 Good evening everyone. I will call to order the Board of Finance for September 18th 2023. And first item on the agenda is of course a motion to amend the agenda. I would welcome such motion. So second. Great. Thank you Councilor Barlow and President Paul. Any discussion of the agenda? I guess I'll just say I was thinking about this a little bit and we have it's a little bit unusual agenda the way we have it set up. We have the consent agenda then we have two presentations and then we do have five items that we should take action on tonight looking at them. I don't expect them to take extraordinary long time. So but I think I would, the way I'm planning if we don't change the order agenda I'm thinking I'll try to wrap up the two presentations no later than six, ten so we have 20 minutes to deal with those five items. I'm sorry I really should be more than that because we then have an executive session which is going to take. Right. Mayor? Yeah. If I may we had the fiscal health report on the agenda for a presentation here before I realized that we were going to be on the deliberative at City Council so if it was okay with the Board of Finance I would literally be giving the same presentation twice which no one wants to sit through so maybe we could amend the agenda so that we don't do that. Yeah I think that's an interesting suggestion so maybe we would remove it from here since we are going to have the full council discussion it's a possibility and then just to amend what I said earlier I think we should get to it but I think really I should I will try to have us done with the presentation by six so then we would have a half hour for the executive session and the and the fairly routine items that need to be amended. Does that make sense or do people think they'd be benefit to have a discuss the fiscal health report here as well as the deliberative letter? I think once is enough. Okay good. So okay then I'm gonna I see nods all around so I think we have amendment basically but let's let's vote on an amended agenda if it's okay with the motion maker and the second error that removes item five that removes item five and otherwise keeps the unchanged. All those in favor such a motion please say aye. Aye. Opposed. Opposed. Motion carries unanimously and we have an agenda. That brings us now to the public forum is there any member of the public that would like to address the Board of Finance I don't believe there's anyone in the room that meets that prescription. I do see we have a number of attendees online if you would like to be recognized. Sorry actually if you can can we can you check Catherine are any of the attendees raising their hands wishing to be recognized? No one is raising their hands. Okay great then if if no one raises their hands the next couple seconds here I am going to close the public forum so the public forum is now closed and we will move to the consent agenda and I would welcome a motion to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. Awesome. Thank you President Paul seconded by Councillor Barlow discussion regarding the consent agenda. Seeing none we'll go to a vote on the consent agenda. All those in favor of the motion. I actually do have to I actually do have to say something I'm sorry I don't need to recuse myself from item point four. Okay very good so I mean I'm happy to vote on it and just note the recusal through. Very good thank you noted we'll note that in minutes I assume we somehow we have someone taking the minutes thank you and we'll go to a vote on that motion. All those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Okay that brings us now to item number four which is the FY25 budget presentation. I'll hand this over in a moment to the Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Chad to lead the discussions. I will I will interject I'm sure at times but Catherine is going to lead this discussion. Welcome Councillor McGee we're just getting you just finished the public forum and the consent agenda and and we are getting to the FY25 budget presentation just for your awareness. We're not going to do the fiscal health report item five here and at the the deliberative council we're just going to do it at the council so. So we have about 50 minutes for this budget presentation. This I think is an important start to our discussion about FY the FY25 budget and budgets thereafter as the board is very aware. FY24 was a challenging budget year and it was one that made from my perspective made it very clear that the FY25 budget would even would be you know even more difficult and really create some terrible choices for us if we did not really start the budget planning early and consider a whole range of budgetary interventions to kind of reset the budget. I think we're still very much dealing with the challenges resulting from this you know Catherine will go into some detail about we you know that the the pandemic was a seismic event in in numerous ways that had all sorts of budget implications that we have been grappling with for years and we are emerging from that period with strong in many ways and I think the fiscal health report that we'll talk about the full councils and indication of that and at the same time we I do think need to that there's been over a number of years now there's been some significant really structural changes to the budget that we have not that we need to respond to and this budget presentation lays out a number of different ways in which we are considering responding. We are excited excited isn't it right term exactly but we are we welcome the chance to start the conversation now in September with with the board of finance about about this work and how where we're headed and get your feedback on it and get your your your thoughts on the way forward. I think this is going to be the first of a number of budget discussions early you know quite early in the year and let's get to it with that Catherine why don't you take it from here. Thank you very much for that lovely introduction I am going to share the screen and just go through this presentation it's going to have plenty of time for question and discussion at the end because that's really the point of this as the mayor indicated one of our priorities having listened to your feedback last year was ensuring that we have a proactive discussion about the FY 25 budget kind of as soon as we finish the FY 24 budget so if it felt like you didn't get much of a break that's because you didn't and apologies for not being there in person COVID finally got me. A little bit of context for us because we did have a little bit of a summer break so you may have forgotten the details of the FY 24 budget. Here they are the total budget was a hundred and one million dollars and all through tonight we're going to be talking just about the general fund. We relied on about four point five million dollars of one time funds so that was less than five percent which is good but still if we didn't have the that ARPA or rainy day funds we would have to increase property taxes by 8.2 cents which is not something that anyone wants to do. In addition to last year's budget being a hundred and one million dollars next year's or FY 25's budget will grow because of the cost of living. We've mentioned several times over these past few years the cost of living adjustments that we negotiated with our unions was larger than we had seen in the past because of the inflationary environment but for FY 25 you can see we're applying overall of three percent COLA that's because we do have a three percent COLA locked in with both AFSCME and the police officers union it is a three point seven five percent COLA for the firefighters association that is a smaller subset of our employees. It's an additional one to two million for a fleet so that gives us overall a hundred and six million. These are obviously really rough numbers. My staff is continuing to refine them behind the scenes. Then we look at projected revenues according to our records over the last several years. Our revenues also increased by about three percent so taking all of that into account that leaves us with a seven million dollar hole potentially for next year. So that's why we are starting this conversation early. At the time of the budget passage in the mayor's memo we talked about these five items here as kind of potential solutions that might help us to increase revenue or to cut expenses to cut that hole. Additionally in this presentation we're going to talk about some new items like updating our pilot program, reviewing direct fees for service and considering transportation utility fees. We are not in this presentation going to talk about a public safety tax rate increase although that is something that we've talked about in other venues. So jumping right in the first item here is a recommendation to hire a consulting firm that would work with some of our largest general fund departments and would help improve the efficiency of our operations and really increase the value of what the community gets for their money. We would analyze these departments that I have up here and that's city arts, the parks department, business and workforce development, CEDO, the clerk treasurer's office, the department of public works and permitting and inspections. We are not recommending including the police or fire departments because those either have already been done or are in the midst of being done. We have discussed this with department heads that actually was led by Maro while I was out on vacation so I am currently incorporating their feedback into a draft RFP. You can see a suggested timeline here which is really built around being able to incorporate any suggested changes into an FY25 budget. The second item is a revenue and equity analysis and this is something that I've been working on with planning director Tuttle who is joining us via Zoom. Thank you. This is also known as the urban three analysis. I'm just thinking maybe to give you a little bit of a break so you're not just talking seamlessly and maybe the best way to get engagement and feedback from board finance centers, maybe why don't we pause at least at the end of each of these sections. Any questions or thoughts on the operational analysis? Councillor Perl. You and I have talked and I am very supportive of the operational analysis but as eight it's one of several tools we're discussing tonight. I guess in terms of closing the hole, do you have any sense would we close quarter of it, 10% of it or it would depend on the outcome but we know what some of these possibilities are I guess. Maybe this is a question for the end. I wanted to express my support for this part of the analysis I guess. I guess one question I had is is there a number like an average cost per FTE in the city? Like I know they're not all equal. Yes there is and I would be happy to get that to you because that analysis varies widely and I think it would be most useful to get that to you if you agree salary with benefits but not including our public safety department so that it would be similar to the analysis that we're going to be presenting or completing. Yeah that would be I guess useful I just think in terms of trying to get a scale what's different possible. Yep thank you. Yeah thank you Councillor Barlow and I think it you know this is going to be a significant investment in time and effort and resources and so I think the only reason to you know I think we have to go into it with the hope and the plan for there to be significant savings here. From my perspective you know we've gone through a period of some significant expansion in different areas significant city taking on new responsibilities. We've gone through a time of you know a real change in the budget in a short period of time and I'm hopeful that we will find meaningful efficiencies and and and savings and you know perhaps even some clarity about there being areas where we we are messing a lot of money or effort for historic reasons that may not apply to to the current situation so I think it's premature to you know I think we put a number out there at this point and and I think we just I think you know we don't have a lot to base that on. I think we're doing it because we're hopeful that it can have a meaningful contribution to the the solution here and I think as we get a little farther in we can start to lay out some kind of range of goals. I will say I think it's really important that there's not be thought of as certainly my plan is not to approach it as as an exercise where we anticipate large scale layoffs large scale reductions in services. I think for I think it's we have in my decade we have one sort of good comparable to this type of study which was one done by the Burlington Lecture Department probably about eight years ago at this point and in that in that effort we did emerge from that with long-term seven figure savings that we were able to realize and that really strengthened the Burlington Lecture Department and that they there was there were a number of jobs that were found to be no longer necessary there were some new jobs that were created there were some real savings and the savings were achieved in partnership and really working with employees and in that case you know I'm not saying this is exactly what a strategy that's going to come out here but I offered as an example really worked with the city the BED team and there were some early retirements that that came about as a result of that effort and I just offer that example if we do find opportunities for for changes as we hope and expect well through this study it will be we'll certainly work with the public employee unions and individual employees to ensure that we do this working with our employees to grace the repulsion and just so you're clear on my my comments and my support for this we went through a similar exercise when I was on the school board and we had Act 46 which constrained the amount of spending the school district could have that year and spent time doing this we ended up I think having a very good outcome and that we right-sized according to the need the various functions and services that the district had so but that's that's my goal as well as the cut jobs but is to just to sort of do the analysis to see what what is what's possible great thank you um so it seems as though when we pass the budget that this was a study was slated to cost 75,000 I think we do you have sorry I was going to say we do not know how much this study was going to cost that's just how much we had allotted for all of this potential work President Paul so for instance the um legal work that's already happened under transportation utilities fees has come out of that 75,000 it's very small it's like 2,500 but just as an example you know I guess the reason I'm asking is just simply that it sounds like a lot of work 75,000 is a lot of money to most people but when you do a study it just seems so that well no I appreciate this yeah no I'm going to talk about the need of this I think it's I think it's quite possible depending on the responses that we get to this that we are coming back and and it's certainly possible coming back to pushing greater investment than this in the in the budget right now we will encourage in the RFP there to be kind of creative responses you know it may be possible so we think here too it feels I think premature we don't know exactly what it's going to cost we don't know exactly the way that the payments will be structured I do think it is you're right to think that if we're really going to do a thorough significant study here it's likely to cost more than what is budgeted so far yeah I mean the only thing that I would encourage is that there is a way when the RFP has done that you know one of the one of the goals also for them to give you know in obviously in collaboration with staff because they can't make up the numbers without your help what the you know when the report comes back what are the what are the savings so that we can have a pretty good idea you know better than ballpark but not exact you know so I'm hopeful that the RFP will include that but you know I'm very supportive as well great thank you great okay um Councillor Jang we have the window for the cameras reduced right now so the way things are set up so if you you don't need to expand it so well we we have it now expanded by I'd say in general Councillor Jang if you want to interject during this presentation um yes he has his he has his hand raised oh you do and I now I can now I can see that go ahead okay um thank you Mr. Mayor and first of all thank you Catherine you're not feeling well but you're still here it's demonstrate commitment really appreciate that you could have peered bad and hydrating but thank you for doing this um and please do not take this as in any negative ways right and from my perspective maybe this is a little bit premature to have this conversation now without having any quarterly update from all the departments we're talking about right we don't we we did talk about actually having a quarterly update because it's never happened in the history of the city I think having this conversation it could have at least wait a little bit that we receive updates from them in order to see where things where are the projections right um and also you know the the budget of 2024 have changed at least three times we talked about initially $2.5 million dollars whole and then it it it's been increasing so we we didn't know really really well and I would just argue that we maybe take a little bit of time to conceptually have if we are going to study what exactly are we going to study right I think it's very important it's also very important to not think about the Burlington Police Department without COVID without before 2020 and the Burlington Police Department now and it seems the proposition here it's not part of it but that department has substantially changed in a very good way it's no longer about police officers anymore but now we're talking about the Cahoots I don't know the new name we're talking about CNA we're talking about CSL we're talking about a lot and all of those need to be studied as well also we also had some position that were created just to increase the amount of new police officers I think they're doing a good job with these changes we have we we started we start to see right now the people are being hired to come and you know based on this also I didn't see anything about an idea of consolidation of some departments and what it will take one for example we know the water division is a DPW what will it take to move it to the enterprise such as the Burlington Electric Department for example to study that as well for cost-saving mechanisms yes and I think for now those are those are those are my thoughts but I would have loved for us to receive quarterly updates from the respective department first before us having this conversation but thank you for your commitment in keeping this in the back of your minds thank you thank you kester jane all right I think um thank you everyone for the comments uh we're going to keep going with the presentation Kelsey jane we're going to shrink you again so everyone can see the screen but so just if you want to get in again let's go ahead and speak out loud and I'll recognize you okay all right all right I'm going to move very quickly over a couple of these because they are I'm not expecting them to have a large impact on increasing our revenue and as you can see from these slides we are planning further updates to this board as well as city council this revenue and equity analysis you may have heard also referred to as the urban three analysis um and Megan Tuttle and I are working on this together um we will come back um and let you know um and have a presentation but again um although we are considering some possible policy recommendations to ensure better equity I don't think this will be any kind of needle mover for revenue um the other the next study is the impact fee study um and this um has been led also by director Tuttle um as you can see at the end of this slide this study is wrapping up um and it is my understanding that um this group will be coming to the board of finance um and recommending new fees um to be effective in FY 25 um but again unfortunately through the work of the consultant we've realized that won't be um a source of increasing revenues but rather shifting revenues um on fleas sorry hold on one second Catherine go ahead Councillor Carpenter this is back on the um property tax study and the work yes being done and and I find this up before I really think it's very important for us to understand the impact of the wholesale credit um you know we keep saying 65 70% of our citizens are eligible what what does that mean and it means I think getting more information on the state really diving into that because it's they go hand in hand and we cannot avoid the fact that almost 70% of our tax rates is school related so I just think understanding that would be very important um who gets it how much do they get you know how much other taxes reduced by the homestead credit um and I don't I don't know that it's easy to go to get because it requires working really closely with the state and the individual reductions are um confidential but I just think we need to understand that um because I think there's still continued to be a lot of conversation around my taxes are this much but in fact some people are not paying that much they're paying less I also think in that same conversation which I'm sure you'll be getting too is you know where does the school tax increase it into that that's early but we know more of the high school coming online next to you thank you any other comments on this or the impact fee study or questions not seeing more hands in the room your conference so all right the fleet um we are um as everyone knows um the fleet committee has estimated we need um two to three million dollars annually to sustainably replace replace the general fund fleet um and so um with the mayor's leadership um that committee is meeting uh later this week and in the coming weeks with a couple of different consultants who will help us with funding and a new electrification study um earlier in this slide you can see um some of the progress that had been made earlier to date but there's a lot more work to do um and then there is also a separate financial sustainability study going on for CEDO as part of a really cool grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development um Director Pine is on with us via Zoom as you can see this work is really just getting started they had the kickoff last week um and the deliverable is to present new funding models to the mayor and city council before next year's budgeting process um to ensure more sustainability with CEDO and less of a general fund draw. Questions on fleet or CEDO? Just to accurately the um couple things the uh I'm I think we have a real challenge with the fleet um to to really um get a solid plan that's well resourced at the same time this is an area where um there's a lot of innovation going on and where um there's now new help from the federal government to achieve achieve our electrification goals and the technologies are really shifting a couple examples of that at one I went to a mayor's conference this summer um that of the four panels there's a whole there are four panels for the whole conference one of the four panels was on fleet electrification and um one of the consultants we're meeting with actually met at that that uh conference and I think it's just there's an exciting area of just real change and um energy right now also another kind of interesting thing there's a new medium uh I can't get the term quite right but it's uh like medium duty I think is the term they used um truck electric truck seller that is building a new showroom and um office over just out in Williston and and uh it just in that and the new electric uh bucket truck that we just brought online it really it's an indication as expected for some time that the kind of commercial equipment uh area is really changing and and that um whereas we've been in this disappointing position of having to come to you in the past few years and have a fairly limited number of uh vehicles that we're able to electrify I think that's really going to change in the years ahead and we're seeing the size of that so um doesn't you know we still have a a serious financial need if our government's not going to pay for it all but I think they are going to be a partner in this transition and we are looking forward to coming back to you with some real thinking and a real plan for how we get this done all right I'm moving us right along so and then I just want sorry I did just want to say just want to say thank you to Brian Pine and the CEDO team for uh taking the initiative and applying for this HUD um HUD grant uh this has been a goal for for many years really and that we uh had particular talk about before the pandemic and certain elements of CEDO um we had hopes for um becoming more self-sustaining and I think the study is going to um move that conversation forward in a significant way so thank you Brian I agree thanks for saying that mayor all right I am now moving us along these are begin our additional options um these are items that um the mayor and I have been discussing that we would like to bring you in on items that were not mentioned in the FY 24 budget memo but that we think are important to consider this first one has to do with pilots um that's uh payment in lieu of taxes um otherwise known as voluntary payments um there have been a lot of discussions about these payments throughout the um FY 24 budgeting process um so just a little bit of information here um the pilot represents almost five million dollars of general fund revenue so that's pretty significant the 94 percent of it comes from these places um and that's the state of Vermont and BED and water all of that is governed by charter and it's designed so that the pilot paid is equal to what a private utility or in the case of the state what a private company would pay in taxes all their uh entities that make payments um as you may have guessed um our UVM the medical center and Champlain College um and you can see according to this graph um or this chart both uh regular payments that they make on an annual basis as well as additional infrastructure payments and those were negotiated for a term of an annual 10 years based on our first 10 year capital plan at the bottom there are five organizations who also pay of some sort of pilot or voluntary payment but it's a very very small amount the um recommendation um here is that um we as a city um create a task force similar to one that was established in Boston in 2009 um and in that instance um the task force put together a review to really ensure equity across the organizations that were paying pilot um and that would be the goal for us as well it is unlikely that our largest contributors would increase their share of this revenue growth but we would like to make sure um that everyone who should be paying is paying and we would obviously include um those stakeholders in this pilot um task force and I'll pause there to see if there's any comments or questions um on the task force are you um assuming that that would be those would be citizens that would apply community members that would apply to serve on that task force um without that far ahead I have um it could be citizens I think it would probably also um be organizations that are 501c3s who are likely to be um the targets of our asks for voluntary payments they would want may want to be involved in terms of how it's structured so representation from both probably makes sense thank you go ahead and answer me thank you um I'm curious if as part of this uh and I'm not super knowledgeable here but in terms of uh the franchise fee uh expanding that to move from on gas um that's what's been considered yes I'm so glad that you asked asked it was considered um and that was part of a the legal opinion um that I sought um when I also looked at transportation utility fees um and that is not expanding franchise fees is not something at least upon initial legal review that the city council can do alone who else would have to approve that um let me it is a lengthy legal memo counselor would be so let me go look at that so that I can make sure in my COVID adult brain that I'm not giving you wrong information but I have it and I would be pleased to share it with you I apologize I don't remember off the top of my head that's that's fine thank you Catherine quick question Catherine yes I think this is this is this is great this is this is an amazing recommendation from my perspective and it's not an innovation for Burlington Boston done it and I'm pretty sure we can do it too uh but will it will it require maybe creating a position who will support you among your team to oversee all of this and also like the timeline isn't it too short now before we know it 25 will be here or this is for 2026 or just a study so it's a great question I agree that we are unlikely to see a lot of revenue growth for FY 25 um unless we really get this moving quickly counselor Jang um and in terms of support I am very thankful that right now we have someone in the clerk treasurer's office who helps manage these um she doesn't have a lot of extra capacity but as you know we don't have any more room in the budget so I imagine that Tracy and I would just figure it out yep thank you and I think the city councilors did receive an email from a concerned citizen about um you know the Burlington country club and made a very solid case I do not be solid um yeah to be included as well I yes and this exactly I did see that thank you this would partially address that so very interesting thanks for bringing that up thanks all right another suggestion um and there's just this one and one more and then we're going to be done everyone thanks for sticking with us um the is reviewing what I call our direct fee for services and I include some examples on the left um and you'll see this um affect uh everything from the parks department city arts um permitting um all of them I'm sorry my brain is really starting to fade um but you could see this accounts for 13 percent of our revenue so we're talking about a significant amount of funds um and what um one thing to note is uh the city of Burlington does not currently have one standard policy um or set of procedures for establishing those fees it's really done on a case by case basis um and done organically which has worked to date um however you can see here with special thanks to Nancy Stetson um how this has happened what's happened to these fees over time and um you may recall right before chief Locke left um he increased ambulance fees and to my knowledge these are one of the only fees that have been um adjusted in recent years and so you can really see the effect of that um in this chart so the ask here is that we also hire a consultant who would help us figure out which fees we want to start focusing on um and establish um what the appropriate baseline of costs are and then a um uh policy for updating costs moving forward part of that would obviously be looking at comparative data either in the private sector or of cities uh of comparable size questions before I move on to the last item go ahead and cancel bro just have one question we see these precipitous problems but that I'm assuming that some of that's COVID and the actual use but others the inflationary effects of what we experienced in inflation like um you see these dropouts from like 2019 through like 21 and so I don't understand that I guess but this is adjusted for inflation so those there's I'm very glad that director Tuttle is here and raising her hand so I'm going to allow her to answer this question thanks Megan you're welcome Catherine and counselor Barlow I think the um the one line in particular that you're referring to is looking at building trade permits and this is something that our office has looked into a little bit in helping put this chart together um one of the things to remember about building trade permits is that the cost of the permits themselves is driven on the estimated cost of construction and so as we see booms in permitting for new developments we will naturally see these fees go up um and then as we see fewer units that are getting their permits we'll see these fees go down so we did see a significant number of new permits or I'm sorry new housing units that came online in 2019 so that high point that you're seeing in 2017 we think is likely related to those permits that were happening at that time um I do know that DPI does put at least a CPI on their permit fees every year that's something that council approves um but I think there's opportunities for us to look at how that fee structure is overall thanks yep maybe you can see me but I just didn't see any private security fees and why is that included uh we have only included the largest sources of revenues councilor jeng not all revenues just frankly because this graph started to get um very confusing so that's something we could get for you separately but yep and by parking fees it seems we have it twice parking fine or fees I can see very well sorry it's one of them is fees and the other is fines okay sorry and that is that is frankly because they go to um they go to different funds um so we track them differently okay thank you um and maybe this is a question for the mayor or our city attorneys about these fossil fuel companies like these gas stations and how do we make a correlation between um you know their services and climate change and also encouraging people residents to um electrify their transportation options by increasing maybe their taxes like what are the legalities of increasing the gas tax for example for the city if any uh thanks council jeng um uh that is uh you know it's an interesting question we um if you gas this the city does not have the authority to um assess a gas tax it's a there's state and federal taxes on that it'd be something we would need legislative authority to do um we did get of course legislative authority to do the carbon pollution impact fee um on new buildings um but to uh actually assess a fee of the gas pump if that's what you're thinking um would uh would require state action and it would be um I think it would be uh unlike it would be it would be very difficult to secure that um approval it's my sense of the gas tax so that way that's handled but we could talk about that further um another time if you're interested thank you all right last slide maybe yes here we go all right and then the last item um uh um we are recommending that we consider transportation utility fees and this is an interesting suggestion that um first came um through Jason Gao our director of operation so I want to say a special thanks to him um and if you aren't familiar with this concept um Tufts as they're known are a permissible user fee not a tax um and it helps to pay for sidewalks um they are assessed to all tax and rate payers um and the funds would be restricted to building repairing and maintaining sidewalks um we've completed an initial legal review um and those lawyers found that it is within our city authority um but this would be a non-property tax way to more sustainably fund our sidewalks all right that's it we're at the question and discussion part we've gotten a lot of good feedback any other final comments or questions thank you governor president ball thank you um actually the only thing that I wanted to mention Catherine is I think I had sent this in an email to you that I do appreciate your coming to us now um and would ask that on the calendar for the board of finance meetings that whatever the first meeting is in in january whatever the first meeting is at the beginning of each calendar quarter of each fiscal quarter um or calendar quarter as the case may be um that we have this similar discussion and we basically make that our policy going forward so you know I don't think we need to do it more than once a quarter um until we get into you know until we get into you know the the may you know when we get into the may but I do think that it is very important that we have this conversation now and I appreciate I appreciate very much this powerpoint and getting us started so thank you um just wanted to mention one other thing I feel like I would be remiss is um well this is to do with budget I just wanted to verify because we're we don't usually talk about the audit until we get the audit um but I did want to ask about the fact even though it's not totally related that the issues that were in the management letter are being addressed as far as I'm concerned they may not relate to the budget per se but they do relate to our ability to do budgeting and just wanted to make sure that those particularly the closing journal entries are now being done um requested actually as as as as I put it forward in the management letter last year I appreciate you following up on that President Paul um yes in light of the fact that we don't have a director of financial operations which is our next item um one of the things that we have done is to hire an outside consultant who is helping us with that and so yes audit journal entry closings are going well and audit preparation overall is going much smoother this year than last year so I'm confident that will not be a recommendation on this year's letter that's great I mean for those people that are watching I think it's important for people to understand that it's very difficult to budget when you don't have accurate figures um and that is so it may be it may be an audit related item but you can't really do the rest of what we do without those numbers so thank you very much thank you and as we always say budget and audit are just two sides of the same coin so you're exactly right as I'm Paul thank you for presentation Catherine I think it um it's uh I think it's you have us laid out a kind of work plan I think we really need to do again going into uh a challenging budget here for FY 25 and beyond um I like that it really looks across a broad array of options and that we're likely to be able to be in position to take action on a number of different fronts um I do um I you know I do think just to share with the board and the public my thinking of these things you know the the nature of the municipal budget is that inflation creates as you've maybe we've heard me say this before but inflation creates real challenges for our municipal budget in that uh we have um most most of our expenses are subject not all of our expenses are subject to inflation our revenues uh our biggest revenue source property tax fee does not go up with inflation it only goes up when you have real development when you have real growth of the grand list um through new investment or through a change of the tax tax rate um we have not had a tax rate change now I believe this will be the I think FY 20 was the last time we had a voter approved tax rate change um and so and so to go four years without a change um it's historically high inflation is a real driver in why we um are are facing kind of a hole that we talked about at the beginning um uh we last went to the voters um in the March of 22 and narrowly um failed to secure voter approval for a property tax rate increase at that time um and that uh I we did not go this year um I think it is something certainly it's on my mind we may are frankly I'm going to be straight about I think we are without major cuts and services I think we are going to need a change on the property tax rate side I think would be appropriate to look to the public safety tax for that given the dramatic cost increases that we've seen in uh public safety in recent years my approach always has been on this you that the way we should go to voters and when we're asking for further sacrifices to show them that we've worked very hard to explore all other options before doing that and so um I think that is part of the puzzle but um it is very much my goal to um have some other answers as well in a cohesive package that we're going to the council we're coming to you with uh and going to then to the voters with um for next year so that's that's the back story here um uh that's a further further point here I think if there's no further hands I will close this I'm going to close the this section and we have 25 that's left in this meeting and we will now go my Jen just closed on me but here we are the next item is uh the is item 6.1 which is a clerk-treasurer HR item which is a reclassification of two HR sorry two clerk-treasurer positions um and not filling up one position so Catherine would you like to kick this off yes I would thank you mayor um this is uh a story of if at first you don't succeed try try again you may recall that um I've been before this body um before in the past several months um asking for um permission to hire a budget manager and a director of financial operations after our previous employee left um I've not been successful in hiring either of those and our budget situation has changed I've merged the DFO and budget manager into one position because in the meantime um our banking and cash operations manager Darlene Baco has really stepped up and taken over a lot of the work related to bonding um so she is eligible for a reclassification so as you can see in the packet um I'm requesting that we reclassify the new director of finance position according to a market factor done by Gallagher Flynn and reclassify the banking and cash ops director um and both of those together still saves money um and will help the clerk treasurer's office to hit its attrition goals any questions there are no questions is the board are you in the discussion or ready for motion I'd like to put the motion as indicated on civic clerk thank you councillor jing second by councillor McGee discussion seeing none will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye all right any any post the motion carries unanimously um thank you Catherine again this now brings us to 6.2 which is an authorization to execute the design contract for the queen city park road side path Laura we are just here to kick us off for us so we have Philip Peterson who's going to do the intro okay sorry uh Philip welcome yeah thank you uh much like Catherine down for the count here but love to be in person but we'll we'll do this I'll do the quick quick presentation here so we're here to request your approval and recommendation um to proceed with the design contract for the queen city park road side path project uh just provide you with some key details on reason for your support uh queen city park road side path project is a result of a collaborative effort involving the cprpc cities of Burlington and south Burlington and tool design uh the purpose is to create a vital bicep flow and pedestrian connection from the linwood drive intersection on the u.s. group seven in south Burlington to the Burlington and waterfront greenway the current queen city park road configuration kind of it falls short of our city's vision for a safe affordable accessible transportation network um the shared use path we propose will significantly enhance safety and accessibility um and it aligns very well with our city's planned vtv walk bike and other comprehensive plans throughout the city so to procure a design consultant we follow the v-trans at the ready procurement process well and Tanner emerges the highest qualified firm through thorough evaluations considering their expertise in side path design railroad crossings and public outreach so just to discuss the funding for queen city park road side path project uh city council approved budget of one million thirty five thousand dollars for design and construction with grant funding provided by v-trans municipal assistance section with um in particular bicycle and pedestrian program grant money the local match is sourced through from capital funds which have already been reviewed and approved through the city's capital committee so we're requesting to amend the project budget to accommodate the full grant amount with the understanding that the city will incur expenses up front and we'll see can burst reimbursement for 80 percent of those expenses from v-trans um project timeline we're looking to uh get underway for construction in spring of 2028 so in conclusion uh queen city park road side path side path project is a vital investment to our community's transportation infrastructure and aligns very well with our vision for a safe accessible and equitable transportation network and i recommend you approve the request thank you philip questions discussion motion present ball thank you all with the uh the item motions recommended in civic thank you very much just our second second by council barlow any discussion seeing none we will go to vote all those of fair emotional please say aye all right i can post the motion carries you notice thank you philip um six point three allocation of bond proceeds for public improvements rockpoint bridge project um just going to take the lead on this actually it's gonna uh yeah i will do it all right but just to connect this item with the next item on the agenda they are very much related and if there's questions about either one discussion may be easier because it's not an easy topic is it possible to have the conference and have the introduction for the virtual items at the same time i don't want to spend a lot of time on it i mean if there is yeah i mean i think i try to cover the overall project um in my memo obviously the project team has a more descriptive overview of what the entire project will entail um so i think i'm happy to jump off and you know dive into project specific type discussion immediately after whatever works yeah go ahead why don't you get started and let's just try to look look into essentially um this request is um taking a look at projects that have a balance of bond proceeds to be used towards another purpose and in this case we are talking about the project theory we're discussing next and the next item here the rockpoint bridge um the gist of this one is that the dpw team came to the capital committee um previously understanding that they needed additional dollars to help build this project um at that time we identified sources of funding to support the request um since that time the team had gotten another bid um which increased the cost of the project which allowed us to go take another look um to try to find additional sources of funding to help support the completion of this project um without myself getting into the details of this project which i sort of know but not really i'm not the expert on the project itself essentially what the capital team has done is reviewed a series of projects with available sources of funding to allocate towards this project you will see a list of all of the projects their sources of funding um and there is no project that we have recommended in this case that still needs any of this funding they are closed or there are no additional expenses to incur so they are all available we have worked with our bond council and reviewed this request with them and gotten their support and recommendations via this memo and the attached resolution with this request um great so i think at this point yeah i'll turn over to war i think that's sufficient yeah now let's turn to the the bridge project yep thank you so it is helpful i think to understand what the request is going to fund um with what ashlet just described with the leftovers of unused project funds so sinia unfortunately had to step out she has a commitment at another committee meeting right now but dpw and parks have been working collaboratively on the design for the replacement of the rockpoint bridge uh the bridge connects two parcels of the rockpoint diocese um but the city comes into this as we have a lease with we transfer the bike path um and within that lease for the bike path and its occupation is the maintenance and future replacement of the structure so we have been working um for a replacement option which replaces the bridge off alignment this allows the single lane bridge to still be there throughout the duration of construction so that rockpoint uh its users and our fire department have access across this spot until the next structure is constructed the existing bridge was built um at the time that the railroad was constructed and is past its service life uh so it's a strong priority to have that request yeah and you know this has been um uh topic of discussion for for years now um this is uh longstanding i could have in the city had cities had this responsibility ever since uh since the building of the bike path um those were the the terms under which the bike path could get constructed and um it has been a matter of kind of increasing concern from air status uh in recent years that um clearly the bridge is falling into disrepair and needs needs action so appreciate the efforts of the um team to uh probably gather a financial plan amidst uh challenging times to to move this forward i think it's something we you know have uh we really don't have any choice but to move forward with this um i think it is at some level you know inaction could you know we have responsibility to keep people using the bridge safe as well as people underneath the bridge safe and uh we've gotten to the point where we need to take action on this are there so um um chair would you be comfortable with moving the items together since they're related or you think they really should be separate uh i think we should be separate okay motions yes okay so we are still then on 6.3 which is the ocus the bonds proceeds i would welcome motion for this because can't we i'd be happy to make the motion as right second thank you both any discussion of 6.3 seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye are there any opposed the motion carries unanimously thank you that springs us to 6.4 rock point bridge authorization to award construction contract and the proposed budget amendment um councilor gay i'm happy to be at the motion on this side as well thank you second second by president paul thank you discussion oh one one one um just wanted to ask basically the the timeline in in in expecting the reimbursement from vitran um there is no grant on this project because it is not part of the public roadway network so it is not eligible for any federal funding okay i i initially thought that it it's the same and there is 80 percent will be the ambush not on this item okay project all right thank you think that we're ready for a vote we're going to vote on the motion all those in favor of the motion please say aye all right are there any opposed the motion we've carried unanimously um thank you laura this brings us to 6.5 195 201 front avenue 2019 third mo u extension i believe this is also related to the executive session as well are we what is the expectation here are we going to do the executive session first before action or yeah the plan was to do an informational update for the board of finance and then transition to the executive session and then come back out of the executive session and seek action at that point that way we're able to update the public with some public information then fully brief this body and then come back for action right great we've got about 11 minutes to do all that if possible so why don't you do the short informational update go forward great thank you very much 22 years ago cswd purchased the three-acre parcel at 195 201 flint avenue right across the railroad tracks from the city market co-op in order to help the city of burlington find an upgraded location for a drop-off center fast forward to 22 years uh there'd been a lot of water under the bridge uh and uh both parties had not come to a solution about how and when to build the facility mainly around the fact that champlain parkway was not advancing for a long period of time but now the parkway is under construction and cswd is interested in the final resolution as is the city of burlington so we share a lot in common we share an interest in in finding a modern drop-off center in the city of burlington and to improving the city's own soil management operations and we've made some progress on negotiations whether it'll be a purchase of these three acres by the city of burlington or some lease arrangement whether lease purchase or just a lease of the facility and we would like an extra year the staff the managerial leadership both at cswd and the city i think it's prudent to get a year extension on our current memorandum of understanding and cswd leadership is prepared to sell it to their board at no cost and that this would give us a year to work through the final details which some of the negotiation details i can offer an executive session yeah um thank you for that i think um my support of jacks i think uh now be the time for emotions to go into executive session can you help us with those jared yes so there is a recommended action right here on city clerk so you move to enter executive session pursuant to one bsa 313 a2 to discuss the negotiation or securing a real estate purchase release options regarding the parcels located at 195 to 201 flin avenue currently owned by cswd thank you council barlow second by council gie any discussion all those in favor of the motion please say aye any opposed motion motion carries unanimously and now we actually make a motion to go into don't you move yeah go ahead move to