 One minute, 30 seconds. Morning, everyone. It is now 10 o'clock on May the 27th, and I want to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order our budget work session. I want to welcome everyone here today. I want to thank our budget staff for all the amazing work they've done to get us to this point. And Bertha, I really want to thank you and your team as well as our finance folks and deputy city manager page. Plus everyone who is here. Can can everybody mute? Thanks. And also our tech staff, everybody from technology solutions. Everyone from our clerk's office, everyone from our office, our office Republic of Affairs, who all work together to make these online meetings happen. And we're very, very grateful. Thank you so much. And now Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll? Certainly. Good morning, everyone. Mayor Schuyl. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Council Member Caballero. Here. Council Member Freeman. Present. Council Member Middleton. Here. Council Member Reese. Here. Thank you. Thank you, Madam, Madam Clerk. And now I'm going to turn this over to City Manager Tom Bonfield. And he will direct us about how we want to go through these presentations. Mr. Manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the time you've carved out for us and this first of two abbreviated budget work sessions. As I indicated, when I presented the budget week before last, this budget process obviously, as we all know, has been unique. But it has been very fluid, even since the initial budget presentation. There are a number of additional items that have changed that you will hear about today. Not many, but a few that are very important. I also want to say that, you know, you're very much used to the formats that we've tried to use in budget pass with hitting much of the budget documents, performance measures, and those kinds of things. But as I'm sure you've seen, if you've reviewed the materials that we've sent to you, and I would say too, thank you for your patience in getting those. I would not necessarily last minute, but toward the end of the process, as I said, those have been fluid. And we wanted to make sure that when they were presented today, they were as current as the information we have. But we've really tried to highlight and balance the aspects of the budget going forward in terms of the more traditional kinds of things with the resource allocation tables and some of the things you've used to see, but really a lot more input on kind of updating you on the impact of COVID-19 on budget, both the current year budget, operational decisions that we have made in the current year, but also how it will impact the budget that you'll be considering over the next several weeks, as well as many of the operational impacts that we have built into that budget. So this really is kind of a hybrid approach, in my opinion, of thinking about it in terms of the budget and the appropriations and those kinds of things, but also hopefully as we go through the next couple of days, we can talk about some of these operational aspects and answer any questions you have as well. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Bertha and let her begin the process. You've seen the agenda, and hopefully that is a sequence that is okay over the next couple of days. We've carved out the goal of three hours, but the Zoom allotment is four hours in the event we extend over, but I think that we are, I know, we're prepared to engage you and hopefully answer any questions you have as you consider the budget. So thank you for your time today, and with that, I'll turn it over to Bertha. Good morning, everyone. Bertha Johnson, Director of Budget and Management Services. I do want to bring up the agenda just for the viewing public to go over what we're going to discuss in the meeting today. I also want to remind everyone that all of the presentations on the schedule are on our webpage, as well as the budget book, which we just finished yesterday. So again, one of those delays in trying to work together and pull together budget pages for 25 departments in all the multi-year funds and with the numbers changing as the City Manager mentioned. So today, we will have a revenue presentation. We'll talk about paying benefits, general services, parks and recreation and transportation. Those are mostly related to updating on programmatic changes as it relates to COVID-19, as well as some questions we receive from Council that we responded to in their presentations. Tomorrow, we'll start at the same time at 10, and we will have City County Planning, Public Works, Community Development, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and we'll have a discussion at the end around engagement. As you hear from several of the departments listed here, they have engagement components in their work, and so you'll hear some of that, and we wanted to hold that discussion to the end so we can talk about engagement as an organization versus individual departments and get some solicits and feedback from you all. So if there are no questions about the agenda, no additions to the agenda, we will move to the revenue presentation. So while John Allure is pulling up the revenue presentation, I wanted to say about this presentation. It's a lengthy presentation, and I'll go through it quickly because this is the same template we use each year for the revenue presentation. But we've had several meetings with you, and so a lot of this information is the same information we've shared with you. You've also heard a lot in the manager's presentation. So I'll go through some of it quickly, and especially since you haven't had an opportunity to hear from the departments that we'll be presenting later, I want to make sure that we have adequate time for those discussions. So if you feel like I'm going quickly, just let me know. So we'll start out by talking about the key issues which are not new to you, the revenue losses that we are projecting around property tax, sales tax, power bill, gas tax, hotel tax, and some program revenues. Also no tax rate increase as we had discussed early in the year, and an extremely significant use of fund balance more than we've used in a really long time, probably most recently back to 2009-10. Here's a slide that's really key to the presentation, and probably most of the focus is that just to be clear about what revenue losses, when we say revenue loss, what we mean. And we're really focused on, we had projected, we had EOI projections, which is the second column here, and pre-COVID, and the pre-COVID projection of those projections we share with you at the budget retreat on February 14. And so when we talk about losses, we're really talking about where we thought we were going to be in terms of revenues to support our budget to where we are now in the proposed budget. One line item has changed since the manager presented his budget, that is power bill. We shared with you when we met last time at the special meeting, and at the update that we probably would be updating that power bill number. The mayor has shared with you all as well that he'd heard the 25% reduction. We've since confirmed that through meetings that not only we've had with the league, but also our transportation department with their peers, as well as some folks at NCDOT. So we have now recognized that 25% loss in the budget, and we'll talk about how we were able to do that as we move through the presentation. But that's the only number that's changed here since we met last time. So moving on to just an overview of our general fund revenue summary, and this is just to compare some from year to year. Looking at the major revenue sources in the general fund, we primarily focus on property tax and sales tax because those are the primary sources. And when we talk about a budget deficit or gap or where we can find additional revenue, those are the really only sufficient sources. And the only one that really have control over is property tax, and we're not proposing a rate increase. And so there is not a lot of additional revenue there to balance the budget. Martha, can I ask a question? Sure. Would you like me to hold it to the end? You can answer it. You can ask now. Thank you. This slide, the property tax for FY 2021, the far right column, looks to be like a different number than on the previous slide. And I wasn't sure if they were supposed to be different for some reason, or if that just had not been updated. Good question. Those are supposed to be different. The property tax number here includes prior year levies, delinquent taxes, penalties. It's the total tax revenue. The other one is just the current year levy. Gotcha. Thank you. Thank you for asking that. Just looking at the makeup of the general fund revenues again, just another way of showing you how dependent the general fund is on property taxes and other local taxes, which is of course our sales tax and our hotel motel tax. So when we think again about how do we generate additional revenue, there's no other place really to go except the property tax. We are again proposing the rate, property tax rate to remain the same. We talked about property tax rate increase in February. This council decided and we recommended that we not do this at this time. And so therefore the rate will remain the same for for we had some comments. I think from the general public in terms of people calculating their property tax rate. And really what they had done when they said our numbers were not correct is that they were not separating out the city tax from the county tax. And so when the manager presented the budget and people calculate their tax bill, I just want folks to know that that is you need to separate out the city and county when you try to do that. Property tax base growth. This is the chart that we typically include. It's also included in our budget book. Just one thing I want to point out here, if you look at our motor vehicle tax, we talked about that being projected to remain flat. That is a recommendation from the tax office in terms of what they're seeing with people relinquishing their vehicles as well as not purchasing vehicles. Property tax projections. Again, looking at what is the the assessed value here and the other slides were really focused on the revenue, but assessed value growth, which is really driven by the real property, which is the majority of that growth. So the overall growth is 2.31%. The second kind of section of the slide shows the rate breakout, which you saw on the previous slide. And one thing I want to point out here, when we talk about the loss in revenue from pre COVID to now, we had intended to raise our collection rate because of the great job that the county is doing in collections to 99%. But based on the update, we, we allowed that rate, that percentage to remain at 99.6. So that was the million dollar loss from February to what we're now. Again, we, we didn't change the numbers other than hold the collection rate flat versus changing it to 99%, which we had intended to do in February. And at the bottom of the slide, you just see the revenue allocation. So just another look at the property tax rate allocation. But what is new in this slide is the second row from the bottom shows the tax collection fee. And then you get the net amount that each of the funds listed here will gain in the next fiscal year. The total collections. Budget to actual. So the blue line represents the represents the budget, the red line actual and then our end of year projection, which is what EOI is. So the blue line is just what we have in the budgeted in the 21 budget. So sex collections, we haven't changed this from when we met last time. Also, this number, the numbers haven't changed from what you saw in the manager's budget. The bottom, the bottom note here is probably the one of the relates to one of the questions were asked at the last meeting about the additional revenue from the sales tax agreement with the county. Just again, we expect to get an additional 2.4 million. That number, those dollars are included in the budget to balance the budget. Sales tax is one of those revenues that we usually can depend on getting a big chunk of additional revenues and that's not going to happen next year. And so that is the that is the biggest drain on the general fund and on the revenue side. Again, to that point, if you look at the blue 1819 the blue 1920 and the blue 2021 you can see the reduction of 6.6% for sales tax. That number went down in 2009 10 significantly, you know, it rebounded and you know we expect that to happen again in the future but for next year. That numbers is projected to be significantly lower. We hope that is better, but we will not find out for a while since we do not get our first sales tax payment for next year until October. And so we're doing our best to try to make the best of the information that we have and make the best projections we can at this point. Look at the other general fund revenues pointing out here looking at the power bill number. That's the number that we updated since the manager's presentation that added about 1.5 million to our budget gap. And so, but we felt confident as a manager said we held out as long as possible because we don't want to, we want to be as best we can with the numbers to make that change. So going to our fund balance slide. The only thing that's changed on this from when you saw it last is that we we did increase the revenue loss due to COVID, which was what was in the budget guidelines that we would use fund balance to plant revenue losses. We've added the 1.5 million. And so that number is 8.7 million. The decision to use fund balance for the 1.5 million primarily is one, it's a it's a big number. And the other option would be to go to personal services because that's where the majority are expenditures are. But also when you use fund balance, there is no harm in terms of if you don't have the revenue loss, the money just stays in savings. So you're not making significant programmatic changes. And then to find out that these projections that we're making and, you know, we made in April and May. We won't know really until October, our first payment with sales tax, really the first quarter we need to see. So that'd be October, November, December, and property tax is not collected until primarily December, January. So there's a long time before we'll know how good these projections are and they're in line with our peer cities, as well as the recommendations we're getting from the state. And so we feel confident, but we don't know. And so we feel like the best option is to put in fund balance as a placeholder if the revenues come in as we project it. Perth, let me jump in here a second too. You know, this is one of those, you know, swallow hearts for all of us because it's so out of character as to how we have typically gone about the budget. This is an area that I really feel like, you know, we're kind of at the end of options around fund balance, particularly if things as we progress through the year are revenue. The revenue projections are worse than expected. I think we're going to be very challenged to dig deeper into fund balance, not because there may not be some money there between the 16.3% and the 12%. But because that is just building a huge challenge for the following year's budget. And one of the things that we're going to have to give some serious thought to as we begin the fiscal year is to begin to even, you know, prepare for other modifications to the budget should as Perth indicate when we start getting into October and seeing, you know, sales tax numbers or even later into December with property tax numbers. If those numbers are lower than we are projecting here, we're going to need to have a plan in place for reacting to that rather than waiting till December and then developing that plan. So that is something that's on my mind. I know it's on Perth's mind. We don't have a strategy about that if anybody wants to know what's the plan. I think I'll be honest to say we don't have one right now, but we also know that, you know, we really can't wait until probably December to start thinking about that when some of these significant milestones of revenue collections come forward. So I don't know, Perth, if you have any other thing to follow up on that, but I just really want to emphasize that, you know, the use of the fund balance here, the 8.7 million is really heading into any more than that. I think, you know, would potentially be very problematic as we think about what has to be made up in following years if that money is in fact needed this year. Thank you. Thank you. I think that those are important points to force to reiterate because we don't know what's going to happen and I don't want folks to we don't know any more than anyone else knows and so we're all making the making the best projections but we are concerned that, you know, it could be even worse than we anticipate. So just a summary of the multi year the general fund multi year, what has changed here if you look in the 21 column under revenues and additional revenues we've added the 1.5 million, that is the fund balance number. Primarily, and so that is that balances the budget we removed it from power bill reduced that by 25% 1.5 million and increased our fund balance to keep the budget balanced. Perfect. Could you go back, could you go back to that slide a minute. Go down to the 2021 additional revenues I think this is a question that Council Member Middleton had asked about at the budget work session. I believe in that that $8 million number that includes the revenues from the proceeds of the Chapel Hill Street sales is that correct. No, it does not. So could so so we just need to clarify at this point then there is no revenue built into this model for the sale of the Chapel Hill Street property. That is correct. Okay, there's no revenue. There's no budget for that. Okay, so I want to be clear be real clear about that. So what that means is that when that happens and I do believe it's still going to happen the flow of funds because it's a sale of a public property will roll through the general fund. But then what the Council does with those funds in terms of other appropriations will still be, you know, your your determination whether that money is needed in the general fund because of other other aspects of things like we just talked about. Or if you determine that it's not needed here and it's more appropriate to transition to, you know, the affordable housing component. That still is an option and opportunity you would have either through the, you know, through this, you know, during the budget year or subsequent subsequent budgets. And I just wanted to pause there and see if anybody had any questions and be sure that I'm on the same page with with the budget staff and we're on the same page with the Council. I have a question, Mr. Mayor, if I might. Sure. Thank you, sir. And thanks, Tom, for that. The, and that's an important clarification, I think, because I'm, is it still really a full 8 million that will be getting from that sale or have we already charged the money we spent on the Google Terrace to that pool of money? Is it safe? Is it fair to still think of it as a full 8 million? Yes. Okay. And you'll get an update, you know, during this session on from Community Development, but those McDougal Terrace monies, as I recall, came out of other sources in the dedicated housing fund. Okay. Alright. Or anybody else is on can certainly correct me, but I believe that's the case. Okay. And we've made no determination that those funding streams are going to be replenished from that 8 million dollars. Is that a fair characterization? That's my understanding that'd be correct. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Barthard, do you have anything to add to that? No, I do not. Again, those, those dollars are in budget to here because there's not, there was no decision made about where, where they would land. Initially, yes, they'll come through the general fund, but we, you know, transition those transfer those to wherever, where it was decided. And then I think when Reginald Johnson presents, I think the questions about there is no plan to replenish those dollars, but I'm sure he'll be happy to share with you his thoughts around that. Sure. Thank you. And just to be clear, my, and please, I may be misremembering, but I, I thought that the 8 million dollars was being placed in general fund as opposed to going directly to the affordable housing fund, precisely because of things like McDougal Terrace, because we were anticipating needing money for actions like McDougal Terrace. So that, that I, I seem to remember that kind of conversation, kind of swirling around the money, but, but I could be wrong. Well, I think those conversations did happen, Council Member Middleton, in some, in some regard, but just in terms of the accounting flow of funds, you know, they, they, they revenues need to flow through the general fund initially, because that's, that's where the asset is located. And then, you know, your decisions about appropriations from, would in essence be from fund balance at the end of the day of the general fund to other purposes would be, would be your decision. I think there, you know, there was it, certainly back in the, what seems like an eternity ago, quite frankly, when we were talking about where, where, how much money would be needed for McDougal Terrace. Not just the initial appropriation, but the ultimate in any ultimate, which I think we still don't know, because of the other commitments that the affordable housing, you know, fund has. There was a, you know, thought that there wouldn't, you know, potentially wouldn't be enough there. And so some people said, well, we have all that extra money in the general fund, whether I don't even recall quite frankly that it was the, the Chapel Hill Street sale. I think that was kind of some, in some fashion, suggested for even other purposes than McDougal Terrace. But still the, it still rolls up to the general, the general fund. But of course, a lot of things have changed since then. And there will be, you know, some, some challenging decisions along the way. Thank you fair enough. I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to add, appreciate that explanation. And I think that the key thing that I know the council is interested in is that once that money is received, and congratulations to the staff on continuing those important negotiations and looking forward to their success, that the council be consulted before we expend those funds and Tom appreciated your assurances on that. We've, you know, a lot of us have talked over the last few weeks about this, and we've had some discussion with the council, some individual discussions amongst all of ourselves. And so I think it's, you know, that's going to be important to the council. Absolutely. I do have one other question Bertha about, about the previous slide, which is, can you remind me, you probably told us last time about the assumptions in the out years. We, what are we assuming about pay, are we assuming that we're going back to our, our previous assumptions around pay and benefits. Yes, yes, we are. Okay, so we have pay increases in the out years built into this. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Let me ask you one more question Bertha. This could be also at the end of your presentation whenever you feel like answering this but when you think ahead about what is the biggest risk that we're facing we know we have a strong ability to control our expenses. We know that I think we have fairly strong confidence in our property tax. You know, we know what the, we know what the, we know what the assessment is already, you know, the, for the all the properties. We don't know exactly what the, what the collection rate is going to be, but is the biggest risk, it seems to me is the biggest risk of sales tax, really falling out from what we project even our lower projections. I agree that that's the biggest risk or are there other big risks that you see on the horizon. I agree sales tax is the is the biggest risk. And of course, those businesses and terms of their ability to, to even come back and bring that sales tax back, you know, up quickly. So absolutely. A lot of it comes from construction as well. And with construction is installed. Other than nonprofit organizations, you know, we lose the sales tax there. It's, and it's so much uncertainty around it. And even if we, you know, could project the numbers, it's just when, when are we going to get back to where we were, and is that going to happen over, you know, one year. Dr. Walden seems to think it's going to go into 22. So, and that's what he shared with us. And so how long it will take us to get back to Tom's point about, you know, saving our fund balance. Because again, the only only significant changes you can make, or the only way you can make up dollars if you don't have savings is you have to get into to people, because majority of our expenditures is personal services, paying benefits. Thank you, Bertha. So to that point, you know, what we need to do carefully. And so I don't want, and I think Tom said this or alluded to this is, you know, this budget is not a budget that we you adopt in June and we can amend it at some point. We can amend it July one. And so we will continue to monitor our revenues and expenditures and, you know, provide our quarterly financial reports to you all and share with you, if we're on target, you know, what's going on on the revenue side and amend the budget if needed. So it's not making a decision now and you can't make another decision to the budget, the next budget process and that's how sometimes people characterize the budget we make a decision now, and we don't get another opportunity. That's certainly not true. Every year we do a carry over mid year, where we look at what actually came in at the end of the year and where we were and we make adjustments to the budget. At that time, and we do amendments throughout the year. So we'll continue to closely look at those, you know, monthly and share with you quarterly. We're continuing to work on our multi year financial plans to your point about paying benefits, you know, looking at where we ended this year and what the numbers will look like with we bringing back the pay adjustments next year strategies to look at gaps, you know, it's, you know, the go to was fun balance and we didn't really have another option because you're so much uncertainty and we want to balance that with not making drastic decisions on personal on the employee side and and and not been really in a position to make this, you know, exact projections at this time. And we will continue, you know, one of the things that Tom insisted upon is that we continue to check in with our departments, you know, based on the reductions that we made to make sure that they're able to continue to, you know, provide training or certifications, money for certification and other things that may be necessary to continue to assess their needs and make adjustments as necessary. And this is just a look at just a summary of the property tax, you know, pre COVID, compared to budget, and what our numbers, what our losses were. And, you know, when we talk to our employees, we talk about, you know, again, the property tax and sales tax being so significant that there's no other place for us to go to get to get additional revenues in the general fund. So just another summary again, we are lost was 12.7 million. We are now using 8.7 from fund balance, because of the additional 1.5 for gas tax, you know, hopefully that number will not be more than 25%. For gas tax, but the other concern is also, and, you know, even with sales tax and, you know, all of our state shared revenues, you know, we also don't know what the state is going to do in terms of trying to make up, you know, their deficit. And so we have to be careful. As we look at our state shared revenues and have an additional resource available if the state decides to change some of its methodology and sharing formula. And again, we're going to look quarter by quarter, there may be some other adjustments that need to be made after July one, we certainly bring those to you. And, and the manager will share them with you prior to us coming forward with a decision. So I believe that's my last slide. I'm happy to take any additional questions. Thank you. Excuse me, anybody have any questions for Bertha. Please go ahead and speak up. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I don't really necessarily have a question right now, although I'm sure stuff will come up. I just wanted to say a few words of thanks to our staff for what has been easily the most difficult budget cycle. It's going to be the most difficult budget cycle of my tenure on the council. And I'm sure in the, in the work of the staff that prepared this, these, these presentations in this new budget. I've heard, as all of us have heard during the last several weeks, calls from certain from lots of folks in our community about the possibility of using more fund balance right now to do various things. I just want to say that from my perspective, the way that staff is proposing to handle it during this budget cycle is exactly the way we ought to be handling it. I think it in the fact that we are in such a good position with respect to our fund balance is a testament to how well managed the city has been for many years. And the fact is, we've also heard over the years, calls for us to use more fund balance to do other types of things. Sometimes we have done that. But for the most part, we have been vigilant as stewards of the public money and, and this year is why this is why our staff are our manager. And as council members, we have been as vigilant as we have been over the years, because now we are in a position to make up and to use $8.7 million of fund balance to make up for lost revenue and still be in the position to sustain additional revenue losses. And as I fear the sales tax numbers continue to be bad and the, and, and, and Bertha, you pointed out the problem is we won't know until October whether or not that's going to happen. And so the ability to have this cushion and the understanding that we need to be ready for additional changes is something that I just want to say I'm really proud of our staff. And the difficult decisions that have, that have resulted in where we are right now. As I said, I don't have any specific questions. I do want to say that that, you know, we, we will get through this budget cycle. We're going to, I suspect we will have to make more hard choices as the fiscal year goes forward. But I do want to say that the chart that I think merits more long-term decision is the multi-year financial plan for the, for the general fund that's lab 15. I think what we are going to, we're going to need to be focused over the next couple of years at getting the city, keeping the city on a solid financial footing. This is not a one bad budget cycle and then we're back to, we're back to business as usual. Not only because of the deep red numbers you see in those projections, but also because we don't know what our economy is going to look like as a result of COVID-19. We don't know what the restaurant industry is going to look like in Durham and North Carolina and around the country and the world after, after COVID-19. And so we, you know, we, I think it's really important to get through this cycle as best we can to focus on giving us ourselves flexibility during the fiscal years that moves forward. But also to say that we've got to keep our eye looking a little bit down the road to make sure that we understand that it's not just one budget cycle of tough choices. We're going to have to do this for a while now as we kind of figure out what our new normal is. Like I said, I don't have any specific questions, stuff will certainly come up. But I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to say how proud I am to serve with the folks who are doing this really hard work. None of this is easy, but you've made it as easy for us as possible. So thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Rees. Great comments. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on this, on this presentation, if not, we'll move ahead. Before we move ahead, let me just ask. I would like to get split up the chairing a little bit today. And I've already spoken to Mayor Pro Tem Johnson about that. She has kids at home. What I have been thinking about doing is that I would chair through this next presentation. And then Mayor Pro Tem, you can let me know via chat or otherwise if you would like to chair through the next couple of presentations. And then I thought Council Member Rees, as our next, as our other senior member, you might want to chair through the transportation presentation. That sounds fine, Mr. Mayor. The kids have, kids have chilled out a bit. Sounds good to me, Mr. Mayor. I'm locked away in my bedroom and hopefully my children can leave me alone for a little while. So just let me know. All right, great. So I'll just chair. We don't need to do much sharing today, which is great. It's all really in the hands of Bertha and company. But insofar as we need it, I'll go through paying benefits. Then, Jillian, if you'll do General Services, Parks of Iraq and Charlie, if you'll do transportation. Sounds good. All righty, Bertha, we're back to you. Turn it over to Regina Youngblood for the Pay and Benefits presentation. Thank you, Bertha. Regina Youngblood, Human Resources Director here to present to you the Pay and Benefits presentation for fiscal year 21. So as you've just heard in Bertha's revenue presentation, that there's a lot of uncertainty around our revenues due to COVID-19. And so the city has found itself in the unenviable position of recommending no pay increases be budgeted for fiscal year 21. While we are not budgeting pay increases for FY 21, the city is still going to maintain its contribution to employees 401Ks at 5%. And what I want to make sure that you know is that the share of city benefits costs is increasing by approximately 9% this year. So the last time that we entered into a situation where we weren't able to give pay increases to employees was back in 2009. In that year, no general employees or firefighters received increases and then in 2010, no increases were provided to all city employees. And that was during the Great Recession. In the general fund, there are benefits increases. As I mentioned in the previous slide, the city's share of its contribution for benefits is increasing by approximately 9%, which equates to about $3 million. The greatest amount of that, again, is for health insurance and also increases to our retirement contributions for employees into the local government employee retirement system. In addition to that, there are some decreases for pay in the budget of approximately $500,000 compared to the current year. And those decreases are due to reductions in part-time and some full-time salaries that were being moved to different funding sources. So the net pay and benefits increase for 21 budget is $2.5 million. I mentioned that there were some increases to the city's contribution and benefits. We also had to increase the employee contribution for benefits in both of our plans this year. Our lower-cost plan, Aetna Whole Health, had been subsidizing our higher-cost plan, Whole Health Plus. The loss ratio of our higher plan was approximately 126%. And the loss ratio of the Whole Health Plan is about 78%. And so to move individuals to change their behavior, we increased the premiums for Whole Health Plus by 15%. And to maintain enough revenue in the insurance fund, we also increased Whole Health Premiums by 3%. So the impact of the increase of 15% on Whole Health Plus, the greatest amount is going to be seen or felt an impact on individuals that have family coverage. That is a difference of $45.20 per month, and that comes out to about $542.52 per year, or to break it down by pay period and additional $20.86 per pay period for those increases related to Whole Health Plus. But we've kept the Whole Health option very affordable. That 3% increase for Whole Health and the family rate really just comes out to a difference of $4.79 over the previous year. So employees have the ability to pay less for their benefits if they're willing to switch to the lower-cost option. Our COVID response included the need to furlough approximately 176 employees. You can see most of those employees are coming from our Parks and Rec department. Just to give you some demographics associated with the furloughed individuals, 76% of the individuals furloughed are black, 18% white, 3% Hispanic, and 3% all others. The greatest amount of individuals furloughed happen to be females. About 56% of the furloughed employees are females. And as you've heard some of these details before when we were talking about the $15 an hour minimum, during minimum level wage for part-time employees, we shared some statistics around Parks and Rec, and we find that the Parks and Rec part-time employees tend to be people of color and largely women. The city implemented a temporary premium pay policy to help recognize the employees that were working in the front lines during this COVID crisis, those individuals that are resident-facing, having high contact with the public, and working in teams and work groups where they're not able to socially distance themselves. That premium pay that started a month or so ago was 5% on top of their regular pay. We have right now about 1,339 employees who have received premium pay through May 22. The cost of that has been around $521,000. The slide says that the secession date is to be determined, but we had a conversation about this yesterday, and for now the decision is being made to have the premium pay, which was due to expire at the end of this month, extended through June 19. And so what you see here on the slide where it says that an estimated additional $414,000 would accrue if we kept going to the end of fiscal year 20, that number would be decreased by about $130,000 because there's only two more pay periods between now and June 19. Something that we also did in response, if you can go back to the past slide, John, for me, thank you, in response to COVID-19 was to give every employee in the city, hired before May 1, the equivalent of five weeks of leave. We've called this leave COVID leave, but it can be used for any purpose as long as it is pre-approved, and this leave will not expire, but it does not have a compensable value. So individuals cannot cash this out if they have balances remaining when they leave the city in employment. Do you have any questions? Council members, anyone with questions or comments? Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I first and foremost want to thank you all for the presentations and say that I also agree with Council Member Middleton. I mean, Council Member Reese and noting just how hard and difficult the pulling all this together has been. I just want to put that as a preference or preface to the comments that I'm making, but I wanted to know when you apply a race equity lens to this recommendation for the Human Resources Department and you say 76% of the people who were furloughed were black and they're black and of the 76% more than half are women. Is there anything that you applied or any shifts that you make differently in what you would recommend? Like have you walked through and or just walk me through what difference you made and how you came to the decision around the budget being around three million and landing at 2.5 with the decrease in bay? Well, the decisions around who was to be furloughed. Those decisions were made department by department based on the services that had to be scaled back or ceased completely due to COVID-19. And it is coincidental, but not something that we shouldn't look at that the individuals who are working in those programs that needed to be reduced or closed happen to be, you know, people of color. And I think I say that because I realized when you say coincidental that that you realize that that's not how it works and that's exactly what keeps it going. As far as noting that the people who are most disproportionately vulnerable are those at the margins and those usually people of color. And if the decision was made to furlough those workers, you have to at some point take into account some type of race equity in this conversation and figure out how to address it because it's not going to change. Councilman Freeman, I appreciate that and I understand the concern. I think it. I want to be sensitive to, you know, the the individual employees who were impacted, but at the same time I think it would be helpful maybe if we provided all of the demographic demographic information for the Parks and Recreation Department. Because certainly the profile of that department is not what you would see as consistent with, say, the profile of our community. I think it's substantially more diverse. So I think it maybe we could provide you some additional backup background information about the starting place that may be helpful, but I certainly understand and appreciate the questions and concerns that that you're raising. I don't know that you're going to show me that if it's 76% and there's a huge shift in a way that the demographics in the Parks and Rec look. Well, again, I think we want to go back and take a look at that and be sure that, you know, it's consistent with what I think it is. But it is a good question and information that we can provide without necessarily disclosing individuals names, but I've been protecting some privacy there, but still providing a backdrop of that demographic. We can do that pretty easily. We can do that time and that kind of echoes what I said before that the demographics of Park and Parks and Rec do run towards heavily female and people of color. Just making sure you're taking that into account and thank you those decisions. Thank you. I've got the data now at 62% Black Parks and Rec is the demographic. 53% female. Thank you for that. Thank you for that important question council member. Others. For Regina. We'll go first to customer Milton and then I believe Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem for allowing me and thank you, Mayor and thank you Regina. Good to see you. In addition to the demographic information, I'd be curious as to the actual job titles and functions of the folk that were furloughed. Because this for me, this statistic about the folk we furloughed or the number of folk we furloughed to me is going to inform how I look at any other request for FTEs citywide from other departments because as I said, I think at our last meeting. For me, the metric now is what is mission critical, what is absolutely mission, not just adding value or increasing efficiency, but what is mission critical. My assumption is that some determination was made that furloughing these folks we looked at what we could do absolutely and what we could not do and who was absolutely mission critical. The department is like the police department as well furloughing people. You know, for me that's going to raise my standard of scrutiny as other departments come and ask for FTEs if we're going to bring on FTEs on one part, but furlough people in other parts and to me, there's got to be some type of ability to say this is absolutely mission critical. I hope that we will at some point be able to bring those folk back or provide an opportunity for those folks to get back. I appreciate the demographic information, but even beyond that, I'd be curious as to exactly what the job title and duties of these folk who were furloughed in each department that's been listed here. I just want to serve notice that this will be very much informing my consideration of the rest of the budgetary ass from other departments moving forward. So I just wanted to put that on record. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Milton, I think several of those questions may be at least informed. I don't want to say answered, presumed to be answered, but at least informed as we move through some of these departmental presentations with the specificity of the positions and the programs that would either be suspended or furloughed depending on how you want to describe it. Absolutely. And to be clear, I'm not telegraph. I haven't made any. I'm just reserve judgment until those and I appreciate that, Tom. And I'm sure they will be. Appreciate them. Thank you, sir. Just quickly on on that to answer some of your questions and we can get you the specific details of all of the list, but in parks and record was lifeguards facility attendance and school crossing guards and police and transportation. It's parking ambassadors and 911 and water management had some administrative staff. Okay. Virginia, I think it would be good to get that in writing when you get a chance. Okay. We've got several people lined up for questions. We're going to go to mayor pro town. Then we've got a council member Freeman and then council member Reese. Thank you. And thanks Regina for your presentation. I also decided a couple of questions about furloughs. I know you mentioned in parks and record. There was a lot of part time workers. Have we furloughed full time workers and parks and record and any other departments. No. All of these folks on this list are part time. Correct. Okay. And is the plan. I know now folks who are on furlough are eligible for federal benefits for the special federal covid benefits. Do we continue to provide health insurance or for employees who are on furlough. Yes, we do. And of course with part time individuals, not all part time workers qualify for our health benefits. They need to be working at least 30 hours to a week to qualify for the benefits. And of the 176 individuals furloughed. There were two who are eligible for benefits and they have been given the option to continue their benefits and they just need to pay for those directly. The other thing that I want to, you know, communicate is that when we gave the five weeks of covid leave to every employee or the equivalent of five weeks based on their work schedule, that included part time individuals and several of these furloughed individuals continue to have covid leave that they can access to continue to receive a paycheck right now. There's approximately four days worth of leave left on average that each of these individuals has. Okay, thank you. So, when you say pay for that directly you mean cobra. They continue to receive the employee rates, but we normally take the money out of their paychecks, but if they're not receiving a paycheck they have to do a direct bill. Okay, got it. And I imagine we don't have a sense of when we might be able to bring folks back and with Parks and Rec programming I know a lot of that is suspended indefinitely. Do we have a sense with any of the other departments when or if we might be able to bring folks back on. We did ask actually and so Parks and Rec as well as all of the other operational departments have been working very closely with budget management services in their reopening government work. And so Parks and Rec says that they should be able to bring some people back by mid July and then begin to slowly reopen programs between July and September. And so Parks and Rec plans and Sean Egan can speak to this when he speaks in transportation, to bring back those individuals that were parking ambassadors but possibly parking enforcement would begin in June and so that might be the first time. We see some of those people coming back. Police again I mentioned that those are all school crossing guards that were furloughed and so that will have to align with when school begins. And so Parks and Rec management does not have any plans to bring back that one individual because they were already phasing that work out. Thank you. If I could just jump into just to kind of reiterate any confusion that the furlough situation was not a cost cutting measure of the budget. There were some reductions in costs but it was more about programs that were not able to be provided and many of those programs were in fact performed by part time people. So the program isn't provided that's why the position was furloughed. It wasn't furloughed to cut costs. So there's a portion of the cost reductions obviously that are built in the budget but it impacted how we balance the budget but that wasn't what kind of precipitated or drove the furlough decision. It was really more that the programs themselves particularly the summer programs and Parks and Recreation were not going to be provided or not going to be able to be provided this summer. And as indicated particularly in Parks and Recreation but also transportation you'll hear more about those details shortly when we get to those departmental presentations. Thanks. That's helpful. Thank you. Thank you Tom. And now we'll go to Council Member Freeman and then Council Member Reese. I apologize I had a phone ringing in the background. I have a specific question regarding the benefits of specifically when you said the cost of the medical premiums increase and the lower cost was due to wellness activities and not like service. I wanted to make sure that was clear that it was not a service decrease it was just like if you participated in wellness activities. That's correct. So we ask everybody to do a biometric screening and also to do two additional activities. And there may be another requirement there that I'm blanking on right now but those wellness activities get them the wellness rate. And then I think Council Member Middleton and Mayor Pro Tem Johnson asked my questions as well. Thank you Council Member. Thank you. Just before Council Member Reese goes just follow up on one thing Regina. Is there someone assigned in every department to I believe the answer to this is yes to work with employees in that department and kind of remind them about their their need for the for the to do the things that are necessary for the reduction in cost you know the wellness things. Yes. We call them HR champions every department has an HR champion and we hold monthly champions meetings to make sure that we're pushing out information through them as well as the message managers within the city and we also do direct emails to every employee as it relates to their wellness requirements specifically. Would you do me a favor or would you do us a favor. And maybe this could be someone in the clerk's office or maybe someone in your office. The when I was reading through the benefits book. There's a lot of specific information directed to council members. And if there was someone maybe I guess probably in your office rather than the clerk's office I'm not sure how to do this. I don't know if we can touch with us council members to make sure that we know what we're supposed to do. I feel like we're sort of outside the information loop on the system we certainly get the emails. But I know that over the years. I felt a little bit outside this information loop. We could discuss that later. But I think it would be helpful. Make sure that we're doing all the things we need to do. We'll do. Thank you. Councilmember Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just a lot of the things I wanted to get clarified. I've already been gone through, but I just wanted to say that listening to hearing councilmember Middleton's remarks about the furloughed employees. The employees are currently furloughed versus new FTEs being requested in the upcoming fiscal year budget made me want to ask about kind of the how those two things are related. And I think the city manager made it really clear that the decisions on furlough that were made in mid March when we started getting into the COVID-19 public health emergency were not a cost saving measures. They were directed at programming that it's no longer safe to do. And I think that is definitely true for our parts of employees in parks and rec who are currently in a furloughed or currently furloughed. I guess, from a budgetary perspective, what is the like, what are the assumptions built into the proposed budget around those furloughed employees are we are we do we have like new start dates built into the model. And maybe that's a first step at trying to get at that. So, as it relates to the budget, in terms of the individual employees, we did not remove. We did have we did remove some revenues from parks and recreation budget and I think that number was about 300,000. And then when joy guy speak she she can talk about her projections for her part time employees I think that would be the best way to respond to that question is allow her to talk about what it ties to when she plans to when they project bringing folks back online. So I defer to her to talk about that when she does our presentation. That's, that's great because I guess, if they're, if if it's true that there is a specific plan that DPR has for bringing their furloughed employees back online. And it's, it's related to kind of the expectation and projections about when programming can begin. I guess I'm curious number one to understand what that looks like and what kind of public health assumptions are built into that but also, I think from a budget perspective it helps us understand that that it's not especially clear that that we're that we're furlough employees to save money that we're then using to hire new employees I don't think that that is not how I understand what's going on, and I just want to make it real clear that obviously that would be bad at some level, but it doesn't appear that that's what's happening. And I just wanted to get that out into the, into the conversation, but I'll wait until we get to DPR to ask more specific questions about that, that kind of restarting the programming that we've just decided right now is not not really safe to do from a public health perspective. That's great. All the other thing I wanted to say is I'm, while I'm not thrilled about the increases in employee contributions. I think, you know, we are where we are but I again, as I said, a couple weeks ago, I'm really grateful to the administration for finding a way to maintain the 401k support for employees and that's really, really important, especially for employees who are nearing retirement age and so just wanted to express my gratitude for that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions for Regina? Mr. Mayor, if I might. Sure. Sure, I just want to clarify some things that I said, there's cost saving that occurs when an organization is just being fiscally responsible and kind of proactively looking for ways to cut costs and that goes on, you know, notwithstanding what's going on around you. That's just a default position that healthy organizations engage in. And then there is a cost cutting that occurs because you have to because you have less money. And the reason why these employees are being furloughed, my understanding is that because COVID, we weren't looking to furlough these folks had COVID not occurred. And my understanding that the overall amount of money that our organization will have to deal with is being impacted by COVID. And because of that, when I say I'm going to be looking at strict scrutiny for things that are mission critical to the organization, what I mean by that is, yeah, we're not cutting costs, but our money's been cut. And therefore, because our money's been cut, we're cutting costs not because we're looking to save money, but because we just have less of it. So insofar as that is the case in which we're operating, the conditions under which we're operating as an organization, as a city. When I look at FTE requests because we have less money and because we're going to be trying to put ourselves on right footing financially the next several years. This year in particular, we've told everybody in the city that we've got less, we've got to tighten our belts. So because of that, when I look at FTE requests, I'm not just going to be bringing a lens as to cutting costs, but I'm going to be bringing a lens that we literally have less money to do things. And like any other household, their household heads of household watching this meeting right now, who with their money's cut, they have to make decisions. Maybe we're not going on vacation this year. We don't get to buy the extra car. And this is a big old house in a big old family. So as one of the leaders of this house, I'm not looking to cut just to save money. We literally have a crisis where we have less money. So I want to be clear that I'm not tethering the furloughed employees as a cost-cutting measure to am I going to agree to hire new people on the other end or we're taking Robin Peter to pay Paul. Peter and Paul both have less money is my point. So I just want to be very clear on that. I'm very clear that there's no causal linkage between cutting costs on one to get money to hire other people. The house has less money overall. And I just want to just be clear that that's the prism that I'm looking through all of the decisions, at least all of my decisions moving forward. So just wanted to be clear about that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Any more comments or questions for Regina? Mr. Mayor, just if I might. Sure. And in light of Council Member Middleton's comments, I think it would be good for me to say that I am tethering the race equity aspect to this in the conversation and context of recognizing that if we continue to do things the way we've been doing them, which is to look at where's the easiest place to cut or the easiest place to furlough or the easiest way to shift and move without regard of race or gender, then we'll get the same results. And so I do want to make sure that I push in and saying like we've got to figure out ways to do it differently and to spell it out clearly. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, everybody, for all these good questions and comments. And now we're going to move on to our next presentation. And I'm going to turn the chairing over to you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, for the next two presentations. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I believe all I have to do now is turn it over to our General Services Director, Gina Probst. Good morning, everyone. Gina Probst, General Services Director. I'm happy to be here today and to share with you updates on our department's COVID-19 response, primarily talking about what we did during March and April, and then share out how our changes and efforts will influence our operations through the school year 21, and then share out some updates on our budget highlights. Next slide, please. Specifically, I would like to make sure that everyone is aware of who our heroes and heroines have been during the COVID-19 event for the city. And typically, General Services is available in a resource for severe weather events and emergency response. This year and this time, our custodial services team has been the team that has been the emergency responders on behalf of the city, for our city facilities to ensure that they have stayed clean and safe and sanitized while they've been occupied. So the heroes and heroines during this time period has been custodial services. I wanted to make sure that they are given accolades for their hard work. What we've done during the months of March and April is we've adjusted our central cleaning services to the facilities where we had occupied staff and continue to evaluate where our facilities are occupied, and we've also increased our frequency. We've added additional deep cleaning processes and protocols. We've increased sanitation of surfaces, door knobs, elevator buttons, common areas, chairs. Anything and everything that could get touched has been improved and increased with our custodial services response. And in doing so, we've been using all approved CDC and EPA supplies. We've also invested in some new equipment, including some misting sprayers and electrostatic devices, so that when we move through our facilities, there's a cleaning process followed by a disinfective process. Those protocols have been what we've been doing during March and April. We'll continue and have continued through May and will be part of our routine processes moving forward. We adjust our team members based on reoccupancy of various facilities. We also are getting prepared to, in the new fiscal year, address summer camp locations when and if they become open. During March and April for our facility maintenance side, we scaled down our services based on what was essential. However, we did keep and continue to provide routine preventive maintenance and oversight of all of our mechanical systems during the shutdown time period or the time when we had less occupancy in our facilities. So those protocols stayed in place and have continued. We adjusted staff schedules to respond just to emergency and urgent work orders during that time. And we adjusted our staff to ensure that we had facility checks on buildings that were not occupied, including some of our smaller rec centers and coordinated parks and rec as to which department would check in on different facilities during March and April. We are now in a process and have been since early May of returning our staff to work and are addressing projects that were previously on hold. Next slide, please. Here's some pictures and images of the supplies that we've been using that are CDC and EPA recommended, as well as some of the other types of supplies that we use to disseminate disinfectant. We have closely coordinated the types of materials and supplies that we're using in consultation with risk management as well. So this allows our team to work more efficiently and effectively when they are in various spaces using misters and electrostatic devices to disinfect. Next slide, please. During our COVID response, we have been very mindful to and have paid attention to stay at home orders and how we've adjusted our cemeteries operations and ensuring that we've complied with the number of folks that have been at various burial services depending on the updates from the stay at home orders. Our burial appointments have now been focused primarily Monday through Friday and we have been doing weekends as needed. We've adjusted our office hours to Monday through Friday from 10 to 2 so that we could employ safe social interaction and procedures and have created that window of time for appointments. And as of May 4, we've returned to our traditional normal hours for maintenance of the facilities as well as other operations at cemeteries. During the months of March and April, we deemed landscaping and urban forestry services not essential and we were able to suspend some of those services including mowing and some of the routine work that we do with urban forestry. Our landscaping units came back, scaled back as of April 13 and urban forestry as of April 20 and we have now returned our staff to work and are on their routine regular mowing routes and traditional operations for urban forestry. Next slide please. During this time, our project management, our real estate staff, our public art, sustainability and other administrative staff have continued to provide the services that they typically provide. We've just been doing it remotely. We've been leveraging a lot of the virtual tools to ensure that we continue to have meetings with designers, pre-bid meetings and other options. Our construction projects were initially put on hold, they resumed May 4. We've been working very closely with risk management on our contractor guidelines to ensure that we have updated safety plans and protocols in place for when our team members are inspecting construction projects. We had deferred our real estate in-person closings. We will be resuming those gene first with safe protocols in place. Our security projects, which was our access control and integration of our HVAC into a master web supervisor program. Those projects continue during this time and as of May 4, our inventory staff has resumed its normal operations. Next slide please. So, carrying on to how what we have been doing during the months of March and April have transitioned to May and what it looks like in the next fiscal year. We continue to look at how we schedule our work and our service delivery adjustments. We've been evaluating our timing of shifts based on the ability to ensure that our shifts come in safely and that we proceed with our wellness screenings. We've been doing our vehicle adjustments to limit the number of people in vehicles in order to ensure social distancing compliance. So, we've done all of that on the operational side with our teams and that will continue into the near future. We've increased the frequency of our facility cleanings and again that will also continue. Some facilities pre-COVID we only cleaned three times a week and now the recommendations are that if they are occupied that we disinfect every 24 hours. So, on buildings that are Monday through Friday operation, we are cleaning five days a week and those that are seven days such as police 9-1-1, we have implemented a seven-day regimen. We've also developed a custodial emergency response after hours protocol in conjunction with risk management. This is anticipation if there are issues that arose, you know, 24-hour facilities like our police or 9-1-1 that we had a response team ready to go and sanitize and disinfect if necessary. Next slide please. Following on with the additional contractor guidelines, as I said before, we've got new safety plan protocols in place, things that we will be closely monitoring in next fiscal year and thereafter our supply for PPE as well as other supplies that are new and different for our custodial team will continue the management of our mechanical systems with a focus on ventilation and filtration. We've been closely following recommendations from ASHRAE, from AIA, from WHO, from CDC, the alphabet soup of those with jurisdiction that provide this information to ensure that we continue to keep our mechanical systems operating properly. As well as during this time, we are leveraging all maintenance opportunities that we can in our unoccupied buildings so that we can do touch-up paint and other things that typically are difficult when occupied. Currently, we're serving as a resource for city departments, working with the Office of Performance and Innovation as well as risk management as we look at restoration of services, how and whether facility modifications will be necessary, signage, how we can work to de-densify certain areas and other mitigation efforts as we work to provide assistance to departments based on their needs. Next slide, please. Moving into FY21, we will continue as a state previously to evaluate our custodial staffing resources to ensure that we are right-sized for the increased frequency and schedule. We also will monitor and provide budget updates for any space adjustments or other mitigation efforts that arise out of our support for various departments, monitoring our supplies. We do have more hand sanitizer stations on order. They've not arrived, but these are all things that have been put in place in order to make sure that we have a safe environment for folks to return to work. Continue to monitor our tree planting goals and look for creative funding so that we can plant some larger trees as well as our focus on our cemeteries, ground maintenance and beautification and how we adjust our staff to address that. Next slide, please. Here's some images of some of the signage that our public art team has been working on that we'll continue to evaluate and change based on the needs. We'll have different signage for when the public returns, but thought that this was a creative way to ensure that we continue to have thoughtful communication about how we are to interact and behave when we are in our buildings. Finally, I have our resource allocation table. There's not much change from our operating budget except to acknowledge increases for paper performance that FTE count remains the same. I believe that is our final slide. Before we get to questions, I want to just express my appreciation to Gina and the General Services staff for doing just an incredible job in a whole new environment and way of thinking. As you've seen, they've been able to at this point make significant adjustments in the way they work without increasing at all the FTE counts, something that we're going to continue to take a look at. They've been able to adjust many of their operational resources to be able to provide the enhanced supplies and chemicals, those kinds of things that go along with that work. I just am truly appreciative of Gina and all of her team who have quietly been behind the scenes and have been thinking a lot about how all of our facilities will be ready and safe for employees and the public when the time comes to return. So thank you, Gina. Thank you. Thank you, Gina, so much for your presentation and thanks, Tom. That is an incredible amount of work and it's work that we don't often see. So thank you for making us aware of everything that your team is doing. So I have questions from members of the council. I have a question, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Sure, Mr. Mayor. Actually, I have a couple of questions. The personal services expenses on your charter, Gina, what are the reasons for that again? Personal services due to pay for performance. Okay. And that would be from this current year's full year implementation, not for next year. Correct. Okay. So can you pull that slide up? Yeah. See the proposed 2021, Gina? Yes. It's higher than the current year. Can you talk me through that? Let's see if someone from budget is available to assist with that as well. John, Laura, Assistant Budget Director, Budget Management Services. Mr. Mayor, I am quite confident that that increase has to do. It's not only pay for performance. It's also the effects of the full implementation of the pay study. And with a lot of that, when we budgeted it, we were unsure how that was going to hit departments with different classes of employees. Obviously, in the case of general services, it hit them more severely than some other departments. And if you'll recall, the pay study implementation was January 1st. It was mid-year, and this ends up being the full year implementation of those changes. Yeah. Good. Thank you. The ballpark fund, what's the, explain the, the, you see on the FY 2021, it's very different from every other year. I don't think we've had an explanation of that. Could you talk us through that as well? This is another item that I think I'll need to defer to the budget department and or finance as finance manages the ballpark fund. It shows up in our, in our rat table to the extent that we assist with capital projects, but the ins and outs of the ballpark fund is managed by finance. Let me also, while that, just to add to that, because I may be the same folks need to address it. We haven't talked about the, the effect of the deep pack closing on city finances. And I wondered if that could also be wrapped up into. Mr. Mayor, I can talk about that when the time comes. Okay, great. With the, it's John Allure again, budget management services, the large increase to the ballpark fund. If you look at in the budget, there was about a little over $800,000 increase to the ballpark fund. A lot of that had to do with capital maintenance. And that's why you're seeing a very, very large percentage increase for that one. Great. Thank you. And then I guess Tom, the DPAC, do you want to. Sure. So certainly, you know, the performing arts center operates under the same fiscal year as the city. So the, you know, the facility shut down in early March and the shows and those kinds of things that were scheduled were canceled. So I do think the year will end in a favorable way for the DPAC, you know, operations and performance. So there won't really be a current year budget impact next year. And we are in conversations with the operators at PFM in Nederlander about what next year looks like. They have not made any official announcements yet, although we have a pretty good sense of what that looks like. So I'm not really prepared to make that announcement, you know, right now or, you know, as a part of this session. But the good thing is that the way we have structured DPAC, it is in a separate fund. It is a place that has not required any general fund resources to operate. And as a result of that, and from savings that we have previously incorporated and the risk that the operator takes, there is not going to be at this point any general fund exposure for the time period that the DPAC will be closed waiting for conditions to change. Thank you very much. And thank you all for that good planning. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Gina. I'm going to go to Council Member Reese and then Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. Manager, do we have a city department with a newer department head than general services? Oh, you're really testing my old brain, Council Member Reese. I think that transportation is fairly, fairly new and general services is fairly new. And we certainly have an interim Parks and Recreation Director who you'll hear from shortly. It's a great recollection that I thought Gina was made the Director after we hired Sean. That's probably correct. All of that is by way of saying that Gina, you have done an amazing job under fire in your first year of leadership. I know you've been with the department for a long time, but as you have rapidly learned leadership has its own challenges. I just want to say on behalf of the people of the City of Durham, how grateful I am for how you have risen to that challenge, how you've led this department during one of the most difficult times in the history of how we try to administer this city. General Services has done an amazing job during this time. I have been impressed every time I've seen our General Services employees out in the community doing that essential services that we have to have and perhaps more importantly, arming the other city departments to do their jobs safely. So Gina, I don't have any questions. The Mayor got the one thing I was going to ask about, but I just wanted to thank you for really stepping up and being the leader that we needed General Services right now. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Rees and Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I would echo Council Member Rees' comments and appreciate the Mayor asking many of my questions as well. And the one additional thing I was going to say is that the way in which General Services highlights the way that they shifted in thinking around the art speaks to exactly what I was talking about in the previous conversation with Regina and I'm hopeful that the Parks and Rec has done the same. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your kind comments and please let me note that I have a great team and a wonderful team, so I appreciate it, but I can't take credit for it. Thank you. Any other questions from Council Members? All right. Thank you so much, Gina, and please do pass our appreciations onto your team as well. Our next presentation is Parks and Rec, and I'll turn it over to Interim Director Dai. Hi. Good morning, everyone. I hope everyone is doing well this morning. I am Joy Guy. I'm Interim Director of the Parks and Recreation Department. And I also have our Assistant Directors Jason Jones and Tom Dawson as well as Rich Hahn, our business manager in the meeting. I'll give him a second to get the slides straightened out for us. Our presentation will focus on a few highlights of the challenges and successes relating to our department's response to COVID. I will review our Drafted Phased Reopening Plan and the operational impacts that we project will occur in Fiscal Year 21 as a result of our projected delays in restoring programs and services. I will also review our allocation table, and first I will discuss our challenges. To say we've been challenged by COVID is a bit of an understatement. Our mission, Durham Parks and Recreation, provides opportunities for the Durham community to play more, connecting our whole community to wellness, the outdoors, and lifelong learning. At our core, we work to engage and connect with our residents through our parks and trails and through our programs, services, and events, which has been a challenge during this difficult time. However, our staff are resilient and very creative. With the initial challenges of COVID and our response to the state home guidelines, they were more technical in nature. As a large operational department, our first challenge was to transition our staff from working in our recreation centers and facilities to telecommuting. Our recovery from the malware attack on the city added another dimension. However, we were able to transition our staff and continue much of the critical work that was required initially for us to coordinate with our participants to cancel or reschedule programs, services, and rentals, as well as to provide the necessary refunds were applicable. During our initial work from the stay at home period, our part time staff were busy assisting with these processes, as well as catching up on required trainings, assisting with program research and helping to connect with our participants. However, as we progress further into the stay at home time period, it was difficult to assign meaningful work to many of our part time program support staff. It is for this reason that we made the difficult decision to furlough those that we could no longer keep productive. Ongoing challenges include our community's need to maintain mental and physical well-being. Our parks, trails, and open spaces have recently become even more of a respite from stress. A survey completed by our National Recreation and Park Association, Park Pulse, citing, parks are essential, especially during a health crisis, revealed that 83% of adults find exercising at local parks, trails, and open spaces essential to maintaining their mental and physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ongoing challenges also include our need to maintain connectivity with our participants, specifically those we were routinely serving in our programs and centers, and I will share more on these efforts momentarily. If I could go to the next slide, please. Our current challenge is to develop and implement a reopening plan to restore our programs and services for the community in a rapidly changing environment. As the stay at home orders are relaxed and restrictions are removed, we want to ensure we are well prepared to reopen our facilities and programs and reconnect with our residents. Our goals are to provide equitable access to our programs, make necessary modifications to our programs to adhere to recommended safety guidelines, and as we are able to reactivate our furloughed employees. Hiring and training staff for essential positions is also a current challenge. We know our programs and services will be vital and continue to be vital for helping our residents maintain mental and physical health. And now we'll talk a little bit about our successes. We've been able to keep our parks and trails open and safe for the recreational facilities that are allowed under our stay at home order. We posted signage throughout our system to educate and promote the allowed activities and also posted signage to promote and remind users of safe social distancing guidelines. We implemented a park monitoring program, visiting our heaviest used parks and trails to inspect and monitor use and conditions and to report unsafe practices or violations. Our marketing team has done a great job in maintaining our website and using social media tools to also educate and promote safe recreational activities and leave no trace practices for our parks and trails. In April, our marketing team facilitated a marketing communications in the time of COVID-19 North Carolina Recreation and Park Association virtual roundtable discussion for nearly 100 NCRPA members and students from across the state. Our staff shared their efforts and promoting our leave no trace programs as well as our virtual Earth Day campaigns. Our attendees were encouraged to share stories and strategies about how they are staying engaged and connected with their communities and how they are planning for what comes next. Our staff also responded with many great online virtual programs for children and adults to try to keep them entertained and healthy while at home. Some of the examples of these many programs include basketball skills and drills with our partner coach to inspire, which is a nonprofit organization that partners with our athletics unit to provide student coaches for our youth athletic leads and skills clinics. Our support and participation in the virtual one mile walk to support Special Olympics Spring Games in partnership with the Durham Academy. Virtual money boots and other programs offered by our outdoor recreation team. Our zoom hangouts, which are twice a week connect programs facilitated by our care program staff for our after school participants. Some of the activities included home scavenger hunts get moving exercise routines and dance parties. These hangouts often included siblings and at times even parents. And as mentioned, we also hosted a virtual art day celebration instead of the full festival. We partnered with pulse radio to promote and shared various tips information and videos via social media. Several organizations contributed to providing information, including the city's water management department. Keep Durham beautiful stormwater the city county sustainability office, et cetera. Bill Ray meteorologist with CBS also helped by recording a promotional commercial to promote the event. So we worked hard to maintain connectivity with our community. We were able to complete online engagement surveys together input and information needed for playground replacement for two of our parts. Bay Hargrove and Drew Granby. We intend to be able to complete these and reopen as we're able to open playgrounds again. Staff have also assisted other departments and agencies. We've been involved in local, state and national meetings providing recreational programs and services in this time of COVID. As mentioned, some of our staff helped facilitate roundtables with NCRPA. These networking efforts have strengthened strengthened our relationships with our peers in the industry. And these relationships will continue to provide a great support network as we continue to navigate this uncharted territory. If I could go to the next slide, please. Other successes we have had over the past few months include staff completing online certification programs and training. Examples include our recreation specials specialists and childcare programs. Completing a required course at Durham Technical Community College to obtain their childcare credentials one and two. We've had staff complete certification and spin bikes and also in pool operations to provide a few additional examples. Many staff completed updating their unit and program manuals supporting necessary work and complying with accreditation standards. We worked with our technology solutions department and have been fortunate to restore operating systems that were impacted by the malware attack. We continue to seek out flexible and creative solutions to complex problems as we learn to navigate our new normal. Thank you. Go to our next slide, please. Our National Recreation and Park Association has compiled guidance to help parks and recreation agencies with the development of reopening plans. We've taken advantage of the many resources and recommendations provided through their path to recovery program. In addition, we're in communication with regional parks and recreation agencies, including Raleigh, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Cary, to discuss trends and prepare aligned reopening strategies where feasible. As the RPA has recommended, transitioning through the various phases of our plan will require meeting a set of outline indicators and gating criteria, as well as the implementation of additional mitigation strategies to ensure our efforts continue to protect public health. Indicators that will be considered when transitioning between each phase effectively meet federal, state and local phase progression guidelines and metrics as determined by public health officials. Conduct a risk assessment of all spaces, facilities and programs. We will assess contact intensity, the number of contacts and the degree into which activities are considered to be modifiable through mitigation strategies. We will ensure sufficient staff capacity and resources to support reopening, secure cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment and establish and implement related standard operating procedures. We will ensure community awareness of public health measures and develop plans to scale up mitigation measures if needed. We recognize that changes in public health may require mitigation measures that slow our progression through the phases of the plan and might even require reverting back to a previous phase. We are resilient and prepared to pivot as necessary to ensure we continue to align with the recommendations of our public health officials as well as federal, state and local guidelines. Our phased approach in our reopening plan prioritizes public health and safety, considers equitable service delivery and recognizes our adherence with all federal, state and local guidelines. For these reasons, many of our offered programs will be at a reduced and or modified service level. This slide and the next slide of our plan will indicate those modified, those planned modified or reduced service levels by the highlighted blocks. So highlights of our phase one and what we've been able to restore so far. Of course, our parks and trails continue to be open. To this courts, pickleball courts and disc golf courses were open on May 18. Private boat launches are now permitted at Lake Mickey and bank fishing began at both city lakes on May 22. For a review of phase two, we're planning to open dog parks and our park restrooms on beginning June 1. We'll have non motorized boat rentals at city lakes to begin on June 19. And we anticipate opening our hike and park tours on June 22. And on into July, we anticipate providing teen and youth enrichment activities as well as the Midorm Summer Program beginning on July 6. Limited interaction, recreation and fitness programs such as spin classes, arts and crafts, dance, et cetera. City Lake paddling programs and boat rentals, tennis leagues, open computer labs and open fitness centers. And on the next slide, you'll see our phases three and four, which are now marked to be determined because of so much being unknown at this point as to when these will be allowed. This phase is three and four will include programs that have increased interaction and physical contact between participants or between staff and participants. Many of these programs also have higher participation levels, and so mass gathering limitations will need to be relaxed before we can resume them. Programs within these phases will open as guidelines allow. Go to the next slide please. And these are our budget highlights. We reduced our proposed budget by a total of $375,833. And as discussed earlier, these were reductions that occurred because of our programs being closed. These were totally operational. 279,556 of this is due to reduced part-time staffing that we're projecting to continue to occur July through August, as well as the elimination of part-time step increases for this year. An additional reduction of $96,277 in operational expenses were reduced just from reduction to training and travel. For example, we know our state and national conferences for this fall have already been canceled. Printing publications, office supplies, summer vehicle rentals, and some of the trips that we had planned for the fall. We also project a reduction of $252,600 in revenues, in program revenues. And of course this was due to our program cancellations and delays in opening, as well as a loss of our rental revenue from our rental facilities. And if we could go to our next slide. And of course this is our resource allocation table. And even with the reductions that I just went through, our personnel line is still increasing by 11.9%. And this is attributed to the annualization of the current year's performance increases that were implemented in July, 2019, the benefit increases, the full-time pay study annualization. Those were all for the full-time employees. In addition, this includes the annualization of the part-time, darn minimum, livable wage based pay plan that was implemented mid-year. On the capital line, you'll see a slight decrease of 6.7%. This was also due to funds moved to personnel to cover the increase for annualizing salaries and benefits for our full-time positions that are funded through the half-penny tax reports. And I believe that is my last slide. And so at this point, I'm happy to entertain questions. Great. Thank you so much for your presentation. Your department and all departments have been significantly affected by COVID, but I think Parks and Rec is one of the ones that has seen the most impacts. So I want to thank you for all your work with navigating that and this very well-thought-out reopening plan that you all put together. Questions from members of the council? Madam Mayor, part of my mind. Absolutely. Council Member Middleton. Thank you so much and thank you, Joyce. It's good to see you. And congratulations on your leadership during these challenging times as interim. I was really, really looking forward to this presentation. And just full disclosure, Parks and Rec has a very, very special place in my consciousness as a person, as a leader of this city. It was really the brilliant kind of conspiracy that my parents had with the New York City Parks and Rec when I was younger. That I really, I don't think it's an oversight because it kept me alive. Programming that Parks and Rec did during the summer combined with free lunches at our local public schools subsidized by the federal government were major. I think trajectory changing impacts in my life. So I'm really heartened to see in your plan the intention of restoring furloughed workers when we can. I want to thank you for that. I expressed to the city manager in our one-on-one meetings my deep concern about programming for the summer. You know, when we talk about crime in the city or, you know, negative things going on in our city, oftentimes what people will say is our kids, one, need something to do and two, need a job. And often for many of our young people in this city, particularly black young people, it's Parks and Rec during the summer that gives us that something to do to keep our kids occupied. And one of the things that I'm sure folk in the city have noticed that even during the stay at home order, we have not had really a cessation of gunfire in our city. And as we, you know, those of us that know these things know that as the weather gets warmer and we get to the summer months, there's more opportunity for things to happen. So that reality combined with COVID impacting programming through Parks and Rec for our kids, paints a rather ominous picture for some of us and raises concerns for some of us. So, and I shared this with the manager and other colleagues that the impact that COVID would have on programming during the summer is a source of concern for me. I just want to let you, I want to thank you, firstly, in giving us a picture of how soon we can open up safely, of course. And I just want to, I guess not, it's not really a question, just a note of commendation and just an underscoring of how important we realize that these programs are in Parks and Rec, all of our departments, Parks and Rec in particular. I don't think there's any more sacred responsibility that government has to its people than to protect their lives, first and foremost, keep them alive so they can participate in the economy so they can enjoy our parks and trails. And I think for many in our city who are dealing with issues that will still be there when COVID is over, the safe and comfortable amongst us when we go back to, and I include me in this, when we go back to our normal lives, there will still be some things that folk were dealing with before COVID and will still be dealing with when COVID passes. And Parks and Rec has been an important part, an important arrow in our quiver to addressing some of those issues. So I just want to commend you and encourage you to keep doing what you're doing. Thank you for the work. And for those that are listening that are not elected officials, a part of the government, particularly I'm looking at my colleagues in the community around the city, there may be some stop gap measures or fill in the gap measures that we need to be doing this summer, that we need to be thinking about with our facilities, with our resources to fill in some of the gaps that may exist because of COVID on city services to keep our kids alive and to give them something to do while the jobs are being worked on, while our shared economic prosperity plan is being put together and those jobs come online down the years. Right now, we've got to keep our kids alive and give them something to do. So kudos to Parks and Rec. Thank you so much for your leadership. And I look forward to working with you through these challenging times. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Council Member. Are there other questions or comments from Council Members? I have questions. Mayor Schultz. Thank you. I want to thank Joy Joy. I bet you didn't think this was going to happen when you became an interim director. It wasn't in the works. Wow. I would point out it was about 45 days later. Well, Joy, thank you for stepping up to it. We're lucky to have you. And we appreciate you for stepping into the gap. I thought that Council Member Middleton made a lot of good points and I know we're all concerned about the same thing. And as the summer gets hot and kids have less to do, I know it's a big concern. And so I appreciate you all thinking about everything you can do to open things up. I've had a couple of emails about concerns about opening up the city lakes. When we open up the city lakes, how does that work? Like how are people, what's the social distancing like and what are the steps in that? Well, we've started very slow actually with our opening of city lakes. At this point, we're only allowing bank fishing and allowing the self-launch boats with like Mickey. And the reason for starting that out slow is because we wanted to ensure that we weren't creating issues with social distancing. We set up the only transactions that occur. One, we're providing these services at no additional cost to participants because of the demand. We have staff have very creatively created a method in which they do a lottery system where folks wishing to come out and participate text in the day before they want to come out. They're chosen at random. Staff have markers along the bank for the bank fishing to promote the social distancing. They have signage up promoting wearing masks and maintaining that distance. We also, General Services worked with us. We instead of, for example, instead of using the small boat houses to conduct that transaction, they set up tables in a pop-up tent outside. And so that they can maintain the distances with the participants check-in. General Services worked with us. We have plexiglass shields to shield at that point of transaction as well. And that's really just to issue the permit and collect the person's name so we know who is on the lake. So again, we started out very slow. We're working now through our risk procedures for how we can modify some things to allow for the non-motorized boat rentals. One of the things that we do, for example, with our boat rentals is with the personal floatation devices, our staff do checks to make sure they're on correctly and securely. And because of that close contact, we did not start that initially because we're reviewing how that is done and how it can be done safely. And so we're very, very much aware of every step and we're really analyzing the procedure itself and doing what we can to minimize the points of contact and reduce the points of contact where possible. Joy, thank you. That was a fantastic explanation and it really illustrates all of the things that you have to do and all of your activities. So thank you. That gives me a lot of confidence. The outdoor pools, I know that we, I mean, I just think of them as just anchors in our summer life in Durham. And I know that we, they attract huge crowds and we can't have huge crowds. And right now our limit on the number of people that can gather outside is 10 for a mass gathering. And so I get why they're closed. So I'm hoping that you all can think creatively about ways in which the pools over the summer could be open in very limited ways to small groups of people. It would have to be, you know, I don't even know what, you know, but I can imagine, you know, a couple of families in the pool at a time on one end, you know, you'd have a lot of demand it would be really hard to manage. But I just, you know, I think it would be good to look at what other pools around the city are going to be doing that are starting out this summer. I know you've got them scheduled to reopen for 2021. But I hope that you can think creatively about a way to maybe make some of that happen this summer. I don't know that that will be possible, but I just want to ask you not to shut the door to that. I don't want to pretend to know how. And I recognize it would create lots of issues because a lot of people would want to do it and have to have a lot of resistance or something like that. But please give that some thought. Mr. Mayor, I would say too, we're in contact with all the other, you know, large cities. I can, you know, contact with them every week. And I think we're pretty consistent with the realities of pools right now. You know, Greensboro, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Charlotte, we're all trying to think through that, but you've outlined many of the complications and some impracticalities, particularly in those high demand areas, whether it's what happens in the pools, but also what happens at the gate for people who are waiting to get to the pools. Yeah, understood. It's very, very challenging. But we're going to continue to look at that. But I don't know anybody who's really come up with a solution yet. But I think Joy and her staff, if there is one to be found, I'm pretty confident they'll find one. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Manager. And I just wanted to say, I've been using the trails relentlessly in the last few weeks, walking, biking, and when my Achilles will let me, running. And it's such a gift to our community to have these trails. It's so important. I don't think I've ever seen so much appreciation among our residents for our parks and our trails, especially our trails at this time, Joy. I want to say that the American Back of Trail is very crowded. I hear some complaints that people say that people aren't trying to socially distance. The experience is that most people really are and there's a big effort made. But we also have a lot of trails for people are concerned about that that aren't as crowded. Third, four Creek Trail, Ellaby Creek Trail, especially Ellaby Creek Trail West Extension. We have a lot of our trails which don't have the crowding and I just hope that we can push out to our to our social media and other things to our residents, the knowledge of these other trails. It's a great opportunity for us to help people understand how awesome our trails are. Everybody thinks about the American Back of Trail, but we have so much more. So I want to thank you for I want to thank you in the department and you know, General Services also and everybody that makes these trails work so well and are such an incredible asset. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Reese. Madam Mayor Pro Tem Joy, I wanted to pile on your head many of the same types of praise that I reserved for a gene at General Services a few minutes ago. You have really stepped into the breach and and I don't think very few people could have expected our parks department to be to have responded much better than y'all have done during this incredibly difficult time you know this is one of those areas where the rubber really hits the road with a communicable disease like COVID-19 and our response has been so good and much of the credit belongs to you and your team so thank you for that. I just wanted to ask a specific question around the city's baseball facilities as it relates to the Durham Long Ball Program as well as South Durham Little League and find out if you've been able to make any progress in determining if and when those groups will be allowed to have access to the city's baseball facilities. We're actually discussing that this week again on Friday the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services released additional guidelines on sports and administration of sports. And those guidelines, while still very stringent if you will, on the provision of baseball and softball. We are taking a look at them and seeing whether or not we can do anything or we feel we can possibly do something with that safely. And so that is very new sort of off the press with the latest release on guidelines and so again we're in communication this week and hoping to work through some of those requests that we have pending from some of our local athletic organizations. I appreciate that it's my understanding that Long Ball has gone ahead and canceled their season. I don't know that that's solely as a result of the their inability to access the city's baseball facilities and there's some other considerations there but I know that's a huge loss for our community. The South Durham Little League is the other organization that I think is working hard to try to create a set of procedures that will let them operate safely. You know, Bull City Little League is in a different situation because they own their facility in North Durham. And so as someone who lives and works in South Durham and who has heard from a number of parents and folks affiliated with South Durham Little League I just wanted to put that bug in your ear that that this is that if there's a way to do it safely. I think it'd be really great so thanks. Thank you. Thank you council member any other questions from members of council council member Freeman. Thank you. I appreciate the presentation and I commend the response on the public health side. Overwhelmingly, I really wanted to just raise in addition to the comments that council member Middleton made that it is unsettling to think about what the summer will look like in East Durham and other parts of Durham without activities. And I also wanted to make sure that I noted. So when I was looking at the numbers I was just trying to figure out exactly how much staff was actually because I'm looking at the chart that shows the staff until the future and it shows 78 as the number of part time staff moving forward. And I wasn't sure if it was because they were seasonal part like part time workers that you just didn't bring on or if they were actually 147 or 146 part time workers you had to let go or put on furlough. And I wasn't sure if they were like if there's a continuation, like an overlap or like an open like if there's folks who just work for the summer and then they come back in the next summer. Are those folks able to come back. How does that all look. It's a little bit of a combined problem, if you will, the 146 that were furloughed were from those that typically work a year round. We had just started our summer hiring process in which we do bring on typically an additional 100 to 150 seasonal staff. And, and so we immediately, you know, we stopped hiring, knowing that our programs were going to be dramatically impacted initially. And so the reason why we didn't make an adjustment to the rat table and the number shown there for the part time full time equivalence is what they are is because of the loss of the summer style. And the, and the full time I mean in the year round part time that we were losing there for July and August. So it's hard. It's hard to really see I guess like a clear picture outside of the numbers that Miss young blood actually shared earlier, where she said that 78 or 76% of those furloughed were black. And I love that I'm figuring around 78% of those from parks and rec. And if that is the case, how do you, I guess I'm trying to understand when you're looking at how you come, how you come up with the solutions beyond the public safety aspect, like equity issue that raises up for me is just how many people are at the margins as staff. And if we don't account for that at all. There's this just an unsettling feeling about it. So I hear the man when he says opening up the pools. I acknowledge that soccer and basketball might not happen this summer but we know usually who plays soccer and basketball is black and brown children and people in the community and I just don't want the same sentiment to go to come across with staff. And so I'm just trying to I'm not saying this is something that you overlooked or something that, you know, that that you've intentionally done. It's always almost as if it's it's the inevitable is going to happen. And I'm trying to push on how we how we stem it. And so I'm not, I'm not sure what that looks like but I know that if the positions are are all year round positions that are furloughed, and you're only showing like 206. And the next fiscal year budget but the additional 146 that would be 362. I'm trying to, I'm trying to wrap my head around what the logic is and how that unpacks across the year. Because phase three and four are going to be where you bring in 146 new people. Okay, the part time number that's showing on the rat table the 78. Yes, is that's a calculation that's done to determine the full time equivalency of all of the part time hours. Basically 2000, what is 2000 80 hours is a full time equivalent position. And so when we talk about the 146 part time staff. Those are staff and I'm trying to look at my, my numbers here but those those staff were averaging somewhere between anywhere between five most of them averaging anywhere between five and 25 hours a week. And so there was a range. One of the first things that we did and working with human resources on the assignment of COVID leave was we had looked back at the past I think it was six months to determine the average hours that each employee was working per week in order to ensure that the COVID leave was assigned equitably across those employees to ensure that they would have sufficient leave to cover what they would normally earn within a week long period. And so again, those 146 even there's 146 person impacted by this. Again, they their work range was from five to five hours average to 25 hours. The 78 that you see on the part time equivalency and in all honesty, we just did not adjust that we were things were moving very quickly, as we were trying to determine the savings that we would have from not having those staff, all on board July one. And just making a projection of what the savings we determined we thought would happen, because of our delete opening of our programs and services and our centers. And once the staff that had not been far looted part time staff that were not far looted, or basically we had. We knew we were going to be opening city lakes earlier. And so we kept our city lake part time staff on board. We knew we had some of the first things out would also be our part tours and whatnot and so our historic interpreters, for example that work at the west point on the you know, we left them on board they were helping prepare research and modified programs so that we could bring those back online. We had some of our. For example, our part gatekeepers that you know had meaningful work because they were already out in the field indeed the central to open and close gates. Each night for a part that that work continued. And so really the ones that we kept on board, what were because the work was there for us to keep them employed and it would not impact. They didn't have the reductions that may have led them to needing to apply for an employee. Or having reduced benefits. So when you when you're making those judgment calls, if you could actually factor in racial equity as well as equity. And being equitable around the fact that those folks who are working five additional hours that could be the difference between being able to pay the rent or not. That would be helpful. That's the gist of it. And bringing on any as you look into being more creative about how to engage some of the phase three and phase four. I would encourage you to look at how people show up in those spaces and how race plays a factor. Thank you council member. Thank you. Questions or comments. All right, thank you so much joy for your presentation and for all of your hard work and in these difficult times please pass our appreciation on to your team as well. For all the work that they're doing to try to keep our parks and trails up and running as much as possible. During this time. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you too. Thanks. And I'm going to turn the chair responsibility for this meeting over to council member Reese if he's ready to ready to rock. I was born ready madam air proton. So thanks for the presentation so far. They've been great. Next up is the department of transportation with their proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. And Sean Egan, our director is I see him online. Thanks for being here Sean and take it away. Thank you very much council member Reese and members of the city council. We really appreciate this opportunity to talk about the work that the department of transportation has been doing in response to coven and how will impact our work going forward. We'll walk through a few different items here our response, our resource allocation tables, and then our proposed budget and some of the impacts of recent changes on the Durham County Transit plan and on revenues that we received from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. So as we move in, we'll start with our parking so we see star revenue operations in March. We've been working with the restaurant industry and and our downtown partners to identify on street zones that can be used where we repurpose what would be metered spaces to pick up and drop off and that's worked really well. We've adjusted our security presence and done some increased cleaning and to improve the safety of our facilities and common touch areas. And as was described this morning, we furloughed our part time parking ambassador staff. In transit. We've experienced relatively high ridership we're at about 60% of our normal ridership when other systems are down in the, you know, 10 to 20% range. So in March we implemented an end of service at 930pm and we suspended certain trips. We're operating around 80%. We at the beginning of May due to limited staff availability, we were down at about 50% of our service with a standard Sunday schedule, and we've added service across a series of routes. And that went into effect on May 18. And so we're now operating at about 70% of our normally scheduled service and those service levels are really driven by our staff availability. So as we've talked about before, staff have commitments to their families and have health concerns and concerns about exposure to coronavirus. And so that's kept certain staff members from being able to report to work as they normally would. So we are working very hard to recruit additional staff. One of the things that we are looking at, for example, is where we had part time staff who are parking ambassadors. Could we offer them part time opportunities in the GoDurham system as a way to bring those furloughed employees back into employment and then also to address the staff shortages that we're seeing in our transit system. So we're really trying to think comprehensively about these issues and how we can take care of the employees who are impacted by the furloughs and also address our staffing needs for transit. So we've implemented a 16 passenger limit on the vehicles and identified seats that should be used. But we continue to be concerned about crowding and social distancing. So we're looking at things like having the windows open in the buses as much as possible to increase airflow and circulation. And any good idea that comes along, we're willing to try it and we're attentive to what our peers are doing and trying to learn any steps that we can take to reduce the risk exposure to our riders and our staff. Our traffic operations team has been split into A and B schedules and they've been out in the field and taking care of traffic signals, signs that are down and then working to support major projects, construction and development projects. One of the things that we're not able to do right now is data collection because of the unusual circumstances that we're in right now. We don't think that data collection in this time would be meaningful for making decisions about traffic operations during normal times. And some of our heavy duty long line pavement, for example, has been suspended as we work through the procedures to be able to conduct that work safely. In terms of our transportation services, most of our planning and engineering staff are maintaining services while working remotely. We're conducting development review digitally. We're holding our MPO board meetings. There's a technical committee meeting this morning. Those are proceeding virtually. We're seeing some increases in service requests from residents, some of our residents who are observing things at home during the day that they might not have otherwise seen while at their work sites are identifying issues that they're concerned about, safety and noise and such. So they're bringing those issues to our attention and we're working to address them. And one of the tools that we would typically use to address those concerns is studies, but those are, as I said, suspended for right now. So as we look ahead to the next fiscal year, we're looking to return parking operations to Gates Down Revenue Operations next week on Monday. We're working with Downtown Durham Inc. on an outdoor dining program that would enable restaurants to set up space on sidewalks and potentially in the parking spaces on the street to be able to have outdoor dining and reduce exposure that way. And we're working on evaluating the timing and the appropriate market demand for special events and evening parking ambassador services. And we'll be doing that in consultation with the Renewal and Recovery Task Force. On Go Durham by the end of next month, we're looking to get back to that 80% service level, but that continues to be driven, as I said, by staff availability. And so we're going to be looking at different types of recruitment campaigns that we can do to try to get more people involved. We know that there are many people who are out of work during this time. And so there's an opportunity for us to provide good paying living wage jobs for people who have been economically impacted by this. And so we really want to find ways to match people who are looking for work with the job opportunities that we have in transit. One of the steps you'll see on the next slide that we've taken to protect our operators is partition. So we have these installed in three of our vehicles right now. We're working to get them installed across the fleet. We did an initial installation of two and got feedback from the operators. The feedback was very positive that we did receive. So they see the value and they appreciate the additional protection that is afforded by this barrier. So that's an example of one of the things that you could see with our service that is an improvement for better COVID protection. In terms of our operations and services for next year, we're looking to get back up to full service levels as we can do so safely. So we can take on some of those larger projects like the payment marketing projects. We're looking to resume data collection potentially when schools are back in session, although that is an open question at this point. And we're working through community engagement, different practices. So we've done some things innovatively like we on East Main Street, we were looking at reconfiguring the roadway there. And we had one of our community-rooted partners lead a video conference where she walked down the street and talked about different observations about what we liked about the way that that roadway was laid out and got feedback from folks about what they would like to see, what they like, what they don't like, what they would like to see for that East Main Street. So we're trying out different approaches and really trying to take advantage of the resources that we have with community-rooted partners through neighborhood improvement services to do that. With our passenger vehicle program, we would normally do taxi inspections in April. We were working with Fleet Management to conduct those in August. And our Bloomberg Mayor's Challenge is working with the budget management services on doing analysis of telework, what we're learning from the telework deployment that we've done in the city. We're doing some surveys and then how we can use that to inform policymaking and encourage telework going forward within the city and then throughout our community. So you'll see on our org chart we have a new structure proposed with business services as a new branch reporting to the director with a new business services manager. This is really important for us because of the increased financial and administration that goes along with the parking operation that we insourced that had been previously contracted. We've been relying heavily on our colleagues in the Department of Finance over the last year to provide us with additional support to address all of the business services needs of our in-house parking operation. And then we're also seeing significant growth in transit with additional resources available through the Durham County Transit Plan. We have access to additional funding and we want to make sure that we manage that in a transparent and accountable way. So having a business services manager and then restructuring MPO parking and transit services, we can make sure that we're identifying opportunities to use resources efficiently and scale the level of investment that we're making in our services. So the next slide is the resource allocation table for our general fund budget. So this has that one additional position, but other than that, our general fund positions are pretty stable. We're consistent from where we expect to be at the end of this year to what's proposed for next year and that new position is split across general with support from parking and transit as well. With our transit table, we have, we're expecting a significant decrease in revenues from Fairbox. We suspended Fair Collection in March and some of our, and then we're looking at reduced support from the State Department of Transportation as a potential risk similar to what was discussed this morning with the Powell bill. There is support for public transit as well as support for signed signal payment marking operations that transportation receives from NCDOT. And we're looking at potential reductions in those sources as well. What's not included in this table is our federal assistance. So we were very fortunate through the federal CARES Act to get an allocation of $12 million. That was just recently approved through a split process by the MPO. And so we're now in a position of working through the FTA process to identify expenses that are eligible for that use, develop the grant and work through that drawdown process. So that that will help us as we try to make sure that we're sustaining operations with some of the revenue reductions that we're seeing will still be able to see, will still be able to maintain full service levels and staffing permits. And then for parking, we're seeing a significant drop in revenues. And we're seeing a much higher reliance on appropriation from fund balance than we had anticipated. And so, you know, when we were having this discussion in February, the parking fund looked to be in balance through 2021 and 22, and then would be looking at a negative balance in 23. We're now based on the suspension of revenue collections and reduced demand. We're expecting to see a significantly greater reliance on fund balances in both fiscal year 20 and 21. And we do not expect to have significant fund balances available in FY22. So we're going to have to be taking a hard look at the FY22 budget and what we can do to ensure that the parking fund is in balance in FY22. So as I said, Go Durham has available $12 million in CARES funding. We've been very successful in advocating for additional resources through the Durham County Transit Plan. Several of those have been approved in FY20 work plan. Others are recommended right now and will be going to the Go Triangle Board for final approval in June. And just to give you a sense of that, we're seeing an increase of $2.5 million for service level increases and $7.8 million for transit emphasis corridor infrastructure and electric bus vehicle purchases. So that's a really exciting opportunity for us to utilize those resources and improve service infrastructure rolling stock for our customers. As we look to the update of the Durham Transit Plan, we're really, we're trying to think through different ways to approach public outreach. I think there'll be some more discussion tomorrow on public engagement citywide. And so right now we're trying to front load as much as possible the technical work for the plan. So scenarios of service levels, regional connectivity needs, some guidelines, some operations analysis. And then as we work through those technical pieces, we'll have information that we can bring forward for the public to respond to and to get some priorities from as we present these different scenarios, see how the public responds to the different scenarios and what their priorities and what their feedback is as we work through this. So the project schedule has been modified for the Transit Plan update. So we're now looking at releasing a draft for comment in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 21 to be followed by adoption by the boards. So as I said, we're front loading more of the technical analysis work in the hope that we can resume some of those public engagement activities later in the cycle. We've talked a little bit about NCDOT and our funding concerns as was described this morning, the Powell bill revenues are expected to be down 25%. We're seeing reductions in the state aid for public transit as well as sign marking and signal. So we're looking at a $0.8 million loss for sources that are provided directly to transportation that would be in addition to the cuts for the Powell bill. And it's not just direct funding, but we have locally administered projects that require NCDOT approval at each step. So if you look at the next slide, when we want to go from design to right away or right away to construction, we need NCDOT to approve us advancing those projects. And right now the information that we're getting from NCDOT is because of their funding crisis that they're not ready to make any of those approvals. So we have a number of projects, about 12 projects that are directly impacted. But as time goes forward, even large projects like the Durham Belt Line trails project stand to be significantly impacted by these restrictions. So this is something that we've raised repeatedly through the MPO process. And we're going to continue to talk about how important these projects are for local governments and that this really should be a priority as funding is available at NCDOT that these projects should be prioritized. If we have funding identified and we don't use it, it could lead to a loss in those federal funds if they're not utilized timely. And so we're also working with Public Works and General Services on our work plans for the next year and throughout the CIP to see how these delays will impact their work plans. And we'd really like to get work out on the street right now because of NCDOT's funding crisis and the economic conditions. I think there's really good value in the marketplace. There's capacity that's available. And so we would really like to take advantage of strong competition and price competition during this time, but without NCDOT's approvals, we're not in a position to proceed. So those are the major points. I'm happy to answer any questions. Sorry, I couldn't find my mute button, but I've got it now. Thank you, Sean. That was really great and detailed. Before we get to council questions, can you clarify the business services manager position? I don't necessarily know what that means. You said some words about it, but maybe it's just me, but I didn't really understand some of those words either. Could you give us, try again why that position is important right now? So we have significant financial management needs within the department that are driven by the insourcing of our parking operations. So we have revenue collections, billing, and financial controls needs that we've been relying heavily on support from the finance department over the last year to address those needs as we stand up. We stood up the operational aspects of our parking last year when we transitioned from contract operation to the city administered operation. But much of the financial management work that comes along with that that needs to be sustained is more than we're in a position to do right now with our current staffing levels. As I talked about the growth that we're seeing in funding for services as well as infrastructure for transit drives a need for us to increase our financial management capacity. We have significant reporting work that we need to do and significant compliance work that we need to do. We have more procurements, more contracts to manage as a result of these additional resources. So the business services manager in this structure puts us in a position to support these additional financial procurement and other administrative work that is needed to advance these services. Sean, is there any possibility that CARES funding can support that position because of the additional requirements? So I think we can definitely look at that right now. It's split a third, a third and a third between general parking and transit. But if because we have these additional transit needs over the next year, we could replace the general fund contribution with a transit fund contribution in the budget. I think we can support that. Thank you. Thanks, Sean. That's that's an extremely helpful explanation. And let's definitely kind of talk about the source of funding for that position. I want to open it up to my colleagues. If anybody has questions, if you'll just raise your hand and see anybody jump it into the chat. So Mr. Mayor, go right ahead. Thank you very much, Councilmember and thank you, Sean. We've seemed like we've got all the new directors up today. I figure we torture them early, I guess, Tom, right? We really appreciate you. And you've also just really done a great job taking hold of all the various etc. The department has so much variety. I don't know if we have any other department, maybe a couple, but that have the variety that you do. I want to thank you for the support for the outdoor dining downtown. I've heard a lot of great compliments from the folks from downtown Durham Incorporated and others about Thomas Leathers and other people in your department have been working with them to try to make the downtown outdoor dining work. And I'm excited about that. I think that's great. I know there are a lot of issues to be worked through, but I want to appreciate that. We really need to make that happen if we can. And so thank you so much. A couple of questions, one other thing before my questions, and I want to applaud your leadership on the way the transit plan has turned out, the county transit plan. I know you really did a great job advocating for the transit emphasis corridors and our capital needs and it's really great to see. And I want to thank our county commission colleagues and the Go Triangle staff and board and for supporting that, but especially to you, Sean, for having a great plan in place and it's getting funded. It's a big advance, especially for our transit riders. It's huge. So we've received a lot of comment and about the idea at this time of trying to create what our bicycle and pedestrian advocates are calling slow streets. That's one of my questions. I wanted to know if you could comment on that. Why don't you start with that? I have just a couple others that I guess are kind of unrelated to that. Sure. So I've had some good discussions with advocates at Bike Durham, for example, and I've read a lot of the requests that we've gotten from citizens and we're really interested in advancing a slow streets program here. But we really want it to be done in a way that engages the communities where this would be implemented. So right now we're working at developing information that we can use for outreach to the communities and neighbors who would be directly impacted by this and try to build understanding and build support for the slow streets concept. So that when it's implemented, it can be sustained and there's an understanding of why it's important, how it improves safety and that it's going to change neighborhoods. And we want to make sure that people are prepared for that and that if they have concerns that we've addressed those. So we're working on that outreach piece right now and once we've identified and we also think there's a role for neighborhoods to help us with some of the quality control issues to be our eyes and ears in many respects. And that's one of the comments that we've gotten from the advocacy community is that the neighbors are ready to play that role. And so we want to enlist people to help us if there's a sign that's twisted or something that's fallen down that they'll let us know and we can deploy resources to take care of that. Whereas if we had to do all of the monitoring and quality control with our resources, we wouldn't be able to sustain that. So that's part of what we're trying to do is make sure that this is something that's a community led initiative that has strong support in the community and that it's deployed in those places where we have good community support. But we think there's a lot of value in taking streets that were identified in our Durham walks plan, as well as our bike and walk plan and using those where we've already gotten public input that those are good places for walking and bicycling that we build upon that framework and implement some measures that can help us slow streets and improve safety in those areas. But we really do want it to be a community led initiative. I think that's a fantastic approach. I really appreciate that. And I also think that will help us with the equity as our as our program goes forward. So thank you. I've heard, I had a discussion, a Zoom discussion with a paratransit employee who was concerned about the safety of their PPE. And can you talk about that or how do we feel about the quality of the PPE that we have for our transit employees? So we've been working through the PPE availability availability issues for the last two months during this event. And I think we're now at a point where we feel like we have adequate PPE for our paratransit staff. The future of the paratransit service is that there's closer interaction between our riders and our staff. And so we really want to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to make PPE available, not only to our operators, but also to the extent that it's medically feasible to our riders so that they can protect each other through this. So that's one of the things that we're working through right now is is the availability of masks and face coverings where we can make them available to paratransit riders. So that provides an additional layer of protection for our operation staff. But I'd be happy to look into any specific questions or concerns. Thank you very much. And then the my last question is, do you know what is your sense of the percentage, you know, a range or a good estimate or a guess would be fine here, Sean. In terms of our people riding our transit system, the fixed routes. As you say that the the percentage of people who are who are who are wearing a face covering is, and what do you, how would you go about quantifying the need of for face coverings for our transit riders that are not covering. Just thinking about, you know, one of the things I'm trying to think about is what is our total kind of community need going forward for face cover. And one of our, you know, real vulnerable populations of course is our transit riders. So you have any thoughts to offer on that. So I can say that we've had regular discussions with some of the nonprofit groups that have been making masks and other face coverings available to our riders echo Durham station. And that's something that we're really, we're pleased that the community is stepping forward. I was also really glad to see at the work session last week, the discussion of the county led effort to make additional face coverings available and and your advocacy Mr. Mayor for making sure that those become available to our transit riders. Right now we're seeing relatively low adoption of masks and face coverings. So I've heard in some cases less than half and other cases, maybe 10% of our riders are are using masks or other face coverings. The availability of the face coverings is really important, but then also supporting that with the right information for our customers. So we've been doing on board announcements, for example, letting people know how important it is to wear face coverings. We've also done some videos with our operations staff talking about how important it is that we use masks and face coverings to protect each other but we're very aware that we're not having as strong of adoption of that, as we would like to see and I think availability is one piece of it. But also that educational piece is going to be really important, making sure people understand that, you know, this is the service that we share together and that our continued ability to share relies on us looking out for each other and wearing masks to protect each other. So that's part of the effort that we're still trying to work through from the communications front. We have a new communication staff person that go Durham who just started last week. So that's been kind of top of the order for for that work is trying to increase that that education to go along with the availability of equipment. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Reese and thank you, Sean. Who else? Council Member Middleton, go right ahead. Thank you, Chairman Reese. And thank you, Sean. I appreciate you being here. I want to say that I really am not only impressed with the incredible amount of experience and skill sets you brought to your job at your temperament as well and we've been coming quite good friends as a week. We've been helping me address a number of constituent concerns around the city, so I want to thank you for your patience with me and your partnership with me and those matters. The mayor already asked one of my two questions, so this will be really short. And I want to thank the mayor for bringing up the face mask issue and how good our penetration was in terms of riders riding them. I didn't want to ask also about any sanitation protocols that we're employing when our buses are offline, if any at all, if you had any insight into that. Sure. So we've increased our sanitation protocols. One of the biggest steps that we've taken is the deployment of a disinfecting fogger. So at the end of the day, when the bus returns to the depot, it has a disinfecting fogger that coats every surface on the vehicle. And that's been a new step that we've implemented this year, since COVID, since March, in order to try to reach some surfaces that wouldn't be reached with a typical cleaning. But we've also increased our cleaning frequency and then also stepped up. So at Durham Station, for example, we have now hourly cleanings of our most frequently touched surfaces like doorknobs and elevators and such. So we're working and there's more information about that available at GoDurham Transit. So we're working to address needs in our fleet as well as in our facilities to try to protect our riders and our staff. Do you know if that applies also to our paratransit vehicles or any supplemental vehicles we're employing? Yeah, my understanding is that we're using the foggers for the paratransit vehicles as well. Thank you. That's all my questions. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Catts River Middleton, Council Member Freeman. I believe you're next in line. Thank you. I am grateful that the mayor actually asked a couple of my questions as well. And I just wanted to share the comment that I really appreciate your community focus and doing some of the outreach. I know we had this conversation at one of the council presentations and it looks like you've taken the bull by the horns and you're definitely digging in on making sure you're engaging the community-rooted partners. And there was one other thing I noted. And just a question of regarding the insourcing on the parking. I just want to make sure that we're, so there were a number, there were like a very small number of staff that came in from the parking insourcing. And I just want to make sure that I note that staff is very valuable and I appreciate you making sure that they return as soon as as quickly as possible. Yeah, we're very focused on finding the right ways to bring people back who have provided really strong customer service and service to the city. And so what steps we can take to bring those team members back in their original capacity or in some other capacity, but make sure that we take advantage of their availability and their knowledge and skills going forward. Any other members have any questions for Sean before I start to dig in? Awesome. Hi, Sean. Hi, how are you? I was really excited when I saw that you were going to be chairing this session. I thought I might get off easy, but it doesn't look like it. Sean, I think one of the things that is the responsibility of the chairs to make sure other folks are heard before I then step up and suck the rest of the oxygen out of the room. So Sean, I think it's fair to say that I've probably spent more time talking and working with you since you started as department head than any other department head in the city. And I say that to make sure folks know that that I have really come to respect and appreciate your incredibly straightforward brand of leadership. I've never been in a meeting with you where I didn't know exactly what you thought about a particular thing and didn't know how you thought we ought to move forward with it. And that is amazing and the kind of leadership that I think we need more of everywhere in our country. I think one of the, I've got a couple of sets of questions, but maybe my biggest question is about the parking fund. As you pointed out, over the next over this year and the upcoming fiscal year, we're looking to use something in the neighborhood of $7.2 million out of fund balance to keep the parking fund solvent. You addressed in your presentation the need to really bear down on parking operations as we move through this fiscal year and planning for the next fiscal year. But I wonder if you could give me just a little bit more color about what that might look like. You know, the market for parking downtown has gone really whipsawed over the last three years, really two years. At the same time, we brought our new parking deck online and a number of other facilities came online and were undercutting us on price. Now there's no demand, no telling when demand is going to come back. It's of all the departments in the city, this one seems one of the most, I guess, up in the air in terms of how we're going to get back to something approaching normal. So what if you could just spend a couple of minutes talking about kind of over the next 12 to 18 months, what can be done about parking operations? Sure. So, you know, we talked a little bit about this in February that we're very focused on making the parking fund self-sustaining. And there are steps that we can take to do that, but we're going to have to take steps on the expenditure side, on the revenue side, and then also with our capital improvements. So on the expenditure side, I talked a little bit about how we've been right sizing our security staffing. So we have contracted security for our facilities right now for our five major facilities. It's 24-hour service. And what we've identified is that because of the proximity of many of our facilities and the levels of activity that we're seeing that we can reduce that contracted staffing and provide a zone coverage that reduces our security costs. There continue to be concerns from some of the downtown businesses about security. But we think that by having more of a zone coverage model, we can maintain security and also right size our expenses. On the revenue side, we've also got proposed changes where we'd be increasing our hourly parking fees by 25 cents in fiscal year 21. And then we'd be coming to increase our monthly parking fees in fiscal year 22. And that's part of a regular schedule where each year we increase either the hourly or the monthly. But as you said, the market has changed pretty dramatically for us. So we'll have to see what impact that has. But we think that setting the price of parking is very important and it helps us to recover our costs. And it also helps us to encourage other forms of transportation like our bus system. So and then the other piece that we're looking at is the timing of major capital improvements to our facilities. And what's sustainable for us for major projects like wayfinding that has been postponed from our work plan for this fiscal year. And what are some of these major initiatives that we would like to do? We think there's value in doing, but we have to make sure that we have the resources to be able to do that project and also keep our facilities in a state of good repair and address safety and customer service needs. So I think we need to focus, if we just focus on expenses or revenues or capital, no one of those is going to solve this problem for us. But I think looking across the board and all three of those and understanding the market forces at work here that we can work through and develop some scenarios and solutions to carry on. So I think we need to focus on that. I appreciate that. As I've said before on the revenue side, I think it's a frustrating challenge because you've got major commercial competitors who are undercutting us on price. So, you know, strategies to increase parking charges might not necessarily have the revenue impact we're looking for. That's why they pay you the big bucks is to come up with solutions to all the annoying problems that I come up with. With respect to outdoor dining, I think one of the things that I've been really interested in is looking at Charlotte's temporary outdoor dining program and the allocation of a certain percentage of restaurants dedicated parking spaces. I think downtown that's not really a model that works given kind of what we what the setup downtown. And I really appreciate you working with downtown businesses and restaurants who many of the restaurants are kind of surviving to the extent they are on the drive up takeout service. And the city's quick response at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis to open up our on street parking program to that kind of drive up a pickup has been was really fantastic. And I shared that with folks actually around the country as kind of a model for what might happen. So I appreciate that. Appreciate your work with them. But I think in terms of outside the downtown core, I think we might think about looking at Charlotte's program. I'm not sure that's necessarily a transportation issue. This is more directed at city manager to have folks take a look at at what Charlotte has done and kind of the little program that they've developed and see if something like that might work for us outside of the downtown core. The only other question I had was, oh, to appreciate your conversations with cycling and pedestrian advocates around slow streets. You know, we've the city and our community has done a lot of work around identifying streets in Durham that are good candidates for whatever we wanted to call them. At one point they were like boulevards and there's lots of other incarnations of that. But I think those are great candidates to move forward with with the participation of our community partners and I appreciate your growing partnership with them as we try to make that work. I think as the mayor said, when we're in the in the DPR conversation, I haven't seen a huge, I haven't seen huge crowds on on sidewalks and streets and whatnot. But I know that there are places where that is happening. And I think whatever we can do to create new spaces for folks, you know, one of the things that I've been floored by is that when the governor opened up our state parks. I want to say a week and a half ago, maybe they are still, I mean, they're just jam packed. And I get these notifications periodically from the state parks department that tells me when the parking lots at various state parks get to capacity. And they're often at like 9am 930am. Just, I think that just points to the desire that folks have to be out and about. And I think we all know that that transmission risks are much lower for the coronavirus in outdoor settings, although not completely eliminated. So all that is by the way of saying thank you for keeping those for having those conversations and would love to hear more about what happens with that as we move forward. And again, those don't have to be big permanent installations. We've even seen a community do a kind of a renegade rogue street slowdown that I went and walks through took pictures of a couple three weeks ago. Not necessarily recommending that as something that more neighborhoods ought to do but more pointing out that these don't have to be be expensive permanent installations that we can do some things pretty cheaply and quickly. Increase folks quality of life in some of our neighborhoods. So just wanted to keep your make a plug for that as well. And just, oh, just wanted to echo what the mayor said about your success in advocating for new funding through the Durham County Transit Fund. You know, that's been something that you and I've been working on for a while, really happy to see that get through the MPO vote, I guess was last week. And looking forward to seeing those projects move forward. I really appreciate your vision, especially on the corridor improvements to making sure that transit can move more smoothly more on time service. That's really important. Oh, and also, thanks for ratcheting up service levels whenever we can. We have the staffing for it because obviously, as you said, we have our ridership has gone down much less than really any other jurisdiction that I've heard about. And keeping that service up and running is really important. Okay, that's did say thanks. Did did my rambling trigger any more questions with my colleagues. I know it may have triggered some boredom but but maybe maybe questions on Councilmember for even go ahead. Thank you. I would say that I'm in the same boat usually with the rambling sometimes so I just wanted to note that I'm excited. I know that the fines and fees work will touch on some of that parking. I hope. And I'm looking forward to having some conversations about what it looks like to really bring into the full, you know, fines and fees actual justice around it, so that the disparities that always show up don't aren't as as large. I'm sorry. And just along that along those lines, I just wanted to make sure that I did restate or clarify. I know rambling with parks and rec around the issue. I just want to note that as a value centered leader, it's hard for me to express those values and words sometimes. And I'm just trying to make sure that I that I impose the the kind of support that encourages all of our staff to be very creative and imagine imaginative around how to address race equity because as a person of color. Over the last couple of weeks. It's been really hard just leaving it at that to even understand how we don't see a problem with the way that things work and so I just encourage you to please continue to surprise me, please continue to push and make those Just, I mean, I've seen staff staff has presented some of the most phenomenal ideas around, you know, being more equitable over the last three years that I've been on Council and I can imagine longer. But I really just need more out of this this process because I can't do a Katrina outcome. And it looks like when we when we look at what's easy and we look at and we rush to make decisions around cost cutting. And I don't want to see that out of Durham. Thank you. Yeah, I would just say, you know, the biggest increase in our budget is in investments in our go Durham transit service and infrastructure. And we know that in terms of equitable investment of resources. That we have, you know, approximately 90% of our riders are people of color. And so when we talk about racial equity and how we can direct resources and make investments that disproportionately benefit communities of color, that the types of investments that we're able to make and the big increases that you're seeing investments in transit service and infrastructure are disproportionately benefiting communities of color and we're going to continue to advocate for even more and greater resources for our local transit service and infrastructure along those lines and as as the really a really focused way to address the equity needs and to share the economic prosperity of our community. Sean is that one of your staff people in the background upset with some of your leadership skills I can't. I don't know what that noise is when your co workers or yeah. I think it's Cora my daughter, she's a little out of sorts right now I don't think she wants to go down for her now. Yeah, I know the feeling. So if does anybody else any questions or comments for Sean on transportation speak now forever hold your peas. Okay Sean Sean again, just thank you so much for everything that you've done in your short time with us. Especially as it surrounds go Durham and making sure our transit services up and running to the maximum extent possible right now it's so important and just appreciate your leadership on that and everything else. And I just want to just take a moment to thank the team. We talked about the great work that Thomas Leathers has been doing bill judge my assistant director has been doing outstanding work and has really been a critical part of the work to prepare this presentation for today to help me get up to address the many complex issues that we have here so we have an incredibly strong team and really strong partners at the MPO echo triangle with the county. And we're working together but I certainly couldn't do it without the strong support of the team and the partners so I just wanted to say a word of thanks. Great. Thank you Sean again. Is that the end of our presentations right now, Mr manager. Oh, sorry, Bertha. That's correct. So can you kind of set the table about what's next for us Tom. I'll try and certainly want to take this opportunity to thank you all for great questions and interjecting some ideas to us. Also, I thought the staff presentations today from top to bottom were terrific for a format that was new to us all but I hope you can get a sense of just how engaged all of our staff is and so many of these challenging issues in terms of COVID response and recovery so I just want to congratulate and thank you thank the staff. One thing that we traditionally do with these sessions that we didn't really focus on this morning, but want to come back to certainly give the mayor a chance to talk but any. Make sure that we know what are the flagged items that you feel for what you heard today. I need additional follow up and conversation in the past we have held time on the work session after the public hearing, or prior to the work session after the public hearing for kind of final budget check in and I think it would be helpful Mr Mayor if any council members have particular items that they heard today that either are unsettled or or need more information if we could take just a few minutes and get any recap from council members about those we'd be sure and capture those. Alrighty, thank you and I want to thank Council Member Reese and Mayor Pro Tem for presiding so well I appreciate it. You know it's interesting I find presiding over these zoom meetings, more taxing than presiding over regular meetings. Maybe because I'm always having to constantly arrange my face because I feel like they're people watching me from not sure exactly. But anyway, so it's going to have to be a group effort you guys and I appreciate everybody pitching in and all the call all my colleagues for great questions. I especially want to thank Council Member Freeman for her, you know, putting forward these important equity issues today. They're important all the time and they're important to all of us but we really, you know, I think the, it's so important to be having these constant challenges and reminders so Council Member Freeman thank you for that much appreciated. And Mr. Mayor Buck had mentioned just real quick I apologize to interrupt but I mean we haven't spent a lot of time with the Council talking through the work that we are doing with the, you know, kind of reestablishing city services and the service level adjustments you heard some of that today. But we have integrated in every aspect of that a the folks from our equity inclusion department helping us and be sure that we are thinking about those equity issues as well sometimes they don't always come across as maybe as clear and articulate as we know we're working on them but rest assured. Every aspect of us thinking about COVID response and in particular service restoration doesn't happen without some equity lens approach as well. Thank you very much Mr. Manager. Colleagues, the manager has asked us to think about any items that we have flagged for further consideration on the budget front. And I'll just open the floor is there and Mr. Manager do you have anything that you heard that you think is I'll start with you anything that you heard that you feel like we need to take up. Well I think there were some some questions in parks and recreation potentially that counselors had questions about staffing. Hopefully we've clarified those. Also I think there was a question about additional staffing and around the the transportation financial manager picture I think those were answered but if they if they weren't or they need more more more discussion. And I think we'd like to know that those are two that jumped out at me Bertha do you have any other notes of things in particular that you flagged. I do not that we're not that I don't feel that were answered during the discussions. No. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I'd like to continue to talk about the additional position and transportation I think that Sean made a strong case for why that position is important but I'd like the opportunity to weigh that against all the other potential needs in the city as that's a new position and we have talked about other possibilities for spending that money so I'd like to put that on the on the list for follow up. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Council member Reese. Mr. Mayor I just want to follow up and second what what the Mayor Pro Tem said but also point out that Sean. I think proposed to shift the funding source of that from the general fund. I do I think it was transit and that would certainly help me. When it comes to that particular position so I just want to put that out there as well. Thank you Council member Caballero. And that some of that could come potentially from CARES the CARES money correct and that just general fund that that distribution because it was a third a third and a third and that distribution could be reevaluated moving forward. Correct. Thank you. I have them the transportation my transportation questions were answered. I do want to know a little bit more around the with parks and rec just kind of the breakdown because it was really helpful to hear the explanation of the part-time workers being from anywhere to from 5 to 25 hours. And just to understand more I guess percentages of how many folks were at 25 hours versus five hours. So that can be provided in an email but just more of those work workforce statistics would be super helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you colleagues others. Councilmember Middleton. Thank you Mr. Mayor and let me add my thanks to Charlie Gillian for a great job. I'm presiding today with respect to part of the agenda. Strong team strong team we got. I did want to just get remind staff. I think we said we would get a specific written listing of the specific job titles that were furloughed. Regina did give us a great verbal rundown but I think we said we would be getting a written copy of that the specific job titles that were furloughed. So I look forward to that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else anybody wants to flag. All right. Thank you. Mr. Manager. Ms. Johnson I believe we're at the end of our agenda. Is there any either either of you all have any comments to add on. I'll then ask it if my colleagues have anything to add as well. Mr. Manager do you all have anything. No other than to say that we'll be back at it tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. We had a very productive day I think and we've got a lot of other departments that have important issues to present and discuss tomorrow. So we will you know block the time up till 2 o'clock but hopefully as we've been efficient today move through the process and and be you know be able to conclude in a reasonable time but that's all I have right now. Thank you very much. Mr. Johnson. Just a reminder that the presentations and other budget documents on our website and that you will receive a separate and different link for tomorrow's meeting tomorrow morning. And then also some additional information I think is still forthcoming from a couple departments right Bertha. There's one presentation to still come the engagement presentation which we will get we will send out today. Thank you very much. And just any final comments. Just one additional. I ask the way that the Transportation Department had their breakdown of staff. That would be actually helpful to see for parks and rec because it's not just who was furloughed is actually who was who was kept. So who actually continued on working like what that looked like that would be helpful. I think you mean I think you mean the chart the staff chart. Yes the staff those org chart. Yeah the org chart. It's a little more complex in parks and recreation just because the number of positions but we'll try to think of a way to describe that. Even if it's just paired with the one we had last year with like three separate documents of what we had last year what we have this year and then just those numbers that Middleton Council member Middleton mentioned. Yeah it would be the part time piece would be hard because the part time positions wouldn't show up on the org chart but we can figure out a way to get that information to you in a different way. Yes thank you. Anyone else final comments. Council Member Caballero. Yeah I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of our staff there's been a couple of times everybody's presentations were excellent you know just reflecting on that we had three people today who are either interim or new higher directors and the challenges that they faced these last year. And just how much appreciation I have for them. And then just two times while I was listening to presentation first was during the general services presentation thinking through all of our custodial services and how over the years so many organizations have contracted out that labor. So those folks aren't making living wages and we know that many of the folks who provide those services are black and brown. And so these are folks who have living wages are continuing to be employed and just that the appreciation of having that value and not having done that. And then additionally knowing that so many of our staff and it was actually Sean's kids screaming in the background the reminder that so many of us have a lot of stuff going on in the background. And so again so much appreciation for our staff knowing that the last several months many of you have been home with kids with potential elderly parents that you're having to worry about and so. We have several hard months ahead of us and I am constantly reminded about the stress that all of us are dealing with right now. Thank you so much Council Member Reese. Mr. Mayor I just wanted to thank everybody for participating in all the good questions and thanks staff from the city manager to Bertha on down for making today really productive. I look forward to another productive day tomorrow did want to know before we got off the phone about three weeks ago. The James Beard Foundation announced nominations for their various awards having to do with food and and the culinary arts. One of those categories is the James Beard Award in journalism and one of the nominees was local historian and writer Dr. Cynthia Greenlee. This morning while we were on our zoom call she won the James Beard Award for journalism in her area. I just wanted to congratulate her and just another feather in Durham's cap. She is the thought some of you might be interested in the piece that she wrote that garnered her this James Beard Award is in vice dot com published in February of 2019. The title is a real hot mess how grits got weaponized against cheating men. So as soon as we get off the phone here I'll definitely be talking into that particular article and maybe enjoying some tasty grits along with it. So anyway Dr. Greenlee congratulations well deserved award. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you and and I will say she's an alumna of the independent. So we're proud. Any other comments any final comments. Council Member Middleton. Thank you sir. Charlie I recommend you listen to Al Green while you're reading that article. Mr. I just wanted to say just the overwhelming sense of gratitude I have for the staff but also to be in the position that I am personally. I am and I say that because I recognize that as I sit here with this distinguished distinguished group making decisions at the highest level of leadership in our city. That there are still some things that that I'm not insulated from notwithstanding my position or station. Today I want to send out solidarity and condolences to the family of George Floyd today who died at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. I also want to send good regards out to Mayor Frey and Minneapolis and to our colleagues on the Minneapolis City Council. Many of whom I've had the opportunity of meeting through my work with the National League of Cities. I think that's all I want to say. I just wanted to call his name in this context and on record and signal that we understand that here in Durham how blessed we are. I want to express gratitude for the type of leadership we have here in Durham. Particularly I want to shout out Chief Sarah Lynn Davis and her command staff. Our fire first responders all across the board and for the hard work they do to to properly convey what we will have and what we will not have in Durham and the standards that are important to us. I do not know what the future holds if one day we'll wake up in Durham and we'll be facing challenges that some other cities have faced. But I would not want to face those challenges with any different type of leadership than we have at our department head and I would add that to this council as well. So I just want to say to the Floyd family our prayers are with them for all of the countless victims who did not have the benefit of cameras present. We're with them as well and we continue to do the hard work of making this a more perfect union at least that's what's in the pamphlet. So God bless the people of Minneapolis God bless the Floyd family God bless our city Black Lives Matter. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you for those important words council member and I think the words I can't breathe are going to continue to resonate. Through generations. Any final comments anyone else. Councilmember Freeman. Thank you. I wanted to echo councilmember Middleton's comments around just acknowledging just how hard times are right now and councilmember Caballeros as well. And noting that I want I want to make sure that I say it out loud that it's important to breathe it's important to actually take stock of where you are and how things are going. I realize that a lot of people have also lost loved ones in this time and we've really been hit hard here in Durham. I know with the loss of you know Andrea Harris Mary Ann Black brother Ray and how that shake up has created gaps in our community that will need to be filled is important. And even with with staff just noting you know being at home and dealing with the challenges it's it's it's important to make sure that you're aware and present where you are and how you are and who you are. Because I mean there's no. We're all human beings in this and I think. I often feel like I need to say that because I've spent so much time addressing the race equity aspect of these conversations because it's often the underserved the marginalized the voices that are unheard and. It tends to make me feel like I'm overcompensating and so I just want to make sure that I know that it's not just that is that we are human beings we're all in this together and we're going to get through it. But it's not going to be doing things the way things were done before. So when people say the new normal it needs to be something new and better and I'm looking forward to that. So on that note I'll leave that with you. Thank you. Thank you Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to take another moment moment to thank our staff for all their work on the budget and through this. Difficult moment I noted as council member Cabero did that all three directors are new to their positions only one new to the city but I have stepped into additional leadership roles very either during or really shortly before very shortly before the pandemic and so. I just wanted to appreciate them for the work that they're doing in this difficult time for the city. A lot of institutions are really struggling right now and I continue to be impressed by the leadership that we have here in Durham and the way that our staff are navigating this crisis. We're you know it's a difficult moment but I feel like we're in very good hands here in Durham and so I just wanted to express that and thank you all again for your for your leadership in your work. Thank you. Thank you everyone. I think we have wrapped it up Mr. Manager. We will see everyone tomorrow at 10 o'clock we have I guess the one more presentation coming tonight that we haven't gotten yet the engagement one. And we're we're all looking forward to being together again tomorrow want to thank staff. We miss your smiling faces. We always enjoy these times we have our budget staff around us and we get to see you all in person and the good work that you do and I'm sorry we can't do that this year but I feel assured that next year we will be back together together in person. And we just want to appreciate you so thank you and I'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at 1 27 p.m. Hi everybody. Thank you everybody. Great. Thanks. Bye.