 Thank you, David. We'll call the meeting to order may have a motion to call the meeting to order. Commissioner all well seconded by. Commissioner Von check all those in favor of calling the meeting to order say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed any extensions. All right. Next is. We have a agenda that we had posted. Any changes amendments to the agenda, the agenda that was posted on board docs, we're going to make a couple of modifications. Item number two will be public forum public common. Item number three. We'll be a superintendent Flanigan's presentation of the Burlington school district. So school district presentation will be item number three. Item number four. We'll be the city of Burlington's presentation. With more. Mayor Murrow Weinberger presenting. As well as there'll be a couple of items under that, but we'll just keep it as item. Number, what did I just say? I said four. Four. Thank you. And then item five will be. Council. Claire. Well, I'll be asking an agenda item just to talk about a collaborative role for both a school board member and a city counselor. So in the original agenda, just so everyone's clear, the COVID response, we folded in these items into each of the presentations, one by the school board and one by the city. So all of the items are covered. Nothing is. And so the agenda item would be. An item that I brought up with the school board to look for a partnership with the city council. And then adjournment. And we hope to have the meeting for no more greater than 90 minutes. With each of the entities, the school district and the, the city speaking for roughly 10 minutes. So we have a motion to approve the agenda as amended. Commissioner Walts, seconded by commissioner Kerry. All those in favor of approving the agenda as amended. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed. Any abstentions. Has been passed. Next is public comment. Is there. Any member of the public who would like to speak. At public comment tonight. Please raise your hand. And the icon. All right. Seeing none. We'll move from public comment to superintendent plan again. Welcome. Great. Thank you, chair. Well, it's great to, great to see you all. I hear that these events used to have food. This is my first, first one of these convenings. I hope to someday soon have one of these with food and with us all together in person. Hopefully we're, we'll get back to that at some point in the not too distant future. And I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to talk about that. I have a presentation. So I'll share my screen. And walk through the presentation. Should take me about 10 minutes. And then. We'll just open it up for discussion. So I'd, I'd have asked. Victor Prusak. He is our. Engagement. Specialists. And so he is our coordinator, I should say. And has, has been kind of leading the, the lead sort of connector from, from my office to. Mayor's office and has worked with a number of you all as well. So I wanted him to be here. We will talk a little bit about the budget tonight. But there, I am going to be coming to you. With, with Claire. And with Nathan. Lavery. To do a budget presentation next Monday night. So I'll keep that part of it relatively. Relatively brief. So with that, I will share my screen. Okay. Is everyone seeing this? Okay. Great. So the purpose tonight is really to. Provide. And, and update on where we are with COVID-19. There's a whole lot moving there for us in the district. So I want to let you know where we are. There. I wanted to share. The BHS BTC. Project updates. And discuss the bond implications related to that project. And to review our district strategic plan, which we're near in the, in the. Close to finishing up that. And getting ready to begin implementation on the R strategic plan. And then again, that kind of quick conversation about. About the budget leading us into our Monday evening. Meeting. To present the full budget to you. So the first, first thing is, is COVID. You know, I started. About a week after I was offered. The position. Thank you. Thank you all for trusting in me and offering me the position. I was down in Providence and we had to close Providence. And, and so when I came up here. I've really only experienced Burlington in a, in a pandemic, which is. I feel like I've, I love it here. And I've also missed a lot. And in some ways I forget what it's like to, to be in a school district where we are not managing a really major crisis. And so I think that's a good point. And I know you all are feeling the same thing. So. One of the things that, that we are really working to do. And have been working to do throughout our time. Managing through this pandemic is to keep students and staff safe. Number one. And number two, to keep students in school in person as much as possible. There's tons of evidence that being in school. Is much better for, for students for their, there's been a lot of talk about, about learning and sort of the loss of learning when students are out of school. And interestingly, we didn't see a huge amount. We did see some kind of dip in our ELA and math scores on the state assessment this last year, but not as much as I would have predicted. But we have seen a lot of challenges. Among students, just kind of social and, emotional wellness. And so I think just the impacts of being out of school, just have such an enormous impact on our kids. And you could, you know, you can hear it. And when you talk to pretty much any student, they, they really want to be in, in school. And so that's, that's been a real priority of ours is to, is to make sure that we're keeping schools open. And there's been a lot of back end work to, make sure that, that has happened. They're, they're, we, we have been doing kind of a couple of major strategies that have been, I think working pretty well. The test to stay program, which is where if you are an unvaccinated student who is a close contact, you can come in and receive a test. And you can stay if it is negative. And then our contact tracing. So we've been doing lots and lots and lots of contact tracing anytime there, there is a positive case. We do a line list and we, we, we contact trace. We're spending our school nurses are spending hours and hours and hours every day starting at six a.m. and ending at nine 30 and 10 o'clock at night. Doing this contact tracing. And it is, it is actually becoming unmanageable. So we are one of the things that, that I want you to kind of know and understand before it comes out is that on Tuesday, we've learned, I learned just today from secretary French that on Tuesday, the state is planning to come out with significant major updates to their policy around contact tracing and testing. And so we don't know what that is yet, but, but I keep an eye out for that and I'll be messaging out any updates. In addition to that, we had some more recent updates. That just came out on Sunday evening around quarantining and isolation that moved that period from of quarantine isolation from 10 to five days. And, and so that was a big shift that we made. And so that was a big shift. And so that was a big shift that we made this, this year, or this since, since break since Monday. Continuing to really focus on masking indoors, making sure people are staying home when they're sick, sort of monitoring visitors. And, and just doing this overall work of keeping, keeping the community, keeping the community safe. Sorry that this, this may feel a little disjointed. I'm in some ways just trying to capture the big ideas and put them all together and as condensed the format as possible. So we'll have time for plenty of open discussion when I'm, when I'm through here, but we're really excited to have, to be close to presenting a strategic plan to the board. And Victor Prusak has been leading on that. So he can talk about that a little bit more later. And we've been working closely with, with, our school board obviously around the strategic plan leading up to this point. And so we're looking forward to January 18th to presenting the final strategic plan. It's been a really awesome process in many ways. We prioritized radical inclusion and co-creation. So a lot of times what happens is districts or school boards and districts will kind of create priorities and, and give them to people and ask for feedback, right? From the community. And this is a kind of reverse model of that where we, we trained a bunch of people, a bunch of community members, including students and families in doing empathy interviews. And they went around and did over a hundred empathy interviews around town and asked people their experiences in our district. They brought those back. This group of about 50. Community members and created a set of priorities. So we have, we have five priorities that we'll be presenting and you'll hopefully we'll, we'll pass this on January 18th. And you'll see these new priorities. And it's a five year plan. We were just finishing a five year plan. And so we're, we're starting a new five year plan. And so we, one of the things that we're really focusing on doing is making sure that we continue to engage this coalition and it's sort of a new phase of the coalition that worked with us to develop the strategic plan to keep the community engaged and involved in the develop and the implementation process. In sort of this next phase of the work. And also developing our internal systems for, for keeping pro, keeping track of, of our, our goals. And, and so we, one of the things that we're really focusing on doing is to keep track of, of our, our goals and, and continuing to come back to those and continuing to hold ourselves accountable for, for those goals. So that you should see that coming out soon. And that'll, that'll help drive the next five years of our work. As we move on BHS, BTC, this, this, I'm sure you've, you've been seeing a lot about this. I know we've communicated some, I've been trying to forward key messages along to, to you all as, as they come through. But as you, as you well know, we, we investigated over 20 sites. And look really carefully across town to see what was available for a new high school. We landed on Institute road, mostly because it, it, we own the land out right now. And it allows us to have both our technical center and our high school in the same place. And our technical center has 200, about 300 students. Some shared with our school and some and the other and, and many coming from across the region. And that's actually a great program that I'd like to celebrate at some point more publicly. And we have, so we've, we've identified the site. We've awarded a design contract to Freeman, French Freeman, Colin Lindberg and Dr. Roseanne Anderson, which is a pretty exciting team of three different, three different organizations that have come together. They bring great expertise in CTE development and in design and in sort of project management and, and, and so we're really excited about, about the opportunities here. And we've just started the preliminary site assessment and engine. We've completed the preliminary site assessment and engineering. One thing to note is, is we did receive new action levels that determine the amount of PCBs that can, that, that if they, if you, if a certain number, which is a hundred nanograms per cubic meter of PCBs are in the air, that creates an action at a school to do further investigation that those new state action levels came out right at the time that we were about to announce the, the design contract and created a lot of confusion and concern. And so we've been working through that. But the real key thing to know there is that the action levels are, are related to air. And we have a problem, not just in the air. We have a problem in our building materials as well. And those building materials, because there are PCBs, these chemicals used in building materials in the floor and the, in the kind of foundation of the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the soil outside the air. So they're really everywhere throughout the building. And it has become clear to us that it's, it's not a viable project to, to renovate this building. So we can talk more about that if you have, you have more questions later. But in, we are sort of in the initial planning process now. And one, what, what I'd like you to know mostly about the, the planning process is that we're really balancing engagement and with this steering committee and bringing people in and workshopping with the community to get input and what, while also using input that we have from pre prior engagement, we've done with the community around the building. We do have information from prior engagements and what balancing those two things with a timeline. We have a, we have an aggressive timeline of opening a building in August of 2025, a new building. And in order to meet that timeline, we need to really, we need, we just need to meet our, our, our project timeline goals. So that's going to be really important that we, that we kind of continue, make sure people have the right information that they're engaged in, that we're able to keep the project moving and balance that with, with some deep engagement. So what, where we are now is, is really thinking about all the, all the work that we need to do pre bond. And that is in the winter, in the spring, continuing site assessment. We did sort of an initial site assessment. Now we're doing a deeper site assessment, doing concept design and fundraising. And one of the important things to know about fundraising, we're going to sort of build out our fundraising muscles here in the next couple of couple of weeks and month. But we also have set aside funding from the American recovery plan. We've set aside $10 million of that funding for this project. We've also set aside 1.6 million already of our local budget. For this work. So we are, we are going to be, you know, looking at ways to, to, to set aside funding for this project internally, but also reaching out externally and, and looking for funding in many different ways. And there are a couple, there are a number of different ways that we'll end up looking for funding for this, this project to really, to really kind of help the, our taxpayers in our community through this, and help us all feel as a community that we, we've done everything we can to, to bring money to bear to support the project. In the summer, we're going to get to some more specific cost estimates. And we're aiming for a November 2022 bond. And then the last, last slide or a second to last slide is around the budget. And so the big, the big takeaway here, this shows you the, the homestead tax rate increase over the past three years. The big takeaway is that we minimized impact on taxpayers last year by not making significant investments or additions to our local budget or really any at all. And we were able to do that by being disciplined, but also by receiving the funding from the American recovery plan. And so we had funding that we were able to use to support new initiatives. And, and we didn't need to use local funding to do things like bringing restorative practices, specialists into all of our schools, providing professional learning opportunities for, for teachers, purchasing supplies for COVID and, and safety PPE and everything. And so we are thankfully also looking forward to, a modest increase next year. So our sort of our process for budgeting for next year, the budget that we will be proposing shortly is that we're not making ads or any proposed additions to our local budget. And, and, and in addition to that, there, the Ed fund has a surplus. So we are potentially looking at lower taxes or a lower homestead tax rate. So you would see a negative number here for FY 23, potentially in our, in our proposed budget. So that's the big picture of where we are. Here's the timeline of our next steps around the budget just so you can see that. But again, you'll see the same slide and the one before on Monday night. And with that, I think I did, I took 15 minutes to 10. Sorry. Yes. Yeah. I just, I was counting as 16 minutes. So we're sorry I was, I'm appreciative that we were able to get through that. And we'll recognize that we went over. So thank you superintendent Flanagan. There was a lot to cover there. And so I appreciate everyone affording us the time to cover all those topics at this time for Q and a, because the school board members have had numerous opportunities and meetings to ask questions. We want to really hear from you. The city council or the mayor or a city leadership, any questions that you might have. So this opportunity for Q and a is really an opportunity for you to speak so that we can listen. So at this time, are there any counselors or district leaders that have any follow up questions? All right. The biggest takeaway is that. Go ahead. Councillor carpenter. Thank you. All right. I didn't know I saw my hand and Councillor Barlow as well. A question I left a couple of comments. Can you explain the funding relationship. The tech center to the high school. How does that. Big picture work. Yeah, we get separate. We do get separate funding for our tech tech center. And we also have the tech center within our budget. So we do get Perkins funding. And we, and we also have, have districts pay tuition for students that are coming into the tech tech center. I don't know how to ask this. Proquely from the city of Burlington. Does it help the city of Burlington being the tech center host? I mean, it's not going away. I don't understand that, but I'm just sort of in the give and take of. Being the sponsor for that is, is that. Is that a plus to us or is it, does it make a drag on our end of the finances? Um, so I would say. BT Burlington technical center has some really amazing programming for students that is getting them licenses and really preparing them, not just for careers, but for college and career. And so there's, there's a really strong programming at PTC. I've been very impressed by the programming there. It's often thought of as, you know, the old school CTE, which is sort of preparing for career. And I know you know this, but I just figured it was worth saying that, um, how, how, how strong the programming is. And half of the students who attend BTC are our students. So of the 300 about, it's not, it's 288. It's about 140. Um, uh, give or take that are at, uh, BTC and the rest come from our neighboring districts. Um, so we are, we are putting forth some taxpayer dollars to support BTC. Uh, and, um, we are also bringing funding in just from other districts to support that. We do have a great director, uh, Jason Gingold over there who, uh, at the technical center, who's been really working with the, uh, regional advisory board. Um, and there's a lot of interest on that regional advisory board to think about ways that we can better support, uh, and, and bring resources into Burlington technical center. So I think there's, there's something there. I think absolutely it's worth us having and, and, and, but I also, but, um, and it's a great program, but that, uh, we, there are some opportunities for us to think about how to, how to better, um, support it. Um, there's two other quick comments. Um, you mentioned about the PCBs and the decision that we really do need to go forward. And I guess I would ask in about two paragraphs, if you might send us something because we get that question all the time, why, you know, what, now the state's a new level. And I would love to have a couple of quick talking points that I could talk constituents about your decision, which I believe I would certainly support. But if you could send us that, that would be great. Yeah, I'd be happy to. And I also wonder if it's worth, you know, hearing from a couple of board members about that decision. To now, you know, I think that, you know, some of us, myself included thought like this might be an opportunity to rethink. Um, but it became more and more clear. That it was really wasn't that opportunity because of the depth of problem with the PCBs. So I don't know if a board member wants the way in or not. Yeah. Commissioner Fisher. Thank you chair. Well, um, thanks everybody. And thanks for that question, Sarah. Um, or commissioner carpenter. I think this is really going to be crucial when we go to bond. Um, and through next year to make sure that the public understands this, that the, once we started to do the investigation of where the PCBs were coming from and started to look at the building materials, that put us into a different category. And that put us under the auspices of an oversight of the EPA and the Vermont department of environmental conservation. Um, we've had public speakers at our meetings. Reiterating. Hey, now the levels are lower. Why can't we just put in more, you know, air handling and it's all about the air. And so it's super important that, that we under, that we get the public to understand that we're, we're, it's not, it's not just about the air anymore. The other aspect I think is the potential cost to remedial. Right. So we're going to put something that's a high price tag. And so the question, very good question is, is it, isn't it cheaper to go back to the old high school and remediate the PCBs and maybe even do the old plan for renovation. And we got some opinions from three professional sources on the, on the cost of that or what that would be. We got some numbers, but what we also found out is there's a lot that we don't know. And so I was talking this through with a constituent and going through the materials. And I think we can actually come up with some even better materials with some other numbers because what we don't know, we should be able to put some kind of estimate and some kind of number so that taxpayers can see, Hey, here's the range that we're talking about. If we go back to the old school, here's the range that it could be and it could go up to this and it could take this amount of time. We're talking about years to get back into that building and a lot of unknowns and a lot of risks. So I think when we go public, you know, when we talk to the taxpayers, both the city council and the board, we should be able to put everything up on a side by side and say, here's what it would take to go back to the old school and here's what a new campus would look like. So it's clear that this is the right choice in terms of cost, risk and timing. One brief comment we could follow up offline. You know, we've been spending a lot of time on after the reappraisal and the tax increase. And one thing that's affected a ton of taxpayers is the lag in the homestead credit. And I just think jointly in we need to do a really good PR campaign for a lot of people, they should make it, make it up in FY 23, but they don't understand it that way. So there's a whole bunch of community work that needs to be done, explaining, improving that for a lot of people, if this was a one time problem, so. Got it. And Councilor Carpenter, I will, we will develop a couple of, you know, paragraphs to send around so you have that for. Thanks. Commissioner Barlow, City Councilor Barlow. Thank you. Councilor Carpenter actually asked one of my questions, which was that, that I've asked some of the school commissioners, which is around, is there any way to salvage, particularly a building because it is some of the most expensive part of a new high school, the auditorium food services. I know it's been operating out of there. And I thank you for sort of elaborating on why we can't. I think the unknowns definitely are probably problematic and. And remediation being unknown, it's probably, it makes sense to, to build new, but the context that that question is being asked in is the, is the size of the ask we're going to make of taxpayers. It's going to be, I mean, a brand new school when we were looking at this back in 2014, 15 was, was $120 million. So we can probably safely assume it's going to be north of that. And it's really, it's, it's, it's probable that we're going to max out the city's debt policy or come pretty, pretty near to it. If we were to try to bond for all of that. So I'm, I'm, I'm thankful to hear that at least looks like almost $12 million has been sort of earmarked already. But it's certainly going to be a huge ask. And so the more, the more of that that we can get from other sources, obviously, the better that's going to be for the city, the city's finances as a whole. So I can only say that that's, that, you know, I'm hoping, and I'm encouraged to hear this, but I'm hoping that, that, that that is definitely the, the priority right now is to try to get as much money as we can from other places before we go ask the city taxpayers for, you know, a hundred plus million dollars. Yeah. So, but thank you for that. That was, that was informative. Any other counselor. I see one hand up, but I don't know who it's assigned to. I have a question. Can I ask? Yes. Thank you. Hi, so thank you. Tom, thank you all for being here. And I think I have a couple of questions. One of them is specific, is specific to how much have you received from the American risk complaint? And it seems you're only putting aside 10 million. How much have you received your total? 26 million is around 26 million is the overall. But we are receiving it in installments. And the, the initial installment was really around getting lifting up and getting prepared under the original in the, in the original pandemic or when the, sorry, when the pandemic first hit. So yeah, we're, we've allocated, you know, about half for the building, but the other half we are, we are utilizing in ways that we really are required to, which is to address. The impacts of COVID on the learning and social emotional well-being of students. So the American recovery plan to, to create the American recovery plan, each district, their own, each district has an allotment of funds for. That the state gave to us. And we have to submit a plan to them. And we did a process where we received feedback, developed a plan and, and submitted a plan to the, to the, to the state that was approved. And the plan was in the areas of academics, social and emotional learning and, and attendance and making sure that students were, were attending. So we've done some things that the important thing to note with the American recovery plan funding is that it lasts until the year 2024, the 2024, 25 school year. And so it is limited, there are limited term funds. So we've been careful not to create many positions that we have utilized some position. We have developed like the, the initiative to bring restorative practices, specialists into each of the schools to continue to build out that priority and to create spaces that are restorative in our, in our schools and restorative school cultures. So we have to, we have to create a balance of how we, of how we plan and spend those, those funds. So we're looking at curricular resources, literacy in our, in our K5 literacy program, bringing in curriculum and training to, to support more consistency and more strategic literacy instruction. So lots of, lots of different types of initiatives or strategies like that. Thank you, council dang. Any other follow up questions. What I can share is that we look for the, the city's support for the council. And also, as a board, when we touched upon fundraising, we are looking for a campaign. You know, advisor, supervisor, many board members have talked about the city helping us in this role as well and counselors that, you know, our goal will be to do less in the burden on taxpayers. people like Kyle Clark, Bader Technology, these people are hungry to help us, along with Chuck Lacey, Mount Mansfield Union, whose daughter is an amazing artist. And so, especially at the state of the state address from Governor Scott, citing specifically career and technology, technical education yesterday. So we are very passionate about the success of fundraising independently from the taxpayers responsibility for their own high school and this regional tech center here in Burlington. So that is a big goal of ours that we look forward to pursuing. And I know City Councilor Barlow has been always passionate about helping us and developing a campaign. And so over the next few weeks, Superintendent Flanagan and myself and our board will be working on what that looks like so that we can also present those opportunities. And we hope in partnership with you as city leaders that you, you know, we've seen the opportunity that let's grow kids and funding for UVM's foundation and Champlain College, as well as, you know, other institutions of higher learning have been successful in campaigns for building things. And lastly, with the awarding of these architects, one of the architects comes strongly from Massachusetts. As we know, we are the only state east of Indiana that doesn't have construction aid. And so there are so many examples in Massachusetts of schools that have had PCB problems where the old school sits in the shadows of the new school being built. So fiscally responsible, you know, school boards in Massachusetts and Connecticut all over New England have had to deal with this problem. We are the first in Burlington that would be undertaking such a task. But we also drive people to the state of Vermont and being our only high school in the state of the city of Burlington, and this tech center that has received incredible opportunities for students or received accolades and is poised for success and support from many business leaders throughout the state. We are we are hopeful that at this time of need that it isn't just a Burlington city taxpayer problem to build these two new buildings or one campus that it's unified throughout the state. And we have reached out to our senators and delegation political delegations. And they I think they're waiting for our presentation of what it looks like. And we are finally there in this this time entering 2022 to be able to know where we're going to be building what it looks like, have the talented people who have done this before and successfully integrating tech centers with the high school. So we feel very hopeful and excited about this next step. So with that, thank you. Our time is up for our Q&A. And if there's any other follow up questions, of course, we're available by email. And we welcome that open door policy on email to ask any questions. And we will equip you with what you've asked for, not only Councilor Carpenter, but we know it benefits all of us and our mission that if you have, you know, information that you need to speak to your constituents. Now's the time. So thank you for your time. And next, Mayor Murrow Weinberger, welcome. Great. Good evening, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Claire. And thank you all for for being here. I really appreciate this opportunity to meet like this. It's something that I think really helped with the city. City Council school board relationship for a number of years there. And I think developing the kind of relationship I'm sitting down regularly helped us get through some challenges several years ago, culminating I think in some ways in that 2018 agreement that really tried grapple with a tough issue. How do we both meet these very substantial infrastructure needs with a shared and limited tax base? And I think we've missed having this forum to get together and talk through the pandemic. And I really appreciate Claire and Tom being committed to and President Tracy for being committed to make this happen again. Ironically, I think it comes at a time when this district and the city government are in some ways as coordinated, certainly as they've ever been in my decade in this role, I am really greatly appreciative of the partnership of Superintendent Planning and of Tom in the very tumultuous, incredible, you know, more than a year that he's been with us having to face major challenges. We are working as closely as I've been able to work with any superintendent. And beyond that, the way in which Tom deployed and Victor coordinated with the city through the toughest months of the pandemic, pre-vaccine was unlike anything else in terms of school, city, coordination in the past. And it continues to this day. I know Victor spent a good chunk of his day on the phone with our planning director, Megan Tuttle, looking at whether we should be buying wraps together or a mask together and teaming up with sort of to get the kind of bulk purchasing power and dealing with this very kind of challenging vendor situation right now. So that's ongoing. The timing of this meeting is really important because town meeting day is coming soon. There are three major issues that I want to talk about. So I'm going to keep my COVID remarks pretty short and I'm happy to answer questions if people do have questions for me about COVID and really focus on the three items that we are considering bringing forward on town meeting day. And each of these, so we're going to dive into it. I am going to ask for some help from members of the city team, Chip and Spencer, our director of Hull it works is here, who will help talk about the capital bond. Catherine Shad, our CAO is going to help me. I'm going to kick off some discussion about the FY23 budget. And then we also are going to talk about a tax increment financing project that we have been in some ways working on for a decade for many years, and which we have some key decisions coming up on soon. It's a main street project. So with that, I think we have a PowerPoint that Jordan will get up. We had hoped to get this PowerPoint out to you earlier. I'm sorry, we weren't able to do that. We will send around an email afterwards and perhaps a supplemental memo as well. So you'll have written documentation coming out of this. Just with the holiday, it was a little bit challenging. I know because of the holiday to some of this information is going to be not just news to this school district, but I think some city counselors are. This is an important early discussion on these town meeting day items. The board of finance has heard much of this, but some of this may be new to counselors as well. So many counselors are with us here. So let's start with the capital bond. Those of us will do it in this order. We are as, I'm sure that people are wondering and hopefully it's not an enormous surprise. We are considering in the wake of the capital bond not getting to the two thirds support that it needed in the special election in December. We have been evaluating that carefully and we are considering bringing back on town meeting day a significantly smaller bond. Why are we considering doing that even though, you know, we felt, you know, 10% short of that two thirds threshold. So what makes us be considered coming back? We did find it significant that it wasn't enough, but that a strong majority of voters did ultimately support this despite the kind of unique circumstances and headwinds that we faced with making this decision right now. And moreover, we think we can directly address some of the major concerns that we've heard about the $40 million bond. The biggest one and one that I certainly know I had some tough conversations with school board members and which, you know, which we did try to be as responsive to those concerns as we could once, but we were already airborne. We now have greater ability to be responsive to the concerns about how we can be investing in Memorial Auditorium when, you know, first of all, it's now clear that which is not entirely clear when we kind of set down this path that the downtown site is not going to be where the future BHS will be. And we have done additional work to kind of figure out how we would get through the next 18 months or so to get to the other side of the big decisions the school district has to make about the about the high school spending, keeping the building standing, which I think is important. I think many Berlin Tonians still care about that building. We need to keep the heat on there and that will because of the situation at the building require substantial expense. But just about we think we can find a way to essentially wait on deciding the future of the building for 18 months or so and take almost take 90% of the Memorial Auditorium cost out of the bond. We as you'll see in a moment are there are a few other discretionary items that were an initial that initial total and they have been cut now. We also have greater clarity about not not we're far from complete clarity. It's going to you know, the federal infrastructure bill has has passed and they are starting to get out some written direction on it. There's a lot that is still unknown. There's dozens of new programs that are being created. A lot of the programs. Yeah, we're some time from really knowing what the impact on the municipal budget will be. But we are fairly confident, at least a couple of area bridges to some degree roads. We are hopeful we will be getting some budget relieving dollars that allow us to reduce some of what we thought the local need would be there. We will have to put a little bit more money into local matches. And you'll see that's the one thing that is sort of going up in this final bond. Another thing that's changed since the vote and since we first started fielding concerns about the property about the capital bond vote is that we have now created and gotten council approval for a property tax relief program that I think might be of I think I I'll try to get too far in the weeds here. But there could be questions because this does go a little bit to some of our shared responsibilities. One of the really unfortunate aspects of the reappraisal is that a lot of tax property taxpayers that saw big tax increases got caught in this sort of gap year issue where the state assistance for the education side of the property tax is lags a year behind. And so for people who saw I think greater than a 50% or greater than a 40% increase in their valuation. There's a year before they will be getting the offsetting increased essentially assistance from the state. And so we have designed a program that we're going to put about a million dollars budget about a million dollars of our emergency funds to to help the kind of hardest hit property owners and ones that need certain that are really great in greatest need here. That's a that's a change from when we were campaigning for this before as well. Also, I think we're going to be able to be a little clearer and if we need to be clear as we have the public conversation about what the pretty severe consequences of would be of of not being able to secure any bond support even at this lower level. So with with that, that's sort of the bigger picture on the capital bond. I probably shouldn't spend a ton more time but I'll turn it over to you if you get into a little bit of detail on this on this graph here. There. Thanks. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. We'll make this exceedingly brief. These are some of the key asset class areas of what we're proposing to bring forward. As you'll see here, this is about a 70%. It's about 30% less of what was originally floated in December. So you'll see here on the left category that the different asset classes, some of which are many of which are going down. You'll see here with civic buildings. We have a multi departmental capital committee that has worked closely to sharpen pencils and look at deferring some items that can be deferred and trying to raise federal dollars where we can to to match. So some of the key areas bridges have been reduced significantly. Where you're seeing their streets and bridges are down nearly $2 million because we are fairly confident we can get federal funding to match that. And facilities was down somewhat and we have increased the local match line, which you're seeing here on this screen by a million dollars that will hopefully generate four to $5 million of additional federal funds is often our transportation projects are 20% local. So emergency response is key part of this with the fire trucks and the communication systems you're seeing here. And I'll leave it with that and we can talk through any questions like great. Yeah, there's a slide we jumped over quickly that gets into what what sort of the some of the impacts of not having to supplemental funding will be and if there are questions about them, we'll come back to that. So we are also in position where we are moving to the next topic. We are seeing little choice but to ask for some kind of operating, operating revenue assistance as well. Turn you if you want to advance to the this is this is so I want to talk a little bit about our property tax situation and for our school board members, the city councilors that have been here for the last five years. Hopefully some of this sounds familiar and is not new, but I know there are many new new people here and I think it's important to understand the situation the city is in and why you know somewhat isn't it isn't something that happens every year that the city comes forward for an increase in the property tax rate. It's much more common that happens on the school district side. It's not it's less common for a variety of reasons, mostly because the city has worked hard going back well before me and including this administration to develop other revenue sources that mean that we can deal with rising costs and expanding services without always having to resort to to property taxes. The way basically you I know have much less flexibility there the district has much less of a flexibility that fundamentally the property tax does remain by far the biggest source about half of the total or more than half the total general fund being for the city. So it is certainly our most important funding source but it is one that we have had success. We've done you know a number of years at a time without having to ask for increases to the rate and that you know that's hard to do when you have a system where as is the case with the school budgets. We we do not see essentially very almost no new revenue. Expenses rise with the rate of inflation every year. Most of our revenue some of our revenues rise but the property tax does not rise with inflation at all. It requires a vote of the public for there to be new the new revenues and that can be offset if you have a period of development and investment and it's certainly something we focused on and we're trying to encourage investment does result in new revenues but generally historically we have somewhere between a half a percent and one percent a year of new revenues from development. And so that really creates the annual challenge that we face. How do you keep up without cutting city services? How do you keep up with the rate of increase when the revenues don't increase with inflation? You see we've done pretty well that over a large period of time and and certainly over the last decade when I've been in charge of these budgets we've kept the total city rate of property tax increases less than the rate of inflation considerably less than the rate of inflation. That in 2019 we came forward and asked for a small operating rate increase and and we signaled at the time that we were concerned that some of these larger trends that had allowed us to keep up with inflation without property tax increases were likely kind of coming to an end. Our ability to keep creating new revenue sources is being regulated and constrained by state government and and you know we're not anticipating major change in the development revenue. So if you advance the next slide this is this is where I'm talking about that we've had inflation has been up about 24 percent over the last decade. Total municipal tax increases are up about 20 percent and now we're facing over the last year and some degree of the year before that some of the some you know much higher rates of inflation than we've faced historically and really the largest thing is everyone is aware you know we're up at close to 7 percent now for the last year which is the highest you've seen since 1982 and we are anticipating that that is really going to hit our bottom line in the upcoming year as we are negotiating for new collective bargaining contracts. Here's another way to look at these historic trends and really what's happened over the last 10 years and what you can see in this is that if you look at the bottom half of the graph you well everything other than debt service if you will largely balances out that you have we have had these are all the different city taxes and we have had many that have not kept up with the rate of inflation a number that have that have been a little above it and that back cancels out that services really the difference that service and retirement are the two differences we we have made you know in console you know in kind of coordination with with the school district and with lots of deliberation discussion we have been making much greater capital investments over the last decade because you know frankly we needed it our we had had chronic underinvestment in many areas until this 10 year capital plan that was approved by the voters back in 2016 that the debt service part of our municipal bill which is about 20% has gone up by design significantly and we think it needs to go up and continue to go up. If you this is also an interesting graph I think to frame up this discussion what you can see here is the kind of going back 15 years now and I'm sorry we don't have it updated till it'll be the last two. It would be a little bit of a change. We will update it. I would like to see it represented here because you know over the last couple years your as Tom just reported the school district rate has been rate increases have been very modest. The red line shows that you know going back 15 years though the rate in which the school taxes have been going up has been substantially kind of steeper curve if you will then the city rate which is the blue line at the bottom which has been considerably flatter and what the green line shows is that as a result the what our kind of shared taxpayers pay every year the percentage of their bill that is going to the to the city has been going down pre sharply over that 15 year period of time and I think the same was true for about the 10 years or so before that as well. So it's gone from since 2006 about 40% it's a little maybe a little confusing to measure the green line you got to look at the yellow numbers on the right side. It's gone down the city getting about 40% of the property tax revenues to about 31% as of a couple years ago and it's still approximately there now. So in some ways that's great. Right. We needed major investments. Our schools community that support schools I think it's been great school that the city has been able to kind of work with the district and and avoid increase increases of the property tax rate to so that we can all kind of make it through. You know get all the needs met what what I've been raising concerns about and really trying to be explicit about it now is we are really concerned that these trends are going to be hard to sustain going forward. And what we are doing now here in 23 we also did before the pandemic in 20 and in 19 it there needs to be some more frequent rate increases for the city. If we're if we're going to be able to continue the level of municipal services that I think the public you know has come to expect and demand. So that's that's sort of the backdrop to this. The pandemic made everything a little bit crazy and I won't spend too much time on that. I think the next slide kind of sums it up. We did get this tax increase in March of 20. And then we didn't use it in 20 because the pandemic hit. We didn't we deferred that tax for a full year even and deferred creating this 30 ambulance. The voters had supported for a full year the housing trust fund tax that had increased we deferred for two years. We don't think we can continue that kind of deferral. And let's get to the next slide. Here's why we think for the first time since FY 21 we we do need to come forward again. And you know I know Catherine not losing a ton of time here but I'll turn it over to you if you want to say some quick things about how you're looking at the 23 budget. Thank you, Mayor. I will be brief as the mayor mentioned we are facing substantial inflation and during a year when we are negotiating with all four of our labor unions we are assuming that will lead to increases in our workforce costs. As we mentioned that's compounding because there are still costs from the FY 18 contract that have been sort of buoyed by first the unassigned fund balance and then some of these federal funds that need to be built into the structure of the property tax. We have also invested heavily in new equity investments. So we are going to be talking with the Board of Finance on Monday and of course given the election calendar we will need to act before the end of the month. And then on the next slide we just briefly wanted to reiterate and I'll let you read these to remind you of all of the ways in last year's budget we really were afforded the opportunity to increase our commitment to equity in these tangible ways. But in some ways we did use one-time money and so through a variety of ways including likely a rise in the property tax we will need to continue to fund these next year. And I think that's an alternative over to you Mayor. Yeah great I mean I just I want to say a couple more things about these equity investments and I think frankly I think this is an area where in some ways the district was ahead of where the city was leading up to 2020. We in the wake of the murder of George Floyd we had a massive community conversation about the need to accelerate the city's racial equity racial justice work we had we had started down that path of really getting more intentional about this work in 2019 we hired our first racial equity inclusion and belonging director but there's no doubt that what happened in 2020 really accelerated rightly our focus on this our investment in this area. We made investments to go beyond racial equity as well and you can see some of the other ways there. I will say we are working hard we were certainly aware as Tom mentioned of course you guys were aware that that and we signaled when the budget was passed last year that we didn't have structural funding for certain areas we we are continuing to work and certainly if the build back better plan passes which will be vacant some new structural funding from the federal government there I think is a substantial opportunity we are hopeful in the years ahead to pay for some of these equity investments with non local sources and this will be a small part of any tax increase in the FY 21 budget in the starting FY 23 budget but it is something that we are that we do have to grapple with in the in this year and probably the years to come is how are we going to make good on on these commitments that we talk that you know that we commit to in 2020 so I think that's it for the FY 23 budget discussion and then finally it will be as brief as we can I do want to talk this too requires a little bit of historic context we want to talk about our downtown Tiff district tax increment financing you know so I think probably everyone on this call has heard about it I imagine there might be unless you kind of get into the weeds on it can be a pretty confusing topic I think the top line the headline that I hope everyone is aware of and agrees with at some level is that Tiff districts have had a major impact on Burlington's evolution over the last 30 years a lot of what we enjoy about the water front today would not have happened without a Tiff investment in the waterfront and that investment has led to a massive increase in the grant list in the waterfront Tiff district over that life and some of that we're coming towards the end of the waterfront Tiff district's life and the city and the Ed fund will in just a few years be getting a pretty substantial boost in revenues when that Tiff district expires because of that success we basically have an opportunity and have been working for a decade now to do the same kind of transformative improvements to downtown we can go to the next slide sorry I think you dropped jumped over one real quick yep next one yeah there we no there we go so I guess this doesn't say that much on it other than the we well sorry it's one more back turn there's like is important well sorry maybe I'm screwed up here the basically the point is we go go ahead and advance we we started down this path 10 years ago mayor kiss got the waterfront Tiff district approved maybe it's the next slide there was a vote in 20 middle of the decade 2015 that authorized the first funding into the into the downtown Tiff 10 million dollars of funding we used that to rebuild St. Paul Street and make important investments in the it was part of the city hall park transformation as well we have a lot more capacity in in the in the downtown Tiff district there's about $35 million of total capacity and what we have been focusing on is the major transformative investment and talking about for years would be a rebuilding a main street that would be in some ways even sort of more dramatic and impactful than the St. Paul Street rebuilding and if we can advance the next slide this just says our time our we're approaching a key deadline on this and that and we would have been here sooner if it wasn't for the pandemic the legislature has twice granted us and all the other Tiff districts in the state one year extensions because of the pandemic but in March of 23 is our outside deadline for incurring debt in the downtown Tiff district we don't incur debt by then we lost our ability to do that and and a lot of money flows back to Montpelier some of it would end up in the Ed fund and maybe defusely get it might make its way back to Burlington but the impact in Burlington would be much less than if we make this investment if you go to the next slide so the what we've been eyeing is a transformation of main street eyeing is not quite the right word we've been planning and working hard on it transformation of main street for many years now this is the block believe it or not just south of sorry west of St Paul street the that building on the left side is is where the bike shop I mean I've made your brain cramp here but it did help me out here chief north star sports north star sports glad they're not on the call that's it's that block which currently has diagonal parking on both sides of the street if you go from diagonal parking to parallel parking you can get a sense you suddenly get a totally different public space you get protected bike lanes on both sides of the street you get these green areas that protect the lake and have a stormwater filtration roll you get these very healthy tree tree belts that would allow us to reclaim some of the historic canopy that Burlington had back you know on the Elm tree period we have one more graphic here that sort of shows how you can get such a change the middle row there is the existing street where you can see 73 feet of our 99 foot right away is currently dedicated to asphalt if you go if you make the simple change of going from diagonal parking to parallel parking you retain three quarters of the parking and you can also get in all these other aspects the bike lanes the tree belt and the additional wide sidewalks and areas opportunities for outdoor seating so that's why we've been working towards this and the deadline is approaching on us so the bottom line is we are we really have two choices to bring forward Tiff authority vote for this project either this March or potentially next no November by next March it will be too late and we will not it would be extremely complicated and probably impossible to incur the debt in time and the good news on this that we certainly worked to remind voters of is there is no impact on property tax rates as a result of a yes vote and that makes it certainly much easier to for voters to accept than a you know than a capital bomb vote which does have an impact on the property taxes we're gonna have to work hard I think you know there may be substantive concerns I'm sure we will hear concerns about construction disruption we're gonna work really hard having learned to take all the lessons learned from the St. Paul Street effort and minimize the impacts on merchants and the public and so when I leave it at that I know since I've gone probably too long but a lot a lot of big stuff going on thanks Claire thank you very much Mayor at this time are there any follow-up counselors and some some of the counselors had questions I mean weren't able to see all that document first and school board members for the mayor all right seeing none it's it's clear that Commissioner Fisher Councillor Carpenter has her the hand raised I didn't see that sorry thank you Councillor Carpenter hi I just want to repeat to the mayor and all of us we very quickly need a really good public information campaign on how the taxes work this whole issue of the lag and the homestead credit I mean we've only got six weeks to do this and so I just we got to get cracking on that and it's going to have to be redoubled for November because people are not going to understand this agreed sir public information is going to be key and it is different these you know that the change in the COVID voting really changes elections and we're all we're it's it front loads when you know they need to get the information out faster given that a lot of people vote right at the beginning of the election sector yeah I would speak to that on behalf of the board we recognize that there will also be some board members that will not be running again for election and so we'll have some new candidates as well as those candidates being educated and and those that are looking to run again as well as city counselors I know it's election time for the eight city eight school board members and for city counselors this town meeting day as well so it behooves us both to have those talking points as well as a clear understanding of what's involved so from the school board's perspective based on the December ballot and you going forward 25 million dollars is what you you will be presenting to city council for approval for yeah I would say that what we just showed you is the first this is the first we've been working since December 7th on a refinement and this is not a final document yet really this is the first time we've been positioned to talk about it publicly this meeting we will be on Monday going to the board of finance and having we had an initial discussion with the board of finance already that we were likely to come come you know we had a meeting after the December 7th where we told them we were working on this and talked about some of these issues this is the first time we'll have a conversation with some numbers so yes the board of finance and school and sorry and city councils have not weighed in on this yet and we need to take action if we're going to put it on the March ballot at the January 24th meeting is when there would need to be a vote okay and then the TIFF ballot item would be no cost to taxpayers that would be yeah I mean some people maybe object to saying it quite like that but I mean this is taxpayer money in some sense but the way it works you can vote yes in there this is money that has the way the TIST districts work these money has been sort of segregated in a way and a yes vote or a no vote has no impact on the tax bills you're going to get from the city you know next year or years year after and this is ultimately all property tax dollars still but it's largely property tax dollars coming from future development from from and might make you know the concept of is development that didn't exist before the district was created and that the district the existence the district and the investments the districts are expanding the pie are are growing the property tax base that will be there and there's a lot of good data to back up that that's the way it's worked in in Vermont not just in Burlington but in other Vermont's other other TIFF districts commissioner all well thank you I've been very leery of TIFF and TIFF districts and you know this I've questioned it many times and from across the country many other cities and states have stopped using TIFF and their biggest reason is that it takes away funding from schools so if you don't if you want us all to support this I've asked this many times and I have never gotten a straight answer from anyone in city hall how this works with schools and I really would like to know that I'm not being obnoxious or anything I really want to know how this works and why is it that states across the country have stopped using it for that reason great Kathy I appreciate getting this out of the table certainly for this meeting I think it's a good place for us to really discuss this and try to try to talk it through it is absolutely the case that almost that every state in the country has TIFF districts just about and many many states and cities use this I'm not aware of a movement or a trend away from them there is some certainly there are controversy in other states as there are some controversy in in Vermont about them there are a lot you're not alone and not liking TIFF districts but I don't I don't I don't know that it's if you have that's actually new to me if you're aware of there being some major trend to get in the direction that's not when I talk to my mayoral colleagues many of the cities that I've visited and seen that have done great things with their public spaces have largely done it with the benefit of TIFF districts they can have a huge impact just like they have had on the Burlington waterfront and are have you know you wouldn't have had the investment in Winooski that has happened over the last 10 years 15 years without that that TIFF district St. Albans has had this incredible resurgence in recent years TIFF played a huge role in that so this does come down a little bit to I think the controversy on TIFF a lot of it comes down to whether you believe that government public infrastructure investment can has an impact on people's what making investments in the city or or not all those examples I just gave you seem to me quite compelling examples of how investments in lake street investments in the bike path investments in waterfront park investments in that whole street network in Winooski have led to enormous growth in the in the grand list in in those cities and if that happens schools are beneficiaries ultimately it takes some time the way TIFF works out because the way it works is this Kathy I'll try to be as straightforward as I can the in 2015 I think is the year it began incremental new revenues that began flowing into the downtown TIFF started to be segregated 75% I believe of the revenues the new revenues of both the municipal taxes and the ed fund taxes when there was new taxes didn't do anything to erode the existing taxes but in fact any new taxes 25% and this was a legislative change does continue to flow to the ed fund in the city but 75% of the new tax revenues flows into this district and it is there accumulating and building up and that's why we say there's 30 million dollars of capacity there about 30% of which would have been going to the municipality without the TIFF district investment 70% would be going to the ed fund go to the Montpelier ed fund and so that's why now it will be accurate when we talk to voters if we have this on the march ballot a yes vote a no vote has no has no impact on on the that what is happening in this district is completely segregated from ed fund and city finances at this point a yes vote a no vote does not result in a change to that segregation if if you were to never use that money the money would ultimately be returned to the ed fund but there also would not be as much money in all likelihood it's a whole theory here without the prospect and the actual investment of public infrastructure investments thank you for explaining that and I'm sure we'll we'll like superintendent Flanagan you know creating those narratives for us to be able to understand and explain will be incredibly valuable the time is 725 so I want to be cognizant of keeping everybody on time of ending the meeting by 730 but I do see school commissioner Haji your hand up so next question thank you Mayor Weinberger I'm wondering what community involvement looks like through the tip district deadlines and how this information is accessible for community members great in thank you so the we do have and maybe Jordan could could share even as we're talking here you can do the share screen there is a web page that exists for this great streets effort already and has been up for for years in that there was an earlier in Chapin you can help me out here if you remember the timing on exactly I think there was a lot of public engagement and effort around this already back leading up to the St. Paul street work and so 2016 2017 2018 there was a there was a lot there was some community engagement already clearly over the next two months if if this is going for town meeting day that needs to be re reengaged and restarted and good news that is one benefit of the pandemic is we now have a lot greater capacity for the city has added capacity for communicating with some members of the community that we I think historically have not done as good a job communicating about initiatives like this so we're talking about our trust and community voices program that has where we have representatives from each of the numerous different refugee communities that now are are part-time city staffers and that help us communicate with these these communities and so that will be one way is that we'll be we'll be sharing information out through our trust and community voices there certainly will be numerous public meetings combined effort between CEDO public works that and the and the church street the business support group are on this rowey to engage downtown stakeholders and in that effort it's definitely on our mind and needs to be a priority to make sure we're communicating you know not not just with the downtown stakeholders but with the whole range of Brawinton's community and we've already signed up to go to of course all the MPAs and do all the standard things but we we do have these new tools which we will be using to engaging all of them it's the community do you want to add anything to that Chapin given the time that sounds great happy to answer any questions after thank you and we also have Commissioner Vanda Putin Commissioner Kerry and Commissioner Fisher with three follow-up questions Commissioner Vanda Putin thanks Commissioner Fisher had his hand up before I did would you are you okay with this okay thanks so thanks for the presentation as I'm digesting this I have one question and one comment my question is about how the tax revenue sources and sort of this pressure that you are anticipating are affected by the undeveloped property in the downtown district the area next to Macy's or what we're calling downtown VHS so if you could speak to that that would be great and then I will add my brief comment after that thank you great thanks thanks Polly so yeah this is I really appreciate the question because this is something else that is I think widely misunderstood because the city place parcels are in actually the waterfront Tiff district which is a weird technical detail probably not worth getting into but because it's in the waterfront Tiff district the fact that there has been a modest reduction in the that property when the mall was there was one of the largest property taxpayers in the city and there has been a reduction of about 150,000 a year total I believe is the number it's been a little while since I've looked at this but I think it's about $150,000 a year reduction in the property taxes that that property was paying when the building was taken down and however because it's in the Tiff district that was incremental revenue and so that was revenue flowing to the Tiff district not to the not to the Ed fund or to the city so there's really been effectively no impact on our on the on the Ed fund or the city's operating revenues because of a couple years several years now of those reduced revenues of course you know the long the medium and long-term prospects one of the reasons we're doing this is a great example you know what the hope is if and when we succeed with this and there's active efforts going on as as you know there that will go from being one of the largest property tax paying parcels in the city to by far the largest property tax paying parcel you would go the estimates were from a total payment of about 800,000 to something like approaching $3 million in total property tax payments and that is a development that you know absolutely the vision of the development there involves this new public infrastructure cutting through the parcel making it a much more developable parcel making it possible to have housing and retail and you know multiple levels of development and and you know a real neighborhood there that's you know kind of an example of the promise of districts and how investments in new streets or public infrastructure can result in a big increase in the property tax revenues and there would be a a period in which those new revenues through 2035 75% of them would be flowing to the TIFT district but after that there's a huge bump to the the Ed fund and and and the municipal taxes and that was one of the motivating reasons for for for pursuing this okay thanks that's pretty significant and I think also in terms of public perception pretty significant my comment is that I'm glad we're meeting tonight and I'm wary of the timeline and worried about competition for resources and I look at the things that you are talking about for improvement of the city and I look at the need for a high school and tech center and I think that there they they can't be in competition you can't have one without the other and you certainly can't have a thriving city without the thriving invested community meaning a really great school so I hope we continue this conversation because you know anecdotally I know families that are leaving they are moving to other districts nearby or they're choosing if they can afford it to send their kids to private schools and that's a great loss for our city and makes it much harder to do all these great things if we don't have them here so I feel a sense of urgency and I really hope that we do not find ourselves in competition between city projects and and this necessary urgent school project that we have coming up thank you thank you Commissioner Vander Putin Commissioner Fischer thank you Chair Wolf I want to return to Commissioner Allwell's question or concern about TIFs TIF districts and from and I and I think it comes down to the deferral of of the taxes and and the diversion of those taxes in the in the in the beginning of the of the the timeline and so the question that I have I'm with I'm with Kathy is understanding if I get that there's a value that comes like with the waterfront but that's an indirect value over a long period of time my concern I think Kathy's concern is what we've heard is that it the projects that that happen through the TIF divert the the taxes from the normal stream and so therefore they would not reach the school district until a certain amount of period has has gone by so I don't need an answer tonight but I think that's part of Kathy's questions and my concern is how would that impact the amount of of funds that that that come to the school district in the short term and then over over time thank you I think we'll have the mayor respond to us if you don't mind at a later with a more that's okay commissioner Fisher so that we'll move to commissioner carries and adjust the time commissioner carry thank you for that my question was very similar I just wanted to know if no portion of the TIF funding mechanism could be directed to the construction of high school and sounds like it can't be that's but I'm not sure about how that works again it's similar to what Kathy and Michael have it sounds like no portion of the TIF funding mechanism that's right explicit explicitly in the way the TIF program works TIF revenues TIF district investments cannot be in school education fund projects this is and there's a long history on this of course this is really the main way in which and really basically the one of the only ways in which the state provides any support to municipalities for infrastructure is through the TIF program and that's why the rules are written that way so you absolutely cannot the question of Mike and and Kathy are raising our I think fair debates and questions to have at the beginning when you're making a decision to start a TIF district or not and there are and I think there are and should be robust debates about that you know I think it is certainly the people like me who believe in TIF districts really try to make the case I'll say it one more time quickly that like in the the Burlington City Place is a great example you're not going to get $3 million a year in tax payments from that site unless you make it this mixed-use neighborhood and do this dramatic transformation same thing certainly what's going on when you would have and had nowhere near the spectacular tax growth that they've had without this but it's a fair debate and and people can make the other argument that debate with the we're pressed to the with respect the downtown TIF district however happened a decade ago and the decision was made to create this new TIF district the decision that will be before voters is is not a choice can we send some of the money to the to the schools it is a question of whether we make it an investment in this or you know or or not if we choose to make no investments with the downtown TIF project eventually many years from now some money would flow back to the ad fund but I did not see that as a good outcome for for Bryant all right thank you very much for explaining that and we'll follow up as well as actually just one more thing Claire I know the time is late but I do just want to leave no one with any doubt on this how committed I am and supportive I am to a new high school getting built as soon as possible I have one daughter in high school currently I have another one I intend to send there I product of Vermont school system completely believe supported wholeheartedly that the the $70 million bond for the high school years ago and anticipate will have every expectation to be fully supporting this one and working with you to pass this one and have and as I have supported all but the very first school budget in my 10 years in this in this role now so I I know it's it's needed I know the impact on the community and I think you know what we have done together in 2018 and maybe maybe we should talk more about this I know the hour is getting late now we created a mechanism where I feel that I I can be wholeheartedly supportive of a very substantial number for this new high school and have that consistent with the fiscal responsibility that this administration has always stood for have that be have we can make a very substantial investment with no concern that Moody's will downgrade us and we'll lose some of the gains you know we have the gains we have made together restoring the city's credit rating have saved Burlington taxpayers and education fund taxpayers tens of millions of dollars over our borrowing because we've gotten back to a double A rating because we have this debt policy that we created together we know and we've checked in with Moody's on this recently we know that there's substantial additional capacity and will be very substantial additional capacity even if the city does get support for this 25 million dollar bond there will be the ability to go way beyond and I don't think it's prudent to talk exact numbers until I don't think I think the school district should be the one talking exact numbers but we have been in conversation with Tom and Nathan and Claire and looking at our debt policy and there is very substantial capacity to bond for a new high school because of the work we've done together and be confident that we will not negatively impact our bond rating which would send us backwards financially in this effort so I'm committed to this I've done a lot of work to put us in position for this to be to be successful and for the city to be successful and I want to be a partner with you through the key period ahead and also a partner Claire has made it clear she wants my help with the private fundraising I think I can be helpful with that when we get that teed up and at the right moment and so I want to be a full partner with you in the success of that project Thank you very much and on that note I know we all feel really strong about the next seven weeks and working with Council President Tracy Superintendent Flanagan and the mayor and all of us together communication printed materials including the high school on those printed materials even though we were a November bond to come will be absolutely important that it's acknowledged and recognized and I know we were really passionate about that speaking to you in November for the December election a valid item so thank you so much the last item was simply to reach out and ask that it had come as a suggestion Commissioner Fischer had had recommended board officers and I wanted to reach out and will do follow up after this just based on time with Council President Tracy we thought it would be important or helpful and positive to if a member of city council and a member of the school board would act as liaisons between the two civic groups leadership groups in this in the city so that we could connect and again whoever wants to volunteer in this role as well as keeping us informed of city council updates and news we know we read your updates on Frontport Forum and we also read your minutes as well but it would just be an opportunity to have a more intimate heads up on things that are critical and that are happening as shared timelines as we move forward so I'll pursue that it's something we could do on email that I can work with Council President Tracy but we hope that that is something that we believe would benefit all of us especially at this time based on our issues and our positivity moving forward and gaining positive results mainly open communication so we do believe it would be helpful from our end and we hope you do as well and I saw you shake your head Council President Tracy so thank you for that reception and with that if there's any other follow-up questions or anything I've missed I just wanted to check back in with you Superintendent Flanagan you're muted sorry hey let me get my volume on no just thank I appreciate the opportunity the only thing I was going to say is that I haven't had that I've had the chance to meet with most of the City Councilors but any new City Councilors or any City Councilors who I've already met with last year when I was doing my sort of welcoming tour I'm happy to meet anytime so just please feel free to reach out if you have questions we'll get some updates to you and I wanted to say this at the beginning and I didn't and based on the sort of end of the conversation there I just have really appreciated my partnership with Moreau and sort of our work together I've always felt even though I know we have some you know some complex stuff to work through together as we work together as a City Leadership Group we've been meeting regularly and working together closely and I've really valued that partnership as well as that of many of you on City Council and just appreciate you know the collective spirit here I think we all care about and want the best for our students and for our streets and for our community and so I look forward to continuing to collaborate and I think this is a great opportunity and hopefully next time it's over some food thank you well said and thank you on behalf of the school board as well and I noticed some of our attendees as well were city leaders within your leadership team and thank you so much for those city leaders that were present and are listening in and we greatly appreciate your time tonight thank you and with that may I have a motion to adjourn this meeting so moved seconded by Councillor Allwell all those in favorite adjourning say aye aye aye aye aye aye all right the meeting has been adjourned thank you very much City Council very appreciative thank you Mayor