 We will call a needle to order, and we'll call a roll-in, and then we'll send Jeff along. Here. Here. Present. Yes. Friend. Here. Yes, I am present. Tar Hill Blue today is supported by the Heels. That was absolutely a mistake coming from a Wolfpack alumni. My Wolfpack nation is going to be mad at me for this. Sure. Mayor, members of council, we have two new members, employees with us today. I want to introduce them if they could just stand up. We have Miss Kelly Smith. She is our new business license director. Kelly moves to the Midlands area from New Jersey. I'm in the God's country, huh? So, and then prior to that, she also worked for the city of Seattle and at a, working for their department of finance and business license over there as well. So she's been with us about three and a half weeks, has been very involved. Some of y'all have already seen some emails from her. She was working with Greg Williams with the business that we were trying to open for. Yes. Get them open in time for the St. Patrick's Day. So she hit the ground running and everyone's glad, but I'm really glad that she's here. It helps me because I feel like I've been doing 10 jobs since October. Next to her is Miss Christine Cathera. She's our new finance director. Hey, nice to meet you. So both of them y'all will probably see from time to time. But Christine, finance director, I'm also very excited that she's here. She comes to us from Colorado. Her and her family just moved here about a week, two weeks ago. And so she's been here about a week and a day. So she's learning on the fly. Y'all remember Jan? Jan is working with her to show her all the ins and outs of how we do things. And I'm excited. While she was in Colorado, she was their deputy finance director for the city of Littleton. Prior to that, she had experience working with a very large school district there. And prior to that, she worked for Grant Thornton. And she's a CPA. Previously had been an auditor. So we're excited to have her here. Thank y'all both. We're excited to have you here. Look forward to, you know. You've got one more week before we lock you in. You've over the three week marks and you can't go anywhere you're locked in now. Y'all are part of it. We're excited to have you. Thank y'all very much for being here. Look forward to working with both of you. Got anybody else? I mean while we're celebrating the new hires, can we keep going here? Well, yeah. Good to see you. All right. Now look, I told y'all there's a trend in America. People are moving and they're moving to the Sun Belt. So that's one, two, three people who have moved here. This is the beginning folks. We need to be prepared and ready to roll. I am not going to be on the record on that one. There's no votes today. We'll save that hot day for the day of action. With that, Miss Kaufman. Well, you know what? We're jumping through this quickly. So Reverend McDowell, you mind giving us a word because we're talking about the budget. And I know that you love talking about the budget. I love talking about passing the please. Now we want to call the turn out gear. Bring it in the cheese. Turn out gear has been purchased, so you don't have to pray for that this time. All right. Well, thank you, Miss. Better pray. Gracious and eternal creator. For the manifold blessings you blessed us with already. You've afforded us this opportunity to gather. To discuss in a very sensitive and a very fiduciary way. Just a budget of ours as we move forward. We pray, Lord, that you might give us insights. Yet the sensitivity to do what is necessary to continue to allow our sitting. To grow and prosper. We know that tough decisions has to be made. We know that when tough decisions are made, there are persons and lives that will be hit with those decisions. Bless us today in a way that might lend itself to your grace and to your presence. Amen. I have a motion to adopt the budget as presented. There's adoption of agenda. We're adopting the adoption of the agenda. We're adopting the budget. We can leave. Well, I wrote down budget on my notepad. Is there a second? Second. Clark, can you read the role? Yes. Yes. Aye. Aye. Since we're in a period of council discussion, I'm going to move to the floor to Ms. Kaufman, who is at the podium and ready for rapid fire. That's right. I was getting excited there first thing, and we were just going to wrap this up in a few minutes and go about our day. But instead, we are excited to be here today. We are looking forward to our discussions. I know it's everyone's favorite time of the year to talk about the budget, and today specifically talking about revenues. So we are excited to be here and look forward to some discussion with City Council, as well as getting some feedback in terms of where we are and what's coming up ahead. Items for today's discussion include a little bit more discussion about the review of the priority and zero-based budgeting process that we are going through, an incorporation of Mayor's Motion that was adopted at the last council meeting, as well as going through the FY22-23 revenues for the General Fund, Parking Fund, Hospitality and Accommodations Tax. And then, of course, we will discuss the budget calendar as we are today. First, I wanted to start with a review of the priority and zero-based budget adoption that Mayor Rickman proposed, and this is answering sort of why we are doing this and why we are having this discussion today, and then also talk about how we are incorporating this into our budget process and what the efforts that staff was doing with regards to implementation of priority-based budgeting going forward. We are excited about this opportunity. We think it's a great move for City Council. We think it's a great move for the City. It will help definitely to bring us forward with a data-driven process, providing more information as well as making our programs, our services and the cost of those programs more transparent to our citizens and our community that we serve. We are excited about this opportunity. So, priority-based and zero-based budgeting, what that means to us and how we are working is incorporation of City Council's priorities. As you all know, City Council met in establishing priorities at your February retreat. You still have a second part of that discussion. Coupled with that, City Departments have already started preparing budgets and putting together budgets for next year. So, what we're trying to do is marry those two applications in terms of where we are with the current budget, describe a little bit about what that may look like adopting this coming budget and, of course, talk through the implementation of a fully more implementation of the priority and zero-based budgeting efforts. So, one thing we wanted to point out is that the City has engaged an organization called Resource Sex. They are the North American leader in priority-based budgeting implementation and application to help make our transition to PBB efficient and effective and strategically aligning the City's resources to community outcomes. PBB is not started by Resource Sex, but certainly they have a tool and a mechanism that will help us make this transition easier. For those of you who have been here with us for a while, especially with some of our departments, one of the questions we always have in the budget process is how do we truly demonstrate that this budget matches what those priorities are that are set by City Council, that's influenced by our community and that drives those resources towards those areas that we want to see done. Through PBB and through the tools that we're using, we will be able to better demonstrate that process in a much more visual way and much more transparent way. So, we're excited about that opportunity. PBB allows us to be able to answer three key questions. What do we do? What does it cost? What value do our services offer our citizens? In other words, what are our priorities? The steps for doing this process that we are going through is that right now it's a multi-step process. The steps that we're going through at this point is that City staff is going through an exercise of identifying all of our services. That's inventory of all of our services that is done across the city, whether it's an internal service or a very public service like solid waste trash pickup or payroll. So, it's a wide range. Every service that we do, every program that City staff spends time on, and these are services, not functions or tasks. So, it's a matter of fine-tuning to make sure we're coming up with a complete list of what those services are. The next part of that process is identifying the budgets or the costs associated with those services. Once we complete the inventory, that will be one of the next steps that we're able to do. That will actually help us to identify not just a line through a line on a budget process, but what it actually costs to deliver the service that we've identified. Then, staff will take a responsibility of scoring those services against the priorities that have been discussed by City Council that you all have discussed in your retreat. It gives you then the opportunity to apply that information so that we're able to align resources to those priorities that have been set by City Council. The other thing it also allows you to be able to do is determine whether or not there's opportunities for partners, whether it's cross-departmental partnerships for sharing the services or whether it may be contracting services or sometimes partnering with another outside agency, another community. So, we're really excited about what this program will be allow us to do. It will take some time to implement, like I mentioned, where staff is currently in building this work. We're anticipating the inventory part of this work to take place through May the 6th. Then the costing will be able to marry with the FY22-23 budget, and then by 23-24, or I'm sorry, by then in the month of July, we'll be able to score those programs against the current budget. So, it may be looking a little retrospect in some ways with the FY22-23 budget, but we'll be able to have that as a good base in starting forward in terms of where we go from there in building a budget that is truly priority-based, utilizing the city services and allocation of those services towards those priorities that are set by City Council. We're really excited about this opportunity. I'm very excited about the endorsement from City Council in coupling with the City Manager and the Executive Staff's efforts towards this work. So, we look forward to continuing to bring this information to you going forward. How granular does that inventory get with just funding police, or do you get that into individual patrol cars and not spider and all the other programs within the police department? So, that's a good example. So, whereas you would definitely get much more granular to say in police, it would break out different programs of the police department. It won't be so granular in terms of tasks or functions, but patrol could certainly be an example of a service that's identified. I'm sorry, go ahead. So, that's where we are in terms of helping staff define what level of granularity that will be the most helpful and beneficial. If you're spreading it too thin, then you're really not getting the lens that you're trying to be able to identify all of your programs and services to be able to cost them, but even make it too broad, you're not really getting the ability to be able to also apply those resources. So, with 2223, the budget, where now what we will still be able to do as we do every year is as the city manager is presenting the budget, the expectation is that she is incorporating city council's priorities. As the budget is presented to city council, we'll be able to see how we're aligning those costs towards the budgets that have been presented and whether or not you want to be able to adjust and adapt so far going forward. Well, departments still have their line item budgets that they presented. They don't necessarily use just starting from last year, they look at what resources they need now going forward. But being able to align those services to the priorities set by city council, that's going to have to come through as we're working through this proposed budget that will come to you in a minute. So, we agree and there are times when we have to be able to get the budget in balance, we do have to make adjustments that we are in budgeting. That's right and we don't always do that. There is consideration given in terms of what is the current vacancy rate? What is the likelihood of filling those vacancies between now? Let me just, let me just make sure, let me just follow up on the question there first. This is zero balance budget, an integral part of what we are doing now as we are as hit of budget we are living in. I think it's what we are, we are working to bring forward a budget that does reflect priorities of city council starting from scratch in the sense of knowing where it is we're looking forward, taking into account vacancies where we are. What are, what is our vacancy rate? What is our ability to be able to fill those positions and not budget for those times, not budget for, we won't see a department's budget that's coming to you that is budgeting for a large number of vacancies. That's... What a similar lead to what we talked about last time as we talked about the priorities as opposed to zero and zero. What we're working towards is incorporating this priority and zero based budgeting into where we are now. Collaborative. Right, right. Just to clarify, are we using priority and zero as synonyms because they are different, right? Priority is based on, you know, you aren't necessarily starting from scratch. Well there are some certain things that we have to be able to budget for. We have to be able to budget for existing positions we haven't be able to budget for debt service. We have to be able to budget for any other kinds of commitments like that. So are they different or the same? So zero, I want to make sure I'm understanding first off what it is, what else we may be missing in regards to starting with from zero that's not incorporated or reflected in terms of how we're going forward now. Personnel is one, existing positions. Whether or not those positions are filled is, I think, part of what we're talking about. But I think that also depends on the function and the purpose of what we're trying to do is evaluate in our service what we're providing, what actually we do well, what we don't do well, but also what we need to be providing to the community. You really have to dial back to a zero and base it up and grow it. I don't believe what I asked to get done and where we are today or we're on the same page. I don't feel that way at this point because what we talked about is truly digging down in there. First of all, we can't use 20 or 21 numbers anyway. So, you know, that doesn't work. This is the perfect opportunity for us to build up from that. This isn't just about empty vacancies and others. This is actually evaluating the service and putting our efforts where we do the best job and then filling the gaps so it may be a third party or maybe a service that, you know, clearly we've just been doing to do and there's no benefit to the community. I think I'm on a different page than y'all are the way you're characterizing it. Characterizing it at this point. So, let me give an example. So, I've got several departments and mine are more of the back office departments. So, when we're assigning, we'll talk about what their missions are. They're kind of supporting everywhere else but in development of our budget, I'll give you an example for just the finance department. So, we're not looking at what we were budgeted last year. We're taking a look at here's what, here's the staff that we currently have, here's our vacancies that we currently have, here's what our needs are coming up in the upcoming year, whether it's for continuing education, whether it's for some sort of software costs, whether it's for form costs, things like that. All of that is being built to come up with what the number is we need for the budget. Now, in years past that works pretty well. We're usually, we have very few vacancies in years past. That is not the case today. So, when we take a look at the finance budget in our accounting personnel this year, we're going to be taking a look, we've got a number of vacancies that we're still working on filling right now. We still have to get that job done. So, what we've done is, is we've hired outside help to come in and help with us. So, as we go through the budget, we'll be taking a look at our personnel costs, not just of who we're going to hire or if we're not, what are going to be the costs of utilizing our outside independent contractors to come in. Accounting is a little simpler. It's a much smaller staff. It's a lot easier for us to be able to do that. Just one housekeeping. Please use your microphone because people are watching and listening and this is being recorded just for housekeeping sake. And to keep in order, if somebody just let me know they want to speak, just so I make sure we're getting to everybody. Mr. Taylor. I mean, Jeff, you're close, but you're still not getting quite to a zero base. So what you really should have, I think the proper deal is, is a zero-based budget this year working towards a priority-based budget next year. And don't, what zero means is not zero out, it means start from zero. So when you're, you know, if you're looking at a zero-based budget, honestly, you're not even thinking about vacancies. What you're thinking about is you're building a budget for your department on how many people it takes to get the job done. Do we have the right number last year? Do we have the right number three years ago? Is this a time where we want to reorganize our department a little bit? We need more of this and more of that. And, and you basically start at scratch and you rebuild the budget for your department. It may be that you want, that you have found during this time, especially when we get over into our water group that going forward, we may want to use more, utilize more contract help than we've done in the past. And it's a rebalancing of that type, that type thing. So you got to be a little, and again, it may be you want to look at your department, you may say, I don't need these additional two payroll positions that were budgeted last year, but I'd rather, to, if we don't fill those two spots, I need this additional investment in software. And so I'll have less operating budget and more capital budget when it comes to that. So I mean everybody, same thing with overtime, for example. You know, we need to budget our overtime. In other words, there's nothing wrong with having overtime, but in the budgets that I've seen, there isn't a line I am for overtime. And we need to be scoring that. This is what we're budgeting for staff. This is what we're budgeting for overtime. So we can see, we can see if we're running the right numbers or not. Again, it's not about taking anything away from anybody. It's about zeroing it down and rebuilding it. Because you know, who knows, you do this thing, some departments, I suspect will have a significant balance and surplus over what was budgeted last year. Others may have a deficiency and then you begin to weigh one against another. But that's, again, it's rebuilding it from scratch. It's not a storm from last year. So, Mr. DeVall, did you want to comment? Yes. I think, I think we're all moving in the right direction. If you, in the memo we got in our agenda packet, she says the actual work to implement priority-based budgeting underway, but the final product will tug us beyond the adoption of the physical year 22-23 budget. Our forecast, we can fully implement PBB into the physical year 23-24 budget. So I think, I think that the budget gurus are moving us in the right direction. It just might take us a two-year budget cycle since we're already at April this year. Oh, it's just still zero out this year and build a fresh budget for this year and then you can institute your priorities like Mrs. said during the poll. And I, I appreciate that because that's exactly, and I, I apologize for not making that more clear in the sense of describing what I feel like you all have just described for us. And that is doing exactly that. Departments are having to utilize, do I need this position or would it be better now for me to, to consider outsourcing or in this case using contractors? I do think that is taking place especially as we're building this budget going forward. So I think this sort of bridge that we're talking about is where, is what you all have described. Ms. Herbert and Mr. Taylor. I just wanted to add too from a staff perspective when, when we used to do our budgets I didn't include anything in my budget. I mean, I looked at what I plan to accomplish next year and what resources do I need to accomplish that? Now whether or not I started with no staff on the sheet of paper or I started with the list from last year and either added or subtracted the final product was still simply the resources that I thought I needed to achieve the goal and whatever the assignment was some of it may be city council wants me to do XYZ some of it may be the department we want to do we want to do XYZ. So I think whether or not you start with a zero or if you use a prior year budget and I think a lot of times they do that for numbers which is easier with numbers to kind of you know to calculate how this impacts I think that the focus should really be on the end result and making sure that we get a budget from staff that aligns with our priorities that we have set. Now the other thing I'll say is remember this didn't come up until after the departments had already submitted their budgets and my understanding is that the departments were not going to have to resubmit them and then my other concern is we need to finish our retreat so that they can have those goals in place. So I think they're going to have to read what you're essentially saying they're going to have to redo it anyway because right now they don't have the clear picture but what I would tell you is is that you're predetermined in a budget outlook if you've got numbers that you're building off from old because you're not re-evaluating am I actually delivering services that makes a difference and or is that service actually needed anymore because that's part of this exercise is to look at everything from a microscope not from a 20,000 foot lens. Well and what I would say is but that is what I did with my budget so there were years that we cut out certain we're not doing this again next year didn't work this year and so we didn't allocate resources for it so I I mean I really do believe that every department head or person who is doing their budget is only putting in the budget what they believe they need to achieve the goals now I don't know if we're trying to act staff to start eliminating themselves because I don't think that that is what folks will do that may be something that we have to make decisions on but I mean I don't I don't see departments putting anything in their budget besides what they believe they need in order to meet the objectives of the department and I had one more thing so in your description actually we should probably copy that down that is when we talk about reassessing within the needs we also do that I didn't add that part in but I already had a discussion with the mayor on a need for a position and after we talked about it and Missy and I were talking about earlier I've already reached out to staff to think about it since we have these vacancies going on now what's more important do we need someone that's more focused on financial reporting versus what some of the other vacancies that we have in the department so when we meet with Missy and the manager here in the next couple of weeks that's one of the things that I'll be addressing and then when we the three that'd be the manager Missy and I meet with the different departments those are the instructions that are going out so we will be talking about reassessing what the needs are and making sure that we focus on that so I didn't want you to think we just took because I had ten positions last year and we have ten this year especially I'll say it again we've had enough vacancies that we've seen some changes on it's a good opportunity to see what we're doing well and maybe where we need to make some changes and this is definitely the time to make those changes and the prior two budgets have been I'm sorry the vote the year we're in now and prior year both of those were pandemic budgets they were built on basically utilizing starting from what they had from FY18-19 so departments are really having to evaluate now looking forward now that things are back in operation now that they were ever weren't in operation but staffing levels so there are some efficiencies that folks are needing to take advantage of from being able to do remote services those resources that they may have had for position before they can realign them to something else that is based on priorities that the city manager has heard from city council in this sort of transitional period that we're in now Missy to I guess follow up on councilwoman Herbert's comment so departments set their goals and their missions that they want to accomplish every year and then bolt that together with their budget proposal where is it where is the review of the end of year of that mission and how far they they accomplished of what they set out to do now in the past what have we done in the past for that oversight for departments to say alright here's what you said you were going to do here's what you got you didn't get there so how was that function in the past and how was what's the vision of it moving forward what are the metrics that we can start saying okay we didn't get there right and so some well in the obviously with the most recent years a little of that is taken into consideration I understand certainly that's done with the city manager and the assistant city manager and the department heads directly and then also too as we're utilizing you know going through and looking forward in our budgets with priority based budgeting metrics will certainly be a component of that and that's one of the benefits of being able to utilize a process like this is that we will be able to build those metrics especially having the work the city council has identified now through your strategic outcomes and with the better breakdown in line items really digging in to really see the sub department what's working what metrics are working whether you're meeting your goals right well in line items are line items they're a necessary function that you have to have for any budget or any process regardless because it's how you have to be able to write your checks right so the zero base approach in your opinion allows us to really allows everybody the transparency to see what goals are being met by the departments that they said they were going to meet absolutely and this process that we're using forward will be much more clear I think it will be much more relevant and much more of a I like to use things more of a picture than just numbers and words this process will definitely give us that image perfect thank you so miss miss mayor so missy when you say moving forward do we look I'll see that the struggle that I have right now your departments have already set there particularly they've already done that they've made request yeah well yeah they've written it down on paper which is essentially a priority I'm asking departments prepare their budgets with direction to from the manager based on city council priorities of course those priorities are also based on what the department has determined are things that they need to be able to accomplish their work for next year so it in in essence that is a it is a priority but the question right now in terms of who's setting those priorities and what are the priorities what are the priorities what are the agreed upon priorities departments set those priorities I guess what I'm asking missy is we've traditionally set the budget priority base we have I'm asking it's been a it's it is a it is based on the city manager's proposed budget is based on city council's priorities or addressing where we have what we have said were priorities yes what I'm looking at and what I'm thinking through is a combination of both priority and zero base budget if we do both does that mean another round for the staff to compile the budget on a zero base on a zero basis I don't know that necessarily means going back to the drawing board in the sense with the departments it could be that they have to make some reallocations or some re some erasing possibly and that is the I mean that's the process that's the steps that we sort of do now I mean it's right now they are a request that's the process we do right but the lens now the lens that we're looking from now is the priorities that we're working from we'll be working from with the new priorities or the revised priorities city council has identified and then looking at those going forward the forensics of all of this of course is priority based with a zero base consciousness I think that's what we've done in the past and I want to say that's what I understand what has taken place these last few years yeah yes but I don't know if it's been as formalized as what you're asking that's correct so it our whole work towards PBB really began a couple years ago when this about a year year and a half ago it was just as the pandemic started so it kind of put a hole in the whole plan but what you're asking is yes to some degree we're doing it but we didn't have a formal process to bring it back to show y'all that this is what we're doing so over the last several months the discussions we're having has brought it to the forefront it's easy for Missy to talk to departments and say hey we're doing this now because now council wants it you're not just hearing from Jeff and Missy not that people aren't doing it either but it's it's pushed it to the forefront of what we're doing and it also is pushing you know one of the discussions really is is a discussion of you're looking at resources what do you really need how are we reallocating to where the needs really are those type of discussions depending on who the city manager was at that time but Missy's been here as the budget director at that time I've been in my role during that time we've continued to have those type of discussions of okay you have this in your budget are you sure that's what you need because this is what we're trying to focus on but I don't know that it's been formalized it's not something that we brought back to y'all to say hey you know we've been focusing on this sometimes it is it depends on how we're working with projects and we talk about where we're having to move resources around to do whatever the item is but it probably hasn't been quite so granular that you could view it on how we might have done it in accounting or maybe an IT or HR or some of those areas but as we go through this year's budget and then take this year's budget and keep applying to what staff is working on it'll be a whole new feel in review of it in the future in the past have brought City Council a budget that reflects department's request of course it is way out of balance from what we have available resources in terms of revenues how we balance that budget can be a combination of reallocating existing resources or just scaling back some of those requests in general it's been a combination there's never been just one one approach to be able to reach us to balancing that budget and that has often been done just to get to that balance it's Herbert and then we're going to move this along so we can get going two very quick things and I'll just be very honest I do not know if you will get anything different from staff if they do a zero based budget in all honesty if their budgets are being done the way that you know we typically used to do them I don't know if you're going to get a different product or different number but number two I would say mayor recommend when you were over the budget committee or whatever when I first started you took every department through a very excruciating process and they really it was I think we were here three hours where we presented whatever we had in the budget and we had to explain every single thing and how the results that we had gotten and I think that while it was excruciating and I'm sorry everybody it took a long time I think that that is what this council may need to kind of understand where there may be issues or because I think it's a policy issue if we're going to remove things or if we want to reallocate you know staff has their thoughts but city council makes the ultimate decision so I just kind of recommend although it was excruciatingly painful but it was accountability and I think that accountability is essentially what we're trying to get to and I kind of recommend that we do the same thing and the one last thing is we used to do the retreats where I used to have to write this is what I'm going to accomplish and then I would have to come back and say whether or not I accomplished it I don't know how that fits in with this process Thank you Mr. Mayor I agree I like for us to be excruciated I think that would be very helpful for four of us in new positions this time so I would I would move for that I just to me I think there's a little bit of confusion at least when I think I'm here and I just want to clarify something you know when you're talking about zero-based budgets and I'm going to use the police department I see the chiefs over here with us you know when we go through this process this time if we've got 101 open budgeted sworn officer positions we're not going to budget 101 positions because I just don't think you can fill that many in a year but if we also have a problem where we're losing people in the middle take some of those payroll funds and examine what you've got to do in the middle bands to keep those folks and then let's put the let's put the let's put the overtime let's get that as a line out of men there and we keep thinking like what last year and a year before I know during good and well we didn't end up with over 200 open positions in one department just this year I mean they got carried over that's what in itself about zero you zero that down and you add it back up and let's like I say let's let's address in this budget before we get to the priority budget because I agree with you Missy I think you really almost have a zero base it'll take you a year to get to your priorities but let's take this budget and address the darn issues that we got you know if the issues are again in the middle in the middle side of our police department let's address that in this budget and let's look for some reorganization possibilities if there are some I mean there may not be any and I don't want Reverend I don't want you to think I'm saying reorganize the whole deal but I think we've got places where we may not be what we can do and they may need to move over here or some move over there whatever it is but I mean we're coming out of a COVID deal for two years if there's ever been the time to rethink through everybody's deal I mean a lot of our staff has had to get through the last year it bare bones of staffing levels you ought to know exactly what it takes you to do and that's what I say let's build this thing that way and then we'll actually what would be fiscal 24 budget and but again I want to make sure that when we talk about the zero base that we're taking this thing down to zero and addressing the issues that we've seen for the last two years where they're not an issue next year the only thing I'll add to that I think it's also very important because I have been the one meeting with employees and the issues that we're talking about pay and other things can be addressed resources that we already have we're not talking about taking money and thing we're talking about reallocation to make sure that what we're delivering the most effective efficient service there is and that is what our mission is that's all we're doing is mission based you can call it whatever you want but that's where we're headed so I just want to make sure that clear with that I'm going to cut the floor off for a little bit forward to those conversations alright so now we'll move on to the fun stuff we're revenue projections of course as we start our budget process of course we do have priorities and direction but you also have to know what resources we have available to us just to sort of put in some context about budget components of course revenues of course there are some by law in terms of how we can utilize them and how we can allocate them or what they must be used for that would be things like hospitality tax accommodations tax grants and so forth we also have some funding that we have to be able to apply towards reserves whether those are budgeted reserves cash reserves or they are part of our financial policies for instance where we are with each one of those how much is required based on bond just so that we're all straight because we talk a lot about different bondings we talk about the covenants that affect water and sewer and everything else I just think it would be good for us to have an updated you know synopsis so everybody can be on the same page thank you sure thank you of course we mentioned again restricted uses we have debt payments of course and things like that that are enough there are the unrestricted uses but even when then those funds have to be utilized towards public good structurally the city as well as any other government entity utilizing fund accounting we have various sources of revenue and other financing sources those are distinguished by the fund that they are from the generalized transfers in and other financing sources enterprise funds would be our water and sewer fund our parking fund and our stormwater funds and then within grants and special revenues would be of course hospitality tax and accommodations tax those revenues are of course distinguished by those different revenue source and accounted for separately just remind me so general is obviously unrestricted what makes is enterprise distinguished there's more restrictions with enterprise they are restricted by the revenue source must be utilized for the use of those revenues for the services being provided can I add one more source of funds that would be carry forward carry forward carry forward incumbrances or fund balances and allocations yes that would you say what is that carry forward so in other words if there's a surplus for a previous year when we do utilize those you'll see those in as transfers in so when we are utilizing carry forwards or surpluses they are reflected as a transfer in good can you also get what the carry forward or surpluses were at the end of fiscal 22 yes that's fiscal 22 excuse me 21 for the end of this past year yeah we can put it all together I actually wrote that down that will actually go kind of hand in hand we can talk about reserves the reserves the covenants the coverage ratio things like that so it got me thinking some of y'all have heard us years ago probably talk too much about it so we don't talk about as much but now with a new council it'll be good to go through because our main ones are the general fund water and sewer storm water parking and h-tech so we can put all that together with the reserves a lot of those will be able to put projections going forward for cash as well thank you Jeff I'm sorry I missed that while we're on revenue and financial sources I just wanted to add can we also get an account of what the funds of capital projects you already asked that did I miss that yeah so I'm going to include the capital he the councilman just asked that I'll what we didn't mention we had mine was kind of focus on projects that are over with and we've just had funding sitting there for one reason or another and normally those are well we'll get into that but they are they're dormant and it's time to reallocate those so and that happens yes so we did just go through capital budget most of our CIP and close a lot of accounts out so we can see what the balance is worth there's balances remaining in them so we can pull them back together because then that just becomes part of cash again then we do have probably one or two others that will pull out as well again just some additional foundational information for you in terms of what our revenue projection sources of course we look at prior year mid-year actual collections depending upon the revenue streams we also have collections based on their own information licenses that they're already issuing or permits that they see happening so far in this year they'll take a look at industry forecast customer and consumer registrations park registrations park attendance legislature for instance the what we see with like the aid to subdivision or state shared we do receive information from the service office from state in terms of what their projections are with regards to the economy and of course in some cases especially as we look at our utilities we utilize services of rate consultants again just looking sort of back in terms of revenue forecast a year ago when we were doing this and two years ago when we were doing this we were at the start and then the midst of was not was either nonexistent or very not or not reliable so we were basically had to look at each revenue stream to see which ones we felt like would be the most likely to be impacted by those COVID activities or lack of activities especially those that were influenced by consumer spending like age tax and parking so of course revenue projections that we see now look more like normal conditions but when we compare next year budget to prior year to current year budget there's going to be a lot of swing in terms of what we've estimated but the projections that we've made on a number of these areas are in line with where we're seeing actual collections both prior year and current year and of course we balance that with what we know of our crystal ball for future conditions of course we have taken the approach many years the staff in terms of being conservative with our projections time to time we will get a little more generous certain line items depending upon what that revenue stream is or knowing that there are some conditions that are going to be coming forward the rates or revenues that are presented to you today do not reflect any rate adjustments no projected increases or realignment in regards to the different funding sources that we have general fund a large portion of the general funds revenue streams come in in May and June so that would be of course business license franchises excuse me they come in in May and June we do see property taxes come in starting in December through now local option sales tax of course those do come monthly a little bit better with providing information as far as and the special revenue funds hospitality tax those do come in monthly so we can track those month to month on ongoing basis which is helpful accommodations tax though is to remitted to us from the state of South Carolina on a quarterly basis and usually that's trailing two months behind the quarter so we would only have two months of revenues now interesting parking revenues of course monthly and then special events are seasonal and depending upon what's happening let me add one thing we miss you talk about accommodations tax that's our state accommodations tax so we do have a local accommodations tax other times some people call it tourism development for your TDF those are ones a good convention center that comes in we collect that through our business license office so we do get that monthly so we'll start first with our general fund at this point we have projected revenues and transfers in of a hundred and fifty five million that's a net reduction of six million right at four percent from current year but again that is inclusive of both revenues and transfers in the transfers in we have not reflected the allocation any allocations from American Rescue Plan in part because depending upon city council's direction with regards to those you have made allocations from American Rescue Plan in the current year budget that we fully anticipate you would want to or expect to fund again out of American Rescue Plan funds in next year's budget so we'll make those adjustments going forward but we have not forecasted utilizing American Rescue Plan in next year's budget for loss of revenue the way we did in the current year so those are those are taken out on the ARE funds that are not transferred in last year you're not showing those as revenue you're accruing them as a liability accruing them as an asset over here on the side so the way those would work on our budget in this case we would reflect them in our budget but if we did not utilize them they just would not be on there at all so they would come back or we would not I don't think if you're not going to use them I think you shouldn't put them in the budget they should be held they aren't yeah we aren't reflecting them they're held in a separate fund so until we determine how to utilize them they won't reflect in the general fund or any other fund it would be zero because we didn't actually utilize them so we didn't transfer or take those funds that's why we amended the budget and the last council to add that revenue back there I would look at it as a grant we get reimbursed on almost every grant this is one that they gave us half the cash up front but we won't recognize it until we physically use those dollars when I was looking at the memo that came earlier in the week or last week it kind of read a little bit and it wasn't going to be spent so our income in this next year was going to be less because we got more money from the ARA last year and all I'm saying is you should just take into your operating budget whatever your budget use the rest shouldn't show in as revenue it should show as a that's how the move becomes our yes we would not reflect any actual transfer in from those funds other than what we I don't know what you have in the budget right in this case so the current year budget we utilized American Rescue Plans the original budget as it was passed was used as revenue loss as we've made it through the year we've determined that that won't be necessary however we did actually allocate through your amended budget process that we are allocating for specific expenses that will come in nothing above that nothing for loss of revenue thank you when we amended the budget in that meeting was it to approve the taking in of the money the spending of the money right not just the taking in or the spending of both right so it would be you'd see the transfer in but you'd also the expense side that's right so part of what we want to be able to talk about today really is just referring specifically on those revenues those are the revenues those are the revenue streams that the general fund has that's the revenue that the general fund is able to actually generate for the services that we provide of course revenues are projected at $137 million $137.8 million that is an increase of about four and a half million dollars over the current year budget right 3.4 percent but it's only about a million dollar a 1% increase over prior year actuals so it's in line with prior year actuals that's the important part is where we are with actuals again because the budget that we're in today was really deeply discounted or deeply reduced in anticipation with COVID this year excuse me Jeff have you reached out to David and seen what collections are looking like I have not but I will I've been waiting for our last the last penalty date is March 15th March 17th or something so we'll be getting those payments soon so I wanted to see what we've collected so I could sit down and talk to them because when they send it to us we get it as a lump sum so it's good to understand how much of that was delinquent versus how much is current this question on the back to the previous slide real quick that's all the revenue you think but I noticed a couple things that were missing on the details there were certainly between now and the time that we give you the city managers proposed budget we will make some additional adjustments to revenue some reductions some increases in certain lines like you mentioned some were missing like you know HUD fees that we get to take out I didn't see that in the list HUD you know in community development the grant after administration fees that we take out some 400,000 380,000 bucks so some of those activities that actually be in the HUD grant act in the HUD grant funds those might be reflected in the general fund unless I'm misunderstanding the funds the fees we take out to administer the grants revenue the indirect where would the excuse me where would the indirect of all grants and stuff for our operating expenses be located it wouldn't be in the general fund but is there an overall budget that actually shows some of the indirect we pull out from all of our federal grants so a lot of well for the indirect cost we actually charge we charge more actual cost so in an instance our HUD grants and our HUD programs that staff is actually charged to that grant we've taken out a 15% administration fee out of the HUD where is it at it's not in the general fund those funds actually stay within the grant fund and they're utilized for the activities they're associated with that 15% so that makes sense I guess I'm asking similar to that is there a a full picture of you know when you look at all of the departments some of the roles are specifically grant funded only right is there a place where you see all of the positions and how that falls into the budget because that is still part of your budget grant funding unrestricted funding all of those things should be considered when we're looking at how much it costs to operate the city so what I'm asking it's different than what he's asking I think is will there be a place where we get to see how much of grant funding is supporting our administrative and personal costs so those positions I'm going to use HUD as an example all of the community other than a small portion of city staff that is associated with activities that are not reimbursable by the HUD grants you'll see in the general fund those staff persons that are working on those HUD activities that are out of community development are funded from that grant in that fund in that special revenue fund and what I'm asking is where do we get to see the numbers of how much that grant is and how that's broken down so when you'll see that is when Ms. Said community development director brings forward the action plan that's brought to City Council every year for the HUD allocation the entire amount of grants and the other HUD funds you'll see it that way that will reflect her staff and her budgets that are charged to those grants so that dollar amount I'm making this up say $500,000 that's how much is spent towards staff in that specific department you all don't take note of the fact that we have $500,000 coming from a grant I'm thinking not in the general fund or the budget in general in the grant fund itself in that grant fund so it's its own entity it's just like general fund is our HUD funded grants or any or each grant itself is funded with those revenues from that grant or reimbursed by the city from that grant and then those expenses are charged with that grant the question there's auditors oh absolutely that follow the use of those funds both HUD and HUD auditors as well I'm not even I'm just asking in general you know typically when you look at a budget you look at all the different sources like you have on this slide and you get to see okay this is how the general funds being spent here are the things and the allocations under that here are the enterprise funds and here are your grants and then you have a bottom number that is your operating your indirect and your direct service expenses right and I may not be using the right words but what I think is with all of these federal grants coming in I think it is important as we go through the budgeting process to have an idea of what positions are 100% funded by grants and federal funds it should not just sit or it should not only be presented by the department it should be a part of the conversation for us to have an idea of what is the true cost of operating our city because that is considered a cost absolutely so maybe not explaining is that the staff one way of doing that that could be maybe reflect that is that right now that staff is charged to that grant that means that they are funded by that grant they are not in the city's general fund if they were in the city's general fund budget if that staff was funded in the general fund budget you would then see a transfer from HUD at the correct cost of that grant but let me I just I agree with you I mean typically we would show the revenue coming in and show the whole cost of the community development department in the deal I mean that's and I would have a line item that said grant administration income so let me ask you a question so when you do the operating budget when you show the salaries of community development the what you're going to see in the general fund is just those staff that's charged with general fund dollars not with any grant dollars I agree with Dr. Bussells you're not seeing it getting a true picture of the cost of that department we certainly incorporate that that is the department that is charged with the grant most of the grant activities can we just incorporate that discussion? Certainly what we can at least bring back is to demonstrate and I'm trying to remember when the action plan comes forward with community development is they demonstrate what the staff is in that I think it needs for the public's sake and our sake because when you look at costs and I have to go to the national dashboard and I'm looking at our HUD allotment and what we spend there costs in there that I can't explain why it costs us double what it costs somebody else to perform stuff this will take all of that out it allows us to truly understand what's coming in what's being spent and what's covered I think it's just it's just it makes more sense I agree I mean I think just let's incorporate it so that we're having a true picture of where we are Ms. Herbert I think is next well no actually I do having been in community development in an OBO because I think we were one of those offices that just had the unique position of finding funding for our positions so for instance if we had program income then I could allocate whether or not it's general fund or whether it's federal dollars I could allocate if needed funds from various revolving loan funds towards staff but I think it was because we had the burden of like that's how we paid for the staff so but I think that in order to get the whole picture of staff and resources that we need I think we do need to kind of see what those numbers what those numbers are and thank you my experience with CDBG money from a previous deal I mean what HUD allows you is to take up to 15% you're not required to take the 15th I can tell you the department of commerce took 5 and so part of the decision you get to make well let me just say this take 15 well it depends if you want to put more money into those community programs one way to do it is take less of an administration fee what we do here is we're putting general fund money into some programs that are run by that department you know so it's just it's a it's kind of a cloudy quid pro quo more than anything else the point is I just so we absolutely hear what you're saying it has it is a difference in approach than what the city has done historically we all understand that's what we're here talking about as well is doing things differently historically that staff is not an indirect cost and that would be the difference so in order to incorporate that we would definitely need to talk with Ms. Said in terms of reflecting how that staff would look and then a transfer into the general fund when I said indirect I meant it was indirect to the grant they're an indirect cost of the federal grant they are the administrative personnel fringe benefits cost of that specific grant I don't mean I understand what you're saying that they're not an indirect cost of the city but based on what I'm hearing what that revenue looks like because it's not considered in the overall budget conversations and that to me is a problem part of that is those funds are determined by HUD they're allocated by HUD so we certainly can bring those conversations forward thank you and then on the other revenue thing I just said I noticed there were some rents and things like that that may not be included in the building so we're not getting a rent from a renter that was with that 1401 will 1401 will so we will be able to incorporate that that's a good one alright so general fund again this is just another picture of the general fund revenues just showing you our prior year actuals compared to current year projections or current year budget and next year projections showing alignment of those revenue sources primarily from property taxes business license and permits would you just explain just again and I just you did it earlier just not quite sure I got it clearly why there's a $10 million difference and the transfers in from 22 versus what you're projecting the net reduction of that really was the result of the American Rescue Plan funds that we did not utilize and then also another part of that was purchase revenue bond proceeds or an activity that we're not reflecting in next year's revenue streams but I mean how does that I just don't understand quite how that do we spend 20 I mean do we really bring in $28 million of that this year net or do we adjust that down once we it will be adjusted down okay so we're not looking at a $10 million differential okay we'll make more so that actually I just want to make sure I wasn't going nuts looking at this stuff that's that's one of the challenges in terms of looking at budget versus where we actually end the year with those type of allocations just some information about the city's property assessments in terms of property taxes and our revenue streams so far then that change in terms of our total assessed value is a 2.3% increase over prior year about $14 million increase in our revenue streams with the bulk of that coming from real property personal property is has fluctuations as well can I just make one comment there too I think with what's happened in the housing market and some other things I want to say I thank you for being conservative on these projections of new revenue I think when you see what's happening at the state hopefully it's going to be a lot more than this and I would urge on if we have the surplus like we may very well have for next year that it gives us a true ability to create a maintenance cap X account with these surplus you know to fix up our facilities and parks and things like that I think we ought to yeah we ought to be thinking in terms of that budget conservative and hope we have a cap X account out no fire station sorry chief I'm just kidding it's definitely again I'd like for us to be thinking already in terms of you know how this can create a maintenance cap X fund for us to you know to upkeep our assets absolutely so we'll get into a little bit more conversation about the specific revenue streams just again pointing out again the answers the same scenario in the sense of we are looking projection wise over current year budget what are your actuals can I ask one more question I apologize for asking so many questions and I realize it's not we're not looking at water and sewer here correct but just out of just in case on this on the past do water amount is there any possibility that we have to do anything with that out of general fund money you don't think so okay our collections our collections will be the point where we're finding if we adjusted we wouldn't adjust in general fund so we have never say never well I agree would never say never but the outlook looks like we wouldn't do anything in general fund let me ask a question yes sir if we don't do it through general fund what do we do it through water and sewer fund first the cash out of the water and sewer fund let me ask a question respond to that for me clear we did that that's why I want to make sure of yeah that's what I wanted because we've done that we don't want to do that thank you sir I did notice a 19% reduction and fines and forfeitures chief right then look at me that would be the core let's don't become Greeley mill true got some pastry got some I thought you was heading over to west that's right all right go ahead miss Carl thank you we're digressing good conversations general fund transfers in and other financing sources again you'll utilize and see for clarification on this one of the things that I couldn't clarify so in hospitality or there's two different kind of looks like is the 3.7 is that covering the baseball stadium payment or is that a separate coming out because there was like a 2.3 somewhere else and it didn't have a description on it in your memo and it was one of those things when I just saw 3.7 it so 3.7 is the transfer in from hospitality tax into the general fund the other 2.3 is probably sounds like the tax bond okay and that's the only bond we have in hospitality now is the baseball stadium there's probably someone who's it's the baseball stadium it was all refunded a few years ago and rolled in with the bond from 2002 or 2003 the original so that's all rolled in together but that's the only bond that we have outstanding now and the payment though escalates when because I know it's 2003 it escalates at some point I'm thinking it's 2.6 I feel like it escalates to 3 million but I'll pull that information out I guess my question for a budgeting standpoint is that happening now or is that further down the road because I remember at some point it was somewhere close to where we are today I think it's a couple years however one of the more extensive discussions I think it's a little bit more as well perfect thank you and then yes ma'am we'll provide that out to everyone yeah perfect and I don't know if you know Jeff but it's what all is in that bond outside of the stadium it was rolled into what? it was find. That was from 2003. I like Bond Council. I didn't see it on your shingle. I think it's 2003. I think it had some Main Street beautification at the beginning with. It may have had Main Street, it had the Wayfinding program as well. Right. Cool, thank you. Yes. Parking fund was certainly on a roller coaster with COVID. Oh, it's because everybody was trying to get healthy. They were walking everywhere. That's nothing to do. They weren't parking in the garage as they were walking. They were empty garages. Come on now. But we are seeing some improvement in revenues. So we are forecasting a budget of nine million dollars. It's currently flat from current year. But that's flat based on revenues, not any utilization of American Rescue Plan as there has been reflected in the current year budget. So we're not reflecting any allocation from American Rescue Plan fund in the Parking Fund revenue projections at this time. We are seeing some back to business. We are open. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you. While we're going through that, one of the things is we are going through the budget that you've attached to our memo. Can we get an idea of what the parking fund was doing prior to COVID? Because you see all those empty lots in garages. Obviously we know COVID hit, but you know, like the convention center a lot and this and that, you know, understanding, I was trying to find an older budget and I could not find one. But understanding what, you know, each line, we're trying to understand how it comes in and what it would have been. It is and you know, are we capturing what we should be capturing for those is what I'm trying to get at. Mr. Mayor, I will tell you, there's been a couple of folks that have recommended now have a note to speak to the city manager about it that we do a parking study. Our rates. It's actually reflected. Revenue. Revenue, looking at occupancy. Yeah, parking system rate study is underway. This was not in my other memo. It was not in the memo. That's right. Thank you for the 1819 that helps. Yes. So you can see the revenue collections. COVID hit in March of 20. And it was it impacted starting then. It bounced back pretty good. And then we of course have two new decks opening page 16. Do we I'm sorry. Do we have any idea when the the rate study will be completed? Eight to ten weeks. Eight to ten weeks. The parking study, the parking system. Eight to ten weeks, which is right underneath that. So if we actually read her slides. Well, it was not in the memo. So I do apologize for that. However, yeah, yeah, I know how this works. You try to trip us up. It's okay. We try not to give you any new information in today's sessions. Thank you. Yes. All right. Moving on hospitality tax. This is a favorite topic of many. You'll see here we're showing actual collections from 2021 as well as the budget. We wanted to be able to demonstrate both the allocations and the budget. And I know we've been talking to you today just about revenues, not about our expenses. But hospitality tax, of course, with some proposals that are being made and with some direction that we are needing from city council, we will talk a little bit about how hospitality tax budget has been allocated in prior years. So we have that some information. That is also new information that was not included in your slides in your in your memo. So but it is it is contained in your slides. So revenue projections. We are open. So businesses or hospitality taxes are looking good. This is my ignorance in this. What is the FM in front of the bond from from it's just it's just to make sure I was like it's just a abbreviation bond. I don't know. It's an abbreviation from from fund balance under trying to transfer zen and other financing sources. So we're projecting a budget at this point of 12.7 million. It's an increase again, significant increase ever budget. However, it's only about 2% increase over prior year actuals. One question on these these up here where you listed a museum of art, etc. Is that all the funding they received from this from the city or do they get direct line allocations in addition to that? That's that's their only funding source. From the city's perspective. We have seen prior to the pandemic we were averaging about 3 to 4%. There were a few anomaly years. I think the March NCAA tournament and hit the same year that the eclipse hit fiscal year. So we think had some some good growth that one year. Otherwise, we are looking at pretty much closer normal levels. And so we are not projecting any allocation from American Rescue Plan. The budget does this year did include American Rescue Plan. And we had forecasted maybe holding out another $500,000. That may not be necessary. Either the closer we get to the end of the fiscal year. All right, so we wanted to talk a little bit about the structure of the budget for hospitality tax. Since that is a hot topic at this point, and we are looking for some guidance from city council. We wanted to give a little bit historical perspective about the hospitality tax allocations and what we have utilized in the past. So there are primarily four areas or categories of hospitality tax funding. The committee of course is one area of allocation. We are hopeful that the committee members will be appointed at your April council meeting. Hospitality tax applications that are reviewed by the committee were due this past Friday. We are projecting or anticipating to have a committee meeting in May. So that they can be able to make recommendations to city council for approval of those allocations in June when the budget is passed. Which would keep us on a really great schedule for hospitality tax program. The line item agencies are agencies or organizations that they still submit an application, but they are not reviewed by the committee. They still are subject to every allocation that we spend out of H tax is still subject to the rules set by state law regarding use of hospitality tax. The line item agencies are those groups that when the hospitality tax was first started, city council sort of designated these as sort of these legacy groups. Part because the city has some kind of ownership in their operations. I'll use the example of the historic Columbia. The city owns those houses. Historic Columbia runs the programs. They own the exhibits. They own the inside of the items inside. We have an operating agreement with them that requires that we fund them. So these funds are they are an eligible group. So we fund them out of hospitality tax. So those are some line item agencies. Historically city council has kept those allocations sort of flat. But they do come directly from city council. There is one new group that got added in recent years and that was the Philharmonic. Also in recent years city council has made specific direct allocations and those we have categorized as their city council allocations. Sometimes that may be the line item agencies. Sometimes it may be additional allocations to hospitality committee allocations. So it may be supplementing those. It may be entirely allocations that are separate from those. And those the amounts or allocations to the city council committee or city council allocations fluctuates every year. It started as an allocation from fund balance and then ultimately once fund balance was utilized it then they then became allocations straight from the budgeted sources. Just just a FY for the new members of council. A lot of the participants in the H tax funding will keep asking you make us a line item agency make us a line item agency. And I keep telling them there is no really significance for the line item agency. They still go through the same process of evaluation by the committee. The council still has the final say so on it so it doesn't really help them. And as Missy said most of the line item agencies that are up there we do have some responsibility for the Museum of Art, Music Festival, Adventure, Historic Columbia. All our judiciary responsibilities of the city not just because we like them. And then last of course would be transfers out which as we mentioned is a direct transfer to the general fund as well as the H tax debt service bond. So this is information about allocations we've made in prior years. This was not included in your memo but it is included on the slide deck that you have in front of you. We wanted to show you I went back as far as fiscal year 1920 to see pre-pandemic type of allocations compared to FY 2021 and then 21-22. The current year and the prior year city council suspended the committee so all allocations were made by city council. And of course fiscal year 2021 were deeply reduced because at that time we were anticipating hospitality tax would be one of the most significant hit revenues by the pandemic. And of course they were. Revenues came in much better than anticipated but certainly not at pre-pandemic levels. If you look you can see the groups that have received that line item agency allocations. The committee has run from anywhere from 2 to 2.6 million dollars in terms of an allocation from city council. The way the process works is the city council allocates a certain dollar amount to the committee. The committee makes and reviews all of the applications to include interviews with the agency with the organizations. They make recommendations. The committee makes a recommendation on how much to fund. That list comes back to city council for city council approval. How much are you giving the committee this year? Staff doesn't make any recommendations or good determinations. We seek guidance from city council in terms of what kind of allocation you would like to make. And this is just showing projection for 2021-22. We staff are not making any projections for how to allocate in 2021 or 2023. Although we have reflected as you know 3.7 million transfer from the general fund. And of course debt service would need to be allocated as well. So the 2.9 million dollars that is reflected or 2.4 million dollars that's counted reflected as council allocation. Typically that's what's allocated for committee. Again these are using pandemic level allocations. Any questions about those allocations or those categories before I move on to this appropriate time anyway. That's actually next on the that's going to be the next discussion. Yes sir. No sir. So I was um bringing it back around for this part of the conversation is regards to the hospitality tax proposed budget. Again um and as mayor Rickman has just pointed out you will readjust and come back to us with regards to an amount for the committee. I'm just looking again for affirmation that the committee will stay in existence and that the committee will be um meeting to make review of those applications. Missy do we do you have a deadline for which you would need to have a response for that? Is this supposed to meet in May? We have a guide so we would like for there to be an allocation um April is certainly acceptable or even the first meeting in May or when your next budget workshop is not until um later in May so we could certainly meet later with in May with the committee. The committee has met before I think without knowing how much but it really has come. I was just asking Missy if there if there was a ideal time to let them know what the recommendation is for the committee since they plan to meet in May. We need to we need to get the date of when they're targeted to meet um because I think they usually meet in late late May and that traditionally set a date we target May we we could really adjust that date of when they meet based on when City Council does make a determination as to how much allocate May early June is the latest we'd like to be able to do it so that the July one start you right so the grants could be awarded and we have enough time to process the paperwork or not in this case paperwork but get everything set up so that they can be allocated in June with the approval of the budget we have a date we have we have some targets of May this is Tina this is Tina Saxon she's famous yeah Tina Tina is the the um I shouldn't say new but Tina is the now grant coordinator overseeing the hospitality and accommodations tax which left me a vacancy at my budget staff so I'm the budget so next on this discussion are proposals from City Council with regards to some uh proposed uses for hospitality tax yeah I can I can speak to that real quick just in general this is the City Council proposal for a Office of Cultural Affairs this is a continuation from about a year and a half ago when we had our Arts and Historic Committee and gave one Columbia the local arts agency designation for I think a year and a half so over that time we've been working hard reaching out to other municipalities in the southeast community arts groups just to gauge what would that structure look like if we were to bring it in house under Parks and Rec and I put it in here under H tax to bolt it together what I found many municipalities tag a allocation per resident and so three dollars four dollars per resident so roughly 135,000 residents in the city of Columbia that would be a line item for roughly four hundred thousand dollars a year that would go to funding this community arts initiative through our Parks and Rec department and whatever this new local arts agency under the Parks and Rec department well looks like we have a Arts and Historic Subcommittee meeting Mr. Mayor in April April 12th I believe and this will be talked about we'll bring community interest groups in to give us feedback to see if this is direction then maybe we want to go in before we bring it back to you but I just thought the most important part of a local arts agency is getting arts and culture into our neighborhoods all neighborhoods in all communities and we already have the structure of our wonderful Parks and Rec departments throughout our city so this might be a good vessel to do that with so we'll bring something forward to you you all going to meet just for so April 12th you'll have hearings so we can expect something mid-May yes sir for us then and so coincide with our conversation around hospitality we can debate the issue whether we find it yeah absolutely yes sir and just for my clarification so this this would be a part of implementing the plan not getting rid of the the arts agency status it would be a reassignment of you know to be determined margie reamble for absolutely wonderful future note that would have been nice for all us us to know and not have to read it in the state paper yeah and that they had the board had voted to have this re step in considering we're the single funder of that agency next next would be the recommendation for an allocation from hospitality tax funding for replace of the city's portion of the property tax millage charged to river bank zoo current millage based on the 2021 tax schedule for river bank zoo is 2.2 mils which estimated from the city's portion would be about $1.3 million and i'm i'm suggesting that for the simple reason i've always wanted let me say this i think the zoo is one of our best assets in colombia i mean in the midlands but i've always wondered why we have an h tax to fund tourism and hospitality things yet fund the zoo in a different way and and as we talk about affordability and housing and attainable rental housing i just don't think it's fair for for the least of us to have to pay for the zoo twice once with h tax and once or pay for hospitality twice once with h tax and once with the millage and i suspect that when we do the budget this year the funding will be there to replace that and it augments very well with our study on property tax reduction and i just think it's the fair thing to do for for for those in our community is to to fund that out of h tax and not ask for them to pay for it out of their house and fund hospitality when they eat is that a is that a city tax that's so that's our portion of the millage our portion of the county 16.5 mills so the i was to say the the total mill is 2.2 i think their total funding from all property taxes is like six million but the city city equivalent of two mills would be 1.2 three million dollars but it's not a millage that we we put on this we don't put it on the county but it does show up on your tax bill so 1.2 mills is for the operations and then 0.8 mill is for debt service for the zoo and let me say this let's set the example and ask the county to follow on follow on with us too they have they have us you know again i don't run the county business but they collect h tax as well and and again i think that's the appropriate place for us to fund our tourism attractions i think what we what we need to do is formulate a proposal for discussion and debate and then sit down with the county would be the proper now that we have a county that's fine i just put it in for consideration we'll be talking about it in the i think we definitely need to discuss it yeah i think just think we got to formalize something so that that because it is going to be us going to the county i just don't see how we can take a county tax and put city money into it 1.3 million dollars it is our money that's our money that's our portion of what we pay our citizens pay for that this isn't a county's portion this is our portion it's levied by the city council i mean by the county council not the city council i guess what i'm wondering is so do we have the ability to say county stop taking out this millage because we're going to give xyz dollars we do have that ability that's my question is oh yeah i was asking do we have the ability again this today is not about figuring out how to do it it's just getting it where it's a consideration as we go through this budget process of looking at how we take taxes designed for tourism and let them pay for tourism and let's reduce our property taxes where affordable housing becomes more attainable and we can compete more in the commercial the commercial property tax area for new investment the good news is this not just helps commercial and affordable housing it also helps our homeowners well i think what you'll see is is based on the tax it'll it'll it can come out of the tax but we need to formalize it so we can have that discussion and understand but i mean i think the purpose of having it up there just like the office of cultural affairs is for us to get a discussion going and see what our options are so that we can can move forward i would just ask if we could check into if we can actually do it first before we spend too much time trying to convince other people to sign on to something that we may not be able to do i don't see how the mechanism would work well you know i'm a believer in open and and options of not saying no to something until we've actually got an answer to it so i think what i think collectively let's get the answer before we spend hours i think it's just a telephone call the tax modernization committee will take care of that i've got complete confidence so we will look forward to guidance from city council following arts and historic committee and then future conversations with city council in terms of allocations for hospitality tax in the committee last but not least is accommodations tax revenue what i failed to do on this slide deck but is in your memo is discuss how how these funds are typically allocated so the accommodations tax or the state accommodations tax of course we are also seeing much better projections of revenues there than what we had been budgeting for we have projected a budget of revenues of 2.6 million current compared to current year budget which is about 1.5 million however based on actuals and based on prior year we're projecting about 2.5 million in actual this year um FY 2021 actuals was 1.9 which would have been the final quarter of those collections would have been impacted by the pandemic so those also were slightly reduced from what we could have seen um so gladly accommodations tax funds are looking promising the um allocations from our accommodations tax are made based upon the uh state's requirement for a turk committee the tourism i'm looking i can't remember the name full name the but basically it's a committee that's uh accommodations tax committee that is appointed also by city council um historically city council has allocated those funds to directly to lake murray and conventions visitor's bureau um unofficially in exchange those two groups do not seek funds from hospitality tax so they are only funded here from accommodations tax and those are also based on the state law in regards to who is eligible for accommodations tax there's also um a five percent allowance we call it the five percent general purpose for accommodations tax that stays within the accommodations tax but we utilize it as somewhat as general fund um city council has allocated that part of that it's gone to one columbia in the past a program called uh together we can read um and then remainder um has been utilized for either general purposes or some funding uh by city council any questions about accommodations tax i know you're going to the calendar yep last item and i know it's going to be i mean it's going to be 40 days before we meet on a budget workshop right is there a mechanism for us to make sure that we can get some more information flowing between now and then just because that that is a long gap for the amount of discussion that we need to be having and certainly there's a lot of information that we need to be doing in terms of um the for the city manager to be able to present you with a budget a proposed budget we do have two meetings in may according to your thing i mean i just two work sessions yeah two more work sessions uh in may but i would say that you know there's much information that we can share in between and possibility that if we have to to add a longer budget session on one of those dates i just you know let's be prepared for that because there is a lot of information for us to go through here coming down the pipe the city manager did want to make a recommendation for holding may 31st as another possible date for tentative budget workshop on the 31st um which would be both both um that budget workshop and the uh may 24th budget workshop would be after the budget is advertised however um you're still city council still has the ability to move money within it just basically sets amount about the auction i would maybe suggest that if we have to hold a couple hours on the 23rd which would be our meeting correct that our second meeting of may if we need 23rd is a monday it is okay so 17th i just think we ought to have in our minds that we may need to come in early if we need the time that would be met that'd be our second meeting in may the 17th much as i don't want to i think my department by itself was three hours you know was the best exercise of your life you learned so much listen to you how proficient you are now so maybe if if everybody's okay if we could maybe miss coughman we get with uh miss wilson when she's back and let's let's look at that schedule we're far enough in advance now that we can kind of maybe we might need to tweak that to get enough hours in to discuss all this that would be at your next budget workshop on on what we may we may even do is is is coordinate this schedule i mean it may end up that we're meeting every week during the month of may um and we have the opportunity because we have council days on tuesdays trying to i mean i know i called mine out is trying to pass that but let's let's compare calendars and let's get something out um this week so that everybody can uh kind of plan um second thing i want to apologize the council i have not sent y'all an update i've been trying to send a weekly update about what's going on in the mayor's office and things we're doing i will try to get that out i'm a little skinny on staff these days so we're working double um zero budget double time zero we're zeroing it out man i did it before i did it before the budget um but um i would work on uh sending out an updated memo the people that i have sent you the names for for the mayor's steady committees a call on me wondering when they're going to be called for a meeting well i'm going to be calling them because we're going to we're going to approach it a little in a different manner okay it just it just got too late for me because everybody's names were half the names i didn't get till late and this and that so we're going to utilize all those folks in a different manner and i'm going to reach out to every one of them good mr. mayor just one one of the things that i think we need to celebrate as a council last week i think uh we had a ribbon cutting a palmetto place a very innovative uh a place that has some real possible not real possibility that is up and running on two not road a vacant shopping center and the core and of course the possibility of adding in a grocery store in a food desert with the most jovial minister i've ever met my life that's right he's uh mr. mayor i think conceptually i have not seen this in south carolina and nowhere else i think in other places the way across the george or well they hadn't built it yet they're in the process in the process that's why i can't wait till he's done and we get to see it but we have the possibility of turning that vacant building into a place with 35 businesses 27 on women out 27 women owned with licenses i think it's an ideal project i think it adds volumes to what we're trying to do in our city and i just wanted to lift that up because uh you're going to be hearing more about that we can know ed we're working every day for district too thank you thank you mr. mayor and don't forget pickle ball court dedication yeah i'm i'm sure how would it's going to be there for that yeah i'm challenging the ed look let me take my mask off to say this you're your your challenge is well received all right but you're not getting any action from me man thank you miss ma'am uh missy did you have anything else no sir thank you it's been very helpful good stuff i will get back to you to y'all on on the schedule but let's let's plan that month of may gonna be busy for all of us i mean i don't i don't think it's a bad idea to even touch base in april there's a lot of i think we're gonna have to share we're gonna have to share a lot of in share a lot of information so that that we're not starting from scratch and i think that's part of the discussion that we'll have i'm looking for a motion second any discussion not hearing us seeing nothing madame clark yes yes yes hi hi