 Welcome to ongoing election coverage by town meeting television. This is one of many forums or presentations that we are bringing to you in advance of the local elections and town meeting on the first Tuesday of March, March 2 2021 town meeting TV election forums and presentations introduce you to local decision makers and connect you with the issues shaping your community. The topic of our meeting today is South Burlington city budget and ballot item presentation. We have guests with us, Kevin Dorn, city manager, and Tom Hubbard, deputy city manager. Hi Tom, hi Kevin. Hi, you're joining us. I'm Christina bell I'm going to be your host tonight. And at this point I can just turn it over to you Tom and Kevin we're eager to see your presentation. Okay, great. Kevin you want me to start with the budget piece here. Yeah, please go at Tom. Hey, share my screen. That come in through okay. Good. All right. So Christina I think for the viewers I think I just like to start with maybe sharing the message I shared with council this has been one of the most difficult budgets to put together, given the times that we that we're in these. These are difficult times for everyone and some of the information that you'll see in the budget tonight reflects that. This is the one is one of the lowest tax increases that we've had in the last 10 years in our budget and it has some sacrifices some compromises some reduced services and some reduced staffing all as part of it. So I'll begin by maybe looking at some of the major considerations that both the city administration and the city council looked at, in terms of formulating the budget and certainly there was sensitivity towards any tax rate increase, especially with the challenges of the pandemic which we continue to move through. We're not not even out of this year, this fiscal year yet, which we know is going to be problematic for us. We have tried over the past years to maintain the current level of service across all our departments. There's a note here that says we're possible this is the first year in the nine years that I've been putting the budget plan together that we haven't been able to maintain that same level of service across departments for every department. So there's a little bit that we'll talk about tonight. The budget does meet all our contractual obligations all our bonded debt obligations. There's support for our capital improvement plan which I'll talk about it's, it's not a full funding of the plan, but we'll address that. So that's the annual assessments and support to other entities I have a separate slide on that and we have continued support for some of the council initiatives and the budget. So let's, let's take a look at the numbers here. I want to start at the bottom in the blue down here the $50.7 million. That's the total of all the expenses in all of our funds. So it's comprised of three different entities the general fund, which is the $26.7 million. It's also made up of our enterprise fund expenses, which is about $14 million, and our special funds, which is about $10 million. The only part of what the tax rate is based on and what taxes are paid on is the general fund expenses so I want to focus on this number first, all our expenses total just over $26.7 million. The revenue in the budget that offsets that a bit to the tone of $9.3 million, which leaves us in the general fund, the need to come up with $17.4 million raised from the property tax. To listen to last year, this is just under $146,000 increased expenses. There's also a bit of a reduction in our revenue that we have in this year's budget in the 22 budget. The tax rate increase of just under 1% 0.98% and just over a one half cent increase on the tax rate, bringing us to a decimal rate of 5597 a lot of numbers there and I think what what the taxpayers want to know is how does this impact me, you know, how does these numbers reflect what it is that I'm going to pay an additional taxes so we have our tax assessor every year give us the average cost of a condominium and a primary residence in South Burlington and those numbers are reflected here. And for the average condo owner, this would be a 13 just over $13 increase per year $1 a month, and for the average homeowner and $18 and 76 annual increase for $1.56 a month. And just to point out this is for the fiscal year that will begin on July 1 of this year and run through June 30 of 2022. Some of the major expenses in the budget include items that are in what we call the capital improvement plan this is a 10 year plan of some of the more major expenses reflecting such items as the annual paving projects. Tree care and replacement fleet replacement police computerization parks improvements and fire and rescue equipment. This is just a snapshot of one page of the capital improvement plan. It's part of the general fund budget. And I want to talk about this a little bit because this is where some of the cuts came from in this year's budget. And I wanted some some of the reductions and want to begin by saying the capital improvement plan for FY 22 is actually $400,000 below what's currently approved for FY 21 the budget we're currently in some of the cuts that we had to make included in the budget and might have to go to the west and several of the departments. Specifically, some of the trucks in the Department of Public Works, some of the police cruisers in the police department were also cut. We moved some items to out here is meaning instead of funding it and if I 22 is been bumped out to FY 23 or FY 24. here was a replacement ambulance. That's about a $400,000 purchase. We had a reduction in paving. We had hoped to be able to put a million dollars worth of paving projects into the FY22 budget. It's now at $700,000 with the approval that the city council has given. And we have a reduction in dollars for tree removal and replacement. This is really part of the ash tree removal with the emerald ash borer and trying to get ahead of things. We had $100,000 appropriated for that originally and we had to cut that back to $50,000. So those are some of the major items in the capital improvement plan that had reductions in funding. We also reduced a number of other items within the general fund working with our different department and department managers. We also had cuts to our reserve funds and the stabilization fund which we established last year. And we have some unfunded staff positions I'd like you to take a look at. So for the viewers, seeing this for the first time, here's a number of positions that are not gonna be funded in the FY22 budget. There were, since the pandemic onset, we've had a number of vacancies within different departments that have been created. And we also had some positions within the FY21 budget, our current budget that we have not yet filled. So this is a reflection of that positions that will continue not to be funded through FY22. One police officer, one firefighter EMT, the city planner position, a deputy finance officer, a parks laborer, and an HR assistant. These are positions that are not included. We have four other positions that have been merged to two positions. The administrative assistant for both the police department and the fire department, which are currently two separate positions will be merged into one. And the tax collection and tax assessing, which are currently two positions will also be moved into one position in FY22. Some of the expense factors, as I mentioned, were included items from the capital improvement plan. We still have about $2.5 million worth of capital improvement expenditures in the FY22 budget. The health insurance increase we're looking at this year is a 5% increase over last year. We had a slight increase in the pension. We have agreements with the three collective bargaining units, our workers' comp, property and liability insurance had increases. There was a reduction on our investment earnings. And anybody who has money in checking accounts or savings accounts right now has realized how much that interest rate has gone down. We originally were looking at a 2% interest on our various checking accounts. We're now at a 0.25 interest for those accounts. Well, that might not sound like much for the amount of money that's invested from the city when we talk about over $50 million. That's about $200,000 worth of savings that we'll lose projected in the next fiscal year budget. We have increased funding needed for the opening of the new public library. This is reflected in both additional staff and equipment for the new building. And we have a decrease projected in our revenue from the local options tax. And this is mainly in the rooms and meals tax side of things we're projecting a $250,000 shortfall. So that's gonna definitely affect us on the revenue side. If you take a look at just these factors alone that's about $1.3 million worth of costs that we had to find within the budget to make that out. Some of our funding assessments include the Wynoski Valley Park District from Porch Forum, CCTV, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, Regional Planning, our County Court costs and Green Mountain Transit, which really makes up as you can see the total assessments that the city has just over $836,000 GMT alone is over 528,000 of those assessment costs. And Tom, right now. Sure. Just to let you know where we have a half an hour for this presentation where we've reached a halfway point. Yeah, thank you. Okay, great. Thanks, Christina. So some of the major expenses here just to graphic our HR and benefits just under 20% the police department, which is our largest department and our largest staff just under 20% and then fire and highway both coming in around 13% of our costs there. As we look at the revenue factors we're projecting a 1% growth in our grand list. We have increased revenues from the ambulance fees, city clerk fees. We now own the building at 19 Gregory Drive. This is where the police department currently is and we have two tenants there that will help offset some of the costs for running that building and we have retired debt on our public works building. That's about $100,000 that we no longer have to pay on for the principal and interest. We'll continue to use our special funds, our grant money, impact fees and the allocations approved from previous bonding by our voters for open space projects, communications equipment and our penny for pass. We continue to work on some savings initiatives which also helps our revenue and you can see the list here of some of the different ways that we'll continue to be able to save money by utilizing each of these different energy projects grants, the stewardship and so on to continue to save money for our taxpayers. If I have time, I might come back to that slide. And again, on the revenue side, the biggest bulk of this, the property tax, 65% local options is about 14 and our ambulance buildings about $715,000, $720,000 there. These are all the services that make up our different departments and are funded by property taxes. We also have some funds, the enterprise funds we call them that are based on user fees paid by the rate payer and that's for water, sewer and storm water. And here's a look at the utility rate increases for next year with water, our partner with the Champlain Water District that will be just under an $8 increase, storm water holding steady at $1.44 and a proposed increase for sewer is less than what the increase was last year but it's at $5.17, a total of $14.50 for the year. Here's a look at our tax rates over the past 10 years. You can see that FY 21-22, just over the half cent is definitely the lowest that we've had about a penny and three quarters on average over the past 10 years. Again, just a summary of the impacts. We kind of covered this slide before. This is what it means to the average homeowner and condo owner. We have a couple of different articles on the ballots for this year. Kevin's going to talk about article three with our tax increment financing. I've just addressed some of the budget and we have some elected positions that will be part of the ballot in March. These are different ways that the voters can cast a vote. We expect all ballots to be mailed to our active voters around February 10th. They can either return that to the clerk's office, drop it off at city hall or they can bring the ballot to the polls on March 2nd if they choose to vote that day. And I hope voters will. And here's where the different polling stations are and they'll be open all day from seven to seven. And for additional information, I'm happy to keep this up here as Kevin gets ready to switch over to talk a little bit about the bond vote. Here's our website, has our complete budget posted on there. There'll be budget booklets available. If any taxpayers would like one mailed, they could call and leave a message at the city manager's office to be mailed to booklet. Any questions about voting should go to the city clerk's office. And any questions at all about the budget to the city manager's office or a finance office and the numbers are indicated here. So in a nutshell, I'm happy to come back to things, but I wanna let Kevin have time to move forward with his. Thank you, Tom, that's so helpful to have all those resources posted at the end there. Thanks, Tom. Excellent presentation. I wanna talk about the article three on the ballot. And on March 2nd, the voters will be asked to consider just over $4 million in tax increment financing debt for a project in our city center. I have a map on the screen here that I hope everybody can see and so that I can orient you following my cursor. Of course, Dorset Street here and Williston Road. What you see are four segments of roadway that we refer to as Garden Street. This section here, just for orientation, this is Trader Joe's and Healthy Living. And up here is the iconic Al's French fries, just near on Williston Road. Let me talk first about what the project is and then what TIF financing is. Currently, this section of road is completed. So if you go into Trader Joe's or into Healthy Living, you know that you can drive in this section of road. The project encompasses some additional underground infrastructure for this section and sidewalks on the south side. The northern section up here labeled C is to make a connection between the northerly point of the privately owned land owned by South Burlington Realty LLC and Midas Drive with some additional improvements on Midas Drive. So that is the bulk of the project for which we're seeking just over $4 million in funding from the voters. Section D up here is a future project that addresses this unusual design for the White Street, Williston Road, Midas Drive intersection and would ultimately add some additional capacity improvements at the Heinsberg Road and Williston Road interchange or intersection. The section you see labeled B is the responsibility of the developers of city center. And this area of the map is generally what we consider to be city center. It also is the rough outline of our tax increment financing district which I'll talk about in a moment. Section, the northerly section of Garden Street is already completed. This is an older map but people who frequent that area will know that there's a large affordable housing project built by Champlain Housing Trust which is right here. This section has had the base construction and all the infrastructure put in and it's just waiting to be completed and that will happen as soon as some additional development occurs here in city center. So that's the project. It's roughly improvements to section A here and complete construction of section C here. What this will do is allow for traffic to flow going northbound on Dorset Street to flow over to Heinsberg Road or over to Williston Road avoiding what everybody considers to be the most problematic intersection in the state where Williston Road and Dorset Street come together but also allowing people to access the future city center growth in this area. So what's tax increment financing? This is a tool that's been available by the state legislature that allows us to keep incremental revenues that come from growth in this area and reinvest it in projects such as this project. This would be if approved the fourth time the city has used tax increment financing. The first was to complete our city center park which you can't see on the map, which is down here for some final funding for Market Street which has been completed and to partially fund the library city hall which is under construction right here and will be open in mid-summer. Again, what we do now is tax the property taxpayer for both municipal services and educational services. All this property you see just like people's homes and businesses is taxed at a base level today. But as these properties are developed and value is added, that increment gets taxed and the state allows us to keep that increment of taxes and take that and pay for the debt on projects like this. The net impact for the taxpayer is $0. So this project will not cost the property taxpayer additional dollars. It's the development of these properties and the taxes that will be generated that will be allowed to pay for these projects. So again, critical piece of infrastructure to support our downtown, to support our need to reduce traffic at the Dorset Street-Wilston Road intersection paid for through tax increment financing, no additional impact on the property taxpayer. And with that, I'd like to turn it back to Tom so he can hit a couple of those points on the budget. Great, and we're at five minutes to the hour. Tom, you may be muted. Tom, you're muted. Sorry about that. Christina, I was just wondering if we had any questions or if you had any questions. I was gonna go back to one of the slides here. Great, I don't have any questions and I see for my producers, we don't have any phone calls at this time. So please feel free to go back to a slide that you want to review. Okay, I'm trying to pull this up here. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about more about some of these initiatives because this is important because these types of things have been able to save us money so that we haven't had to increase the tax rate as much as would have been required to do. The energy projects, these are efficiency projects that we continue to utilize the proceeds from our solar landfill project. And we're able to take the revenue generated from the solar on the landfill and put that back into energy projects where we save money, like replacing all our street lights throughout the city with LED and our traffic signals and be able to use that for other purposes. Grants range drastically. We have stormwater grants that are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and we have grants from the state like for our digitization program where we're putting all our records up online that are about $20,000. So we continue to receive money for that as well as some of our paving for the roads. Stewardship, this is just ways that we take care of our current facilities with preventative maintenance and improvements. The pension program, we realized a number of years ago was gonna be unsustainable to operate a separate pension program. All new employees currently now go into the Vemur's program. The South Burlington pension program remains at 100% funded at its present value and 90% funded at the GASB requirement for the entry age normal. So the pension program is in good shape there. The health insurance alternatives we've looked at, we've joined a captive insurance program gotten away from the major carriers and joined a pool of like businesses to ourselves and been able to save, I'm sorry, a substantial amount of money just this year alone by switching to the captive, the city was able to save $168,000 with a 5% increase versus the 12% increase that the major carrier was gonna have. We continue to look at lean process in our payroll system, in our accounts payable and through the continued digitization program that we are able to pursue with our records. Shared services include our outreach program with our mental health counselors. This is an initiative with Howard Mental Health where mental health counselors work with our police department and go out at site and deescalate the situation. And there's five different counselors that work on a regional basis. We continue to look at regionalization and FY22, we're looking at starting up regionalization of our dispatch services. And then just with sustainability we continue to evaluate ways to make things more affordable, more efficient and better for our community, the environment and our climate. So I'm glad we had time to come back to address that just a bit more. So thank you for that. Great, thank you so much, Tom. And thank you, Kevin, for the excellent presentation. That's so helpful. There are a lot of people out there who, I know want this information and it's gonna help them make their decisions for voting day. Thank you for tuning in to town meeting TV ongoing coverage of local community candidates, budgets and ballot items. You can find this and more at www.ch17.tv. That's www.ch17.tv. Don't forget to vote on or before Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021. Thanks so much, Tom and Kevin.