 everything, not just isolated pictures but what this presentation I really think starts to do is it paints a picture of the impacts of COVID on the whole $200 million dollar city operation and when you do that you see that there are all sorts of holes that it has created in our enterprise funds as well as the general fund and because of impacts on the way we had planned out our capital planning we have very significant holes in the capital budget as well if we want to keep up the pace of investment that we've had in recent years so if there's discomfort as I suspect there could be with the level of ARPA investment that we're proposing in in this kind of first cut that's fine we just I'm uncomfortable with it I was hoping we would not need to dip as far into it as we're suggesting here but to do that we're going to have to to avoid that I think what the break in this presentation I think accurately lays out to the best that we can in at this moment is that something else is going to have to give one of the other principles and goals is going to have to give if if we're going to try to reserve more of that funding for future years or for future kind of deliberate process so with that I think that's enough for our opening remarks I hope I hope we can hold on to the a sense of excitement about where we're headed as well it's certainly a much different task that we faced a year ago I hope when you look at the list of things and I know you haven't a lot of time with it we're going to go over again in this PowerPoint I hope you see the potential at least for making progress on a long list of equity priorities and other city goals that have eluded us for for some time this really could be a fundamental I think this is an exciting time we're going to have some challenges figuring out exactly how to do this but I am totally confident we will come through this headed from a financial perspective in a much different direction a much superior direction to where we were 12 months ago so with that Catherine why don't you try to kick us off and start to lead us through this if people I think you should ask let's try to get through the old PowerPoint but I also think you should ask questions you know particularly clarifying questions as you go that will help inform the debate and discussion at the end of this you know just raise your hand we'll get we'll get you in there for questions we have enjoyed we have invited the full council to be with us tonight I see a number of counselors have taken us up on that and other counselors I should also feel free to to ask questions tonight and be part of the discussion well that would be great so with that Catherine really this time I'm hitting it over you excellent thank you mayor without further ado we will go through the high points kind of a summary of the memo that was presented to set up the dialogue and conversation that the mayor spoke about and as he mentioned the first place we started was the budget principles as we did last year we felt that it's important to set the stage with what are the overarching principles that will serve us throughout this process as you can see we are calling it a full service budget compared to the lean budget we had last year and we also have some strategic new investment that we are proposing and so one of the big assumptions that we have made is that all city services are going to be restored to pre-pandemic levels and that as we'll talk about later in the presentation includes everything from seasonal hiring to investment in training and education for staff and all sorts of things that as you recall we had to cut last year because of the unusual circumstances another one of the principles is investment in critical infrastructure and the fact that we really do need to continue that at the pre-pandemic enhanced levels that we have all enjoyed over the past few years we want to make sure that we have emergency reserves at that upper limit of 15 in case there is additional economic uncertainty in FY23 in this budget we have done our best to minimize tax increases understanding the uneven nature of the economic recovery and that many people are still hurting that said we feel that it is critical to make investments in racial equity and justice the language access program and livable wages in this budget we'll also talk a bit about the municipal enterprise funds they are severely impacted and they may require support and as the mayor said in order to meet the rest of these principles significant ARPA funds will be necessary let's pause there Catherine before we go on and just you know just curious if there are any questions just any discussion of the principles to start things off anything that seems like it's badly missing Councillor Paul on my my only question at this point is just simply when you're talking about investment in critical infrastructure where did where does the state play into this and how well I guess I could I'll just leave it at that where is the state played into this I mean they are going to be doing some infrastructure on the state level obviously we don't want to be duplicating anything on is there any update about that or is that later in this presentation and if it is I'm happy to wait okay great um yeah I think why don't we we do have I think it might be easier to get into when we have the specific areas in front of us and I see we do have many department heads who are here with us who may be able to speak you know if we want to get into detailed questions when we get there we have some of the experts on the line to speak to the projects and the prospect of alternative funding so okay that's coming Councillor Jang thank you Mr Mayor so I am a little bit confused here because it seems we're talking about the FY 2020 budget principles and without the ARPA funds or is it included or is ARPA included in this proposal as well yes so we one of the main purposes of ARPA of course is as I understand ARPA they're trying to do too big the federal government is really trying to you know at some level do two big things with ARPA one they are recognizing that municipalities and some state governments have been severely hit by economically by the um by the pandemic and will be what what I reported to the federal government and most other mayors not every other mayor but many cities reported to the federal government that without federal assistance we would have no choice but to continue to severely restrict our budgets to and and if it continued beyond this year seriously consider significant layoffs and certainly not return to normal times so one of the things the federal government you know explicitly one of the four big things they have made clear is appropriate uses of ARPA funds is to replace lost revenue so that cities can carry on normal operations and be strong during this time of pandemic and now coming out of the pandemic economic first recovery and not worsen that economic recovery by laying people off ourselves so that's one big thing second big thing is to really help with recovery by doing not typical things going beyond our normal operations so yes I do not think there is any way to pass anything short of a draconian budget without the use of some ARPA funds in the FY 22 budget I hope I think that we try to be clear about that the first time we talked about ARPA funds we didn't have a sense for the magnitude of what would be needed um and that that is why we said previously we would be appropriating ARPA funds in essentially two big stages some during the FY 22 budget as much as possible would be separated and not used in the FY 22 budget and would be appropriated through a separate process I don't see any path through this without use of some I think we do have quite a bit of discretion about how much we want to use an FY 22 and how much we want to decide through a later process and really that's in its essence that's what this presentation is about is how much ARPA funds are we going to use to get through FY 22 how much are we going to put in a separate process and I hope by the end of this this presentation you'll have a lot more clarity about what the choices we have in front of us are that will determine that yeah thank you I mean I think I think we all I agree and I think that we all need the ARPA fund you know to support some city services for sure but my concern here is about the approach we want to take in using the ARPA fund I would rather have the presentation from the enterprise funds what is missing what are the gaps and then we have the discussion about how much from ARPA we are going to allocate to those gaps we do the same thing with the capital fund as well and we do the same thing with the general offer where are the gaps and then we can talk about how do we utilize ARPA in feeding those gaps but it seems with this it seems there is a preconceived notion about where ARPA will already go and to me it doesn't seem inclusive and it seemed I'm here to just listen which I'm here to do okay just wanted to bring that up okay thank you Councillor Jang I it my hope is that you leave tonight with I think with exactly that with a sense of where the gaps are we do have the enterprise funds leadership are with us on this call and when we get to it later in the slide deck we can hear from them and then but there are gaps there are gaps everywhere there are gaps in the operating budget there are gaps in the capital budget there are gaps in the enterprise funds and so that's you're going to get a much better picture of that when we come out over the next hour plus so let's let's keep it let's let's go on to the next next sheet let's get to some of that detail Catherine oh sorry President Tracey did you want to get in at this point yeah I just wanted to understand how given that there's a number of new investments how you're dealing with the question of like sustainability and future budget years as it relates to these these kinds of these kinds of things specifically like some of the the overdue investments and how you can how you're seeing us being able to make those investments sustainable over time and then just wanting a little bit further clarification on what the level wage piece means if I'm sorry if I missed that but that was one piece that I just and maybe it's later but that was one piece that so we get a little bit more detail on thank you absolutely we do have a bullet point on it later but um we are we and you'll see in the memo as well on the level wage um we are and I see Councillor Freeman is with us we've kind of plugged in that a gap that we identified last time we looked at this together and and the yeah we are proposing basically paying all all city employees level wage um and and bring uh inclusive of the temporary and seasonal employees who up until now have have not um been part of that how do we afford this all long term we did lay out a um other set of principles around the use of ARPA funds that I do want to hold us ourselves to to the degree we are using ARPA funds to fill this budget I do think we should speak to what the long term sustainability is with it in some cases the gaps in the operating budget are caused by one time uh issues that I think you know that's the plan for the we need to have a plan for all the gaps here and we will it depends on the item and we'll we'll speak about that tonight and I'm sure we'll speak about that more over the course of budget process okay thank you so much mayor that plan may include it at some point they're needing to be additional revenues raised uh on a on a permanent basis um so that that will be on the table in some cases from my perspective Councillor Pines yeah I think that it's really related very much to what we you just discussed and what Councillor Tracy asked about which is as a guiding principle I think you would normally say I think we could all agree that one time money shouldn't be spent on ongoing obligations right that's just sort of a general rule but I think things are a little different and I think it's more nuanced than that it's not it's not as easy to just apply that rule to where we are now so I just want to sort of put that out there mention it and ask if if you could do that sort of more nuanced examination of where we have gaps that are normally not gaps you would fill with this one time federal infusion because we're going to need to keep doing them on an ongoing basis and so you dig yourself a little bit of a hole but I think we're in a unique situation coming out of a pandemic and you know because these other revenue sources being so uh you know really low compared to where they would normally be so I just want to put that out that I think that's really worth being very explicit about I think we wholeheartedly agree with you Councillor Pine you know um when we articulated you know and we didn't just like repeat the principles that we spent a past border finance with uh meeting with before where we said here are the principles for ARPA but one of them the way we articulated it was was not the one time money should only be spent on one time uses it was um if it if it is going to be an ongoing use there needs to be a sustainability plan it was something I think we worded it slightly more artfully but that so uh yes I think there are some what we are proposing taking on in this budget some commitments that are likely to be structural long-term commitments we are proposing filling holes in this budget using ARPA funds I think we we will we should be explicit over the course of this budget process about which ones we'll need we'll need ultimate additional revenues to create them and I and I think that's on the table that we uh that we plan for those raising additional revenues downstream okay so great let's go on to the next page Catherine you've pretty much everyone has set me up for future slides so I will not rush us through but I will get us through because you obviously have great questions we probably have not anticipated them all but hopefully many of them um this is a slide that shows um the changes in our general fund revenues that are expected for FY 22 I want to be clear this is not all of the changes these are the really big ones and that you'll see in the third column from the left we used FY 20 as our base because FY 21 as you know was a very unusual year um so that did not provide a good base so what we did was we took FY 20 we added inflation for FY 21 and FY 22 um and you will see that in the column those are the expenses if we just spent FY 20 plus inflation what we would spend so what you see here uh sorry this is revenue it's been a really long day what we would expect not to spend to take in um but because of COVID uh you'll see that we are still projecting next year that will be about a million dollars off in parks and revenue there's a lot going on in terms of camps, waterfront, various events, gross receipts will probably not bounce back um and we also see big impacts in parking services and permitting and inspections. I just want to interject quickly just sort of big picture what we're doing here to help counselors falling along these are what we hope to kind of convince you of what we are feeling here is that on both we have problems in the operating budget on both the revenue and expense side on the revenue side the uh the ongoing effects of COVID are still we're assuming they're still real in for the year ahead maybe we'll you know there'll be a I'm actually increasingly hopeful that some of our assumptions may be conservative I had a phone call with hotel a hotel group on on Friday and bookings are definitely starting to pick up you've seen some of the news about new flights and whatnot like the economy is starting to come back but is it going to come back enough to catch up for uh two years of essentially falling behind are we going to get to where you would expect the economy to have grown um over to you know over two budget years probably not we're planning for that not to be and we're we're thinking our revenues are going to be down by millions on the expense side however the expenses you we are planning a budget that assumes that the expenses will be up and so between those two things and you'll see the expenses in a moment between those two things we will have a very substantial gap because of those two factors thank you mayor before we get to the increased expenses I do want to point out we do have uh some new resources that we are assuming in this budget um we'll talk later about some one-time investment that needs to happen in REIB so as we have 432,000 left of the one million appropriated last year we propose carrying that over to take care of those one-time costs we do plan on implementing the three-cent public safety tax that was approved in March 2020 and then of course there are the ARPA funds of which I list the total we are not going to use the total but it's there um then let's talk about some of the good news here yeah um before you go further obviously that's a discretionary choice the the implementation of this voter approved tax we could again make a decision not to implement this that increase this year as we chose last year that is a discretionary choice of the council it will make our we make our challenge a million too harder if we defer that for another year we are proposing deferring for another year the implementation of the new one-cent housing trust fund tax and we are proposing that after discussion so why are we doing that we're posing it well because of the principle we're trying to minimize property tax increases the same reason we didn't go to voters for new revenues new authority this March we we are confident we can do this and postpone this for another year and have no material impact on our on our ability to advance affordable housing efforts over the next year in that oh this is going to be an exceptional year that there's going to be just an enormous amount of federal and state dollars available for affordable housing efforts over over the next at least year and possibly more we consulted with Michael Monti of Champlain Housing Trust before making this proposal and he was supportive of and said he would be happy to you know is happy for that to be represented publicly of a deferral for a year given the broader the broader context of the fact that we will have this abundance of affordable housing resources appears over the next year so in that way we just want to call that out there before we go further thank you these are some of the items that we have restored these are items that we did cut last year as you may recall to deal with the lean budget that we were facing because of the pandemic we're calling it a full service budget because we really were able to do all of the basics last year but as you will recall we pretty much cut things down to the bone so this restores items that were really cut hard in fy-21 back to their fy-20 levels importantly it ensures that seasonal employees are back to their pre-pandemic levels it also brings both city council funds the initiative funds and the early learning initiative back to the budgeted levels from fy-20 and there is money included for all of the community festivals and events that we've come to love july 3rd highlight the international film festival all of the arts festivals um all of that is included and then we're pleased to roll out some new and expanded programs and equity initiatives so the mayor spoke about the first one that is paying all city workers the livable wage whether they technically qualify in the ordinance or not we've used the estimate that was presented to city council at the very end of 2019 for that and had discussions with all of the affected departments I think this is an excellent decision for a lot of reasons and the time is right because hiring has been difficult for those positions and it's something we've wanted to do for a while we are proposing a significant expansion of the REIB department and we're excited about that we'll talk a little bit more about that when we get to the new positions slide we're funding economic recovery if you're not sure what economic recovery is that's all the work that CARA has been doing with businesses across the city we are reducing limited service positions so we have performed a complete review across the city to make sure everyone is classified as they should be and anyone who was in a limited service position who we really feel should be regular will be classified as such in this new budget so there's will be very few limited service positions we also have the first full year of operating the third ambulance so that's exciting and restrooms we have heard from you and we have heard from the public that it's important that all of our restrooms be open for an expanded season so Cindy is budgeting for that we are also putting extra money in the HR budget to make sure that we are doing diverse and inclusive hiring for all of our all of our hires and that costs some money to send it out to some of those places we are more purposely budgeting for staffing city council committees you may have had this experience where each department doesn't always have the money that we wish they had for that so we will make sure that is done a new policy that we have in draft form that's an important part of the equity initiative and brought to us by Taisha is the need to compensate board and commission members to be able to attract especially BIPOC members to those boards so we have modeled this on the state of Vermont policy and included an estimate for those costs in this budget we are funding the language access plan at an increased amount to the tune of $40,000 we also have increased money for trusted community voices and then just a quick note that we know that the BPD budget is an important discussion we are not ready for that just yet but we do plan when BPD presents their departmental budget that it will reallocate the savings from the reduced officer count to hiring CSOs as was approved by the council CSLs and possibly other public safety measures so we will have a separate discussion on that and here is a list of all of the new general fund positions that we were thinking about as you will see there is quite an expansion in REIB and I see that Taisha is here so if you have questions I'm sure she can help answer them but we are proposing for an equal opportunity specialist that is to really help BIPOC businesses to be able to grow and to compete for city work a racial equity data analyst and then as you know one of the mandates of the department has been an anti-racism curriculum for all city employees and that is a big lift Taisha and her team have come up with an amazing plan and that involves hiring one manager and then eight limited service employees facilitators who would help us over the course of a year to do the big lift of the first training but we do not envision them being regular full-time employees I think those are just needed for this first push in other departments go ahead Mayor I just want to just further flesh out the picture of change within REIB in the coming year the addition what Catherine laid out they're not new positions because of past approvals but we have created and currently have in the IT department two public health positions we are proposing that those public health positions also shift into the REIB department so in total we will and really with a large part of their job being focused on the racism as a public health emergency the yeah add all that up and the total change in the second year of the this new department's life would be to go to from the three-person team it is now there'd be eight permanent members of the team funded through the budget that we're proposing excellent some of the other departments with needs you can see here the CEDO needs an ELI coordinator this is not a full-time position and the salary will come out of the allocation of the $500,000 allocation economic recovery chorus team has a lot envisioned we'll talk more about that next Monday but they need an administrative coordinator to help them pull all of the pieces together for what they're envisioning BPD after discussion with the commission is asking for a redaction specialist so that they can get out respond to public requests and get out videos in a the body camera footage in a more in a quicker way I hope I'm getting this right John you can follow up if I'm not but I think I have this right this is really to respond to what the commission has asked for in terms of more transparency with the body cam footage that we have and we just don't have somebody it's a very labor-intensive process so in order to meet what the commission has asked for we would need another person for that in human resources we are asking for another manager our needs have certainly grown and as we prepare to have the both the anti-racism training as well as bringing people back to work after a year that's going to bring up a lot of things and we are all envisioning increased demand for HR we are at the beginning of a process of revising our personal policy manual we are trying to get the HR information system out so there's a lot of demands on HR and we envision those really continuing it's kind of a similar story for IT I couldn't believe when I got here that for the entire city we had one help desk professional it's not reasonable and that really came to a head during COVID we have someone in a temporary position now and it has been a lifesaver frankly and that is a position that we really need to have be full time in parks we are proposing two urban park rangers and this is frankly to deal with some of the services that the police are no longer able to provide now that they are not as robustly staffed these park rangers would help with education on fires at the beach dogs off leash graffiti and other important quality of life issues and then lastly as I believe everyone knows unfortunately David White will be moving on from the director of planning position as department head but he would like to stay on as a senior planner and we would really like him to stay on as a senior planner so we'd like to create that position but we so that's what that's about so yes we're a couple quick quick supplemental notes the li coordinator that is a new position but it is not entirely a new expense from the perspective that basically this is us taking in-house some of the functions that let's grow kids as provided for the city in the early years of the program and that is really something that is necessary we think this is the right way to do it we also let's grow kids as part of their kind of organizational evolution they're they're phasing themselves out so they're no longer in position do that work we think this is the right way to proceed with it and then just the one additional thing I want to point out I actually don't think the news about David White has been widely announced and I know he's planning on speaking to his commission about that next week so announcement is forthcoming soon but if you know I know this is a public meeting but it doesn't ever we'd welcome being able to roll that out properly in the weeks and then over the next week or so if people can kind of stick anyways you understand what I'm saying well there's that so sorry okay I'm sorry David um let's keep moving people are giving me the glazed overlook and look like they're looking at their phone so um this is an interesting slide although maybe difficult to read poor max's leg I had to go in and look at this one no I know the numbers are too small I'm sorry I tried um these are increases in general fund expenses and as you'll see I followed the same methodology of using FY 20 as a base and adding a little bit for inflation so what you'll see here is where we have made significant improvements that go beyond inflation and we wanted to call those out to you here and I will not go through them but we are happy to take questions on that and then moving on to capital as the mayor noted in his memo um due to COVID we decided not to go for um a bond last year and so there's so much capital improvement work that we are building on and we don't want to lose that progress um but I have really learned that capital work is extremely expensive and you can see that reflected in this slide um but these represent really important things um you know being able to pave three miles of sidewalk instead of one is something that's critical to our goals of being a net zero city and really being a walkable city um the bike path ditto something that's very important to us um and some of these expenses like under transportation planning are items that the state of Vermont is paying the vast sum of um but there still is a small cost share and when you add it up for all the projects that's where we get so it's a little bit over six million dollars and I do want to be clear um that's a large amount of money but that's really just the bridge to get us between here and the next bond for sustainable infrastructure then let's talk about our friends in the enterprise funds um as morrow talked about um many of them have been hit really hard um and so far the airport is the only one who has received a large chunk of dedicated funds um you will recall we've been talking about the traffic and parking fund at the past several board of finance meetings they're in the midst of a reorg and they have several um parts of their plan to be able to put them back on track um but one thing that would really help is a million dollars um infusion for these operating costs and some minor capital improvements um we are also recommending that for both BED and water resources we allocate the money here um we still have significant arrearages in customer payments you can see in the memo uh there have been state programs aimed at helping to alleviate this for various reasons um either money has run out or there's very strict criteria um so we don't they will not help um our population so we are recommending um another million go to BED and water resources and then we'd like further conversation um you probably saw in the memo there was a lot of revenue lost um water and wastewater up to 1.3 and BED north of two million dollars um and that doesn't need to be acted on immediately but it is something that we need to keep in mind as we think about the big picture here so this is um kind of the summary chart as we get to the end here of what all of the different places we have proposed potentially using ARPA funds the general fund capital um as we introduced last week and we'll talk about next week um the immediate needs under economic support and um RRC um to meet the principle of our unassigned fund balance it would take another million dollars to get to the 15 percent and then the city enterprise funds almost at the end here I was doing great next steps this is just laying out you know to remind us this is just the first discussion we have a regular board of finance next week and then we have the four budget meetings um between the 12th and the 20th to go through each departmental budget and then you can see on the slide um these other deadlines and I'm really hoping we don't have to go to June 30th for taking action on the mayor's budget again but we have built in a little flexibility just in case and now we are ready for your feedback questions discussion what have you and I will turn it back over to the mayor thank you great thank you Catherine um why don't we keep the PowerPoint shared in case people want to go back to uh earlier um is there anything else on the PowerPoint people want to kind of dive back into it would be helpful to have it up um well we'll have it there in case so I think we've done a lot of talking we've hopefully painted the kind of broad picture um um the floor is open for reactions strategic thoughts uh on priorities um detailed questions about anything you've heard so the floor is open caster pine yeah the um as we know the ARPA legislation was approved without republican support it was done through reconciliation and there's some talk about whether infrastructure will also have to go that route because the president's plan is a two trillion dollar infrastructure plan republicans and in the senate are bulking and in the house um but they're more important in the senate in terms of votes but uh if the administration gets either that or the pared down version which is something like um six hundred billion in infrastructure is what the republicans are talking about so I'm just wondering if that infrastructure if it becomes law would we still need to put six six little over six million into our local projects or would we have the potential for a windfall of federal dollars for infrastructure great yeah why don't we go back to that infrastructure slide Catherine um and kind of unpack um what's in the capital capital budget um so um so you know my my sense of the timeline for that bill uh counselor paul it's our counsel pine although counselor paul's questions spoke to this infrastructure as well before um I have heard the president say he hopes to make substantial progress on that bill by memorial day um there was I think uh speaker Pelosi talked about passage by uh by the 4th of july but also I think in the same breath or maybe I heard it almost at the same breath there was sort of speculation that could easily slip we certainly saw how the first round of municipal funds you know there's discussions about that as early as you know early summer um last year and it took until um uh march for um that actually to be approved and we're still waiting for clarity uh on exactly how we can use all these dollars so I think what does that all mean realistically um I don't think we will know what if any implications that bill will have on this set of projects laid out here um by the time we you know need to make decisions um uh about the f y 22 budget in fact that first item which in some ways I see is one of the most critical and sensitive and really the opportunity the heart of the opportunity cost here is um that two million dollars for streets and sidewalks we um we will need actually to be able to get that work done this construction season uh we have we have put ourselves in the position to be able to do this work this construction season we're out to bid with this work and um we will need to make a decision whether or not we want to actually buy this full amount of work by the end of may in order to to keep the schedule to make sure all this weather sensitive work can be done before um before the snow flies um and uh you know again I I think everyone it's been a joint accomplishment that I think we've all felt good about that you know uh we have it is hard to get through miles of sidewalk built a year just the volume of doing it all the work involved is challenging I would hate it would be a shame in some ways I think to miss a construction season of these elevated levels knowing how deep a hole we're in with sidewalks so this I think we will not get that work done this this summer if we're waiting for federal funds similarly the bike path will not get finished this summer if we wait to see whether federal funds can can supplement it additional federal funds right I mean these are federal funds uh that really we're talking about using here um the uh this is intended I believe and as we get in when we come back and present this budget in detail in the in one of the budget sessions I will confirm this but I everything on here is supposed to be uh time sensitive work that um uh if we don't approve it either you know soon by the end by the end of this budget season we will not get it done um before the end of of the calendar year um and you know some of it we I think probably could uh defer without the same kind of uh kind of impact is for example the you know same kind of impact on the public is deferring sidewalks or deferring uh the bike path um uh but if we want to have a really robust uh season in all these areas that this is this is what it will take and if I could just follow up the um the governor's ARPA plan has um a decent chunk not you know not enough statewide for sure but 30 million in for CSO abatement and I'm wondering whether we can get some of um some access to that which isn't even on this list but it's a need that Megan's going to answer that question I see she's ready to roll on that so yeah no they they do have some money and I've been looking at the the capital bill to make sure that it's in there the budget bill um that is for CSO the the what the majority of the money that's identified here is for water work um ideally the uh an emergency generator at our water plant which we do not have um the establishment of a interconnect valve so that we are able to receive water from Champlain water district should our treatment plant ever fail um uh security projects skate up plc upgrade at water right now as far as I can tell within the governor's budget there is no line item dedicated for water the other thing with the federal money we're obviously keeping a close eye on that we don't know yet what form that's going to take and in my experience a lot of times it comes in the forms of at least a portion of it being loan and that's going to start to pinch our debt you know our debt service capacity the other piece I'm going to add and it's not settled I have heard to the great friend that there's a potential that for um local money that we spend on state priorities infrastructure priorities that could be a potential match from the state so that would be another reason in my mind to use this opportunity to do some really key projects um you know that will then not have to go on the bond uh ask that we have in November which you know is going to potentially be fairly substantial between water wastewater and storm water for dealing all of our existing infrastructure as well as making these improvements for Lake Champlain as well as for our water system thank you and then um I just have to can't can't um I don't want to miss this opportunity to point out that we have Senator Leahy chairing appropriations and we have Senator Sanders chairing the the budget committee which handles budget reconciliation so now's really the time to be um um thinking you know pretty big and boldly about what we could use locally to to address our issues um I think both of them would be very supportive of anything we can do to uh to continue to invest in in ways to uh to reduce our contribution to to pollution in the lake I agree further further questions or comments President Tracy so I'm just um wanting to know and this kind of goes hand in hand with what Councilor Pine was just raising was really just kind of a broader or like some some analysis provided on how the budget addresses the climate emergency and how we're just being explicit about that and really putting it through that lens and presenting it through that lens so that counselors in the public know where we're where we are investing and then as a result of that like if there are things that we we haven't thought of that they that they're able to bring those ideas and those concepts forward but I think having some sort of summary or some sort of bringing together because I see a lot of different disparate elements here that could be under that kind of frame of thinking but we'd really like to see just holistically how you how you're conceiving of it and then the second piece really being that of process and just wanting to understand how um you know we had a process last year that was very challenging just by need for a variety of reasons but I think one of the things that was challenging was both for members of the public as well as counselors was like knowing when to offer their feedback and when you're and how you're considering bringing in public feedback because looking at that slide it looks pretty pretty much like what we've done in the past which you know series of budget sessions not really additional sessions with public input or other things like that understanding that there will be public comments at those those periods but I'm just wondering if there might be possibility for bringing some additional public comments into this and some additional outreach to members of the public to really let them know what is in their budget um and then also specifically to counselors just wanting to understand when in this process you think it would be helpful for counselors to offer any specific amendments that they have because you know I heard frustration on both sides last year coming out of the process saying you know people shouldn't be offering little amendments at the last minute but then counselors who offered amendments saying well wait a second we never really had clear guidance as to when the appropriate time would be for us to offer those amendments and so just wanting to diagnose those those dynamics early on um specifically with public participation welcome additional participation but then also just be very clear with counselors about um you know when ideally we would like to to see those things just so that there isn't that um frustration kind of repeated and we're able to hopefully better address feedback that counselors have on on specific line items before we get to hopefully that last night where we're having to to adopt the budget thank you President Tracy let me try to respond to some of that some of it I'll just take under advisement and I think it's a good point and I think we can as a follow-up to this highlight there are some relevant climate emergency items and I think we could capture them all in one place I I also think you know mindful that we I think there is a desire for a deliberative public engaged process around this sort of historic this one these one-time funds I think some some potential climate investments um I would think might rise to the top in that in that remaining period as well but we we will come back with with some more detail on what's here in here on on climate um the in terms of counsel counselor feedback um we in addition to this PowerPoint you now have received and um we would like to again that out sooner um but it is out now and is an extensive memo that really I think hopefully captures um at this I think important conceptual level the way in which we're trying to put the budget together and again you know as I said at the beginning here I would welcome feedback uh in response you know when you've had a chance to um look at that written document um feedback on that now uh on whether we're kind of getting the principles right it would certainly be um we're at the part of the process where it's easiest uh to to make changes certainly these upcoming um council that the council will be um invited to the purpose of these four meetings um is to which we didn't have last year and I think that did contribute to the frustrations last year is to really give um counselors a chance to really try to understand what is going on in each of the departmental budgets ask some questions and a ton of time for questions but between the presentations themselves and follow up from that um I think in other years we have had good exchange there and certainly throughout the course over the course of May feedback questions um we have a lot of ability to make adjustments and change to anything we get over the course of May once you start getting into June it does get harder to to to make um you know we start locking things in it gets harder to to make um uh to for further adjustments so that would be uh I think ideally we are providing the resources for counselors to give us meaningful feedback um tonight uh and over the course of the month you have raised before President Tracy I think it's fair is there something more we could do beyond the you know and I see uh channel 17 is here with us tonight and you know has become a customer of ours uh you know transparency step to have all these broadcasts uh these budget these budget meetings taped and broadcast um and that is you know um but I hear the desire to go beyond beyond that um certainly it is our attempt to go beyond that with the balance of the effort for the ARPA funds um if uh you know what is the best way to do it beyond uh written communications um you know I I still struggle with what exactly is the best way to engage the public here and you know if you think uh having some kind of town hall meeting in early June or something might be might be helpful I'd be I'd be open to that I'd welcome deep you know specific feedback from counselors about what kind of additional public engagement and when you think um might make sense Councillor Paul uh thanks um Mr. Mayor um uh so I think it given what President Tracy has said I mean I think that waiting until um and not to say not to suggest that you were saying waiting but certainly having that kind of opportunity for the public in June um I think probably uh is is probably a little bit late in the process um I think doing it a little bit sooner would probably be best um that would just to finish up that thought um so the that there were a couple of things that I had questions on um so last year uh at the um in June or in July we allocated a million dollars to the Racial Justice Fund um if if there's 432 left over or from last year so that would be carried over and I think um I feel as though we are um not doing justice to what we really intended for that fund um it was a million dollars I can't speak to why the other 432 was not allocated to efforts in the FY 21 year um it could have something to do with COVID I I really don't know the answer to that but if we allocated a million dollars to last year then we're taking 400 from last year and bringing it into this year I feel as though that's not the intention of that that wasn't really the intention and you creating a carryover without replenishing that in some way seems um sort of counter to what the intent was um so I just would mention that and then in the slide that you had about where you mentioned BPD um and you had said that it was the CSO there was um there were the reallocate savings to hiring CSOs and CSLs um and then I think Catherine had said something in other public safety um initiatives or I'm not sure exactly how she put that on I would like to have as part of that discussion and you mentioned that in your state of the city address um is the Kahootz model um and we have some idea of what the overall cost in broad numbers is going to be we've had one you had one meeting with uh the group that is has organized that and I would like to just make sure that whatever we do um and I don't know what the funds will be I I don't know if you have an idea of what you when you say reallocate savings from attrition if you have an idea of what that broad amount is going to be but that um that that be a focal part of um you know moving public safety forward I think they have a compelling model and would like to see us further that um as I think we all would and then the only other question I had was just simply when you do go and do the facilities on you would it would it said memorial miller um uh the bca firehouse there were several others um yeah memorial miller 339 pine boathouse and I would like to know what that 1.1 million dollars what the breakdown of that is when we are able to absolutely so yes the capital um all of uh when we get the night that focused on the capital budget that detail will be there similarly with the police budget um that um we will be able to show you um what we are anticipating in terms of attrition and um what the opportunities are for for reallocation um and certainly yes the kuhu its model remains of significant interest to me and others um and um is one of it is definitely one of the things that uh capturing in katharine's point about uh other possible investments um in terms of I I hope I the presentation was ultimately clear that we are you know contemplating a very substantial additional allocation of uh new monies uh towards um racial justice initiatives so I think we are renewing fully and and expanding really our commitment to racial justice financially um in in this budget and really and locking ourselves in frankly in a way that we didn't last year to ongoing um uh you know structure it becoming part of the structural budget um with uh a department of of eight um and you know I I certainly think um I don't certainly looking back on 2020 the last fiscal year fiscal year 2021 I certainly is I um I think uh you know we made that allocation explicitly not knowing um knowing how we were going to spend it um and that was uh and I think we did um uh move through it and launched numerous new uh initiatives and and um and I think uh and that has um put us in position to for in the second year of the REIB department to really accept accelerating get done um quite a bit more but happy to take further I know this is a serious significant major interest of yours as well Councillor Paul and happy to take initial feedback on thoughts on on where we could go with this discussion certainly again not none this is is locked in at this point or and uh I think this could go in numerous different directions given the opportunities in front of us. Councillor Jang. Thank you um my first question is basically for both Mayor and Catherine and was just wondering if the one called consultant in front of us here um uh that augment staff resources was this exact mind item that the city the board of finance approved at our last meeting is it the same or is it different and I remember I voted against it. Um go ahead. Oh I'm sorry it is different and I believe that it might be helpful for us to have Martha Keenan who is here um just to describe a little bit about that and how it's different. So for the last three years the council approved on-call consultants to help with the initiative of the infrastructure bond that we had and this is the continuation of it. Um it is to be fiscally responsible we didn't add staff we used consultants to cover some of our added work and so this is to continue using consultants to aid our staff in getting the work done of the various capital projects. So basically it was not part of your budget and you're requesting it as a gap here. It is a part of the overall capital budget request so it is not an operating budget it is a capital request. Thank you. Thank you Martha. Yep um so I mean in general about the presentation and I think I um agree with councillor Paul somewhere where the breakdown of the facility 1.1 million dollars and we still have one item here same thing with the streets and sidewalk not knowing exactly where and when and and who um you know just two millions in gaps was just wondering if there is a breakdown too about what area of the city's that requires that. So yes yeah I believe it would be helpful. Martha why don't you talk about streets sidewalks and then a quick breakdown on facilities as well. I see councillor Paul as back so I think that would be helpful. Sure for the streets and sidewalks um we uh Laura Wheelock actually has a work plan that lists all of the different streets and sidewalks that would be accomplished with this added money and it is covered throughout the city so it does go to all of the different neighborhoods but I can actually have her get that work plan to you because it's very specific to it. For the facilities this is um got a contingency in it but memorials boilers have died they were in 1958 boilers and so they're 63 years old and they have finally totally died and are not able to get through next winter so at this point they would be need to be replaced or we need to have a better understanding of what's going to happen with the building. We have um 339 pine is occupied and has significant needs. Miller some of these items are to help with ventilation related to the pandemic so Miller is a recreation building and their windows don't open so it's to replace the windows with windows that open to improve the ventilation. Um the firehouse gallery being a historic building the windows are in severe need of being rehabilitated and there's we're only doing one side at a time so it's budgeted for one side and the boathouse um the barge is in very serious condition and the monies there are to do a feasibility study of what's the best way to manage that do we replace the barge and let it stay on water or do we determine that that's not the best move and move it onto solid land and so the the money that is allocated there is to make that choice or help us make that choice um it also holds a $500,000 contingency in it for other items that might fail. We had $500,000 this year um that was allocated for contingency in facilities and we have fully used it this year so until we can get a new bond and be able to address some other items this is to carry us through. Thank you so much Martha um I also see that we have our chief engineer with us and I wanted to invite you Norm um in case you have more details on streets and sidewalks that you wanted. Yeah so we just put out the bid for paving we we have our base paving bid and then we have bid alts bid alternatives that uh those bid alternatives include the additional monies that's being suggested in this budget and the list that I had and may it may have changed as we refine the list but as Ferguson, Depot Street, Allen Street, and Birchcliffe and I would note Birchcliffe is we're trying to coordinate the traffic calming effort that goes with Birchcliffe with some of that repaving effort for Birchcliffe for later in the season following the traffic calming work and I would also note that the on-call consultant work is really necessary to support those projects um to for instance the traffic calming for Birchcliffe it really does require civil design work that we don't have space within our team to do without it that traffic calming would have to sit and wait and so those are the kind of examples of how these consultants can be used and as Martha had noted I've expressed for for the longest time that you know we we're dealing with a backlog of significant capital work that needs to be addressed and I what I last thing I want to do is have to build a team that once that backlog is addressed suddenly we have to lay people off so we are we are working uh very diligently with the staff we have but using the the consultants as a force multiplier to get all the things that we need to get done done and there are significant amount of effort and metrics going forward particularly for transportation that need these funds in order to stick to arriving at the metrics that we committed to for um I think it was 2023 with so many miles of bike lanes being established so there's a lot in play here that's uh to to keep this momentum going this capital work is necessary to to do all those things that council and the mayors asked us to do so just want to put that plug in for those pieces and as it relates to sidewalks we are working on building a plan we didn't have a plan per se beyond um what we had planned for with our own forces which was 500k and the additional work we could quickly assemble but we don't have a finite list as yet it clearly ties back to our our how we've structured our decision-making related to the level of importance and the level of deficiencies so that's my little capital plug on our activities thank you um do I still have the floor Mr. Mayor? Go ahead Councillor Jang yes um yes so I mean I think in general my my view about this presentation is is missing what is what else is missing I think the city need to think about and I think one of them is specific to economic development I haven't heard anything substantial or specific to that item economic development for the people that leave work here and raise their children here that's one I am also a little bit disappointed um you know not hearing any substantial amount of funding for early childhood education other than the five hundred thousand dollars from the pilot fund that it seems is the only thing that the city is looking forward to endless early childhood education that's that's true I haven't heard anything about those two items um three um trying to tie racial justice and infrastructure and also knowing that at Franklin Square if you go there right now and just walk around the street you will see the the condition in which that specific neighborhood is in I think the city had a plan and knowing that we now receive this I think it should be a priority because this is about race this is about infrastructure and I think we need to prioritize that specific neighborhood it's been left out for over 15 years now um but despite the progress that we have made it's a priority to make it even better um yeah and you know in the city that's a three and four um it is specific to some issues that we encountered here in the city especially in the south end and some part of the new north end about neighborhood calming speed calming you know there was issue on Lockheed Street neighborhood neighbors stepped up to do their you know some job that needed to be done they were not supposed to do it and I think here in the new north end specifically in Gauss court we were told you have to wait at least four years in order to see some um investment in terms of making the neighborhoods speed less safer basically you know and I think those need to be also also a priority and I'm gonna leave it for those point for now and was just wondering what are the plan for those economic development early childhood education Franklin Square and neighborhood calming um you know programs thank you um thank you counselor jane um so um appreciate your point on the plan around Franklin Square and and do you want to check in with team and understand how the team is is thinking about that and where that is in the plans and so we'll come back to you with a response on that um the um with respect to childcare funding uh you know this is uh you know I'm not sure I um I guess from my perspective a half a million dollar investment is a very substantial investment it's we've restored that after a year in which we had to cut it it's essentially a hundred percent increase over what we had last year um and I you know this has been very much uh project I personally care a great deal about and I'm committed to and and uh um if uh their counselor wants to talk about further expansion of it um uh that is it's certainly a conversation that that we could have I will note that this is another area that um kind of like uh counselor pine alluded to um pending federal legislation um could dramatically impact this area as well the not the infrastructure bill but the American Families Plan the third major bill from the Biden administration does currently have hundreds of billions of dollars in it for expanded uh pre-k as well as expanded um high-quality childcare and um I think having a half a million dollars in the budget gives us a lot of flexibility and opportunity to leverage those funds make sure Burlington is is maximizing those funds before we consider you know major changes uh or dramatic expansions of the local Burlington effort I think in in that with respect to there it may make sense to um understand where the federal government is going to get any further expansions or changes right so um those are my initial reactions on on childcare happy to talk more offline if you have specific thoughts about how we do even more um finally economic development and I appreciate the presentation didn't um put uh a lot of focus on this but I do think there um uh there are a couple things going on that um from my perspective very much are the kind of economic development we need to be doing right now coming out of this recession supporting um our downtown businesses that have had this existential threat over the last year we are going to bring to you for next Monday a plan um for approval that includes um hundreds of thousands of dollars for downtown and waterfront reopening this summer um and so uh that you know that is very much an effort to uh jump start uh cut the local economy do what we can to help the economy rebound coming out of this in addition we can maybe scroll back um to this there we are proposing for the second year in a row uh that um we um have uh the the Cara Alnazarawi who during she has been functioning in this broader citywide support role uh supporting all businesses not just Burlington tertiary marketplace businesses um over over the first year of this emergency we are proposing that we continue to have that expanded um economic development support effort um continue for at least another another budget year and in fact um uh there is some uh growth in that effort in in the second year of it so um those are a couple specific ways we are trying to support the economy support jobs support people trying to earn a living um in in this economy if you have other specific uh thoughts Councillor Jang about economic development efforts you would like to see us funding um happy to talk about that either a bit further now or offline happy to have that conversation with you yeah um yes thank thank you I think yeah um a little bit maybe to respond to two um of um items here and I think one is about the early childhood education and from my understanding if five hundred thousand dollars can do can provide let's say 20 slots at least so a million dollars can provide 40 slots to just think about it in a very narrow way but not expansion of 46 million dollars not talking about but at least we making substantial you know amount of steps in the right direction for this need that is definitely huge it's even statewide but I think Burlington has always been a leader and you know just what I'm advocating for is just another five hundred thousand dollars for that because it's important it's needed and it also ties to economic development because women's and men's will go back to work and the economic will the economy will become vibrant again um and I think you know about the economic development we from my perspective if we bring CEDO into this conversation no if you bring church street marketplace then we are talking only from the business established business economic development standpoint I think we have an all the branch of government called the community economic development office and whatever CEDO is doing in terms of helping those who would want to open a new business um strengthening you know current program that currently exists and many many other aspects you know co-ops how do we make them you know bring them as part of our economy and I think my plan on my website is very substantial and very clear and was just wondering if the city also can think that way a little bit not only from a business standpoint but from neighbors or residents standpoint how do we help them get ahead and happy to talk about this again further you know in different settings thank you great thank you for that and just brief I don't want to keep going back and forth but just very briefly I may have count I agree with you that we should be looking to it's helpful to understand that's the growth you're looking for in the ELI program is to see more and more students more and more kids helped every year that's exactly I share that goal exactly and we are trying to do that the pandemic was a setback even though we expanded eligibility and made lots of funds available for scholarships we had trouble placing kids during the during the pandemic I'm gonna have Brian Lowe maybe connect with you offline to show you the growth plans and how we're I think thinking in very similar ways and and I agree we should at the time we need the investment and make that growth happen we should make it I'm not sure because of the way recent years unfolded if that's now or not but we'll have more conversation on that and why don't we leave it there for now I'll look in more to your economic development points and thank you for that so it's a little after seven now I am you just sort of check in with the board we've been going for about 90 minutes on this I think it's I've taken a lot of notes for my perspective it's been a helpful preliminary discussion and definitely not the structurally there's a lot more discussions to come are there I feel like it might be good to start to move towards the reappraisal conversation relatively soon if if possible knowing that there are there are opportunities but I see Councillor Pine as a hand up and we I think we could take a couple more questions at this point but that's my thinking is we should be moving on soon go ahead Councillor Pine. Thank you this is really just a request that we really move as quickly as possible to get a public meeting to really gather public feedback public input sort of just public reaction to this maybe the week of the 17th I think would be you know a goal that's two weeks away I agree with Councillor Paul who said earlier if we wait till June we're we're really a little bit we're putting people behind the you know behind the curve if you will so I'd like to get this if we can get it sooner. Thank you and can I say something there? Yes sorry yeah and I think it's a great point what all the council said about the community input but I think we need to do more background work in order for the community to reflect on something if we just come in a general this is so much money we have what do you think we need to do I think it will not be constructive let's find buckets and it's kind of like a daughter classy or a Sunday when people come in they should say we should prioritize X Y and Z and not prioritize X A or B in order for it to be substantial and meaningful for us about what people are thinking about. Thank you Councillor Jang and I agree with you we and as noted in the prior communications we are planning a survey for the additional process with with ARPA funds that you know we talked about a couple times going over the course of the summer and into the fall I think the challenge here is we have a charter responsibility to pass a budget by in the next two months here and had not contemplated doing a survey as part of that process I will I've heard you that that's a request I can't promise it we'll consider it and I've heard multiple councillors express a desire for going above and beyond what we have done in the past in terms of public engagement and we'll we'll come back to you quickly with how to do that in a meaningful way. All right if there's no more hands now let's oh and I guess they do I just want to make sure are there any other councillors not on the board of finance who haven't had a chance to weigh in here they want to say anything before I shift to the reappraisal. Councillor Carpenter. I don't know if I'm supposed to raise my hand now I just along this vein I mean really I do want to get priority input as soon as possible but I think we need to understand the cost of doing that and I hear what you're saying which is to say we have a base budget we got to get done by June some of the proposals we got to figure out how we're going to pay for them I guess is my bottom line and so we need to know does that mean a tax increase for example if we add more childcare slots and that's five hundred thousand dollars is that five hundred thousand dollars less of something else or is it five hundred thousand dollars more on the tax rate so I think any of those discussions need to be matched with theory and funding. Yes I do think as we get further into this process we will as as as Councillor Pine had noted it is a principle of ours to agree we're using one-time funds to fill this budget gap what are the long-term implications of that are these one-time is this a one-time gap or is this something that is going to require structural commitment and as we get further into this process we will we'll clarify that for the new initiatives. Okay I am not seeing any further camera hands up or I don't think hands on the participants list so I am going to. Mr. Mayor. Okay yes Councillor Paul. I think Councillor Barlow had a question. Oh sorry thank you. Councillor Barlow go ahead. Thank you Councillor Paul and Mr. Mayor. I just had one question early in the presentation you talked about deferring both the public safety tax and the housing trust fund taxes was that anticipated in this proposal or is that would that be additional to this proposal and if it's additional what's the potential impact there if we wanted to include it. Okay yeah thank you Councillor Barlow. So let me be to clarify we did defer in FY 21 so these these two items were approved by large large numbers you know large by by wide margins the voters approved this at the beginning of March 2020 however that was before the pandemic hit and we chose despite the voter approval we chose not to implement those taxes last last year as part of the FY 21 budget although we were authorized by the voters to do so we chose not to do that. What we are proposing in this presentation for discussion at least is implementing the public safety tax but deferring for another year the affordable housing trust fund the housing trust fund local tax. The housing trust fund local tax being one cent the so it's really not right to think of this as a three percent public safety tax I don't believe at this point because that is the part that authorization which for the old tax level so it'll be something less than three cents adjusted downwards by the growth of the grand list it's a revenue neutral authorization I'm pretty I'm almost certain so if we don't want if we wanted to defer that tax again the the cost of that we would have an additional challenge of about one of $1.2 million essentially so whereas we are already projecting an approximately five million dollar gap at this point in the in the operating budget that would rise to about six million. Does that address your question councillor? Thank you. Great okay okay thank you very much for the discussion I know this is very helpful and we got a lot to follow up on and we will do so and we will all be back with more budget discussion very soon including next week on the immediate needs proposal so shifting gears now we have heard from numerous councillors concerns from from constituents and and we have heard from some of these concerns directly in the mayor's office as well about about the reappraisal questions and concerns about it and I do just note that kind of feedback is very helpful for us we've tried to be very responsive to it and I would add that to the tools for getting public feedback for the budget process is we certainly welcome you passing along what you're hearing from your constituents as this discussion expands on the on the budget side that is one of the ways we get great public feedback so having gotten that for the reappraisal we've been trying to augment the initial public communications in a number of ways and as a further step in that direction we have the tax assessor John Vickery here tonight and I think unless Catherine you have anything to add we'll turn it over to John for some opening remarks and then to answer questions that you have so John take it away well thank you for inviting me to this meeting and and for me to just what I'd like to do is actually just start back with a little bit of history about the reappraisal I know this is the time of the the year where you're probably hearing from a lot of constituents about their concerns over the reappraisal I want to cover that as well before this reappraisal started there was a couple things that we needed to do first off we were mandated to do the revaluation as you all know by the state tax department and we knew that it was coming so what we needed to do was we needed to migrate our property data to a new valuation software system the old system was an older platform it was out outdated and we wanted to bring in a a good team and I think we did that we broke out the commercial appraiser and we landed really two superstars for this reappraisal one was this commercial appraiser that is does work all over new england and new york doing mass appraisal work he's been at it for over 30 years and he is doing a fantastic job the other one is a 35 years of doing modeling for the residential properties and this person is another superstar in the business and he has worked in fulton county georgia where Atlanta is providence wrought island heartford connecticut portland main and he's done multiple appraisals in major cities and towns throughout new england so that is why we selected tyler technologies to do the reappraisal for us but also remember that one of the things that I wanted for this reappraisal is I wanted to use modern techniques for revaluating properties and that's why we had images taken overhead obliques and as well as street views to the highest resolution in the market as it's called sub one inch and just a few years ago the best you could do is sub three or three inch resolutions a mosaic that and it allows a reviewer to to measure a property to sketch overlay to check for errors to really look at a property from the outside I think that that saves a lot of time it allows an appraiser to sit at the desk and do a lot of the work that way so I come two years we have a new we have the data in the newest software that is out there very modern and we also have a we hired a reappraisal team that I believe has done a fantastic job and I know at this time when you put out values it's always there's always a little pandemonium and there's always skin property owners that call city council members the mayor's office my office with their concerns and what we're trying to do is guide them through the process so that they follow the appropriate channels you know our filing a hearing online is relatively new but we've we've had that for about three years now and there really hasn't been any problems with people being able to file a property appeal hearing online that's really where there hasn't been problems where there has been problems is with with scheduling hearings so you file your hearing you're in the queue and you will have a hearing now you need to be contacted by a a Tyler appraiser for the hearing and you need to be scheduled and that is where there's been a lot of aggravation with taxpayers by some bottlenecks of too many callers calling four people that are working very hard to schedule people every single day I believe that those um well the the the the opportunity to hear has closed to have it to ask for a hearing but if you uh have not scheduled uh oaks uh from Tyler will call you or we ask uh them to call to call the tire Tyler folks um actually Tyler will call them at this point um that said uh we run uh throughout the as we're as the models are being built I meet with the the project manager and other key players for the project I met with them constantly talked to them almost every day and they would run periodic tests like every few weeks or early on is probably every month and they these are statistical tests um and then calibrations would be adjusted based on the results of the test and this happens throughout the entire project um till the point where everything is compliant statistically this is how mass appraisal works and I think what happens is that uh folks see the result of their their valuation and a certain percentage of them um you know they understand that the market has changed what the percentage of change has changed quite a bit and it's their turn to have their opportunity to meet before a an appraiser and to have their data corrected and to also request uh if the data is correct to request that maybe there is something wrong with the assessment um and let's figure out how that what that error is so there's um that has been going on and this is not unusual uh this is normal and for a municipality of this size the approximate number of hearings that we've had is actually pretty healthy if we had very few property appeals then our values are it would suggest that maybe we didn't have enough values are too low or if we're hearing from 50% of the population which were not um then maybe there's something wrong um although there's a few there's been a few uh errors uh such as with the mobile homes they're going to be reappraised soon um and we are also looking at another smaller neighborhood uh as an additional review because of the the significant change and I understand that the prior values were were very low and the current values appear to be fine but more work needs to be done to conduct that and to also um show evidence of that um I don't want to do all the talking people can ask me questions but yeah that was a good yeah that's a good start uh okay why don't we why don't we pause there and and see if we can understand from counselors where there are areas of uh further further question interest arc so I see counselor jing and then counselor carpenter and then counselor fine and then president tracy yes um thank you for allowing me to go first and I have to step out in 10 minutes to protect the bus so my first question um is about what I hear from my constituents is specifically the mechanism you use to make these up results and you see people are sending questions to the city's abstinence office but they are not receiving any response you know and I always try to tell them it's all about capacity and all of that entire technology is not from burlington you know but I was wondering what is what is that answer and also how is it possible for you to maybe just send a general understanding about the process used um in determining the values of a certain home yes we we've been very busy but we are working on that um you know I I have to say that I I think that uh our website has a lot of information and it is a higher standard than what you'd find in other assessor websites and I'm not just trying to defend myself I really think that we put a lot of content out there and we've been very with the help of the mayor's office and other offices we've been very responsive to make some adjustments like extending the deadline to appeal to 22 days with standards 14 and to trying to get a an adjusted tax rate out as quickly as possible it's not something easy to do and it has to be after values are put out but it's it's the best we can do and I think that what I'm getting is that the additional request that's coming out now is what is the formula how did you come up with these values and so today I had time to uh do some research and begin to start uh printing reports out and I want to I'm going to put that together and get it on the website for people so they understand the cost approach in a better way they understand the formulas that we use and that that's coming I wish I had it a couple months ago but it was still being built as well as other priorities I mean COVID has been a real challenge of of trying to stay on schedule and we're really trying trying to do our best and I I also just want to let people know that I try to respond to everybody when they call I really do and we'll be doing that okay thank you thank you and this is basically there is no need to schedule another to extend the appeal because that's not the issue the issue is for people to actually show up and speak their mind yeah yes okay all right thank you thank you thank you there's a few other hands sorry I believe the next in the queue is uh Councillor Carpenter um go ahead thanks um at this point we sort of can't go backwards um you know I just a general observation that I think we the while we we should have done much more aggressive education sooner than we did but perhaps we didn't um so I'm going to talk a little bit about the going forward um I do think even though the values have all been in and now people are in the appeal process we should continue to do much more education on how we got there because to me that seems to be the biggest frustration with people and I want the people that are not appealing to have confidence in their values I mean I've eyeballed a lot of values and to me they seem very market driven but I have spent a lot of time in real estate a lot of people don't understand it so I think there's still work to be done in the next couple of months on educating people that here's how we got there would you sell your house for that amount of money tomorrow and probably most people would say yes then that's a reasonable value so I just think even though the the preliminary value is that we should still keep the education I think in the going forward mode 14 days is just not enough time and if that's a function of state law or the inner reaction from state law then we need to make that a priority to do some some work on that and the going here in terms of sort of we're in the budget process I think John's office is under capacity I mean again a frustration was communication and since the assessor's office in fact is the biggest revenue raising department of the entire city I think we just need to be more mindful of that so I think you know looking at future capacity issues are going to be important and we certainly can't go 15 more years I think we need to have a serious endeavor of maybe a three-year goal for reappraisals a lot of communities do rolling reappraisals and we need to look at that and that's a cost of the city I mean one reason we don't do them more often is because they cost the city money but I think in the going forward mode we need a much more proactive plan to say to the citizens we're not going to let this happen again and here's a plan to do it more readily and you know I think people are nervous that values are spiky I mean we know residential is hot and up commercial is down you know is that going to be the same in three years from now so I think we just need a proactive plan to address this better and again the degree to which the state either helps or hurts that I think we just need to be more aggressive and with them and on that plan so that we don't get ourselves in this kind of bind in the future Councilor Carpenter, since you raised that I'd actually welcome just further can you expand on what you're saying there because it certainly we have had a very proactive plan but it's been a plan around minimizing how often we need to do reappraisals because it is such an extreme expense and because there are clear state standards that determine when a reappraisal is needed and we worked very hard to avoid triggering a reappraisal until now so we did John did do interim reappraisals and got a fair amount of criticism for it actually but did do interim reappraisals in identified areas of the city that were clearly spiking as you say that we're seeing a more significant run up in value because something going on in those markets and because of that you know that did stretch out the period of time between appraisals which to me has some benefits to it I mean it's not a pleasant process no one enjoys doing it I think having only do it once every 15 years seems like in some ways a win for the community and it also saves us money so what would be the purpose of trying to do them more often well I mean you know we've gone through two significant real estate moves and I'm just looking at a street in my neighborhood with complaints and they're ranging from 40 percent increases 200 percent increases in my personal opinion I don't think the end values are off because I my gut says looking at the market those are that's what they're going to sell those homes for but that's a wide range and I get the cost and that's why I want to be educated and we need it's a voter priority but if in fact having more consistent appraisal process keeps us proportionally better I think there's this value to that it's always painful no matter when you do it but if it was more of a routine part of our revenue-raising process I think it's just less painful and you know when you have spiky real estate it's hard to keep up and this is not a criticism of the cessers office I'm sure they do see it but maybe I'm off base but I do know that lots of communities do do it more often and you know they have these ruling appraisal processes and I'm not all that educated on it but I just want us for no other reason to have the public have a better understanding of it I mean I don't they don't understand it I think that's helpful and let's um so like we got to get through this one first but maybe when we're on the other side let's have a like a kind of after-action review of whether um where they want to change you know have some kind of fundamental change in our approach like that um I think it's a interesting suggestion I would welcome that. Councillor Pine. I actually really agree with what Councillor Carpenter said I think that although it could be an added cost and one could look at what we were able to do over the last 15 years as essentially giving folks a break it doesn't really um it doesn't really make up for that when folks are hit with significant increases so I think I think the the number of folks who've contacted me tell me that there's there's clearly going to be some economic fallout from this that I think we will see over time I've seen more way more property for sale signs in the old north end in my neighborhood than I have in quite some time but that's just purely anecdotal I think the part that is most difficult for me to explain to constituents and I believe it is also for for both you John and for the mayor is is the methodology is really rather complicated and rather Byzantine I think quite Byzantine and so when we talk about someone selling their house they know the most common way to figure out what the price should be is to go and look at some comparisons go look at where the market is and I know that was a fallback method or approach to value that was used but this this most this using the cost approach isn't something that I think is like a household concept that people can get or get their head around so I'd like to ask John to speak about the methodology used for focus on single-family homes but it also be interested in hearing how you're approached multifamily properties as well and I think this is for us to understand and also for constituents that we can explain this to okay sure thanks you know most people are used to the sales comparison approach because they've had financing bank appraisals and so forth it's more common to use a cost approach for mass appraisal because you build the tables and all the properties get calibrated to those tables and it's a kind of a to go a little bit deeper it's a multiplicative type of formula where you have a base cost and then multipliers that adjust from off of that base cost to a value and I'm talking about the improvement it's more widely used for mass appraisal around the country and we wanted to use that because the sales comparison approach inside the system usually is is really designed for a check on the other approach to value and it's usually it's always mostly always secondary and arguably it could be a little less reliable because the the sales comparison approach may grab one or two sales that are that probably shouldn't be in the in the study they might be outlier sales and it'll influence those values so the cost approach those tables are the same and they're applied to everybody but there's there's multipliers depending on if you have a higher quality of building or you have more depreciation those types of factors I that's what I want to do I started putting the manual together because I think that's the question out there right now and I'll try to work on that in the next few days and hopefully by the end of the week we'll have something out for folks but I also hope that if you talk to someone and they have scheduled their hearing and they're they're nervous because they or they they file their their hearing but have not heard from Tyler send them to me and I'll make sure that they get the right number so that they can schedule their appeal I think I answered your question but was there oh multi-family properties multi-family properties that are investor grade types of properties and all commercial properties they are backed up by the cost approach because that was still used widely but they're used the direct capitalization method which is the income approach to value so that's the method that we widely use we used the last year appraisal as well and that's that's how those are being valued and you don't use actual property by property operating expenses you use an industry standard for operating expenses for that not exactly so the modeler builds the model based on submitted income and expense forms and talking with with these property owners they build the model and then it gets applied to properties then if the owner submits their information about their rent roll and their expenses as long as it's not widely different they will use those the the actuals and that's just like what an appraiser would do for for a commercial appraiser for for bank financing as well great thank you and I think this points out one thing that is definitely not your fault at all and it's no one's intention here but if someone is keeping their rents well below market but in fact the the value of the property is more reflective of what you could get on the market they're being hit with an increase in value that is going to force them to probably raise rents and that's just a it's like a it's almost a perversion of the system it's not I'm not blaming anyone here I'm just saying the way the system is set up doesn't really allow for someone to continue to offer below market rate housing if the value tax value drives up costs to a point where just to break even you have to add 120 or 140 a month to the rent so that's I'm hearing and that that is the experience I'm seeing and hearing from folks who try to keep their rents down so I know that's not really a value issue as much as we have got to get away from the property tax I mean the property tax as a way to fund all city services and schools is just continually it's it strikes me I know it's got stability and it's got some other benefits but in the state income sensitivity helps a little bit on the education side but this is another example of why the property tax is really fundamentally regressive unfair way to fund services okay thanks president Tracy thanks mayor and just to to expand off of council carpenter's point about the why do it sooner I think one of the reasons that I'm seeing just anecdotally just from what I'm seeing in the community is that folks who did it and who are around for the last reappraisal have been helpful and being like whoa folks there's doesn't mean your taxes are going to go up and really explaining it so I think there's real value to doing it sooner because more people will have memory of it and be able to apply that to their situation and be able to to navigate it themselves and potentially help others to navigate it so I think there's just real training and and community knowledge that's passed down when you do it on a sooner timeline so that's just to me what what I've seen and what I what I'm experiencing the other piece I think now as we sort of head into the next phase which is this the hearing phase and hearing and having people challenge this is just getting a lot of questions from folks about what to bring do I need to hire someone those kinds of pieces I'm hearing a lot of that like what materials are helpful to bring and then also just wanting a sense of how likely like am I wasting my time you know and I guess that so those kinds of things I think are important and I'm just wondering what kind of clarity people who have filed an appeal are getting in terms of like hey bring this information or bring these arguments or bring these things to the table and then also just if you had any experience based off of the last time we did this I'm understanding that may not necessarily be quite a one-to-one comparison but how upon appeal how many do you actually change uh well that last question I this is it's rough and it can vary every year but I think it's around 50% that get adjusted I've had a lot of calls where I've helped coach people to ask the questions to ask and I walk them through their property at this point at this level this is the first step I suggest that it's basically a time to gather information learn something about the property so I would not recommend hiring an attorney or even an appraiser for a single family home you can if you want that's fine if you want to spend the money but just making sure that the factual data is correct having a conversation about the condition of the property and making sure that you look at the entire property then that appraiser will say oh okay maybe we overstated the condition here this needs to be correct oh that the basement is is not a full finished room it is just a rec room they'll pick up on those things they'll ask the right questions and it's not complex and it can result in a small adjustment sometimes a larger adjustment when real things are pointed out like I had to call the other day about someone where we overstated the amount of square feet by about 600 square feet on the upper floor and that was adjusted because I had a conversation with them and I actually remember I remember the property from earlier and oh yes this year second floor is a little bit unique and I made an adjustment to that and that's exactly what an appraiser would do for Tyler or I should do okay all right well that's helpful thank you so much and really appreciate all your work on this do you want me to counselor carpenter just um I think in terms of the education for the next few weeks is to make sure people understand as John explained this is not the end process and I think people are a little freaked out about this and you know they they it's called a hearing and you know they still can go if they're unsatisfied with Tyler's adjustments there is the Board of Tax Appeals which is still sort of more low-key even though it's quasi-judicial and then you can go to the state board so I mean I think people are a little freaked at this and we just need to remind them that this is a time to straighten out information and here um and if you're still unhappy you still got two more bites at the apple um if you really feel you've been grieved that's that's correct I think counselor Paul wanted to speak but I think she just stepped off oh no that is unfortunate and that uh counselor Paul had um was the one who initiated this session John um maybe hopefully you can reach if you could reach out to her even tonight just let her know if her questions weren't answered I hope you can answer them offline are there any um oh she says her lost power she'll be back in two minutes so okay so we will not adjourn in the next two minutes um any thank you counselor carpenter for your suggestions on communication um and I know uh Samantha Sheehan from my offices on uh watching this and what can mayor's office will continue to work with uh the assessor's office to help try to support getting um further communications out in the days um any further further questions uh from anyone that is here I have a comment go ahead you want to encourage your when you're talking to someone uh to file their homestead because they they may I think I believe 70% of Burlington residents receive an adjustment from the state off of their tax bill and that adjustment is based on salary as we know but it's also based on value so if values are changing that adjustment may be bigger so keep that in mind and make sure that um you know this is this is your obligation to file your homestead if this is your primary home but also they may be income eligible and that may be a big reduction in their their tax bill and we we now have counselor fall hi uh thanks I uh I lost power um so um uh one of the reasons I had brought this forward last week is because of the number of calls that I've gotten um with a number of questions and I think they're probably universal questions um uh and you know we all got saw the letter on I think I think there are a lot of uh uh you know people affected by the reappraisal that are not necessarily questioning um I think are questioning the the lack of what they see as a lack of transparency in the process they they don't necessarily understand it's not that they're really questioning the values directly but they're just trying to grapple with how some of these values came about and um you know I sat in as you know John I'm one you know I'm meeting with Tyler uh never knew there was so much jargon when it comes to property reappraisal I guess you can say that about every industry um the person from Tyler uh Blaine the project manager uh spoke in a lot of jargon um personally I thought it was rather dizzying um I couldn't really keep track of exactly what he was saying he kept on referring to an algorithm um and started tossing around a lot of acronyms um that I think to the average person would be pretty beyond you know beyond the comprehension of people who are not in the in the business um and so uh if you're going to come up with a an ex if you're going to give an explanation I would just ask that it be in you know in in a way that you know that the property owners can understand um uh the other thing that was very sort of sort of didn't quite understand is that in the tax book that is online um you have a list a fairly extensive list of comparables and so um recent sales and you know not knowing at least at the outset most people took those sales and started using them for comparison only to find out that that really wasn't how you were doing this at these calculations that they really were based on cost so if they're really based on cost I'm not really sure why we have the comparables there and if we are just having them there for educate for you know educational purposes then we should say that so that people don't spend a lot of time trying to compare themselves to a property when in fact that's not really how single family homes were being done on the other thing also is I think there were a number of people that I spoke with who were very hesitant to come forward and request a hearing because either number one they thought that they're that there was always the very there was always a possibility that by having a hearing their property value could actually increase and they were concerned that well you know gee I mean I get I get on with an appraiser that doesn't live here doesn't know my neighborhood doesn't you know has never been in the inside of my home on you know without representation am I making a mistake by having a hearing when in fact I may walk away with a property my property value now $50,000 more than when I started and then there was also a concern that I heard from people that if I come forward with a hearing does that mean because a lot of people will go and compare themselves to other homes on their street or in their neighborhood does that mean that I may be putting a neighbor of mine at risk that they will have a higher valuation by virtue of me bringing that forward so I think there was a lot of confusion about how this process works and I think that led to you know just frustration and you know an anger on the part of people who are just wondering because as we all know this is a really big deal I mean despite what we may be saying today about rolling appraisals and all of that this is a very costly endeavor and usually you don't do it unless you have to and people are going to be living with these appraisals potentially for another 15 years so I think that's we just have to be mindful of that that's all well counselor Paul you made a lot of good points and I'd like to address some of those the the the cost approach to value those values are calibrated to the market and they're calibrated on those sales so those sales from the list that is in the spreadsheet were used to build the tables and so that's the connection to those sales but we also want to put them out there because we want people to say well what sales did you use well here's the sales that we used and then they can actually array them and find the sales in their neighborhood that sales on their street and look at those and kind of get it get a sense of is my valuation in that range of this sales set versus not putting them out at all and I think that we want to do that but maybe our messaging needs to change a little bit and I'm hoping that if I can get the get a sort of a manual out or build it with the tables that use to help set these values or calibrated to each property value I can put some literature out that is in layman terms that I think will be beneficial and I started working on today I just need to I need to I need to put other things aside I think and and just start focusing on this because this is important enough I agree the the other thing also is that you know while the window for appeals closed on Friday you know as we all know this process is far from over and you know people will get a letter in June I think that it probably would be best that whatever the letter whenever the letter comes that it that it specifically spell out exactly what you can do next if you are if you are still not for whatever reason satisfied or feel that you weren't heard on one issue or another that you know what the next step in the process is that's something that I don't know that we did a good enough job with with the the letter that people got in early April and we probably need to spell it out specifically step by step what can what is the board of assessors who's on the board of assessors what does you know each each step so that people have a really good understanding I think that would again just less confusion and taking up a lot of your time with you know answering you know many of the same questions over and over again doesn't mean that people won't ask them but I think it will be a little bit less laborious you're a small department and then the other thing I just wanted to say John is that you know I do I do feel that in the times that I have reached out to you over the last three weeks which is probably more time than you and I have spent on the phone in in a long time if I add up a number of years and you have been I think very responsive I've had constituents say the same thing that you have been there that you have listened intently and I think that's what also what people want is just to know that when they're on the phone with Tyler that 15 minutes is not a lot of time on people just want to be heard and I think that was the other thing that I've heard is that you know they they've had their hearing and they just didn't feel that necessarily they were really being intently listened to so I would just pass that along as well and thank you for your time thanks okay thank you John for for being here tonight answering everything and thank you for the follow-up that you've talked about tonight I want to thank the counselors for the discussion and flagging some areas for for future work both during this the rest of this process and beyond we have gone it is almost eight o'clock I'm thinking we are ready for adjournment tonight and look forward to I see some nodding heads so I'm going to go ahead and if there are no objections we'll adjourn the board of finance at 7 57 p.m. and we look forward to reconvening the board next Monday for for more work and significant budget season and thank you all for the very helpful meeting have a good night everyone thank you thank you