 Welcome to the board of finance meeting. Mayor Weinberger will be joining us just slightly late, so I'm going to get us going. So I'm going to call this meeting to order at 504 p.m. And the first item on the agenda is the agenda. So that item 5.02 has been postponed and is there a motion on the agenda. Thank you. Is there a second second. Thank you all in favor please say aye. Any opposed. And the motion carries. The next item is public forum. Are there members of the public who would like to speak. No one has is raising their hands. So we will go ahead and close the public forum. We do have a couple of items on the consent agenda. Do I have a motion on the consent agenda. So we'll take the action. Adopt the consent agenda and take the action so syndicated. Excellent. Is there a second. Great. Thank you. All those in favor please say aye. Any opposed. And that motion carries unanimously. We are on to item 4.01, which is amendment of a work agreement for the redstone tank rehabilitation. And we would like to start. Director Megan Moyer is going to hit this one. Excellent. Please go ahead. Hi all. Hopefully the memo explained it. But basically this project was set to be started and completed several years ago prior to the COVID pandemic. In part because of COVID delays, but also because we've been wrangling wrestling, whatever the appropriate verb is with our cellular leasey. It's been long standing. But in order to do our take maintenance, we need them off. And figuring out exactly how to do that. Has been a bit of a challenge. We think we are making headway. But the maintenance company, the rehab company did inform us that for multiple reasons, as we're all seeing. That there is an inflationary costs increase. Fortunately, we were able to reach out to our, our leasey and discuss the situation and they were willing to make a cost sharing payment that happens to be the same value as the cost increase. And so overall it is a budget neutral impact to the drinking water fund. Great. Thanks again. Are there any questions or is the board ready to make a motion? Any questions or is the board ready to make a motion? I'm having questions. I'm having to make a motion. Great. Thank you, President Paul. Is there a second? Second. Great. Sorry, Councillor McVeigh, Councillor Barlow just beat you to it. Are there any other questions or discussion? Are we ready for a vote? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion carries unanimously. And that brings us to item 4.02, a request to execute a contract with ADS environmental services, bless you, for the flow monitoring and data hosting services. We're back to division director Boyer. Hi, y'all. So this effort, you know, I'll say at the outset I know it seems like a lot of money, but this data is imperative, not just from meeting regulatory requirements, but also to make sure that we're able to design cost effective approaches to reducing and hopefully in some cases eliminating combined sewer overflows. So in the last year, the cost of the nation, people are finding that these monitoring efforts having tightly calibrated models enables us to design right sized systems and not over design or under design and then have to come back. It is a function that we've tried to do in house. Actually, when Linty is one of our water resources engineers, she's a PE. And she's been sending vast amounts of her time during the summer months, trying to keep these flow meters running. There are very harsh environments with lots of you can imagine in a sewer toilet paper all sorts of things that people flushed down the toilet can get hung up on these meters and rip them apart and they have to be put back in and it's not as easy as actually just going out by herself. These are combined spaces. She's not allowed by Usha standards to enter them herself and so it actually takes up to three people at a clip in order to get in. So we as a trial with our hydraulic and hydrologic modeling update. We worked with a actual company who specializes in this has seen all of the crazy manholes that you can throw at them and knows how to install these meters so that they're less maintenance intensive and then also they're monitoring them they're figuring out if they're not responding and so we don't find out after the fact after we've had an event. Oh darn, you know one of those meters wasn't working as we have found it to be incredibly helpful the data quality is, you know, excellent. And we are recommending that the city make this investment so that we have this continuous data stream source and can do right by the city when it comes to designing the next slew of projects. Excellent. Thank you. Any questions from the board. Yes. Thank you. Is WRD so they'll be doing the, if there's a problem they'll come in and fix and maintain. So they own the equipment because we've tried owning our own equipment and trying to keep up with the capital investments of losing sensors down the sewer and whatnot. So they're monitoring it they're installing it if we need to move them around, and they're coming in doing the maintenance when a sensor or something is not responsive. It's turnkey. It's not us doing part of it and them doing part of it is a complete thing so that my staff who need to be focusing on all the other city projects can be focused on those and be getting the data as necessary versus having this other duty that they have to do on the side. I'll add to that too. They also provide an additional quality analysis of the data too. So it's not just the raw data that we see on the hosted website they actually go through and what we do what they call scrubbing data where they'll actually clean up the data and present that and provide that information to us on a monthly basis. So when we have a CSO in the past we would have to just estimate the volume of the CSO you know between 1000 and 10,000 gallons or 100,000 gallons which none of us want any gallons to go out and being able to say the exact amount of gallons that went out is I think important for us in the public and maintaining trust and and also demonstrating that with the some of the projects that we're implementing, we are actually decreasing the amount over time. Excellent. Any other questions. From 2020 to now, what system were you using to monitor? Previously we're using a system called the blue siren we've always had alarms at our combined sewer overflows which just tell us it's overflowing versus it's not overflowing right because that's something that's been in place for a while. The recent emphasis in 2016 as I'm really knowing what the volume is and so we did purchase ourselves and implement blue siren technology which was it was good but it had a lot of problems actually spent a lot of her time troubleshooting you know cell signal would go out I think sensors would get blinded and the systems only lasted I think about five years basically they reached the end of their useful life and so that's why instead of just going out and purchasing additional we looked at other ways of doing this in this more turnkey approach where the company is doing the capital investment like if they have a meter that dies it's on them to replace it for the same you know monthly cost that that they quoted us. My question is the blue siren and the light ending in early 2022 but I'm asking from early 2022 now what system were you using what were you using to monitor? Yes, we were using the ADS system so they were procured by our consultants our consultants been through a procurement process and looked at the two regionally available full service flow metering companies. And so we've had a year's worth of experience with ADS, which is why we feel confident that they are a good vendor to move forward with obviously at the end of the three years we will do another procurement process and make sure that their value is still good compared to the other regional company or maybe there's another regional company that sprung up. Does that answer your question? I think the funding is coming 25% from this water, so basically there won't be any additional fees, this is all under budget and this is exactly how you would be using pay for it. Yes, it's in the FY24 budget and will be in the future budgets. Okay. Any further questions? Are we ready for a motion? I'd be happy to make the motion. Thank you, Councillor McGee. Is there a second to the motion? Thank you Councillor Barlow. All those in favor please say aye. Any opposed? Yes. Yes, sure. No, it's okay. This is such an investment and I was just also wondering if you can monitor whether or not this is good. Yes, we can absolutely have to. Yeah, it's the right committee that would review how this is going periodically before we're getting to the end of the third term to figure out what to do next. So we don't need to put it in the motion. I would say if you wanted documented so that none of us forget, I would say put it in the motion. Sure. I couldn't hear because the kid TV show in the background, you would like the tube to review the results prior to the expiration of the. Okay, awesome. No, I'm fully on board and it would be great to share the data with everybody so they can nerd out like we do. Excellent. So we have a first and a second with our friendly amendment. Are we ready for a vote? Great. All those in favor please say aye. Any opposed. And the motion passes unanimously. Thank you for your support. Have a good Monday. And that brings us to our first budget presentation. Mayor Weinberger would you like to kick us off. Yes. I'm going to take a stop and then I think after I will try to act team this overview. And that's what we'll share on people online PowerPoint. My start by saying, you know, and I think probably say this just about every year and on the every government feels this way. This is our, it's a challenging budget year. From my sense having done, I guess this is the 12th one now that I'm responsible for in some ways. This is certainly similar to the other three pandemic era budgets that we've done in that there is a lot of moving parts and complexity to it and challenges. In some ways, I would say that first pandemic budget certainly felt excruciatingly hard. This one I think is the hardest one since in that we have just a variety of new pressures or expanded pressures that will go through. We will we're going to walk you through what what these pressures are and what they mean they mean a very significant gap when in some sense at this point in the process and then we have a number of solutions to close the gap that I think are are are reasonable and doable. So that's that's sort of the balance of this presentation or start with the problem and then we'll go to the solutions for counselors who are going through this for one of the first times, you know, we have where this is headed and we'll review the schedule at the end but we have about a month now. We met today and when a little more than a month between today when the administration will submit the budget to the council is always our goal to submit a budget that is ready for you to basically approve. We will and we we're not there tonight they're all there's work that is going to need to happen over the remaining five weeks to guess where we need to be. We also have after tonight the departmental presentations where we get in to what's going on in a little more detail than this is going to what's going on within the departmental budget. So, with that setup, when we advanced, we have a kind of want to go through perspective basically says we just said, here, here are really the big factors that make that is making these budgets tough. We've had unprecedented cost of living adjustments, maybe not unprecedented in the six whole history but much higher than in recent years in the cost of living adjustments that are in the union contracts really driven by inflation so the big jump was last year's budget the FY 23 budget we have another big jump in this year's budget and if you recall, we didn't increase the taxes. I think it's important to remember it would be did not. We're not successful at getting a voter increase for the colas last year so we sort of have two years of colas that we are needing to digest in the FY 24 budget that gets easier. Unlike some of these other things are going to get harder in FY 25 and 26. The colas return we've negotiated for the next two years just one year. Some of the contracts is two years. Yeah, public safety. So, the next next year, we will be much more down with what we're used to dealing with a 3% co up. And that'll be the case for the next two years on the non public safety contracts the public safety contracts I guess we'll have to have to start negotiating soon. One of the reasons that we were able to get through the last couple of budget years without tax increases is because of just how under staffed our police department was, and that is we are projecting and hopefully this is the case that that is turning continuing to turn around in the year ahead and then so the assumptions in this budget have about seven more officers over the course of the year than the current year budget. It also has you may remember we negotiated three new firefighters to try to address the really enormous levels of overtime that we were saying in the fire department. And that was negotiated in the last contract and we also are going to be closer to full staffing of the CSO and CSL programs. So you had all those things up. And those are a bunch of costs in this year's budget that weren't in last year's budget. And inflation sitting the rest of the budget is all this that third bullet says although we, you know, that's the city has to deal with inflationary costs in lots of areas. And then this is a one that particularly for counselors even around for the last three years I hope people remember and you know know, we are, we intentionally committed ourselves to many new equity initiatives in 2020 and we initially were very explicit and clear that we were funding those initial investments in 2020 with the federal funds and we have been phasing these out over, over this is the third year of being phased out. And so the federal funds or one time funds that are in the budget in three years ago is 2,760,000, we only have 970,000 in this year's budget and this is one of the things that gets even harder next year is a 970 goes away. Not there will be some costs that go away as well. Some of these are for costs that are will go. Yeah, we'll disappear without funding but that's going to be a challenge for next year. More, more factors, the revenue side continues to be somewhat unpredictable and has not fully recovered in all areas frankly done pretty well on the revenue side. But it's we're still down in, particularly in some waterfront boat slip areas and parking. And the we'll talk a little bit more about revenues when we get into some of the solutions. This is I think it should be noted that Catherine has been managing this at the same time, we have been managing pre significant other challenges in the clerk treasurer's office including the one from Tiff audit and pre significant staff transition. That in future years is another thing that should get better and that we believe we're close to hiring a budget administrator that will bring a whole new capacity to future budget budget years and that's a position we created recently and that's going to help. And, you know, this is just a restating the point that we we have not seen an increase in our voter approved taxes since 2020. That's particularly hard. I think it's worth repeating because because of the structure of that a lot of people are appreciate municipal revenues is our revenues that the half of our total revenues that come from the property taxes really only increase for two reasons growth development investment of new new investments in in the city which historically has been even though we're doing quite well right now is historically has been you know 1% or less in terms of revenue growth from one year the next from from development. And so inflation is above that, the only way that that that half of our revenues keeps up is if there is a voter approved increase to the rate. And so to have you know going on through a fourth year without a increase to the voter approved rates, you know really starts to create some some pressures that bite. Let's go on from there. This is sort of a very simplified kind of summary of what this all, you know, what this boils down to and we kind of start the presentation and where we are today in some ways is we have a $5 million problem for next year's budget. So what are we going to do about that problem. Let me give you a little more detail on what what's what's what's driving that I mean it is some flavor for that with the opening but do you want to walk through is going to go or you want to walk there so this. Sure, I'm happy to give you a break. Okay. So, a large part of the increased cost as the mayor alluded to is coming from increased personnel costs, and you can see on these middle two bullets, that is particularly true of the increased costs for the police department and the fire department. That last bullet includes the COLA increases or non public safety staff, as well as some of the general inflationary issues that we're dealing with. But as you'll see, by and large, we have asked department heads to kind of absorb those. In terms of we asked budget heads to department heads to level fund their operating budgets. So we're feeling the pinch, but in some cases that may mean having to make choices. We have not talked about yet, but I'm going to put kind of a pin in it because there is more detail is this $1 million of vehicle fleet costs. So just put that pin in and we're going to get back to that. Every year, we do have budget principles that guide us through this process. These will look familiar to you, good budget principles should not change drastically year to year we want to process that is continuous. I'll just walk through these quickly, restoring public safety and making sure we have those resources is a top priority of the budget, and we are trying to balance that with minimizing increases to the tax burden. Then layer on top of that that we are trying to retain current city employees and that has been a big priority that we've discussed with this body and city council since 2020. I've had the good fortune of being in this very challenging interesting position all through the pandemic, and I'm thankful that that has been one of our guiding principles throughout is the commitment that we've made to our employees and we've been able to find creative budget solutions throughout some of our leaner years so that we haven't had to make employment actions. We have focused our cuts on non personnel budget lines, but that does mean we are not adding very many new initiatives those that we're adding are things that are funded outside of the general fund. What you will hear several times throughout this presentation is that, although we look at each year's budget on its own. Really we see this as the first step of a multi year plan to help us address all of these challenges coming out of the pandemic. The money that we got first through the Elgar Grant and then through ARPA really helped to stabilize and to ensure we didn't have to take employment actions, but now it's really up to us to figure out where do we go from here. Continuing to go after federal and state money through various grants will continue to be a part of that as well figuring out new revenue opportunities. One bullet, the fourth bullet there, you will see we have when we get to, we don't have more detail in this presentation, we have a still have proceeds from the last bond that last capital bond the 24 million dollar capital bond from several years ago this is the final year where we will be drawing down on that bond. It's going to allow us to, it's a challenge budget there too and it's going to allow us to more or less keep this heightened level of street sidewalk, in particular, investment, as well as some of our other public assets that we've had since the 19 and the big capital plant push there. This is something else that needs to go in the multi year plan that that bond will be done after this year, and we don't have the ability to bond further, given agreement we have in place with the school department and the high school. We, that's something else we're going to have to think hard about and it's going to be a challenge for for future budget years, you know, pretty much every year from now through maybe as long as 2030 hopefully will be less than that. If the, because we are having some success with bringing in some state federal funds for, you know, maybe maybe the whole $165 million bond will not need to be drawn drawn down there's still a lot of work going on on that and there's reasons to be hopeful but the benefits to that will be in the out years. So we did that's definitely another challenge we will talk about when we get to the capital budget and that we should be thinking in terms of like kind of multi year plans from here that are going to be needed. Just one quick correction, the capital committee has been working hard to make sure this isn't our final year, but we are running out of money so I think the final draw will be an FY 25. So it's still not to take too much away from your point but or actually send me a text like it's not the final year. All right, so we are getting there but we don't get a lot of that. It's not total panic just yet. I mentioned a little bit of the budget direction that we gave to department heads. We are that included funding staffing at current levels the only new hires in this budget are in public safety. Revenues continue to be aggressive but realistically budgeted. We have more money for a revenue replacement reserve, you'll recall we had $2 million for last year's budget and we have another million for this year's budget. And then I mentioned operating budgets, meaning non personnel line items are level funded with a couple of exceptions and you'll see those here and sure understand why they get into the exceptions. Now we get to some of the budget solutions that we have come up with. Do you want to take back over. Yeah, when I talk through here so the three big strategies and they're kind of summarized here and then we have some additional detail on each with that kind of rounds up the presentation so just in these total up to the $5 million challenge. The first is there is a somewhat unique within the budget authority that the council has to make sure that parks are properly funded and we have not used that authority since 2013 and to raise additional revenues and I think we need to consider it this year and we'll have a little more of that. Secondly, the people remember. We'll remember at least that we have in the current year budget the FY 23 budget a $2 million revenue replacement reserve. So what we did was we budgeted together fairly aggressively on the revenues, anticipating revenues bouncing back from people are epidemic levels but we knew there was some risk in that we put a big chunk of money aside of these federal funds a case that proved to be overly optimistic. It proved to be a little bit overly optimistic, but the good news is that the expenses also have not been expended as quickly so we are going to have somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 million of that revenue replacement reserve still available and needing to be spent before being committed before the end of next calendar year. As part of the federal ARPA dollars and one of the things that those funds can be spent on the person buying one of those funds spent on was a public safety expenses so we since a big part of this budget challenge is the public safety challenge. I think we need a multi year plan to build these expanded public safety expenses into the structural budget and this would be the kind of first year of that plan using these revenue replacement. The leftover revenue replacement reserve, we will need, we may need, we will make this as minimal as possible but we may need to supplement that further with one time funds to cover the whole gap. And then the third bullet is the fleet problem, which again Catherine will detail a little bit more where we get there. There, we have a structural challenge as well. There is a committee that is working on this and that has identified basically fleet related one time sources for more than half of that challenge and and then we'll need to supplement that as well. And to be clear, this is the $1 million this is to continue to fund. This is not new vehicle purchases these are to make it on commitments for vehicles that we have these commitments basically. The final bullet is we really don't have more detail in this presentation but basically signaling that in the refinements of the budget they're going to happen between now we submit to you expect to be able to address the kind of reminder remaining 750,000 of of the gap. So now let's get into the each of these a little bit more deeply. So, Council has the ability to make tax assessment for reasonable supposed to say appropriations for the care and improvement of park property and for the recreational and the city's recreational programming and meeting the expenses of the department. We have not increased this tax since 2013. And we are contemplating doing so we're adding an additional two cents here which would yield approximately $1.1 million. And if we were to do that, and the, the other taxes, there will be other taxes that go up the debt service related tax we committed to that going up with our past debt service decisions were approved that source positions decisions and the retirement has not been a great year for the retirement fund with what's been going on the stock market. And there will be, of course, we mitigate the impact of that through the smoothing that we do but so it's not it's neither those are going to be enormous jumps but there will be increases there's a while so if you combine all those. We will keep this to a still, you know approximately 5% increase which in a normal year would be pretty big for us when you consider what's going on with inflation and other expenses. I think it's, I guess, I think it's something we need to consider. We really need to consider it and I think it's reasonable given what we're all saying bills go up in other other areas of our life this will be comparable to the BSD tax increase as well. Going this graph, this table simply shows the this is a reasonable appropriation from from the Council in that there is you know clearly and it just there are unfunded expenses beyond the parks that are dedicated revenues that that we get. And we're proposing to essentially fund region, you know, less than half of that with this change. Then here's the idea with facing in the public safety costs and people will remember. We've done this before in a number of ways. I've done it with public safety. This recently is 20 to 20, I think it was 18 period when we increased the size of the police department unanimously. Not that long ago. We, we got a federal COPS grant that paid for all of that increase initially and then we phased out that increase over time. We're doing something similar with the equity investments as we kind of as I touched on the beginning where we made those equity increases using federal funds and then have phased that out and run the third year of phasing those out. I think we need to do something similar here if we're going to, if we're going to maintain the level of public safety resources that we have been building to through all the changes we've been making together over the last, you know, two and two years. And when we have the police, the police presentation will go through in detail. What that looks like on paper and how it will kind of continue to project out over the next couple of years, but essentially, there will be some continued additional pressure over the next couple of years as we get back up to the 85 officer level. So a lot of that, this is the budget year that where a pretty substantial amount of that kind of pain of rebuilding happens. The kind of budgetary pain, not want them here. The, again, this blood repeats the idea that we have are going to have a substantial amount of this revenue replacement reserve left over and approximately 1.5 million and hopefully that will be, we may need someone more than that but that will be most of what's needed to kind of be the first year of this multi year plan. And finally, I think we have the issue which we can already. Yes, so apologies that sort of stuck in here at the end but going back to the pin that I asked you to put in fleet. This is a brief history of our challenge. Going back to the FY 1718 period, which is really where I think the pressure start. There had been a moratorium on any fleet purchases. As we were in the middle of cleaning up some previous financial challenges that eventually led to a fleet policy and an interdepartmental fleet committee being approved and put into place. So by the time I got here in FY 20, we had our resources pulled into one location as the consultant had suggested. And there was an effort to try to make the fleet reserve revolving and sustainable. Then of course, a lot of various staff transitions happened the pandemic happened. I came in, Martha left Ashley came all these things. And there was a lack frankly there was a lack of follow up and there was not a full proof system put into place in FY 20 anyway there were some ideas about how the fleet reserve could be sustainable. But it was not a full proof plan. So by the time we get to last year, we're pretty much coming to the end of the initial reserve, kind of raised the flag about the need to use one time funds. And by the time we get now here to FY 24, because we have not been able to identify an ongoing sustainable funding. We are back to a freeze on new purchases for general fund departments, because we don't want to make the whole bigger, but we do have existing lease payments of a million dollars that are due for FY 24, 25, and 26. For FY 24. The fleet committee has already identified just over $600,000 worth of one time sources. They're from the gains when we sell our old cars we put that money kind of back into the till. There's a few impact fees and the very last of the fleet reserve. We will need and we are requesting about $450,000 of one time funds that would get us through this year. Then, as I know, on the third bullet, we do have this ongoing $1 million need for FY 25 and 26. That doesn't get us any new ambulances, pick up trucks, bucket loaders, there's all kinds of things, plow trucks that we need and very few of them can we use bonding money for. It's really just the fire trucks. So the our estimate for a sustainable level of funding is actually $2 million a year. So that is that last bullet. And that is a lot of information. We have more times to discuss these. I will just note that you did not have this presentation ahead of time, but presentations for this Wednesday have already been posted. So I'm sure the number one thing you'll want to do after this is go review them, but you will have time sometime in the next 48 hours. And with that, we are happy to take your questions and comments. Thank you. Thanks for that presentation, although it's more concerning, I guess. I had a question generally about what percent of the budget is represented by salaries and benefits is that like, it's like, like I know when I work, or I was on the school board, it was like 74% of the budget, which drove a lot. Yeah. So in a COLA, high COLA environment is going to drive a lot of things. So if you don't have that number available. It is about 80%. 80%. Yes. And then you can ask another responders. And include the police. Yes, as a whole, of course, there's is. Yes, as a whole of the general fund, if you want a rule of thumb, 80% salary and benefits, 20% everything else. This is over 94 million dollars. Yes. Correct. I have one other one I'll ask. And I was under the principles page slide. You were talking about initiatives not being able to be new initiatives being not being able to be undertaken this year. Were there any that any examples of things that were either imagined or planned that we're going to be done that we now can do. Yeah, that's a fair question. I mean, I think, in a lot of ways, like many organizations like this, still on the sort of recovery mode and I don't think there's a lot of focus on new demands sort of how to get things functioning as they were prior to the pandemic lots of vacancies or that I mean certainly biggest one that's just mine is kind of library. Capital. Can't, can't pay this is a tough one, you know, in memory, I put more a lot of time in that. Bucket as well it sort of you know these big capital initiatives that you really don't have. But on the operational side of Catherine, you're probably trying them more. Um, I don't, but I think that's because people didn't ask to add on initiatives they asked more about one time money to do things and I think we'll probably have to say no to that too but we haven't exactly done that yet so I think we should probably get back to it. But it's generally the capital things. It's people want to make changes or need to make changes to their building. There's some hiring that people don't want to do, but it nothing has come across my desk in terms of, I have this new program or initiative, and we can't do any of it you know I think we've been able to fund parts of things, and that's what the department has. Thanks. That's a perfect. Thank you. Let me take my hand down so that it didn't confuse me or anybody else. I think for us to propose I'd like to propose on the budget principles that we add regularly investigating and then incorporating revenue alternatives to the property tax based on an ability to pay. And there are two points in that one is the and the reasoning is one is to decrease the regressivity of the municipal tax system, and to is to increase the proportion of revenue that are being that is coming from non property tax systems, which by my figures are about 20%. So that that is a request that I have for the administration the board for my fellow counselors on that and would you be so kind because you did the last meeting we talked about this to remind me of the studies of revenue alternatives that are happening this year you did mention something I raised this at the last. Budget. Great. I think it's a good suggestion. Certainly, I think we can add it to the principles and it definitely as we get into. I think there will be an opportunity, although obviously the rest of this process can be pretty focused on getting you a balanced FY 24 budget. I do think we'll have more discussion over the remaining nights about. Especially since as we noted a number of these challenges are going to get tougher in the years ahead. I definitely it's very much on our mind that as we searched if they'll, you know, clearly the future future budgets are going to have some budget holes in them and that can't they can't all be filled from from the from the property taxes so definitely I think that's going to be a principle that we can implement in future budget, budget years further. We do have one study that is getting towards the completion I actually just got a kind of status update briefing on it this Saturday looking at the really focused on the equitability of our current property tax system there's a lot of national attention on how they're real, you know, the municipal property tax systems have major equity challenges in almost the city and we've been trying to examine to what degree we have those challenges here and so that is not a study that I see immediately generating a lot of additional revenue but it will make sure that the property taxes that we charge that we do the good. I don't want to get into share all the details but like many things Burlington is doing it does a better job than a lot of our peers and the study is finding that I do think there will be ways that we can do better in terms of making sure that our system is is equitable and so that's a study that's going to be coming back shortly. There's been some ongoing work for some time that needs to really needs to come to some kind of resolution in the upcoming year around there's any opportunity for franchise fee repayments I went we don't have like a consultant study in the field at this point on that although there has been a treasure time Catherine time and you may would likely be expending some legal fees on on that in the upcoming year as well. So that's a big one, and I think there's real potential there. Thank you Catherine there's an impact fee study that is due back towards the end of the year. There to. I would caution I don't see that as being likely a panacea and then we already are very high impact fee municipality. I think. So I don't know to what degree that will really alleviate these issues I think it may allow us to use some of those funds in ways are more more directly aligned with our current priorities then the current structure does, if you follow me. I think sort of underfunded alternative transportation from those fees in the past we need the study is going to help us change that and so I think those are the major ones underway currently. Thank you that's really helpful I probably will continue to be a broken record on this, because if we only focus on expenditures and I understand the need to do that particularly at this point, then we're engaged in austerity. So we've got to work which is basically a downward spiral so we've got to deal with the revenue and I'm happy about the, the equity work, I mean, the work that was done for many years got us to what I might like I said my figures are about 20% of the revenues from non property tax revenues so by my fingers about $11 million and we did about 42 million in the last budget if I am reading the, the year end report correctly so I think that we've, we have done, because we took the efforts and we will need to wait until next April to be really having these conversations so I, I, I hope that as the studies come in, and as thinking is going on that this becomes a real community engagement, because we did not get the alternatives to the property tax that we have now, without significant community engagement. So I look forward to, to that process. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you Councillor Bergman will. I think the discussion of the percentage of property tax versus not property tax revenues. Isn't it is a really interesting one Catherine Catherine's going to give the. We'll try to have some additional detail I actually think we're somewhat higher than 20%, but what we'll have the figures for the, the Wednesday presentation so we can dig into that. You know the flip side of. We did. I tend to agree with you that it can really help us with service expansions if we can develop some of these other revenue streams that one, one really enduring really positive thing about having property taxes as the foundation of the budget is they are very stable, whereas many of these other revenue sources are not stable. And we saw that during the pandemic and unfortunately the federal government kind of bail us out here where not for the federal government these were been in this on this unprecedented revenue replacement we would have had a really hard to know it's hard to project exactly how we would have gotten through these last three years. So that is that's just something we always have to keep in mind this week. So look at that but I basically agree with you. And do you see that as a major part of the FY 25 and beyond work that needs to be done. I mean I just to end one of the reasons that I think our schools have been as supported as they have been in the past is the income sensitivity that the state income that the state Education Fund has got, and it allows people and it allows governments to basically say that folks can afford to do this because we're going to be basing it on an ability to pay obviously there are some changes that need down on the state level. So I would love us to be looking at that at a city municipal level because I think that we fall down on the municipal side on that we don't have the similar things so I really look forward to this conversation. Thank you. That's Jen. Thank you. My first initial reaction to this is, I hope you will receive just a couple days ago. We have like 2.5 million gap. Right. And here you just dabble like overnight. And I just couldn't. So I expected this presentation actually tell us okay, our way is to minimize the gap to 2.5 million. And here we actually dabble today. It's just a little bit confusing to me. And I think, you know, also part of the presentation where we have $1 million in terms of please, and then we move to the presentation and we see actually we have 480,000 in here. So I just want to wrap my head around what's what's what's going on. I don't know. That's, that's my question was 2.5 million, 2 million, we had 1 million issue and now it's an 24,000 for the point. Again, trying to be very specific. Yeah, no, I appreciate this. So the fleet issue is a, I hear kind of two big questions in there and the fleet is part of the answer to both. But the, it's possible that they're, we didn't get the text exactly right but I think what was, we have what we're trying to say with a million dollar problem earlier in the presentation is that there is a kind of structural problem that we do not have an audience to have any source for for the fleet. And that's a million dollar a year problem and this year's budget and next year's budget. And the year after that the, the fleet committee has worked to find a way to address that 60% of that in this year's budget through these sort of other kind of one time fleet related costs and so the kind of draw on the rest of the budget is only what it does but it's a real million dollar issue that that we've been grappling with and yes we've found about we've solved a good chunk of it so far in a sense but only in that kind of one time sense. So hopefully that speaks to that. I'm not remembering exactly the context that the $2.5 million gap was communicated. And I don't, the fleet issue was left out of that calculation so that's that's part of the difference. And I don't know if you want to speak to, I think the rest is falls on the category of still being a free volatile budget with a lot of moving parts and hopefully some of what we laid out here for you today proves not to be as it gets a little smaller between here and there's this one. Yeah, and even if we are typically at 3.5. So I'm just trying to understand. Right. Yes, we also would like you to understand. I think there is not an easy answer here in terms of when we prove when I provided the update at the beginning of April. We used the best information we had at the time, which turns out it was not as accurate as we would have liked. I need to be honest with this group that, you know, whenever we start the budget process we start from last year's budget. It was not as accurate as I would have liked. And so some of that involved going back and taking another look to make sure we were getting all of the benefits for police, all of the benefits for fire. And so I feel very confident in these numbers because I we've gone through with my staff and gone person by person, all of the benefits. And so what I gave you in April was still at a high level we have not received all of the details from all of the departments yet, and perhaps was a bit tasty. Thank you. So I know the question is about the challenges. And one of them is a pandemic shortfall, an impact shortfall that we identified. And I was just wondering if you can help us, not today, but now it's going from 2020 to 2022 to 2020 now and just see the impact of the pandemic. And you can't see why we're still having my issues about revenues. The pandemic is not here. Can. Yeah, I think it will be good. Great. And another question is specific to the, I would love that, you know, all city departments, we understand also the percentage, that percentage are on this budget. Yes. I mean, I believe that in 2020, until 2020, 90% of the budget. Right. And what does it represent now. You know, and, and also about the police, it would think about 90% of the general fund and after the attrition of 100 police officers to 70. We could not identify these are the same, these are the resources we see the city could not do because of over time because of a lot of other things. And now we are rebuilding. And now we are adding the CSC, CSO, CSL, all of this. I think we need to better understand what what what's going on about. Yeah, like, the, I'm sorry, that question comes from the, we have a good document that we've been working on for some time that really shows those those changes over time that you know that one of the frustrating I think was frustrating for everyone discussions we had in the past is not being able to identify savings is we had already in the first year we had already booked a bunch of the savings even before the, because of the pandemic, we had already taken a million dollars and cuts out of police department before the pandemic and the, and the push for attrition. And so we had already essentially, and that that made that there being no savings at all in the first year there definitely were in the last two years we've had very high attrition numbers that have effectively been savings that we've backed on so I think we'll have a pretty clear document for to be able to kind of lay out both the what what's happened. And now why were you know more than a million dollars higher this year the next year than last year is where is what where this is headed when we get back up to the authorized head count, 85 account. So now that I think that we'll do that next Monday. Don't you think it will be timely for every single city department go into a review into looking into saving mechanism within that department. Maybe an expert and I think that would be good. And I don't know if we can commission that before July. But I think that we can do that again, every single one of the five ways that we can reduce expenses. Let's call us. But thank you. And again, I'm trying to be very respectful. Thank you. Appreciate your questions. Thank you. I believe counselor grant is in the attendees listen had her hand up first. Thank you. Let me find her. Yes. That's a grant we can see you. Thank you. Thank you. If you want to ask a question. Thank you. Hopefully I don't use you because I've getting ready to get into my car and sometimes the Susie Wilson over bypass is not kind to zoom connectivity. I would definitely like to see that document that you were talking about or anything else that can be prepared. I really like to take a good look at the police department over the last six years. I also have a comment understanding that it can't affect the next fiscal year but in terms of long term planning. The issue with the Howard Center. So I initially thought they had pulled out because of their issues around labor shortage. But then I got more information saying that we made a decision that we didn't want to continue with them, because we didn't want to look at a model that would be for Chittenden County. I would love to have like something official in writing that states what the decision process was around. You know, saying that we want to pull out of it because I do think that it is worth considering in the future that we do look at a model for Chittenden County. Because that would allow for potentially additional state funding and also the regional funding from the other towns that are being serviced by CARES. I work in S-Extunction. I know that there is a drug problem in S-Extunction. I know there is a drug problem in South Burlington, etc. So as the program starts in Burlington and then gets built out, it would offer other funding options because quite frankly what we're seeing is a Chittenden-wide situation. I would also say that I know another part of this is related to all the problems around dispatch. The situation with dispatch is, I totally get it. But we have to at some point, that's got to be fixed and then if it's fixed, maybe that can work better encompassing working with the other cities and towns. And then finally, I had a question about the fire department's budget. I was a little concerned because their EMS budget ran out early, I believe mid-April, if that is correct. How are we addressing this with the fire department in terms of the fact given that they are first responders with regards to drug overdoses? And that is probably, actually I shouldn't say probably, that's what's driving a lot of their EMS cost because they can't always bill for the services that they provide if people refuse to be transported. And of course we don't want them forcing people to be transported. So if we could comment on that, I'd be curious how the fire department will be taking care of. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Grant. I think the questions that you asked with respect to the departmental budgets will, thanks for the heads up that you have interest in those and we'll make sure that when we get to the departmental budgets that we are able to speak to them there. And as far as the Howard Center decision there, I'd be happy to communicate with you further and councillors will harsh in this decision further about that. And it was, you are correct that one, one of just, but just one of a number of concerns about the Howard Center response was the fact that we think this at least initially, I think your concept that that could expand maybe to other municipalities over time is, you know, perhaps up and running that's something that could be like that but the initial funding is coming from Burlington and the state and thus we thought it was appropriate, you know, that it'd be a real Burlington focus. The initial stage regional efforts are very hard as our as our dispatch experience continues to show. But I'm happy to, you know, happy to engage further and I'll thank you further on that. Thank you. Okay, now, see, we'll go to you, Councillor McGee. Thank you. I just had a quick question about the vehicle fleet numbers. I just want to make sure I'm understanding those correctly. So we're looking at 1 million just to meet the current obligations we have for FY 24. And is that so 1 million would meet our current obligations yearly going forward and we would need an additional million to be able to remove that that purchasing freeze. Yeah, Councilor McGee will and we can when we can get into further detail in later presentations as well but the. Yes, the million dollars is for the person the vehicles that we are already in service that we've for a number of years been signing these five or seven cases. I think was number five or seven year leases. And so just to complete those leases we have about a million dollars a year in expenses for those for those existing vehicles. And so there's lead analysis is, you know, as a kind of going forward medium, you know, term issue is that a more stable annual funding would be approximately $2 million a year. Okay, thank you. And if we could just get at some point of a breakdown of the one time. That have been identified that 60% of 1 million for FY 24 there would be helpful. Thank you. Thanks so. As for our comments, something very global, especially when you're seeing it first time, I would request that this point on that we not receive there be no presentations that are not posted in advance. We have a chance to look at them and preferably given days. There's a meeting on a Monday and by Wednesday or Thursday that information is posted. The only thing that I sort of came out to me and we can discuss it Wednesday is that on one of the things that I thought would be. I'm talking about a funding gap of $5 million. That's not a large that's that small enough that you can sort of see where that is coming from when it's, you know, large, large number it's broken up into lots of bits and pieces but in this case it's some fairly big chunks. One of the things that I'm still trying to understand is, you know, you don't be. It doesn't appear to me that cost of outsourcing an RFP to the city for the city attorney is going to equal an additional $50,000 here. And that's only under the line item of regular time, which an RFP is not regular time that would be a consultant, or it should be a separate line item. So, I think that should be, as I say, I think that should be a separate line item and I am sort of at a loss to understand how to bring an outside bomb firm charging private law firm fees is going to only amount to $15,000. Because I looked at the salaries that matched it up against the benefits. It's 6%. But it's a 6% across the board so that's where a lot of those numbers are coming from. And I think that we have to just, if we're going to go and do. Outsource the city attorney's role. I think we have to be on the transparent about what that cost is going to be, and that it be a separate, it be a separate item. I sort of wonder if that $5 million isn't actually more than that. Just based on the fact that I checked around and spoke with other private attorneys and I think the cost of it is going to be significantly more than just hiring a city attorney, even with benefits. So, that to me is a significant amount of money. When you're talking about trying to close a gap. I think we just have to put that out there. And most importantly to hire a city attorney. The other things, I'm just not enough. I sort of have to absorb what you give us and try to understand what some of the other gaps are. I'm not sure I, so what you're saying is as far as the parks and rack is that we can, we can increase that. Are there other. Are there other taxes or other feed the parts of the property tax, the 19 or so or 18 or so different funds. Are there others that could be increased, for example, the library that cannot be increased unless it goes to the voters. So there's a list of all of them and then one has to go to approve what can be. And I think the only ones that I can remember are retirement, which can go up and dead. So this is one of the other ones I don't know how I can't remember off the top of my head. But that's one of them. Yes, I also cannot remember but let's call it 18. Yeah, that's a lot. I worked closely with Haley and others in the city attorney's office. And we went through every single one to see where the authority was and if this body or city council could approve any other increases without voter approval. So here's that parks is unique in the way that it's written, where it says it's a minimum of two cents, and it's the only one that does not provide a ceiling, just a floor for them. And the floor is two cents and we've always charged more than two cents as far as I can tell we've always charged at least 2.5 cents. So we've exceeded that floor and, you know, the ceiling is reasonable less. Part of the reason I put the calculation in there so you can see how much parks expenses was left over and that it's far more than the one point one. The other thing also is, you know, it has been, I don't, I think we sort of sort of temporarily I was hoping it was only temporarily sort of shelf the idea that under probably I think when Beth was CAO there and before that, there were it certainly with Bob rest of the city, you know, there were there were projections that were done over three years. That was done by resolution that was created back in probably 2012 2013 mostly in response. And, you know, I wrote that it was in response to a CAO that was concerned about initiatives that were coming forward with no spending with no plan for where the money was coming from. That was a fairly elaborate spreadsheet, but it had a lot of value to it. And given the fact that we are now, you know, to a large part in a close COVID world, no money that's literally showing up at her doorstep. It's, I think, I think we open to the taxpayers and ourselves to be realistic in what we, what we can do what we cannot do, you know, and what the weather modifications of those the decisions that we've made, for example, to I think people agree 70 70% of the voters agree that building high school stuff about huge priority. I think we all agree with that, but there is a cost to that cost, you know, going forward I think that we should have that in a certain way so people understand. So that would be my suggestion is to try to get that I don't, I could, I will, I can find it if you can't find it. It's a fairly, it was a fairly elaborate spreadsheet but very valuable. Yes present I've been had feeling you might remind us of the three year budgeting and I I think particularly with some of the challenges that we're facing that sort of the police budget that you will see is effectively a three year budget kind of rejecting out to the stabilized department, that's all the changes that we made together and I think it at least elements of the budget by the time we conclude this process we, if we can do a good full three year budget, great. There were a lot of, as I recall, like a lot of those ended up being. Well, I see this I think there's some particular areas where we really you can, we will be some increasing pressures over the next three years and I think we should capture that in some of the budget communications before the end here and we'll try to do a good overall one but you know it's fleet issue, public safety, maybe maybe several others, it really is a we can kind of see where we're headed and we should capture that. Councilor Barlow. I just wanted to build on something that absolutely Jen and Councilor Paul just sort of hit upon and this idea of we sort of owe it to the, to the public to sort of defend the, any increases that we asked them to bridge shoulder whether or not it's this this parks, this parks line item, or a voter increase to the root increase in the budget. And, you know, if we have like 95 or $100 million budget, 80% of it is salaries and benefits driven by coal increases we have like $20 million, but say that's non salary benefits. If we should try to find every year as a budgeting principle, you know some savings we should ask departments you know what can you save. If you were to save a million dollars that's only 5% of that $20 million. And I think that everybody in there, especially the residents of Erlington right now in this inflationary environment they're having to find, you know, savings in their own household budgets and we should at least attempt to find I'm not saying we'd be successful in it, but we should attempt to find that every year. You know some of the things that we prioritize and spend money on last year, maybe, or five years ago that we're still budgeting for may not be as appropriate as they were may not be prioritized to the highest to the top of the list anymore so I think we do we do sort of owe it to the public to try to find those savings where we can, and that way when we go and we ask for money they know we've at least done that that part, you know, what households have to do when they do their budget. So I think that's an important part as just an organizing principle around the budget process. And, and I don't view it as austerity. And I think it's just, you know, continually sort of evaluating how how we're spending money and and making sure we're spending at the highest highest and best way. And I also think it does it gets voters the trust that they need when we do ask for more more money so I know it's that's very sort of high level in general but you know we could look at more specific departmental budgets as we go along and maybe there are things. I know that when a counselor carpenter and I have been doing this monthly. You know coffee with counselors inspired by the mayor's Wednesdays coffees and what we're what we hear is people the things that people care most about schools and we can check that box we've got the new high school coming public safety and you know streets as I work so you know if we can cover those first and then make the arguments for everything else I think you'd be serving the public well. Thank you, Councilor Barlow I think we will have. Take your point and do you think it's so it's clear that to some degree. Every department has been pushed in that direction with the kind of holding of the non personal expense lines in the face of rising rising costs and generally, people are that's our achieving that and some ways through some of the kind of innovation is shifting around that you're. We tend to keep it maybe to behind the scenes so what I'm hearing from you is that it would be helpful to make that more transparent so we could report back on that to constituents so we can certainly work on that and I'm thinking of. One particular example and maybe we'll talk about it on Wednesday because Scott Parker will come and one of the few areas where we did have to raise the line item is computer licenses and maintenance or something and it's like a $600,000 line item and it's budget. And while it went up by close to $50,000 this year. The story, the other part of the story is that since Scott has been here, he has collected all of the IT services and platforms into it so that they're not all around the city that is actually cut a lot of the superfluous. Computer programs that we were paying for and it's like $4,000 here and $10,000 there, but it's all added up so instead of an additional $100,000 this year, it's only an additional 50,000. So it's things like that and I think we can get you the details of that kind of work so that it doesn't go unnoticed or unrecognized. It's just helpful to sell the budget. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I mean, thank you. And I think what I really think is, we can even be lucky by over $20 billion in terms of savings. And this also include cross departmental share, let's say communication trust, by the communication standard for every single department. Right, we just bought a bucket truck, $880,000 just last week alone. Right, and we know that who the department have it, how do we make that happen, how do we make that happen. And that is one element of this project also that I do not think fits in here, because he's talking about climate change. And we know that the resources from EPD are in charge and those are like more of a price point. Well, that's my presentation. Yeah, just to say it was really it was to make that point that part of the in this that we are not stepping away from this commitment to despite the budget challenges that the presentation was focused on. We are going to, we are going to continue to make these sort of leading investments in the climate. Through the budget media, I think the bullet called out that that was to be the item so you're right, it was sort of done totally I think it feels to a lot of people that the climate initiatives would not be in the general fund budget that they would be in the utility budget so that was to kind of remind folks that the way we've been able to evolve towards given the way our climate efforts have evolved, you know that they're so focused on this electrification that we have the regulatory authority and the budgetary ability to fund through BD that we're still doing that so I just didn't want anyone to read this presentation think there's no thing about climate here we don't care about climate a more that it's still happening. I want to put it in the show now. Okay, we'll come back to you if you think we'll go back to you cancer grant. Thank you. So I just wanted to agree with the statement that. Oh, I'm sorry just a second. I can ride with you after I asked this question. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry everybody I'm on diaper distribution tonight. So I'm just meeting with the person that we're going to be dropping off some nappies to some families who need a little help. I agree that with regards to departments demonstrating where they're making cuts that's going to be really important. From a you know public engagement standpoint and I know that will make me feel comfortable having an understanding of what's being looked at. I have a question about parks and I have to apologize because at the beginning of the meeting I was still on work hours. So I, I didn't fully hear the whole explanation behind parks so my understanding is there's a big shortfall there. I'm wondering is, is that related to the additional duties that a lot of our parks team have to deal with with regards to the unhoused and and clean up spots all over the city where people are using. So I think that falls on the parks team a lot of people think that the police department deals with that but that is actually most dealt with with people who work for parks. So, counselor grand. Any costs associated with the, you know, those expenses are captured in the analysis that, you know, you'll see when you're a place where you can look at the presentation and the kind of car parks budget. And so it does contribute to that I mean it isn't that that hasn't that's two positions and some related costs it hasn't been a massive expansion and no one. The fact that we are looking at this as a possible kind of budget solution shouldn't be taken as an indication that the parks budget has jumped dramatically it's it's one of the solutions available to us for addressing the challenges in this budget. Okay, can we get a comparison with the previous years around staffing costs. If you get to the departmental budget you'll, you know, that's one of the things that we provided for each but each each department. And is it just a comparison to last year or does it go into multiple years. The way I have it set up right now counselor grant is. It goes back to fyi 19. So, and that was something that we had talked to counselor high tower about last year because we are trying to look at, you know, to look at quote unquote the before times, and so we wanted to look at 19 and 20. It's a logistical issue with New World in that you can only have so many comparison columns. So what I have decided to do is to give us the actuals for 1920, 21, and 22, and not worry about what the budget was for those years. So if you can bounce that for whatever reason you can let me know I will get it to you. But every budget that you will see has 1920, 21 and 22 actuals, then 23 budget, because we don't have the actuals yet, and then 24 proposed. So I'm hoping that gives you the information that you're looking for people have that's how everything is for Wednesday that's already been put up. If you have more or different information you would like just let me know. That sounds great seeing the actuals is really what it comes down to it at this point doesn't matter what the, what the budget was but having that comparison for actuals will be greatly appreciated thank you. Great. All right, it seems like. Any questions. Do you want to just kind of just look maybe just review that last slide again on kind of where we're going from here. Yes. Sure. So, in your excitement, but we will be back here on Wednesday. And on Wednesday night, we have a new treasurer who human resources airport library city attorney it and planning. The only change from the published schedule was that BCA is not presenting on Wednesday, the 10th, they're moving to Wednesday the 17th. We've got seven presentations that day. Then Monday the 15th will be BPD. And then I have somehow forgotten the 22nd, but you should not forget the 22nd so then we'll have Wednesday the 17th and then Monday the 22nd, and that will get us all the way through all of the departments. We'll come back here on the 30th, and hopefully by then any feedback gotten from the departments will be incorporated we can take another look at it. And then on the 20th. The city council will act on it, which means the board of finance should act on it. And then on the 20th on Monday the 12th. Any other questions. I think we got we should. I agree it's likely we're going to need a board. Usually we need a board finance meeting somewhere between. Maybe the one on the 30th. We often take more input there. I think it's definitely possible we'll need something between the 30th and the vote on the 20th. We have a charter responsibility to submit the budget before the 15th so 12 might be a little bit late for any kind of final discussions so let's. Why don't we, why don't we, next time when we think chapter and about another date between the 30th and the 12th to ask people to hold out in case we need it, we don't need it after 30th grade, but we do know that we'll have to get that on there. I have a quick question. Is it possible to get an email with all those dates. Yeah, just helps it helped me plan out my schedule and and try to get out of work early on those days. Thank you. No problem. Okay. Thank you everyone for all the engagement and questions and you know I guess I won't just certainly as we work towards, you know, again, especially for counselors that haven't been through this before. We've usually been successful real last 11 years of addressing getting all that of the final approval being relatively smooth that by the time we actually submit this budget anything that is controversial or their major questions about. We've been addressed ahead of time and we really, I hope counselors who've been part of the process of the past can would validate that we do our best when issues and questions come up. We do make changes over the course of these discussions that get incorporated into into the final budget that's to me that's the way the system works best because once we hand it off to you you don't have very much time before the charter requires approval and so the hope is that we can work out questions between now and then so just ask people to have that in mind as we go forward from here and certainly not feel limited to the communications that happened during the meetings if you have follow up questions. If you get follow email questions and Catherine, I think in past years, you know questions that come in we've made sure the answers go out not just the person who asked them but that to all counselors and we'll follow that again. So, thank you everyone, and look forward to working through this with you over the next little more than a month. See you again soon.