 All right, good evening We are going to go ahead and get started here. And so if everybody can grab a seat get a Take a few minutes to get settled. It's good to see everybody. I appreciate you coming out spending some time with us this evening to go over the budget overview and to get some information about the upcoming fiscal year budget and the process that we're undertaking to get that adopted so that we can have a new budget starting on the fiscal year start of October the 1st My name is Mark McAvoy. I'm the director of planning and data analytics which is the department that houses the office of folks that develop and manage the budget process and So I'm gonna walk you through this overview this evening And I anticipate having plenty of time to interact and answer questions And so as we go through if you think of a question Feel free to let us know, but we will have plenty of time at the end for questions and answers so We'll go ahead and get started. We are slated for an hour and We have I think enough material to get us through that time, but it may not take that amount of time So we'll just see how it goes I want to recognize a few city staff members that are here just so you kind of get oriented and I see that one of our assistant city managers Dana Bergdorf has joined us Dana's right here. We have our chief financial officer Reggie Zeno here We've got our director of communications Michelle Goote and then several members of the budget staff starting With Jennifer Snyder who helped coordinate all of this and so I'm really appreciative of Jen's efforts Back here. We have Pam Kakmarin ski is one of our budget managers and Then next to Michelle we have Lorraine Coleman another budget manager So this is primarily the team that's working to help get this budget delivered so that it can be adopted and ready to go on October the first So really what our goals are for this evening are to share information with you to talk about what goes into making the budget What goes into Getting a budget developed and ready to be adoptable by city council and this year It is scheduled to go before council on September 21st to be adopted There's a lot of stuff that's going to happen between now and September 21st, but that's right now the scheduled adoption date We're going to discuss some budget Philosophies how we get to where we are what kind of things we look at and consider as we develop the budget Ultimately when it's adopted what went into that We're going to again discuss the budget process and talk about how all of this is put together And and how we get from the beginning of the year to here and then Discussing some context for the upcoming fiscal year budget. We are presently in fiscal year 2021 which will end on September 30th and then on October the first fiscal year 2022 will begin and that is the budget that we are currently developing the fiscal 2022 budget So one of the things that I want to point out and start out with a little context the city is a very large Enterprise think of it like many other large enterprises We have various different kinds of business lines that make up the entire Organization and some of those are in what we call enterprise funds They're they're self-contained business enterprises and as you can see there on the screen some of those are our regional water and sewer utility. We have Golf operations. We have a stormwater utility We have parking facilities and a bunch of other things that are both on this list and not on this list that make up a Whole swath of business enterprises that are doing business. They're they're collecting revenue and providing services In a self-contained way. They are not competing for general fund Revenues and so that's what makes these a little bit different than our general governmental funds, right? The the lines of business that are in our general fund are most Commonly referred to by their department titles, which you can see here. There's a lot of them You know we have park and rec. We have libraries. We have all of these other Development services departments neighborhood services. We have an administrative administrative Function that supports all of that and the other enterprises that we just talked about and so all of those things are made up of Employees and and service providers that are in the general fund so we've got a group of enterprise funds and we have essentially the general fund lines of business and And there are other funds in the city as well But but generally speaking what we're gonna be talking about tonight is the general fund that lists of lines of businesses that we just went over here For all funds the fiscal year 2021 budget that we are presently in that will end on September 30th of this year Altogether is about 1.7 billion dollars. So a very large enterprise 1.7 billion That is both on the revenue and the expenditure side. We tend to balance those out So we've got 1.7 billion coming in as revenue and we've got 1.7 billion going out as expenditure When we look at how that breaks down in fiscal 21 all of these charts are going to show you fiscal 21 Because we're still developing the fiscal 22 budget in fiscal 21 as that 1.7 billion breaks down You'll see that the the vast majority or the majority of it is in the general and the enterprise funds that we just talked About about 75% of it is in those two areas and then we've got some other things that help support those businesses We've got some special revenue funds CCPD is one of those special revenue funds the crime control and prevention district and there are some others in there We've got the internal service funds. Those are things that tend to serve The the business of providing services and are contained within and have some special purposes Those are another 9% and then our debt service funds are The remaining 7% and what the debt service funds do are they pay all of the debt service on the outstanding debt that goes into Building infrastructure and maintaining infrastructure. So that's kind of how that all funds fiscal 21 budget of 1.7 billion breaks down as we look at just the general fund portion of that that 41% that 718 million piece of the pie there for fiscal 21. Like we said, it's about 718 million dollars and How that breaks down on the revenue side you can see there that the two largest pieces Which make up about 78% Are property taxes and sales taxes So those two together 397 million and 168 million respectively make up Three quarters essentially of the general fund revenue budget And then as you go around the pie, we have other taxes Those are things like franchise fees that we get from, you know, electric utilities and and gas utilities and those kinds of things We have transfers in those are coming from other funds to help support the operation of the business We have charges for services. Those are things like part rental fees and library fees and those kinds of things We have licenses and permits think of building permits and health related permits all of those kinds of things and then on down Some smaller revenue streams fines and forfeitures The other category and then intergovernmental all together 718 million dollars in the general fund On the expense side You see the same figure again. We have a balanced budget Same amount of revenue as expenditure and as you can see here we have these broken down by A service line or or or business line So essentially by department and you can see there on the expense side by far the largest chunk of that is going to public safety 24 to fire 38 percent to police. So that's 62 for those two components And then everything else makes up the rest with park and rec and transportation and public works making up the next two Largest pieces with economic development code compliance library And on around and several of them aren't even labeled on there There there are so many and they have a fairly Small sliver of that of that 718 million dollar pie But altogether Those are the business lines that are making up the general fund and providing a variety of services that residents and visitors of fort worth engage with on a daily basis so getting into some specifics of budget policies and and philosophies and and I guess before I start going in here I want to pause a second and ask if anyone has any questions related to the two budget Pie charts that we just looked at the all funds and the general fund We good to proceed. Okay So if we're looking at some budget philosophies and and policies I mean these are just some general things to keep in mind Like like any business enterprise, we want to take a long-range look at things We we don't want to look we do want to look at this year But we want to look at this year in the context of a wider Picture what what's out on the horizon? What do we need to be aware of coming at us in the future? We want to maintain or reduce the property tax rate We'll talk more about that as we go through the presentation currently the property tax rate for the city is 0.7475 And we'll get into some some charts that kind of break that down as we go through We want to maintain our infrastructure and we want to invest in new infrastructure. That's a priority That's one of our leading strategic philosophies here We don't want to dip into reserves to pay for ongoing operations We have reserves to make sure that if something happens We are able to continue to operate if for some reason those revenue streams that we talked about earlier start getting tightened or lessened And so we don't want to use reserves for ongoing operations Our capital program drives the operating budget This is really not different from any other municipality as we build things and put them in place It costs us to Operate and maintain them think of a new library. There are staff that are there. There are people that are doing Yard work associated with the landscape. There are people doing custodial things There are people managing parking all of those things And so capital investment produces operating costs that we have to keep track of and keep up with We want to make data-driven decisions. We don't want to necessarily make gut decisions It I think this so I'm going to make the decision We want to have empirical evidence that we're using To make decisions so that those decisions result in the best possible outcomes This is general fund focused But in the general fund everything competes with everything else you've got you remember that pie You've got that fixed amount of money and those lines of businesses are all competing with each other for that fixed amount Now 718 million dollars in fiscal 21 is it's a lot of money, but still That lot of money is finite and those lines of businesses are competing with each other for each of those dollars To that point resources are finite that's across the board And then our last one is there are choice choices and trade-offs. So if we fund The fire department at a higher level that funding has to be offset somewhere else If there's no additional revenue coming in to pay for whatever that is that we're funding and vice versa If we choose to elevate the funding for the library that funding has to be offset from somewhere else So each february we have a city council planning strategic planning retreat We had one this past february And that gives city council the opportunity to kind of look at What the forecast financial forecasts are and and how they are going to strategically plan for the upcoming budget year As we move into the budget development process, which typically kicks off Right after the city council retreat And so we present a long-term outlook for the budget like I just mentioned and and a lot of the information that we're going to talk about After this slide comes from that City council retreat and the information that we presented to city council at that time What we need to do is we need to understand future commitments What decisions have we made now or in the recent past that are going to require us to invest Or to fund certain programs in the upcoming fiscal year We're going to have some preliminary budget discussions What does a general fund look like what what does the economy tell us about what's coming in the near future Are the property values going to increase decrease stay the same Do we think sales tax is going to increase decrease if you remember those are the two large pieces of pie So those are the main ones that we're watching but we're watching all of the other ones too ccpd fund forecast heavily tied to sales tax and then In this year in particular, we were in the midst of a legislative Session and in the in the texas legislature What is the legislature going to do that may or may not impact Any of those lines of business in the general fund or any of those other funds that we need to be aware of that may Put mandates on us that require budget to support And then allocation of federal relief dollars We have in the last several years had access to some federal dollars that we have not been accustomed to with both the cares and now the American rescue plan Dollars that have come as a result of of coveted and the resulting federal actions that have occurred So I mentioned before that we were going to talk about tax rate allocations. Here's a Graph that kind of shows the distribution of those allocations over the last several fiscal years And if you look at the top of that and I realize this is a little bit hard to see But these presentations will be posted on the city's website so you can get in here and you can you can see these And spend as much time as you'd like looking at these once we get those posted As you can see going back to 2012 we had essentially two Distributions of the property tax rate one going to operations and maintenance Which is what the o&m stands for and the other going to debt And that's typically how most cities Distribute their property tax allocation And as you can see in 2012 It was 85.5 cents and what that means is That when you get your valuations in your property valuations 85.5 cents per $100 of valuation is what turns into Your property tax bill and that's the city's portion of the bill. There is also A county portion and usually a school district portion and maybe some special district portions But then as you go from left to right from 2012 out to 2021, which is the current fiscal year that we're in You can see that that total Tax rate is coming down And it starts to come down in 2017 and it comes down to its current level or current rate of 74 75 in 2021 and going back to that Goal or philosophy slide that we just covered Our expectation is that rate will stay the same in fiscal 22 But as you can see there in 2015 a third Allocation shows up And that p a y g stands for pay go and that's basically An acronym for pay as you go. So we're paying For something as we go along. So that's essentially our cash contribution to capital maintenance And city council at that time made a decision that we needed to be paying cash for capital maintenance And so you see this show up in 2015 at 3.8 cents per hundred Which is part of that whole allocation And again going from left to right it winds up at six and a half cents Which is its current level today. So essentially what that means is six and a half cents of the 74 point 75 cents of your tax rate is going into the maintenance of infrastructure And you'll I'll show you a list Downstream in the presentation to give you an idea of some of the itemized things that that six and a half cents Goes to maintain specific things But you can also see there that there's a Indication of a 2014 bond referendum at 292 million in a 2018 referendum at almost 400 million So when you infuse debt into the picture, you can see that as you go from Left to right 2012 to 2021 the rate is actually coming down But we are able to fund those bond programs Largely because the value of properties is is increasing and so we're able to provide those Bond referendas with no increase in fact a decrease to the overall tax rate that you can see there Are there any questions about the tax rate before we move on? Yes, so there's a you know, that's a significant decrease over those number of years And so largely due to the fact that there was a Deliberate effort to decrease the tax rate So that as property values accelerated The operations of the city were still being covered but not Putting that entire burden or that same level of burden on property owners So the rates coming down But the revenues are tied to valuation changes And so the the revenue was stable because of the valuation changes primarily We've got a microphone. We're gonna use the microphone so that it's picked up on the tape. I'm sorry I'll just repeat the question for the for the record. So there's a question about why the city's property tax rate has decreased significantly since 2016 and as mark mentioned it was a deliberate effort but to give that some context the city of fort worth's property tax rate Was the highest in texas So it hurts our ability to attract Businesses and families when they're having to pay such a high property tax rate And so that was an effort to to reduce that we're no longer number one I think we may be three or four something like that That's right. And that's excellent context. That's that's absolutely correct So we were the highest we are no longer the highest but That was a that was a conscious effort on behalf of city council To make sure that our our tax rate was coming down So we talked about uh, we we saw this in in a graph That we just got off of this is kind of how Looking at it more of an a flow chart Style of how that 74 75 breaks out You see the first Break is between o and m and debt and if you're looking at The state language that debt portion is called interest in sinking. So if you see ins that's what that means It's debt o and m and ins So the the operations and maintenance rate is 59 50 the debt rate is 15 25 and then o and m is further distributed between Operations and what we just talked about the capital maintenance. What we call pay go or pay as you go At six and a half cents. So that's the distribution of the property tax Rate allocation in fiscal 21 the the fiscal year that we're presently in And this is one of those graphs that we provided to city council during the retreat in february that i mentioned earlier This is property tax revenue over multiple years going back to 2006 This is for the general and debt service funds And as you can see to help answer the question that we just had as you can see the the change In revenues going from left to right from 2006 To the current fiscal year that we're in which is the dark blue bar fiscal 2021 You can see with the exception of 2011. We're seeing increases And the 10 year average increase is four and a half percent Five years seven percent three years seven point eight percent Right now if you look to the bar Immediately to the right Of 21 you see that negative number that red number That's this coming fiscal year the year that we're preparing to enter and developing the budget for We initially forecasted a reduction in property values in the aggregate, right? This is the aggregate over the whole city residential commercial industrial all altogether forecasting a modest decline in the overall property value And then we're expecting it to pick up again in fiscal 23 and going forward now we've since Uh had some indication that that may not be the case We we may not see a decline But we won't know for sure until we get the certified values from the tax assessor later this month Those typically come in to us at the end of july But this is the information that we presented to council during the retreat in february And we expected at that time to have a modest decrease in property values Go for it We're Sorry go for it after the mic gets here so with What everyone is hearing regarding? property values I mean in our neighborhood. They're going through the roof This meeting was held in february when you introduced this data so What are y'all doing and when do you finalize? What you expect to happen knowing that it's so volatile Yeah, great question. We get input from the various Taxing districts and and we're city of fort worth resides in is it five counties five counties And so we're getting reports from those assessors Each month leading up to the certified values, which we get in july So to answer your question july 25th is when You know basically is the deadline and so we should receive those certified values either on july 25th or A few days after within a few days of july 25th And then we will know what the actual values are That we will be able to set our revenue projections on for fiscal 22 And so last point on this slide before we move on you can see that 1 percent variance meaning as you're looking at those changes a 1 percent variance equals about 5.6 million dollars so Looking from 23 to 24 if everything remains equal that 4 percent over 3 percent Equals about 5.6 million dollars If we look at the same graph for sales tax revenue You can see that in fiscal 22 Which again is the year we're preparing for We we don't see a Forecasted decrease at all in fact we see the opposite and in fact when Covid first emerged and we were first preparing for how to handle it in the city Initial thoughts were sales tax is going to take a hit a pretty significant hit And it ended up being that sales tax Wound up as a more stable revenue source for all intents and purposes And you can see there in the 22 projection. We're actually expecting it to make a significant Increase over fiscal 21 and then sort of pick back up its normal growth rate after that of about 4 percent And so going into fiscal 21 You see that there was a modest increase But Again not a decline in the year-to-year change Except going back to 2009 which was one of the great recession years before we move on Are there any other questions regarding either the property tax? Trend or the sales tax trend at this point Okay So some of the things from a budgeting perspective that the city must take into account We talked about Earlier that that capital kind of drives some of the operating expenses Is what decisions have we made over the last year? or Several years in the past that will continue to have an impact in fiscal 22 a new impact new Expenditure coming online In fiscal 22. So that's one of the considerations that we have to take As we are developing the budget and as you can see from the Column on the far left the 2022 column The the change the the new expenditure that's coming online in 2022 from decisions that we've made either in 21 Or in a year before that Is approximately 31.4 million dollars So if nothing else 31.4 million dollars of new expenditure is going to come online in fiscal 22 from decisions that were made in the past And that's important because as we go back to those rising property tax Revenue numbers part of that is going to help to cover this And and these are things as you can see over on the left-hand side You know, there's a there's a variety of different things that are contributing to this Um And and they're all listed there And and you can see they're a variety of different operating and capital related items Yes Yes Yeah, so the so I don't believe any of these are directly attributable to carryover from covet Most of that direct impact Was funded through either the CARES grant or the ARPA American Relief Plan grant that's that's online now Most of these are operating or capital Decisions that were made that carryover. So for example The the one you pointed out the pension there there was a A vote that occurred and I'm now treading a little bit outside of my familiarity because this happened when I wasn't here but essentially what had to happen in order to Uh stabilize our our pension fund was that some additional contribution had to be made Uh part from the employees themselves and part from the city or the taxpayers And it was a 6040 split. So that's what you're seeing represented here is that 60 split that is part of the fiscal 22 and fiscal 23 budgets Are planned to be part of fiscal 23 And then as you go down the list each of those items is a different item that has an impact in fiscal 22 essentially yes split between The taxpayers and the employees the employees are paying 40 of that Cost that you see there or that contribution city's paying 60 percent And I I assume there's more information about that online somewhere Yeah, so there there's a whole lot of information about What led up to that and and what the result of that is on the city's website in the retirement area So kind of the second half of that slide or that table is this operating fund forecast or operating forecast And again, you can see going from from left to right starting in fiscal 22 If we have that additional 31.4 million of expenditure coming online What does that look like with respect to what we are forecasting for operating revenues? And again, I want to I want to point out that this was Our estimation at the time this was prepared which was in february of 2021. So that's now five months six months ago almost And so some of these have have changed but this is the snapshot that was provided in february Of 2021 and as you can see there with the addition of those 31.4 million We have an opening deficit of 26.7 million going into fiscal 22 that we have to figure out a way to close Right, so that's the challenge That we all face Going into fiscal 22 we all meaning us on the budget team and the city management team and all of the department heads and the departments working To produce the fiscal 22 budget We've got this opening deficit of 26.7 million that we have to close And so we'll talk more about that in a bit The other the other part of the budget is is the capital budget We just went over the operating budget the capital budget is associated with our five-year capital improvement program So we're currently in the 21 to 25 capital improvement program when we adopt the 22 budget We will go into the 22 to 26 capital improvement program And so the the five-year program is essentially a plan Says here is all of the capital investment. We're going to make over the next five years And the fiscal 22 budget then is the capital budget For that first year to opt to implement the first year of that plan Okay, it's a little confusing, but it's a five-year program one-year budget And then it just rolls every year a new five-year program one-year budget, right So our programming process for capital improvements again, we talked a little bit about some of this earlier But we want to identify the city's capital infrastructure needs and we want to do that using our comprehensive plan And eric flattiger is here from our planning Division who oversees the development of the comprehensive plan and so our comp plan is kind of the foundation for that How does growth and development look over the next 20 years? And what do we need to do from a capital investment perspective to ensure that that happens Or to implement that right and then other strategic plans that that the city has master plans other kinds of of strategic plans that would indicate how much capital investment we need to implement them We have to forecast resource requirements We can have great plans, but if we don't have resources to back them up or to implement them They're not implementable, right? So that's an important consideration We want to project the operating impact of those capital Investments we talked about that before if you bring a new fire station online or a new library online You have to staff those things you have to pay ongoing maintenance for those facilities We want to align the capital planning with our annual budget process. That's what we're talking about here Those two things need to be done in in concert with one another so that they're not out of joint Increasing transparency of capital and operating spending is important. That's what part of what we're doing here But we want a need for the residents and visitors of Fort Worth to understand What it is that we're trying to accomplish we need your input and feedback Ultimately, you're helping in a major way to fund these things So we owe you that information and that transparency And then we want to continue to evaluate maintenance needs and new investment based on equity And what that means is that we're looking and and Christina Brooks is not here But Christina is our chief equity officer And she's right now developing what's called the municipal equity plan That is Going to specifically Look for how we are investing not only new capital investment But also capital maintenance Equitably across the city. So that's something specifically that's being done But that is one of our strategic priorities as well And so capital planning and financing this is just kind of a gives you a A quick and easy view of what the difference is between maintaining existing infrastructure And new infrastructure investment and how we fund those things we talked Earlier about this in a previous slide But maintaining the existing infrastructure like a road that already exists And it needs to have some kind of maintenance treatment It has you know cracking that needs to be sealed It has sections that need to be completely replaced or refurbished those kinds of things We fund those with ongoing cash like revenues like we talked about the property tax component that we refer to as pago That's six and a half cents that we mentioned earlier And then we have other things that go into Funding maintenance for existing infrastructure like revenue that we get on gas well leases and other things like that On the other side for new investment most often we're using some kind of dead instrument a bond a note something That has a long life a long maturity that we're paying against annually Going way back to the expenditure slide. You saw you remember that debt service Component that was about seven percent of the total budget. That's what that is going to repay those those issued debt to Invest in new infrastructure we also use Impact fees and part dedication fees and occasionally grants to do that as well This is the same Flow chart that we showed earlier The only difference is that this is the proposed tax rate property tax rate Allocation distribution for fiscal 22 the upcoming fiscal year. It's exactly the same right now as it is in fiscal 21 and I'll say that We expect for it to be the same Depending on the certified values that we get there could be some drift in some of these numbers based on State law that would require us to do that But we expect for these to be the allocation distributions for fiscal 22 and again Just kind of reiterating the fact that we're assuming and this again is going back to the February Report to city council. We're assuming that assessed property value Assumptions or I'm sorry. We're assuming that assessed property values Are going to modestly decline in 22 and then pick up their rate of growth and again We expect for this to be in actuality different When we get the certified values, but this was the assumption that was made going back to february Bob, did you have a question? Gotcha. Well, yeah, we'll have plenty of time for questions If you have one now, we'll be happy to take it Okay So if we're looking at we mentioned using dead instruments for investing in new infrastructure part of How we prepare to do that as we look at what our Overall debt load looks like and then we look at what our future capacity may be And so that gives us an idea about how we can go back and put a bond package together For example in 2022 We're preparing right now a bond package that would go before the voters and I believe it's may of 22 and so right now we Believe that we don't believe we have calculated that there is approximately 600 million in debt capacity And so we are preparing a 500 million dollar bond package To take before the voters in may of 22 and and that bond package will include all kinds of things road reconstruction facility construction new fire stations those kinds of things All all kinds of different capital investments that Would be associated with a major bond program And so that is being prepared right now But again the important part of this is that the 600 million capacity Is there and the bond program? Is approximately 500 million so we would preserve 100 million in capacity going forward Our I mentioned the five-year rolling capital improvement program So when we get to the next year, it'll be the 22 to 26 program It's broken down into several different components. You can see there. There's a general program There's one for aviation one for a public event storm water and water and each of those programs reflects projects that You know are individually appropriated So you you you can go and look at the program on online currently the 21 to 25 program When we adopt the 22 to 26 program you'll be able to see that but you can see the itemized appropriations project by project program by program Each program and project is funded by a variety of revenue sources. We talked earlier about dead instruments bonds notes some are funded by grant revenue some are funded by Some of that pago Money that we talked about earlier. So there's a variety of funding sources there as well, which you will see if you Go through and look at the the 21 to 25 program And so this is the list that I talked about earlier going back to the pay-as-you-go project You can see there. So again, this is cash funding for capital maintenance, right? So we've got a list of all of these things that are funded at a variety of levels At the top you've got street and bridge maintenance that is taking up the majority of that funding And again, I want to point out that this comes from that six and a half cent Of the property tax rate that we talked about in a variety of places throughout the presentation And then you can see there the the other Projects that the pago funding pays you have traffic system maintenance. You have park and recreation maintenance You have sidewalk maintenance and all of these other things to the tune In fiscal 21 anyway of 48.4 million. So essentially that 48.4 million represents six and a half cents of the property tax rate that we talked about And I believe that that no, sorry So what's next we have the process for continuing to develop to recommend and then to have outreach about the fiscal 22 budget If you look here the the two recommendation dates that the city manager will bring the capital improvement program and the operating budget to city council Are august 3rd and august 10th respectively So in less than a month We'll be bringing both the cip and the operating budget to city council for their consideration Throughout august and september we plan to have a variety of virtual town hall meanings and regular town hall meanings And I believe that we have Or I know that we have a schedule of that posted online michelle I don't know if we have handouts tonight that people can take with that schedule So if you leave your email address, we can get you that schedule We are also going to have city council budget work sessions which happen every year and then the budget hearings these are the public hearings that Uh get to the where we have the tax rate and the budget Um public hearings in august and september and then again the anticipated budget adoption date Is september the 21st and so again the fiscal year begins August sorry october the 1st So if council adopts the budget on september 21st Approximately a week and a half later. We start the fiscal year with that adopted budget So that's kind of the schedule Proceeding from tonight going forward There this you know, there are only what eight lines on there But there there are going to be a lot of opportunities to engage about the budget We talked about the town hall meanings. There's there's going to be all kinds of ways To hear more information about the fiscal 22 budget when it is Recommended by the city manager to city council That is the last slide and so now we can open up the floor for questions and Get to as many of you as we can So let me start out. Let's start out with bob and and then we'll come down here You've got a microphone right behind you unless you want to come to this one. Okay. Well, my name is will be Okay, let's start off with this When you mentioned the the bond they're preparing The bonds now. I'm a matter of fact, I've got probably a half an hour stuff I'm not going to do it. I'm gonna summarize real quick. Just cut a couple of things One on the bond thing is when we get it like last time We're a little late in the process I want to get it before we get it in these little boxes laid out how we got a vote on the bond Last time it had in one of the boxes. It had 750,000 for playground equipment. That's good But it also had six and a half million for the rockwood golf course clubhouse. That's bad Now either you take all or you take none So we weren't involved on the first part of that would never been in the box If you put the rockwood golf course on its own, it would have failed You put it in with playground equipment It gets passed because we want the playground equipment So we want to be involved in those boxes earlier That's going in those before they do we'd like to okay. That's all I'm talking about that right now But the main thing is my understanding is That the city is right now 2.7 billion in the red Fort Worth is 2.7 billion in the red There's an organization out of illinois. It's called trippin accounting They surveyed 75 of the major cities and Fort Worth got a D And the woman on this was on the program Let's talk for local program here the internet show I'll work with two She explained a lot of this and let it out really nicely and kerry That hosts the show called the city to confirm Her word she got back was no comment I did some investigating I called the city manager's office We do a program called local voter education fw district 5.com Anybody can get the information there at fw district 5.com It's called local voter education sunday night's eight tonight. I called the city I called the manager off ask Can you send someone on to the program and see if this is true or not or talk about it? Or this could reach the public and share it. I don't put up boss information So I've got no response. So that's where I'm at right now on that. So what I'm really masking I'm sorry not to catch up I'm just asking can you get someone to come on our program july 25th and take some questions and answer questions That's that So in response to that what I would say is that is not specifically a budget related question So I'd be happy to talk with you about that Let's carve out some time and we can go over here and figure out how we're going to respond to that But if you have a budget related question, you asked a bond program Well, no, I thought that was the budget two point. Well, are we two billion points 2.7 billion in arrear? That would be budget, wouldn't it? No, that would be budget. Are we 2.7 billion arrear? Can we ask that here? Or do we know? That's not here. That's not asked here. Okay, then just simply us all want to make a statement now If y'all contact me in the next few days see if you can come on someone on the 25th because I got some people that can really ask I'm not that smart. I guess the smart people can answer questions. Okay, and I want you to answer them And I want people to hear and that's what I want. Thank you. Sure. So if you'd like to stay I'll be happy to talk with you about that but to answer your bond question My understanding is that there is a whole public outreach and education process Yes, that is also part of the public house public Open house meetings that we talked about earlier But leading up to the election next May, there's a whole dialogue that's going to happen Specifically related to the bond program separate and apart from the discussions related to the fiscal 22 budget Okay. Well, and also that's something I'm asking too. We need someone we've asked someone to come on our The show to talk about the bond and redistritizing Mary from the city Referred us to community engagement community engagement. It's not respond. I'll be happy to talk to you about all of those things Are you the people that would handle that redistritizing and the bond? I'll be happy to talk to you about all of those Well, we want you to come on the program and talk to you so you can tell everybody that's what we want Not just me. It's not my job to commit to that right now, but I'll be happy to kind of figure out how we can resolve that Yes, thank you. You bet Don do you have a question? Question but from a different standpoint I was curious to know if our efforts to stabilize the pension fund Had an impact on our bond rating And the other part of that is In today's financial environment, would it even matter with the shortage of bonds for public consumption basically Yeah, and and reggie feel free to come down and help answer this. I would say that it it matters, but When the bond rating agencies come in they're they're asking all kinds of questions They have a range of different variables that they're factoring in When they ultimately deliver the the rating for that particular year for that particular issuance And so that you know the pension Any any outstanding liability is one of those factors But there's a host of factors that they consider when they're making those decisions And a lot of those are outside of the city's Budget and or finances period. They're the local economy Those kinds of things the the relative income of the folks that are Living in and around the city those are factors as well, but there's a whole host of things that they consider So our bond rating is double a plus from Is it is that moody's all three? So so we're rated by three different agencies and we the equivalent of of double a double a plus from all three of those Yeah Any other questions that I can help answer this evening michelle do we have any that have come in? I didn't want to clarify on the the bond projects that are being proposed Right now the phase that we're in for the bond election Is the public engagement phase? So this is where people let us know their thoughts on the bonds things that they think were left off Things that they agree with and that will be happening at the open houses And then at district district meetings that are being scheduled with the new council members So this is actually the phase In the bond election where people can provide their input Because the projects are not Actually part of a proposal that's going to be on the ballot yet. So this is the engagement. Yes. Thank you for that And so so so we are in that process right now And again going back to the discussion about the open houses and the other Meetings that are taking place those will all Provide an opportunity to do that as well Any other questions that I can help answer well, if not We've certainly enjoyed spending some time together with you this evening Again, we are going to from tonight forward Have several opportunities to talk about the budget once it's recommended And if you have other questions, I've got some cards I'll hand them to you that if they come up between now and then feel free to reach out and we'll get you some answers Thank you all drive safely. Have a great evening