time for each of you and your departments as you go forward to to think about how you are actually ensuring an equitable budget. How are you at the same time using like creative funding sources like new revenue generation and thinking about cost savings and in kind opportunities. But I'd like to ask the last question about something that we talked quite a bit about as we went along the cohort and Laura who didn't participate in all of that but is obviously running this as her day to day mentioned on how you're using partnerships to develop some of the outcomes that you're hoping to see and sort of deliver some of these funds and on the promise of using these funds for your city. So I'm wondering if you could share an example, each of you of an interesting or creative innovative partnership that you all are using to solve some of the challenges that you're seeing in your cities. And I'll open it up to any of you to go in first before I put one of you on the spot. I can go for it. So in St. Paul, we are where the capital city, the, you know, St. Paul received I think the after Minneapolis you know we received the second most ARP funds of any city in Minnesota and then we received more than our county. And then our school district actually received way more funding than we did the St. Paul School District received the most funding in any school district in Minnesota. So we've been looking at our county between our county school district and the city, we have hundreds of millions of dollars and we have many common goals around some of those priorities I mentioned earlier like housing neighborhood safety and jobs and so we've got some great dialogue going with leaders in the counties and schools about like how can we prioritize together how can we share resources. Probably the best example that like happened basically immediately is the city and the county partner on a youth jobs program, and it's a it's a program that already is in existence for high school students and getting them internships in government but also in local schools and pretty much right away when all of us received our ARP funds the county and the city started talking about doing like a huge expansion of that program this summer, and expanding it to a little bit older of a cohort so I think one of the programs serves students that are like 14 to 17 and this summer they opened it up to I think 18 to 24, really trying to ensure that that age group of folks is able to get jobs. You know this summer addressing unemployment rates addressing a need also to create a better pipeline for employment into different types of careers. And also just into city government and to county government and so that was really the first program that the county and the city agreed to spend ARP funds on at all was like several million dollars of both of our funds to expand that program and that is I think is getting kicked off right now so they didn't want to lose this summer season. So that was one example of you know both of these bureaucracies being able to come together like really quickly. And so that's that the program already existed, they weren't creating it from scratch. But, but yeah that's just one key partnership kind of in workforce development and we see a lot of opportunity for for further partnerships. Awesome. I'm Sharita. Okay, so we have only one only one. I only want to pick then. Okay, so the most recent one I guess that I will go with is. Not too story. No. All right, as long as they're really quick. Okay, the making violence prevention plan that is something that we interacted around. I think it was June 10 or so. And it is basically to gather a series of community meetings with the various leaders within the community faith leaders law enforcement agencies other government departments and just overall community leaders. So we're holding these meetings and also inviting the victims and families of victims to these particular meetings basically so that you know we can kind of get more insight about community engagement and how to spend that more ARP funding on that as well and reducing And another one is the night foundation and we're closely involved they've helped us kickstart quite a bit and fun and you know help us fund some things. So we've got the mobile 211 pilot program which is starting for us. The night foundation and United Way handle it but we're looking at adding some funds there with ARP as well, and it just connects your people, the people to live in a community overall in what's already considered challenging. And it allows us to allow them to do like have access to food pantries job search and placements and financial emergency assistance pretty much. So it's quite a bit going on and then of course your C click fix this system, the sorry I can't talk C click fix that allows us to get a lot of the part from various community members such as my trash wasn't picked up picked up or right away needs cutting or something like that you know with the night foundation kind of help us with that too so we've got quite a bit that we do when it comes to partnerships between the local leader community members, the law enforcement government apartments and night foundation Community Foundation paid matters so yes, thank you. Thank you. And Saudi a quick one because I definitely want to get to some of these audience questions. So I think that Philadelphia is in a, we're in a bit of a different position. We are, we do have through our commerce department the city does have a lot of partners that they work with to provide you know business relief, and we have created like a restaurant like we've had as a revitalization fund and to provide you know working with like city and not other city partners, but I think our needs, and the fact that we have such large revenue shortfalls is what the focus of these ARP dollars have been, and I apologize if I seem to have missed your question. But you know we do have community partners that we partner with with with our Department of, you know office of homeless services with our, you know, office of transportation infrastructure and sustainability with, you know, our commerce department office of children and family so those partnerships have been there and they'll continue to be there. But I think the level of engagement is obviously much different now than it was before because the need is so much more. Absolutely. I want to bring us back to process a little bit and talking about participatory budgeting. And the question from the audience sort of how does participatory budgeting encourage equitable outcomes. And are you seeing certain populations participating more through this process than others. So Sadie and Laura, I would love for you all to respond from Saudi your PB experience as well as Laura through the St. Paul budget game. Philadelphia is currently in the beginning stages of its process, we did kick off our project in our process in January but we've had, we kind of had to be on a little bit of a hiatus because of another very very intense budget year. So we ensured that we had as much as many folks from, you know, black and brown communities in Philadelphia engaged was that we partnered with the citizen planning Institute in the city, the Department of planning and development. They were doing an outreach for, you know, the reimagined Philadelphia steering committee which is working on the city's 10 year strategic plan. And through that they, they were pretty, you know, good about making sure that folks from, you know, any and all types of communities in the city were represented. So those folks are fortunately on our steering committee. So we have tons of boards and commissions folks from tons of boards and commissions in the city presented as well as a pretty good, you know, cohort of city public from various neighborhoods and groups. Like I said, we are in the beginning phases. So we just wrapped up creating a rule book for how the process will be you know designed moving forward, and we are currently moving into our idea collection phase and later we'll be starting community engagement and outreach for PB in Philadelphia. Laura, and maybe you also have the experience of doing it in person and virtually and so I also wonder if you've seen a change or a shift in participants through those different modes. Yeah, I mean I think it's a super important question. When we did them in person I mean I think both in person and virtually to some extent people are self selecting to show up and so that can that can create a particular change in folks who are already tapped in. Or if there is like a particular group that's organized very well. I know there was a there was a budget meeting a couple years ago where like a community bicycling group was like everybody just needs to show up for this budget meeting so we can talk about the need for bike lanes and so bike lanes was like a major, you know, when somebody came out of that meeting. That's fine, you know, I think one of the things that we as a city are really working to do the mayor's office has really takes a lead on scheduling these budget engagement sessions is also ensuring that we're partnering with community organizations. So, you know, sometimes there'll be a budget engagement session that's with a, you know, a particular, like, you know, among organization in St. Paul. You know that while it's open to anybody it's being sponsored by among organization and so we're ensuring we're getting, you know, a large group of our among population or, you know, a good representation of our among population participating in those conversations. So I think it's kind of a mix of in trying to ensure that we're engaging community organizations that represent and serve different demographics within the city. But also, yeah, just being really conscious of who is select self selecting to show up and how is that potentially influencing the priorities that we're collecting. And I'm wondering sort of to add a little bit more on to that is, how are you creating transparency around the decisions that are being made in the budget I get the input side of that. And then when you get to actually a point of decision. What is the engagement with citizens and sort of transparency look like at that point in the process. So I think for Philadelphia, we are currently in the process of our creating a budget like, you know, I see that it was put in the chat we have created a budget video about our process but we are currently formulating a budget video about key decisions that were, made in the 22 fiscal year 22 budget. We also, as far as transparency is concerned, we try to create documents in, you know, a variety of languages that are spoken around the city and make sure that they are, you know, easily accessible to residents. Also, that they are simple to understand. You know, it's budget speak is easy for so many of us while it isn't for others. And as far as the, you know, I heard you say input. And we did do a lot of community engagement as far as the input of the budget was concerned where we reached out to various philanthropic business, city, city organizations to get their input and how to make this budget but as far as actually, you know, making sure that our residents see that they were heard. Our goal is, you know, just putting out on social media video you know do as participatory budgeting unfolds do in person events. Now that you know COVID-19 is receding. And just to kind of make sure that residents know that they were heard in this process. Last super quick lightning round question, given everything that you all have been through in the last year and a half. I'm wondering what you see your city is doing to prepare for the next crisis. What have you learned that that will allow you to respond more effectively. Once the next unexpected action comes in. Sherita. Yeah, we've definitely figured out how to increase revenues. We are looking at implementing speeding cameras, which should kind of help us out and then we're also looking we've, we have funded a development of a solar farm that will be multi County shared as well. We've also had some implemented some franchise fees to independent contractors for trash pickup. We're going to get the revenues there because that's what it's going to take, especially once these ARP funds run out. Yeah, I think. Laura, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, Saudi. No, go ahead, Laura, you're, you're there. Okay. So a major piece of the conversations that we're having around the budget this year and ARP funds is how do we make investments that will create like a more sustainable and stable financial situation for the city in the long term. So are there, are there major investments we can make that are that have like big one time upfront costs like modernizing certain city services that are going to have payoffs in the future. Are there things that we can do to restructure some of our. You know, the way that we fund certain activities that we can do it in a more sustainable way or there are things that we can pay off now so that we can get them off the books in the future. So those are all things that we're really exploring with because this is a multi year but one time source we really want to make sure that we're trying not to rely on this to solve all of our budget problems that are ongoing and instead use it to create one time solutions that will help fix some of those structural problems in the future. And I'm going to just second exactly everything that Laura said, this is a one time solution this isn't going to miraculously resolve all of our budget issues. And also, you know, the city is also moving away from fees and fines, especially as they pertain to like public safety. So I think that we need to increase equity in the city. But I think one of the things that Laura said I'm going to just echo back on is, as a city we want to focus on building up our fund balance so that we are resilient the next time this happens. So that is definitely going to be our focus moving forward, one of our focuses moving forward. And thank you all so much over to you Lily to close us out. Thank you so much for for the time we are right at 2pm Eastern so so thanks so much for for leading this this conversation story to Rita Laura said yes, we learned a lot. We heard a lot about equity, and how do we build that into the budget. And I thought that that was the perfect ending to end on on how do we think about building resiliency for the next crisis to all of this is in our in the playbook that is out we linked to it again. In the chat box, you can find it on both nice website and both city size website so we really hope that you look at it and, and refer to it, moving forward you can see it in the chat. So thank you so much story do you want to do you want to say any final words. Just a huge thanks to Saudi asher Rita and Laura for their time and their continued dedication to ensuring resilient budgets and each of their cities I know that their residents are all lucky, and better off for having each of them in their position so thank you so much for doing what you do. Yeah, and we learned a lot and many cities are going to benefit from this so thank you and thank you wonderful Friday and great weekend take care and stay well. Thank you very much.