- Or am I like to call to order this budget hearing for Monday August 25th 2025. And as you can tell by my voice I'm not doing so great as far as vocalizing tonight. So I'm going to ask my colleague councilmember Rallo to chair this meeting. But in the meantime we can do a roll call please. Clerk Bolden. Councilmember Ruff.
- Rollo here Piedmont Smith here Stasberg daily here Zulik here Rosenberger here. Sorry Thank you. Okay. Tonight is our third budget hearing in August and August 25th and we have the following topics this evening.
- Priority area introduction community health and vitality and then we have various departments community and family resources Department Parks and Recreation Department Department of Public Works which includes animal care and control division sanitation division and the city of Bloomington utilities so Can we begin with the priority area introduction community health and vitality? Mayor Thompson welcome
- Thank you, Mayor Thompson. And I'm gonna kick this off and pass it on to Deputy Mayor Knapp. I wanted to frame tonight's first topic by pointing out that it has long been the city's philosophy to universally support those who live here in Bloomington, no matter who they are. That through line has not changed. We are not wavering one bit
- on our values here in Bloomington. We know people care deeply about Bloomington's values and so do we. That's why this matters. We have a fiscal reality that we're all facing though. The funds that were used to fund the DEI training that was removed from this year's budget were one time funds from ARPA.
- SEA 1 has further changed the funding landscape for every city in Indiana. Bloomington is not exempt from this. We have less money to work with. Revenues are tighter, so the 2026 budget must reflect that new reality. We've heard comments suggesting Bloomington is backing away from its commitments to opportunity for all. That is simply not the case. What has changed is the fiscal climate,
- not our values. Our responsibility now is to translate our principles into effective, sustainable action in this new environment that we're facing. And for that, we need partners, not critics. We're working toward the same big picture goals, and we'd like to do it together. Stronger communities, opportunity for everyone, a fair shot for every single family.
- We are at our strongest when we work together and demonstrate our values, not just defend them. If we disagree on strategy, the answer is to talk to one another. Conversation is action and collaboration is proof. If there are concrete issues to fix, we want to hear them and work on them together with our community as we have been and as we will continue to do.
- What we can't do is spend $300,000 of money that we no longer have on a one size fits all training. What we will always do is keep improving how we serve residents no matter what the budget. Thank you. I'll pass it on to Deputy Knapp. Deputy Mayor Gretchen Knapp.
- I'm sure there will be more questions and as we get into the presentations tonight, there's an opportunity to learn more as well. So what's included in the allocations that were shown in the program budget in terms of dollars departments and divisions whose mission is largely centered in this work CFRD parks and rec animal care control sanitation and CBU.
- There are a lot of departments and offices that also have known costs that fit under this category of community health and vitality Common Council has the Jack Hopkins fund ESD has a lot of sustainable sustainability programming and arts programming hands neighborhood vitality programming a portion of planning all of that could be considered here, but those departments have already presented as we are only having each department present once
- It's a very broad range of programs in here. And as we had a great meeting with the fiscal committee last week talking about, what are our next steps? Where do we go from here? I think one thing that would be helpful for the administration would be to think about, of the many things that fit in this category or could, which are the ones that have outcomes that you are concerned about and that you want us to be able to measure and track and to share those with us?
- I'm guessing that not many people will have a burning interest in cemetery management. But if you do, tell us. That's one of the programs that is listed in this category among many, many others. So again, as you look at Parks programming, Parks is already divided in New World into divisions. So their programming is much easier to chunk out. CFRD, as you will see, has a lot of unique different programs listed due to the breadth of scope and the way their work is currently listed in New World.
- Pretty much the same work. So we're in the same boat We've got a lot of decisions to make in the future about how we categorize these things and I'm happy to take any questions Thank You deputy mayor questions from council Okay seems to have satisfied council Should we go to the public is there any public that would like to speak on priority area introduction community health and vitality and
- Anyone online. Okay. Any final comment from council. Moving right ahead. We'll go to council member suspect. Sorry about that. Thank you. I just want to comment. I apologize for being a couple of minutes late but when I walked in I heard the mayor say that talking about
- Continuing to demonstrate our values with regard to diversity equity inclusion and belonging and I hope to hear more through the presentation this evening about how Exactly, we're gonna do that. So, thank you Any other comment All right, let's move on now to community and family resources department Welcome Good evening council
- I'm Shatoya Moss the director of the community and family resources department. Thank you for this opportunity to present the twenty twenty six budget. You already have a detailed memo with numbers and line items. So this evening I want to share with you why this budget matters how it directly supports residents advances Bloomington's priorities and keep us responsive in the shifting policy landscape.
- The Community and Family Resources Department, often called CFRD, exists to partner with residents, community stakeholders, and agencies to improve quality of life. Our work in CFRD centers on three areas. Resources, helping people in crisis navigate to the right support. Partnerships, leveraging grant-making and collaboration to tackle root causes. And belonging, creating spaces where every resident feels connected, valued, and heard.
- Together these three areas align directly with the city's priorities public safety community health and vitality affordable housing and homelessness and high-performing government As we look to 2026 our top priorities remain resources partnerships and belonging You can think of these as a continuum resources prevent crises partnerships address root causes and belonging ensures residents feel part of the solution
- Our after hours ambassadors are our frontline example. This spring, they train 13 organizations, our Narcan Use Substance Use Awareness in partnership with Centerstone, the Indiana Recovery Alliance, and our health department. They now provide 30 hours of coverage each week downtown, connecting unhoused residents to housing services, helping businesses feel supported, and making sure visitors feel safe. But their role goes beyond crisis response.
- They hand out guides, assist tourists, and conduct safety checks. On our equity side of things, through our Human Rights Commission and our ADA coordinator, our staff addresses more than 60 discrimination and accessibility complaints. Behind every case is a resident trying to live, work, and move through the city with dignity. By working directly with community members, we remove barriers, we're not just enforcing rights, we're creating equal access to daily life.
- When people are in crisis, timing matters. And clear information can make the difference between getting help or going without. That's why we maintain an assortment of resource guides that put critical support right at people's fingertips. Our downtown resource guide has over 6,000 copies in circulation and has become our go-to tool for the library, BPD social workers, and outreach teams across the city. This year, we introduced a substance use disorder guide
- with more than 1,000 copies already in use. Connecting residents directly to treatment and recovery options. And our quick reference guide is now built directly into daily workflows of BPD and mobile integrated health, ensuring frontline teams have immediate access to the right information when it's needed most. These aren't just pamphlets, they're lifelines. In 2024, we logged 74 navigation calls. This year, we've already surpassed that midway point
- With 40 each one represents a person who didn't fall through the cracks Helping Bloomington Monroe gives us a real-time picture of community needs Nearly 10,000 searches last year with help paying for housing as the number one request That tells us housing and security remains Bloomington's top pressure point followed by essentials like food and personal care This is where data becomes strategy
- We can target our outreach, keep our guides current, and advocate for resources where the needs are most urgent. CFRD doesn't just provide services. We invest in partners who are on the front lines. Through the Downtown Outreach Violence Reduction and the Economic Equity Fund, we've helped families cover medical debt, housing costs, child care arrears, and property taxes.
- easing barriers that put community members on the cusp of being in a crisis. Since last June, 116 families have been directly assisted. And thanks to our collaborations with organizations, those like New Hope for Families, No Child in Bloomington has returned to street homelessness. This is due to 100% of these grants and partnerships. That's a result worth pausing on. It shows the possibility when we pull our resources together strategically.
- Of course, we're doing this work at a time when grant streams are shrinking. That means stretching every dollar further, making hard choices and finding new sources of support. Looking ahead, we're pursuing new opportunities like the Substance Use Misuse Prevention Dollar for Dollar Grant Match, which will help expand prevention efforts and bring new partners to the table and new prevention programs to our community. Our long-term strategy is clear.
- Diversify resources build stronger collaborations and leverage data to demonstrate impact and attract new investments Belonging is more about excuse me belonging is about more than cultural celebrations its civic infrastructure in 2025 the women's market which was just held this past weekend filled every vendor slots bringing well in over 200 plus attendees and
- Fiesta del Otoño a new record of 50 plus vendors blending celebration with resource connections And we hope that you will all join us this coming September 20th for that wonderful event And of course our volunteer network connected over 500 residents to service opportunities strengthening civic and engagement and trust These are more than events. They're how residents experience government something they can trust join and touch
- Part of CFRD's responsibility is to regularly evaluate our programs to make sure they are the best use of staff time and resources while staying aligned with our mission. This year, two programs transition out of our department, the Blackie Brown Arts Festival and the Latino Holiday Gift Program. For Blackie Brown, we recognize that the core goals of celebrating artists and supporting small businesses could be more effectively carried forward through other existing events, such as Fiesta del Etonio,
- the black market, the women's market, and Juneteenth. These events continue to uplift and showcase diverse voices in our community. For the Latino gift program, we recognize that other city departments and community partners already operate long-standing holiday gift programs that serve families broadly. Rather than duplicate those efforts, we chose to focus our resources on areas where the gaps and where CFRD's unique role adds the most value.
- These changes reflect our commitment to ensuring that we steward resources responsibly. We see tremendous opportunity. Starting on January 1st, we will launch our citywide 100,000 Hours for Volunteers Challenge. Energizing partner organizations and residents through the Bloomington Volunteer Network, this milestone will also connect to a national milestone, the 100th year anniversary of Black History Month.
- giving us a chance to both honor a century of history and build new pathways of engagement, service, and belonging for the future. We face challenges, limited resources, fewer grants, and growing needs. But this budget shows that CFRD is ready to adapt. By investing in resources, we keep people from falling through the cracks. Through partnerships, we address root causes and stretch every dollar.
- Centering belonging we make sure residents feel connected to their city and to each other as Circumstances shift we will continue to reevaluate adapt and respond in real time. Our ultimate goal is clear To keep Bloomington a place where residents feel safe Support it and connect it. No matter the challenge. We will face it together Thank you Thank You director Moss Other questions from council for the budget
- Community and Family Resources Department I Determine not to say much tonight because my voice is not very good, but I I did want to ask more about
- the cuts to DEIB training. And I'm wondering, you know, it seems to me that that training really should be integrated with training for all employees. And so I wonder, I know Dr. Paychak is here and I don't want to put her on the spot, but when all employees are onboarded, is there some element of diversity, equity and inclusion training to their onboarding?
- Do you know that or Dr. Paycheck? Somebody can speak to that. Good evening. Sharp Paycheck, Director of Human Resources. Your question again was when there is onboarding, do we have any specific training related to DEIB? Is that your question?
- We do not is specifically for our onboarding we have Work towards improving our onboarding process But that has been for all employees so that all employees can have a better onboarding experience Over the course of their first year. So that's the first thing that we've done however for all of our employees we have implemented best of
- practices training and that best practices training includes how you can select the best candidates for opportunities how you recruit them how you retain them and how you coach them in the workplace and so our Training has more so focused on improving the workplace environment for all of our employees, but we have been very intentional about that Does that answer your question? Yes, thank you
- Councilmember Zoellick Thank you, my questions are for director Moss Do you anticipate any more cultural events being Discontinued so we actually do an evaluation annually through all of our programs and events and it just really comes back to what Bloomington needs as a community. So Possibly, but there is no for sure answer for that
- through our translating program and how that's been changed over the past year. What do you mean been changed. I've heard that our translating services used to be offered outside of the city departments and now it's no longer offered. I don't have that as a note.
- But we do offer translations as far as our guides as well as internal departments for community members who are needing help with city services. We do do translations for them. Thank you. And can you talk about the funding that would need to be allocated for the Latino holiday gift giving program outside of staff resources.
- So the primary funding for the holiday gift program is staff resources and then any other resources that we will utilize to support the program such as printing the other parts of that program is fully donated by community members. Thank you. And would you give me the city's definition of D.I. I do not have the city's definition of D.I. Okay. Thank you. Further questions. Council member Daly.
- Thank you very much. Thank you for being here and for that presentation So many great programs in there and so much good stuff in there and I'm just going back to the DEI training question, which clearly people are having some feelings about I'm wondering so that three hundred thousand dollars that was allocated last year. That was from ARPA funds. That was a one-time funding, correct? Correct. Okay Did we use all of that last year for the training?
- Did we use up all three hundred thousand dollars? No, I don't believe we use any of the funding but I can confirm with controller. Okay, so then where does that money go if we didn't use any of it would it would seem to me then that we would just roll it over into the same and then actually make use of it this year to do some of that important training.
- So as Dr. Paycheck pointed out all of the citywide training for employees goes through HR CFRD does not do any employee training as far as that operating or excuse me the funds in that that may be a better question for the controller. OK. Is the controller behind you. Does anybody have an answer to that.
- The CFRD general fund budget has the 300,000 that was budgeted for DEI B training. The ARPA funding was budgeted also for DEI training. The ARPA funding was started out at the end of 2023 as shared by CFRD and HR. Most of that ARPA funding was spent. The $300,000 in the general fund that was also budgeted to CFRD for some reason was not spent, and that will remain in the general fund, and at the end of this year,
- Just revert back to the general fund. So it does kind of I think that's what you were alluding to Like if we don't spend it, it'll still just be there for us to spend on other things. Yes, that is true Yes, that is absolutely true. Does that answer your question? It it does I'm just having a hard time grasping why it if it was earmarked for one thing It doesn't stay earmarked for that That that kind of goes along with like when the budget when that for the year expires it does not
- Earmarks all earmarks do not like roll over to the next year Do you know why it wasn't used last year? Why I? Believe it was my trainings did not happen with that funding I believe as a combination of capacity and CFRD and the fact that HR was doing those trainings and the HR capacity and it was sort of like a it was like a double it was a
- Double funk like two departments trying to accomplish the same function and and they figured out that HR was accomplishing that those trainings and it was and there was also funding for it in CFRD and It was a capacity of CFRD that they did not have My time is up. Thank you. Okay We're gonna need Council rice to make a comment and
- I believe about this line of questioning she's hopping on zoom Is rice are you Are you in line? Okay, well you could go to Council for other questions council member Stossberg while we're waiting My question relates to the SCAP
- Pass-through money that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Is that two hundred fifty thousand dollars of general fund money? I'm sorry. Could you repeat the question in in the memo? It says that your department serves as a pass-through for SCAP funding for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars related to low-income individuals and oh no Related to affordable housing and homelessness and and maybe this is a controller question. I'm wondering if that's a general funds and
- Revenue source or where that money comes from that should be in the ED lit fund. Okay, so it's Okay, and
- Is that just passed through directly like I'm kind of curious to know how that works kind of with the larger sort of question thinking about some of the other things we've talked about with grants and nonprofits and the different ways that we're choosing to support various nonprofits and like that idea of like double dipping and I love scap and I have nothing but support for them as an organization but I just kind of in the vast picture of how the city supports various nonprofits. That's why I'm asking about this.
- It's there is an agreement with the city that scab that does that scab in the city signed together so it has kind of like a list of I don't know if it's if ideals is the right word But they're like the programs that we would like to support in scab the outcomes, you know that we appreciate that that we That we value that scat provides that is in the agreement and then other than that I guess it would be called like a pass-through to scab and
- But they do have to sign an agreement with us. Is that every year they sign that agreement. Yes, I would be very interested in seeing that. So if you could maybe provide that that would be great. And I think I had one more question. Yes related to. Oh let me find it. Other services and charges on the on the spending sheet it has.
- Two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars budgeted for organizational support and I'm just wondering what organizational support means It's line 53 965 so that is the scab in the stride Okay. Okay. So that's scab and stride. All right, wonderful. Thank you I'm good There we are
- So just a reminder to the public who's watching we have limited time and these public hearings so council will be issuing further questions to the administration regarding the budget in the coming days So going back to his corporate council available. So miss rice you Address the question. Would you like to reframe the question councilmember daily so that we have context which
- Well, the question was about DI and I think past I think my main question was well after We determined that it had not the money set aside last year had not been spent Why? Why is it not still saying in that same bucket this year? Why is it still not saying earmarked? To use for the same purposes this year since it wasn't spent last year Is right. Thanks for joining us
- Yeah, happy to join you. Thank you. So there was an executive order issued by the president in early January. And let me just say right now, I'm going to apologize if my dogs start barking. But there was an executive order issued in January by the president, and one was quickly followed up by the governor of Indiana. And the executive order, and these are
- the words from the president, ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing. The rules changed in early January and based on legal advice from my office and from me, we have taken a conservative approach to follow the federal and state guidelines even though it may not be
- consistent with our own local policies. And that's because there are two reasons. Don't want to risk losing all of the federal funding that the city of Bloomington gets and uses to support important programs and citizens and residents and those people that we serve and who need our help. We also have been advised
- that if our hand director, for example, who has to sign certain certifications that say that in order to receive federal funding like from HUD, if she signs the forms that say she's complying with federal policy, and then we are found to be out of compliance with federal policy with that executive order that I mentioned, there could be a false claims act that would be filed against
- or the mayor or any other elected official of the city. So when we sign those certifications that say we are complying with federal policy, we have to comply with federal policy or the certification is a lie and it's not true. And that isn't something that I'm going to advise anybody at the city to do. I'm not gonna advise them to sign something and then turn around and do something that's the exact opposite. So if there is,
- If anyone wants to take issue with the fact that we're taking a conservative approach, I think that blame should come directly to the legal department because the advice that we're giving is to follow the regulations and the rules outlined with receiving federal dollars. ARPA rules have changed, federal funding has all changed because of these. My best advice is always to be truthful,
- and to follow the regulations. I'm happy to answer any questions people might have about that. Are there questions for Margie Rice, corporate counsel? I have one that would be so essentially there is a potential that with in the issued guidelines that we would risk sanction from the federal government and
- Thompson said previously that we will still address Adequately address populations with needs within the community as we have So that's still the intention of the administration going forward Yes, exactly. We are trying to continue to be good neighbors and
- to support those people who are inside Bloomington to do it within the restrictions that we're currently under. We are definitely continuing to work to serve all of those people in need. And we believe that we can best do that by continuing to receive the federal funding. We don't want to risk losing our federal funding and losing the ability to help people. And again, we employ
- outside legal experts and this is not a conclusion that we've reached on our own. It is common knowledge that Bloomington is one of the more liberal cities inside the state of Indiana. As such, we may be under greater scrutiny than, let's say, a more conservative city. I think it's really important that we dot our I's and cross our T's and that we continue
- to follow the rules and the regulations and the laws even when we don't like them. But it is something that we have to be prudent and we have to be fiscally responsible. And we have to continue to serve those people in our community. And the best way to do that, I think, is to continue to act in a manner that guarantees we get federal funding. Thank you. I assume, just to follow up,
- Having data to monitor effects going forward would be very useful too. I assume So yeah a date is always always super helpful. Yes other council questions on the CFD CRD CFRD budget, excuse me I had one director Moss I was So I really appreciate the the geographic
- Directive to look at Bloomington in terms of its geographic area and where the needs lie in addressing those and you mentioned the zip codes, but I assume we can refine that find neighborhoods and So that we can address needs at a very refined level. I think that's where you were going with that slide that that
- Helping bloom into Monroe database and that allows us to pull data and also share it with our partner agencies so that way we can strategically refine the resources and the data and put our energy into those spaces Excellent, that's wonderful. Thank you If there are no further questions Thank you for the excellent presentation director Moss and we'll go to the public if public have questions on this budget
- I'm sorry comments. I'm used to questions coming from the public lately Welcome, please. Good evening Chairman Rallo, this is Krista Ramsey from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. Appreciate the mayor and the deputy mayor's direct introduction tonight Director Moss is sort of very very sobering
- With entailing getting rid of events as someone that works worked at the chamber seven years I've had to get rid of some of the advocacy events and success school events that we've done based on just Where we're at in the landscape. I also want to update on the after-hours ambassador So you'll be here last year same time wanting to increase that budget and at that time we didn't have hired but the
- Great job that the irreplaceable Charles Culp has done. We've hired two really wonderful after hours ambassadors who really give some great insight and Bring at least to the business community someone that they can talk to about their concerns. They can bring it to To bring it to City Hall. It's been really really wonderful and I would be normally in a different budget you're maybe advocating for an increase of this personnel line
- But under the circumstances, let's keep the after hour ambassadors in the wonderful job that they are doing. And I think they really add the boots on the ground that really make a much more livable Kirkwood and downtown area. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. M.G. Welcome former council member Sims. Thank you. Thank you.
- Oh two minutes, you know, I've never been good with time clocks But I'll be as quickly as I can One comment in particular is there was a question asked on the definition of DEI or how the city defines DEI and Apparently the city does not have one at this point and I would strongly suggest that we do that It would also be helpful From the federal government executive orders. What are their definition?
- Dei and what does? Radical and wasteful spending mean and we can all assume these things and we act accordingly But I'd like to have something more definitive to make sure that we're able to meet some of those residents that are in need and and keep those values that we Hold in a high priority
- In my role as city council and what I do out in the community I'm also president of the NAACP and sit on board of many other organizations We value and we're talking about values and I share that But many of the things that we value are budgetary prioritizations So if we don't value there's an assumption if you don't value that and you don't budget it then
- I'm sorry, if you don't budget it accordingly, then it has lost value. Now, I'm not saying that's the case, but in particular, since we're talking about DEI, and I like to focus mostly on equity. It's part of our city's brand. It's part of what we're known for. One of the folks said we're known as one of the most liberal communities in the state. Well, there's a reason for this, because we care about
- the less fortunate. We care about marginalized people. And I'm about to run out of time, but I'm sure I'll be talking to each of you later. But I want you to know that this is a priority for me and those that are representing this community. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Do we have anyone waiting on the line? No. OK. Please, thank you. State your name. You have two minutes. I will read this because English is not my first language, so I will try to do my best here.
- Okay, my name is Claudia Lara. I'm a mother of two. I'm a physician in my country, and I'm an immigrant now in Chile. And I will talk today on behalf of the Holiday Latino Program. As a member of the CHLA Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs, last year I had the privilege of sponsoring a child. Sorry, I will need my glasses here.
- A child through the holiday assistance programs, I consider myself more fortunate than many families in our community, but I also know what it feels like to not have the means, the language, or the confidence to access other gift programs. This program is not just toy drive, it's a thoughtful, compassionate initiative that interviews families to understand what their children truly needs
- winter clothes, bicycles, musical instruments, or other items that help children grow and thrive. Last year, I was able to provide a bike for a little girl, a gift that brought a lot of joy to their parents, not just for the girls, but also a lot of joy to us as a family.
- Happiness is not about receiving, it's about sharing. That is the kind of personal life changing impact that the program makes. I've seen through my works as a commissioner with CHLA how families come to the CFRD Latino program office because they trust Jimena and her team. They feel safe, seen, and supported. Language barriers and fear often keep Latino families from applying to other programs.
- many lives with the constant sense of being at risk just for speaking Spanish. This program offered a safe space where they can ask for help, where they know they belong. Council members, the family department has just said its goal is for every resident to feel connected, valued, and heard. Closing this program would go against this mission. It would not just be a loss of gift,
- It will be a loss of trust, hope, and dignity for children and family who need it most. This holiday program is not just about gift, it's a symbol of solidarity and community for Latino families in Bloomington. A time of a year that can feel especially lonely and vulnerable, it allows Latino families with more resources to support others in need, straining to bonds within our community. This Christmas, all Latino children
- Our Latino children and family need the hope and sense of belonging more than ever. Please don't deny them the opportunity to feel included and support this. This holiday assistance program is more than an expense. It's an investment in trust. Your time's expired. I'm so sorry. Just want to ask if there is a sense of situation in budget here. I will know if we as families and community can help with that too.
- Thank you very much and I appreciate your Your heartfelt comment and we'll be asking questions of the administration regarding various programs. So Yes, and if you could follow up well with the clerk or in an email to us that would be very helpful Thank you very much Okay further public comment yes clerk Bolton I
- You turn and look for me, but I came over to make a comment. My name is Nicole Bolden I'm speaking in my capacity as a resident of Bloomington and to express Some measure of disappointment that some of the questions were directed to director Moss who's done an outstanding job in her budget presentation in and of itself and Running her department and not to the mayor or the deputy mayor when they presented their priority overview of this part of the budget It seems to me
- I'm open to be corrected, but the budget is presented by the mayor It's the mayor's decision ultimately and a lot of department heads don't get a lot of say And what they can or cannot present or what they do or do not have to cut So asking director Moss about that cut is a level of unfairness Asking her about what programs are available. Absolutely. That makes absolute sense to me. It's very hard to see it because when I sit in this room and
- Usually I'm the only black woman in the room tonight. I get to see two of my fellow department heads here who are also black women and it's hard to see that level of scrutiny directed in the wrong direction. So I'm disappointed. I know there are good intentions amongst council members but
- Questioning the definition of DEI may not be as useful as looking to see what you can do in terms of anti-racist behaviors We all need more training That is very true. I was recently I Recently received a comment from a council member that was wholly inappropriate and I don't think they realized how it could be viewed as a racialized comment But I Wanted to share my frustration
- Hope that you all can do a little bit better in directing your questions to where they belong and I will not take additional time Thank you Thank you for your comment Any other public comment Anyone online no, okay, then we're back to counsel for final comments on the community and Family Resources Department budget for 2026
- Council member Stossberg. Thank you. I guess I want to say two things. One I really appreciated the comment about
- the meaningfulness of that holiday gift exchange. And Director Moss, I think during your presentation, I heard you say something about trying to combine those programs into another program. And so I hope that maybe we can think creatively in order to maintain some of that, maybe working with other organizations in town that also serve that population to facilitate that kind of a program. I'm not sure how that works with the capacity of your department in terms of that decision to light cut it, but it sounds really meaningful. So I hope that there are some ways
- a little differently and work some of the partnerships a little bit differently to ease a little bit of staff time but still maintain that service for the community. And then the other thing I guess I want to say is that.
- you know, coming into this kind of elected position, there's going to be moments where you have to choose between one bad decision and another bad decision, or one hard decision and another hard decision. And I think that this was kind of one of those times in trying to figure out how to navigate the current landscape that we're in, especially sitting in the kind of space that we are right now in terms of the values
- I hold personally the values that I think our community holds and then how they are driving or not driving with other units of government that ultimately In some ways have more power and that it's just it's a really frustrating moment to be in So I guess I wanted to share that with the community that this is this is one of those like hard moments sitting in the seat and feeling like
- the options are all crummy. So I appreciate that so many people came out and commented on this and are just kind of paying attention to how much this matters because it reminds us how strong our community is in that and that it matters to a lot of us and that means as you're sitting there and you're feeling like you may be in that vulnerable population, you matter to us too. So thank you.
- Thank you other comment from council council members I would like to apologize to director boss. I should have directed my questions to the administration And I will just say is I think from the administration We've heard some vague promises about how we're going to serve all residents But how do we do that? Like we haven't talked about how we're actually going to implement those policies without
- Dei initiatives and so I would like to hear more about how we genuinely do intend on helping those communities. Thank you Thank you further comment from council Councilman Rosenberger Hi, I was hi. Thank you director Moss. I was just looking at the 2023 I know this long time ago
- What the previous administration previous council agreed on for ARPA spending over the years and I was looking at the DEI area there I Just some stuff. I haven't followed up on that. I am just curious One of the DEI sections was for CFRD and human resources But did we establish a marginalized community owned business loan fund? Did we do that or is it in progress? No, I don't believe that we have done that
- Okay, okay because yeah here in our arm for notes it was just in a memo from our corporate council back then okay, so that's interesting and I think that could be something that is doable if if For some reason just DEI training in general is considered radical and wasteful which I doubt that it is but Okay, just thank you. Thank you Thank you any other comments from counsel I
- I'll just say that thank you very much for your presentation. I I kind of recoil when we hear about potential for sanctions from either the state or federal government I thought our conservative Colleagues in the state house or in the federal government believe in federalism and therefore it should be up to the communities to decide and
- How we address problems within our own community? So with that said I'm you know, I I'm horrified by the autocratic nature of that Besides that I know Bloomington has a long history of helping people All people identifying people with needs and directing resources to them So I expect that to continue and I guess the proof will be in going forward and the data and reports going forward
- So that we can make sure that no one falls through The safety net so thank you and we will now move on to our next item Thank you Community Parks and Recreation Department Welcome Good evening council members and everyone else gathered this evening. My name is Tim Street and
- I am the director of Bloomington Parks and Recreation. It's my great privilege to have that position. I really Enjoy being a part of that department and the work we do within the community and I'm happy to talk to you tonight about that work that we do and about our 2026 budget Nope, we're over there. There we go. So the Parks and Recreation Department as you are likely familiar provides and maintains the city's parks trails facilities natural spaces the urban forest and
- We also offer programs to help residents explore play and connect which is also our tagline currently The real strength of our department is in the staff Our staff are amazing and they go to great lengths every day to make Bloomington a better place to live and play We have 64 full-time staff 25 of which are in the Union and then in 2024 we had a total number of 434 unique support staff which could be
- Seasonal temporary or part-time employees who support the work that we do that could be lifeguards coaches umpires Zamboni drivers custodians you name it With me tonight are a few of our division directors. We organize our work in this in this fashion So the operations division maintains our parks trails and other public spaces including our urban forest including a lot of the landscaping you see around the city and
- vegetation management, our nature preserves. Rebecca Swift is our division director for operations back here. The recreation division oversees community events, all manner of community events, health and wellness programming, Switchart Park, basically everything that happens there. The Banneker Center and its after school and summer programming, the Allison Jukebox building, the farmers markets, and also the community gardens.
- Becky Higgins, our longtime rec division director, retired last month after many years of public service. And I'm very happy that we now have Leslie Brinson, who has also been with our department for a while, leading our recreation division. Our sports division oversees our pools, the ice arena, the Twin Lakes Rec Center, Winslow Sports Park, as well as Twin Lakes Sports Park and other sports fields, courts, leagues, you name it. Satoshi Kido is here with us tonight. He is our sports division director.
- I could have easily split this next one into two, but they're kind of together. Sometimes they're separate our administration is headed up by our office manager Kim clap They provide a lot of direct community support registration dealing with questions issues and supporting the finances of the department
- And our community relations division is led by Julie Ramey, our community relations manager. And they really support the work of the department by bringing a very professional and well-tuned expertise to things like press releases and digital content creation and making sure we get the word out about what we are doing.
- I could go on and on about all the various little different things we have. I love this slide that we have that just shows a snapshot of some of the things we do. We have 34 parks, 300 programs. We worked close to a million participations in those programs last year, 2,300 acres of property, as well as some of the other stats you see up there. Ultimately, we exist to make Bloomington a healthier, greener, and more connected place to live and play for everyone.
- That could be people that live here or people who are visiting we we strive to make Bloomington a better place Obviously we got into priority based budgeting this year and we are presenting on the evening that is dedicated to community health and vitality it is
- Easy and natural for us. I think to categorize categorize a lot of the work we do into that category But parks truly are essential and touch a lot of these categories and there's a lot of decisions we could make and certainly we'll take feedback and develop this going forward as well as to how we Dissect us something like the parks budget which has 20 separate budgets into
- Community-based priorities. So certainly when we build a park like Hopewell Commons It is for community health and vitality, but it certainly plays a large role in economic development as well. I Just want to highlight a few 2025 successes We had a really great completion of a lot of parks accessibility projects with remaining ARPA funds Pictured there is the unveiling of the tactile map at switch our park with Community Council for accessibility member Marcia Dottry and
- She has a vision impairment and she was instrumental in helping us develop this map that can truly be used by everyone We're very proud of the work that went into that You can stop by one of our sports or rec facilities and use one of the new push-button accessible doors that have been installed You can see some of the accessibility improvements. We've been working on it building trades park Or ride in the new minibus that helps us support transportation for some of our programs
- We've had a great success so far with our master plan this year. I will talk more about that later The Banneker Center we received two grants this year that are instrumental there We received a DNR grants to replace the front limestone steps of the building that will be happening this winter We received black heritage preservation grants to perform some critical infrastructure repairs to the building That will be happening in combination with some capital funds next year we also partnered with
- graduate student at Ball State in historic archeology to review the building and to give us some really great recommendations on how to maintain it for generations into the future. I mentioned our recreation division director turnover. I wanna thank our partner in economic and sustainable development department for all the support they've given us in making really great sustainability improvements. The Buskirk Chumlee Theater for which parks sort of operates as the city's landlord.
- Is getting some great new solar and energy efficiency improvements this year that will help it We have done a number of improvements through our sports division to various courts switching them to LED lighting and push-button lighting So that lights aren't burning when nobody's using them
- We've got a couple great infrastructure projects coming up this fall We're going to reconstruct the rail trail crossing at Rogers Street South Roger Street and do a number of other asphalt necessary critical infrastructure repairs We've focused a lot on planners and growth this year. It has been a hot and
- in a wet year and it is everything our crews can do to try to keep up with vegetation and overgrowth and I know the same goes for other departments to Part of that was strategically thinking about our courthouse planners Revamping those earlier this year with a very native forward approach still in keeping with our philosophy and later this fall we're going to be planting 14 new street trees on Kirkwood to help there as well and
- And again, our community outreach through the community relations area has just been phenomenal with some of the digital content and outreach we've been doing. We'll talk more about that.
- Want to highlight just a couple other major highs the parks was re-accredited by Capra, which is the accrediting body for parks agencies in June There's nothing like inviting three experts from out of state to come visit you and just judge you basically all day It's it's good fun, but we were happy to pass accreditation. We've been continuously accredited since that should say 2001 excuse my typo and we are just one of three accredited agencies in the state and
- Hopewell Commons opened in April 2025 many of you were there or have been there. I really look forward to seeing this park Fulfill its true purpose as the neighborhood builds around it Again, one of our main goals is to connect the community that can be physical connections with trails and parks and things like that But it's also building social infrastructure where where people of all walks and abilities can gather together and connect with each other and
- I also want to highlight the Bloomington community farmers market has been a really big high for us this year We have had 5,000 plus regular visitors 60 plus vendors weekly. These are the highest numbers we've had at the market in a long time And I think a lot of it is just due to our staff's consistency and approach and patience in making sure the farmers market can be everything it can be and
- Our community relations division and our digital content coordinator Caleb poor have also done a very specific Campaign to promote the farmers market this year and year over year. They saw a four thousand percent increase in the amount of Facebook interactions on the community Farmers market page, that's incredible So just a couple reminders as I talk about our budget so the way the state has parks agency set up is that we have a separate general fund cash balance and
- Partitioned might be a better word, but the parks general fund cash balance is partitioned within that so we perform against our cash balance every year Parks general fund is funded by a combination of tax and program revenues The program revenues come from general admissions to places like the pools the golf course The ice arena and all other general admissions that we charge The parks budget has finished with a surplus four of the past five years often
- Based on our budgeting principles, we might enter the budget year with a deficit budget, but we're used to saving as the year goes along and we're able to outperform that as the year goes along. And then a reminder that the parks non-reverting account also exists to capture expenses and revenue for other enterprise applications related to some of those other facilities. So not admission at the pool, but swim lessons and concessions at the pool are things that go into the non-reverting account.
- That account is approved by the board of park commissioners Just an overview of the last five years plus a snapshot towards next year in our budget We're currently at about 25 percent services 7 percent supplies 2 percent capital and two-thirds personnel You can see we were definitely experiencing the post covid inflation in budget there for a while our two and three categories have really leveled off and salary impacts are the main change from last year to this year and
- I'm gonna read this slide out of order. I'm gonna start with the second bullet point So for this year's budget, we we really went into this year Knowing there was a lot of change afoot a lot of information to be determined about salary studies and Senate enrolled act one popped up during the process And we we really set out this year also knowing we're in the early stages of our master plan now We're about halfway through it
- Maintain what we have this year in this year's budget So categories two to four were actually we were able to reduce those from four point five six million to four point three eight million While including budget support for Hopewell Commons for its first year of operations at about 55k That will get more expensive as it gets older
- And park security is in ARPA funding for 2026 for the final year of ARPA funds. So Thankfully, we are not including that in our general fund request, but it remains important to us and is something we really need to figure out With BPD and with others moving forward, especially given our impending budget crunch
- The increase comes in category one from salary impacts related to all the various salary things going on Cola salary study Asked me all of those things In the midst of that we did decide to eliminate one vacant position the data and special projects manager Since I took over we held that position vacant knowing that Budget cuts may come along and that position might not be tenable and decided this was the time to let that position go And we feel okay about that
- Importantly, I think we must continue to investigate Intelligent cuts and savings measures both during the year in 2026 and beyond You know, we've talked with our division directors with our staff We feel good about where we are. We have a cash balance to support this a cash balance exists to help cushion You know sudden cuts we're learning more about the property tax caps from controller McClellan what that means for us and
- We're learning more about our bonding ability. So we are in good shape, but know that we must find ways to save. And we are gonna continue to work on that. Included in the budget is about 260K in capital needs. This is really for critical Banneker Center building repairs to partner with that black historic preservation grant and equipment replacement. Key challenges, property tax caps. We've talked about that. We're still learning the full impacts of that.
- I stood up in front of you last year and talked about our aging facilities That is something we are still very much looking at including our sports facilities as part of our master plan We got a facilities condition assessment on both pools that is not quite finalized but is close showing four to five million in maintenance needs at those locations We had a consultant come in at the ice arena and tell us not a mark of distinction We were looking for but that we have the last cooling system of its kind on the continent they believed
- I'd rather be unique for other reasons. And of course, extreme weather and growth and vandalism and bad behavior all present challenges to us. How we are responding to those challenges is in part through our master planning. This is a really big and important process for us. It happens once every five years. This spring and summer, we had community focus groups that went really well. We got a lot of input from our staff.
- We did a financial sustainability training for 16 of our staff with the parks expert We had the facilities assessment done on the pools and we distributed you might have seen it through this summer our master plan questionnaire Which was three questions that went out. I think we've gotten 1200 plus responses on that which is a great body of data for us to work from Right now we are moving into a service provider inventory and meeting so we are gathering service providers public private nonprofit
- What-have-you who provide similar services to what we do. We are gonna have a meeting with them in October to discuss collaboration partnership Duplication of services ways we can continue to best serve our community in this climate We're gonna have a community workshop, which is a public meeting about our master plan efforts It's gonna be a really fun interactive community workshop. I'm looking forward to that. That will also be the first week of October and then we are also
- Partnering with our questionnaire a statistically valid community survey that will go out to a representative sample of Bloomington households I'm gonna skip ahead all of that community input Filters down into what we call our needs assessment. It's not a once assessment It's a needs assessment for us to accurately determine. What does our community need from our department? What are the critical needs?
- Where do we need to invest? And then from there, we'll get those results this fall. And then this fall and this winter, we will build back up our master plan and strategic goals to meet all of those challenges. And I anticipate having hard questions from that needs assessment, especially dealing with capital infrastructure. Some of those aging facilities, we're doing OK, running them year to year. We're meeting our cost recovery goals. But when it comes to reinvesting the capital money in it,
- There are big needs there and those are big questions. We will have to answer Lastly, I'll just finish saying I think a big theme for us and I think we've heard it with some other city departments will be really focusing on quality over quantity and ensuring we've had a really great period of growth to last
- five, 10 years, Switchyard Park, Bicentennial projects, Hopewell Commons. We've got a lot of great new things and our focus has to be how do we maintain our community offerings? That might mean less quantity. Whether that's the amount of planters we're maintaining or the amount of community concerts we have in a year, but that's all from a place of wanting to maintain really high quality for the community.
- Lastly, I will just note there was a discrepancy in your packet with the final expense amount on the parks budget Controller and I are working on that. It should be right in the range of thirteen point. Oh two million dollars So we'll have that corrected when we come back Thank You director Street for that excellent presentation or their questions from counsel I
- Councilmember sorry and then Rosenberger. Thank you. Just a very quick one and thank you so much for a wonderful presentation I think sort of model and where we're at right now in in terms of our budgeting and their phase of budgeting I'm really curious about you you mentioned Thinking about minimizing our Concerts as one example. Have we explored? public-private partnerships because I know there's been a lot of interest in the community of you know, maybe getting somebody like to sponsor one of the
- the centers or something like that. So where are we in discussions of those type of things? And as a follow on, just because we don't have so much time, other revenue producing activities that parks can participate in? I think notably our parks department brings in good revenue even in places where other parks departments across the country actually lose like golf courses. And so are we exploring other places where we can increase revenue production?
- Great question. So let me do the first one the the quality over quantity comment and I put concerts out there That is just an example and I'm not saying we're gonna go through and do that however concerts are a really interesting topic that Leslie and I have been discussing in terms of Finding ways to kind of do exactly what you're saying. How do we leverage? the music community and maybe private interests more of a festival atmosphere to combine that with the public good created by hosting our
- Community concert series. So that is something yes, we're thinking about we want to explore And again, I'm not saying we're cutting all the concert, you know, not we're not there but just we've got to be smart We've got to look at this with our master planning and focus on the quality Secondly the revenue question I Don't know that we have right now feasible like new revenue streams that we're looking to bring online it's more with the master planning we are really looking at where our price is set and
- Where and how much do we subsidize are we subsidizing to the people that truly need it? Or are we doing a broad subsidy where maybe we could be more targeted to folks based on income or AMI or whatever that is So I think cost recovery and pricing is more where we're looking at the revenue side of things And and in the last 40 seconds, um, what ways can we best participate in the master planning? I'm at the stage. How can we best support parks? Thank you. Great question
- Think about that. That's a good question. I think we'll have our community workshop Of course any council members who want to come to that will make sure to get the info out I think it's like October 8th. We're setting that now And encouraging people to continue to give us feedback And what we'll probably do is we'll send out the mailed survey first to make sure we get a statistically valid sample if there's desire and interest we may be able to open that up to additional responses which we could partition from the statistical responses as well
- Hi, thank you director Street, that was great Question about park maintenance and cleanup. So parks and rec is responsible for for all city park maintenance and cleanup Is that right? Correct. So like Miller showers, that's up north, right? That's 17th Street in the Gateway. Is that right? I just wanted to ask because other departments ESD and Public Works both talked about budgeting for Gateway cleanup and I'm just wondering like
- What overlap there is needed and do you work with them on cleanup or does parks and rec take care of it? Just looking at ways we can potentially like slim down the budget if your department takes care of that We do talk and coordinate on that, you know director Wason and I have talked a lot about that with a number of other really critical and wonderful staff We're talking about separate things they're like, you know, so parks will maintain that part and
- And the word gateway, I think is being applied to all of the different ways you can come into town We had a strategic meeting recently about medians. How do we keep up given this hot wet summer of explosive growth? How do we better keep our medians looking nicer with pressure from invasive species and things like that? So that could include Street sweeping it could include all kinds of things. So but no there there are separate but coordinated efforts I think to that end and
- Okay. Thank you. And I would just like to plug the part about the planters. I live near the beeline and I do notice there are a lot of plants in the planters now. I've thought about having folks kind of like take them over and maintain them. And I know a lot of other little cities do edible plants around town. So like potatoes at the police station carrots on the square. And I'm always up for that because it does add a place for people to grab food and like carrot greens are also really pretty.
- Thanks Councilmember dealing Thank you. Thank you director Street for your presentation. I appreciate it Just looking through the the numbers. I noticed that there was a really big increase under instruction and I'm just wondering what Instruction are we talking about here? Do you know it was like a 192 percent increase? I would have to follow up on that I don't know offhand but I can get that answer for you it may be
- Bi-annual conference or something that we're attending that we don't attend every year. Okay, so probably but for staff. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. I was just curious Further questions councilmember Stossberg Thank you. Thank you for this presentation I have a I have a couple of short questions and then maybe one that's more like philosophical and longer so the first one is so in the budget sheets at the end I noticed that one of the challenges for me and reading it is like I
- All of the different categories were split up. So like there were lots of different lines with personnel services and earlier like last week it kind of seemed like maybe there were some tags that could have been attached that weren't attached. So this question kind of comes maybe from that confusion. And so I don't know if those could potentially be reprinted with clarity about the different divisions that those are on. That would be great. But then in
- The very first page under management fees consultants and workshops that's cut a whole lot for next year And I assume that that is master planning correct money that spent this year. So I guess The plan is to have the consultants all paid and everything from this year's funds and for all that to be wrapped up by the end of 2025 correct even if it extends into a new year we can have a PO from the year that as long as that work is active and ongoing and
- Finishes out that last remainder. Yes I did go to one of the earlier workshops around that and it was really excellent and those consultants were fantastic The the longer and maybe more philosophical question has to do with the printed parks book Is that still mailed to every household? It is not mailed to every household I had to actually check with Julie our community relations manager on that there is a managed list of about 36,000 households
- Or residences I shouldn't say households. It's it's various addresses Based on some opt-ins some opt-outs some program participation She's got a lot more information than I do on that that I'm happy to get to you But it is mailed out to about 36,000 homes. Okay. Okay, great. Um, I
- I guess I was looking at that and it looked like between the printing charge and once again like there were so many different lines of a way Am I looking at the right thing? But it looked like between the printing charge and the postage charge. It was about $150,000 a year. Does that sound about right to you? So I would have to check but that sounds about right It goes out three times a year. Okay, I guess the outstanding question in the last 40 seconds is do we get return on investment? It's a good question I had some statistics
- Our community relations manager about this that about I think it was 25% of people in our master plan said they got information about parks and programs from that And of that it was like another 20% said they prefer to get their information that way I think it's still an important tool for us to get information out there, especially to a certain subset of households within Bloomington, but that we need to continue to be open to that and look at
- Cost-saving measures or how that might evolve in the future Okay. Thank you Other questions I'll take a stab at a couple. I direct a street. I had a question about street trees Are we still replacing calorie pairs? with the aim of eventually eliminating them as part of our Street tree act stock
- Believe this is year three of the 15 year plan And at this point we have eliminated I think almost all are all that are along like the beeline and in parks and now They'll get harder as we go and think about neighborhoods where you know What if nine out of ten street trees are calorie pair? Do we really go in and do we just take them all out at once? But yes, we are working on that. I know such neighborhoods Mm-hmm
- Used to be in district four, but now they're in district five as it turns out Hate to break it. Yeah, but It was a big rage in the 70s. Let's plant repairs. They're sterile. They'll never escape Okay, my second question is Griffey is deer management still happening and restoration efforts. Yes. Okay, great Okay, very good If there's no other question
- I've got one little micromanagement question. Are we using, are we staying away from blue LEDs? Are we staying away from blue LEDs? Yeah, yeah, they're bad for insects as it turns out. I don't know, I will have to ask about that. I've given Adam Wason repeated scoldings about this and I can't let it go. Blue LEDs, so blue LEDs, they're replacing LEDs, I should have... I don't think we have any, but I'll have to follow up on that.
- Turns out it's you know insects are in trouble and it's we're not helping them with these particular lights So we're being squeezed by State code federal cuts and things like that and you mentioned park security in Switchard Park and we have ARPA funding for this year, but not following Could you expound a little bit on the need there? I
- In other words, is this our do we have park security around the clock or is it certain hours? I mean what kind of dedication would be required to? Basically fill that gap. Yeah And that's something we'll have to look at with our budget as we get into 2027 and we see our constraints and we talk with Administration and police about you know hiring levels have come back some but I don't know if that's enough to say we can do without security and
- Security has been important for us these past years coming out of kovat. They have made a number of really good and and Quite honestly life-saving interventions that we've seen They have they have saved people's lives who might be in distress who might otherwise not be checked upon Our security runs through sort of core downtown critical properties beeline for most of the day I'd have to check on the specific contract times. We're at right now. I think it's like
- 6 a.m. To 1 a.m. I think is our core security and then we also have just evening switch yard evening security at switch yard park Very good. Yeah, I mean a quick comment You know, I'm concerned about it's a big park. It's downtown. I'm afraid of exposure for people who might Be in there all night in the coming winter months. So it's good that we're covered this year and
- Any other questions from council this is on the parks and recreation budget Seeing none. We'll go to public If anyone here would like to make a comment on this budget parks and recreation Please step up state your name Are we signing in Kirk Bolden we should be signing into I forgot to announce that
- Good evening again, Chairman Rallo. I am signed in and signed in twice. I want to thank the award-winning Parks Department because I always have to preface that. 10th Street has been very accessible. This is again Christopher M.G. from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce.
- Resident here and mr. Keto who's in there as well has been very responsive to some of our needs I mean this past weekend I played basketball and pickleball at switch yard park and feeling it today that night I went to Brian Park and saw the wild robot Followed by another trip to Brian Park where my flag football team had a big upset went 42 to 40 parks are important to the community and
- But it's also as we've seen the assets and the number of parks is growing and the upkeep is needed and this is in the upcoming year is where my message is not for this coming year that we are able to Do the upkeep necessary to look at the assets and maybe offload some of those park assets They're very, you know, we're very important We keep the quality that is Bloomington on these parks and not just amassing parks the other sort of tried-and-true thing is of course
- Baseball at Winslow. It's not on that this it's going we've talked about in the master plan some great focus groups at the parks have done But we just we had nine out of sixteen games this year that were rained out my son's travel team played Zero of its ten tournaments here in town to contrast that we play soccer in the fall at Karst Park and the amount of investment they've done miss Whitmer there is Been amazing on the soccer level
- They the cutters that contracts there half of their Tournaments are played at Cars Park. So at home, this is an economic development issue. So this is more of investment I know we have to sort of balance those community needs but we want to make sure that we are kind of the baseball and the county is the soccer and making sure both of those are where they should be in the long term because eSports is important. Thank you Thank you, mr. MG anyone online
- No, okay back to chambers Anyone interested in commenting? Okay, we're back to council for final comment councilman Stossberg Thank you, I Think I mostly want to use my time to really praise the Parks Department as well some of you know that I have somewhat of a parks background and I heard about Bloomington parks long before I'd ever set foot in Bloomington and our parks are just fantastic generally speaking
- I wanted to specifically, Director Street mentioned the accessibility map in Switchyard Park. If you have not gone to check that out, it is just amazing. It is so detailed and so intricate, and it is just kind of a marvel how that was put together, and I think that it's a really, really excellent community resource. And then I also just want to
- congratulate them on their CAPRA recertification. I went to one of those events during that week, and I know that that was just a really big week for the Parks Department, and it went really well.
- I'm also pleased to see or to hear that there's gonna be some Banneker Center improvements next year I know that that's something that's been kind of outstanding for a couple years now in terms of Building maintenance and improvement that needed to happen there Complicated complicated by its historic designation. So I'm glad that that is finally moving in that direction
- And I think that's all that I have to say I will have some more follow-up questions And that I didn't get time to you today, but thank you very much Thank you Councilman Rosenberg. Hi. Thank you. I would just love to echo resident mg's Desire for a soccer field or two in the city. I have talked about 3rd Street Park being a great location. It is one of the like
- most affordable sports you can play with just a ball and Especially when it's right across from the Transit Center You can get there a kiddo could get there on a bus And also right next to the boys and girls club where a lot of kids already hang out I know that pitches can be expensive but sometimes USA soccer has matching grants And it would be a neat thing to try to do at some point. So, thank you Councilmember sorry
- I also just want to echo again what I said in my first set of questions, how wonderful and grateful we are for our parks department. One thing that I think as we continue to move forward and particularly into the master plan, we know that there's a demographics, a missing part of our demographic are particularly young professionals. And I think that one thing that we can do in our strategies to attract more young professionals
- is leaning in to the strengths of our parks department, particularly those with young children. I know that we're already doing that, but I would love a plan as part of that as totally focused on that. Obviously, I'm speaking from my own experience and happen to have a lot of friends who share that experience, but I would love a portion of that master plan to really focus on how do we lean into our parks to attract young professionals, particularly those with kids, to come and stay
- and make Bloomington a place to live and grow. But again, just really thanking the Parks Department for such incredible work and an amazing, I'm just so grateful for this budget presentation as well, just because I think it really encapsulates priority-based budgeting really well and takes that step towards outcome-based budgeting. So thank you so much for that. Thank you. Other final comment from council?
- I'll just say that I appreciate your your budget presentation director Street. I Just wanted to mention remind folks that I asked about Dear management, I think it's still required important it was undertaken in 2012 and It went through fits and starts but the Hamilton administration committed to it and I'm glad that the Thompson administration is supportive because
- I mean how many communities have an ecologically rich preserve just minutes from downtown and that was going to be lost by Deer overabundance and damage that to the ecosystem So it was a tough decision parks board stepped up parks and rec stepped up and I will ever forever be grateful So with that we will now move on to Department of Public Works Director Waisen
- I was invoking your name earlier. You might have heard. Yes. What wavelength are we using? Are we on the same wavelength, Director Waisen? Good evening. I'm sorry. Did I miss one there? It was a bad joke. Are we on the same wavelength? Animal care and control. Yes.
- Adam Wason public works director for the city of Bloomington always a pleasure and an honor to be here to present our divisional budgets on behalf of the Department of Public Works. Get myself a little better situated here. Go. So.
- We're here tonight to talk about the animal care and control budget and divisional budget and what we're currently working on and prioritizing for 2026 We've spoken a lot these last two weeks about doing less with doing more with less or at least maintaining standards with flatline budgets and areas of belt
- tightening. With this in mind, some of our most voiceless residents are still in need of daily care. And by voiceless, I mean the animals in our care with meows, barks, chirps, hisses, and sometimes snorts, or whatever noise a macaque monkey makes that I'm not even going to attempt. A large part of what we spend all of our
- What I'd like to do is spend a large part of my time tonight with this budget presentation Just advertising for all of the needs that we have at the animal shelter right now We're at capacity with the numbers of animals in our care day today Our staff is at capacity in the care that they are providing But I can assure you they have not lost their strong spirit to serve all of these animals in their care they are an amazing team that serves with compassion with care with integrity and
- And all the hard decisions that they have to make. I want to thank all the volunteers who serve at the shelter. It is probably the most heavily volunteered. It's a very heavily volunteered division of public works. I was going to say it's probably the most the
- Department division of the whole city that receives the most volunteer hours, but I don't want to make an inaccurate statement there We have a lot of volunteers that show up at the shelter every day to help us with our operations We have a lot of volunteers that take in foster animals When we're beyond capacity or nearing capacity and care for those animals in a home setting to try to keep them normalized to those home settings
- Virgil souder and Robin Peffinger are our leadership town at animal care and control do an amazing job with the team of animal care technicians and animal control officers as well as that frontline staff that Serve the residents and visitors to the shelter that visit the shelter daily So on to the actual budget and what we are have been up to at the animal care and control division We're proud to announce that even through halfway through
- Even halfway through this year we are still maintaining a 94 percent live release rate of the animals that come into our care. That's always our goal and we're proud to meet that goal. We're also meeting that goal while we're having our highest intake levels ever. So that's that's something to really be noted. We have.
- You know, we've had a need for additional temporary part time employees to help with our capacity concerns. And we've also really been growing that volunteer program to assist as well.
- In 2024 last year, we saw two thousand four hundred and eight adoptions. That's the highest number of adoptions We've had in the last five years That is a big number and a very important number because if we're not adopting that many animals out We're simply over capacity and going to have to make a lot more hard decisions January January to July of this year. We're at about 13 we're at thirteen hundred one thousand three hundred and fourteen adoptions so well on our way to
- You know, hopefully eclipsing last year's number. We need the community to step up and adopt animals that are in our care. And that's just a simple fact. Some other notes that I wanted to make. We are continuing with having which
- High numbers of calls with our animal control division. So our animal control officers So the animal care technicians they take care of the animals in our care at the shelter So think of them like veterinary techs our animal control officers Those are the folks that are out on the streets offering animal control services. So they respond to dog bites. They respond to bats and houses they respond to raccoons and dumpsters they
- are often responding to the scenes of Where BPD has had to respond and animals are needing to be taken into care Nick and Mike and Cat do an amazing job. We have three animal control officers. They are on call 24 7 365 they rotate every couple weeks on who's on call and they are a Huge asset to the community when it comes to animal control out within the community
- A couple other notes just on Where you know kind of the breakdown on what we what they are responding to About 21 percent or about 9 percent are bite cases 29 percent wildlife response to think raccoon in the attic or a bat in the house and
- 24% are stray calls, so out there getting stray animals. 17% are care and neglect calls. So when we receive calls that animals are not being cared for in proper ways, we do go out and inspect and investigate to make sure for that. And then about 21% of other calls, like monkeys and wild things like that.
- So major challenges that we're currently undertaking and will continue into 2026. We have a much higher increase in the percentage of canines we're taking, dogs that we're taking into our care. We've got a couple different theories on why this is the case. It's really expensive to own a dog or a cat in this day and age.
- Veterinary costs are higher than ever. Medicines costs are higher than ever. And so we attribute some of this to just economic hardship. But if we were to continue year after year with 9% increases in the number of dogs we take in, that would be a very, very big challenge. So we're trying to work on the education side, work on keeping those dogs in the home instead of being relinquished to our care. I talked about rising medical treatment costs. If anybody's gone to the vet lately,
- what this is it's just across the board every single aspect of what we do with veterinary care and then another we're you know always just trying to recruit and maintain the volunteers we have it can be a stressful environment down there for those that haven't spent much time those you know even in the quietest of moments down at the animal shelter I don't think you could ever call it quiet it's it's just it's and it can be a stressful environment too for the volunteers but we very much appreciate all that they
- and are very actively working to maintain recruit and keep that base up and It would not be an animal care and control Presentation if we did not put some pictures of dogs cats and those that care for them. I Did not throw the monkey up there, but happy to answer questions about the monkey So Adam Wayson Public Works and happy to answer any questions Thank you any questions about monkeys or other
- councilman I Mean I have lots of questions about monkeys, but I won't ask any here. Oh, I feel a little weird asking this question first of all Thank you for that presentation. I feel a little weird asking this because this isn't something that maybe we would ask say the sanitation department but Because you know, there's such high volunteerism that happens around this department. What more support could the public be giving? This department
- For families like mine who maybe already have a dog who might eat other dogs coming in, besides adopting, what else could we do? What would be the most helpful? Would you eat a cat? Huh? Would you eat a cat? Oh, we have two cats, and yeah, it's lots of drama. All right. Well, let's get started.
- So, you know we have the volunteer base so there's two aspects of what folks really help with at the shelter It's the actual volunteer hours helping clean kennels helping walk dogs all that That's one aspect of volunteering We have a very very generous community when it comes to helping support the animal shelter when we put out a call for hey We need extra blankets sheets bedding anything towels we get
- A lot dropped off when we put out a wish list with Amazon for wet cat food in particular. We get the community response so
- Those sorts of things, so pet supplies of any kind, whether it's wet cat food, all of the things that you would think of for bedding in the kennels. We do a lot of laundry at the animal shelter. We don't need laundry detergent per se, but we might need somebody to help fold that laundry. So there's a lot of different ways to volunteer and assist at the shelter. My best advice is to go to our website on the city's website, and they've got a lot of links through Animal Care and Control on exactly what those needs would be.
- It's it's it's materials. It's supplies. It's volunteer hours mostly. Yeah Thank you. I Thought that was gonna be a harder question based on your premise Well, I just didn't want to set you up for offering to volunteer with you know other public works departments Questions will get harder as we go Other questions councilmember Stasberg
- Thank you for the record we I would love to adopt another animal but I have five cats and a dog and I really can't so don't try that though your Facebook website folks do a really great job tempting me nearly every day. But to my question I did not realize until your presentation that animal control responded to some wild animal
- complaints I guess I'm wondering like how you guys draw the line in terms of something that our animal care control officers can manage versus something that wildlife specialist needs to be called in for I'm gonna cue up Virgil souder I believe Virgil is gonna be online Virgil do you want to
- Help me with that one. I'll start by just saying they definitely have standards of what they respond to and what they don't respond to I learned as the director of public works about ten years ago that we have to by state law respond to a bat in a residential home due to the rabies vector and
- Such I was a full disclosure. I had no idea why I was seen in the logs every day that at 3 a.m We were sending animal control officers out when we had bats in the Wason household in the early 1980s My dad took care of it in a different way than the animal control officers do It's true Go ahead mr
- Hi, I'm Virgil Sautter, Director of Animal Care and Control. So when it comes to wildlife, predominantly what we're looking at is safety and disease. So when it comes to like a raccoon in somebody's kitchen where a bite could happen, we're going to intervene in that situation. If there is wildlife in like a crawl space or an attic space where somebody's not living, we'll leave that to a wildlife professional to kind of
- figure out how they're entering in and get them out. And then it's with diseased or injured wildlife in the community, we will pick up and intervene there. Great. Thank you. Other questions for Director Waisen or Mr. Souter? I have a couple.
- Director ways and you said at the beginning that we have a 94% adoption rate. Is that right? Release rate so live release rate means animals that come into our care that Leave our care. Oh I see so you get some in and they're lost and you reunite them. Yes, so it can mean Virgil when I mess this up jump in it could mean reuniting an animal with its owner It could mean adopting an animal out. What am I missing Virgil? I
- Transferring it to another rescue group also is including that yeah So sometimes we get we do work with other rescue operations to transfer animals their care with the expectation that there's Got it. Okay. Well, yeah what I was getting to it was like how many animals do we have to put down? I
- So it's fair to say six percent of the animals that come into our care do need to be used euthanized Is that a fair statement then Virgil? So that's our current our current rate. I can get you an exact figure largely those are aggressive severely injured difficult medical issues to adopt out are Primarily what those are made up of? Okay, so round about 140 I guess six percent of 2400
- For 2400, we'll get you a solid number on that for a year to date and for 2024.
- Virgil again, correct me here. We are very strident and how we make decisions about euthanization. It is a It is never an easy decision to make at the shelter some cases certainly present themselves as no other option whether you know, it's We take in animals that have been maybe involved in vehicle accidents that have no chance for recovery We have taken in animals that have severe severe medical that has no opportunity for recovery the decision-making that they take is very strident and they
- Mean only in worst-case scenario, you mean stringent stringent. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, right. I get your meaning Well, I was just trying to track because back in the day we used to euthanize about 900 animals a year It was a huge number. It's like three. No, I'm talking about like long before I'm talking about 20 years ago like 300 dogs at 600 cats or something. That's quite possible I
- Well, don't quote me but as I remember so one other question why I have 30 seconds left 29% of your calls are wildlife. How much of that is deer related? Virgil about how much of the wildlife deer related do we well so just we in that 29% of wildlife does that include? Roadside pickup Virgil
- Yes, it does. That's when it comes to our deer calls. That's the majority about 58% of those calls are deceased deer Give me two seconds. I can get you deer calls Are about a lot 10 to 11 percent of our Total volume. Okay. Thank you. My time's expired. So I appreciate that any other questions for
- Animal care and control division of Department of Public Works Seeing none. We'll go to the public for comments on this budget Seeing no one in the gallery is there anyone online no, okay people are happy with it seems We're back to counsel for final comment Councilmember daily
- Thank you. Yeah, I just want to say thank you very much for all that that Hard work that goes into the shelter. I think it's really amazing that we have a live release rate as high as we do that's very impressive and also a shout out to animal control because I had to Have them come out to my yard last spring I had an injured deer in my backyard and I was really prepared for a traumatizing experience but he very very thoughtfully and and
- just took his care with the deer and realized he was not injured enough that I was going to be traumatized. And the deer eventually bounded away and came back to visit often. And it just saved me a lot of stress from worrying about the deer. So anyway, thank you very much. Thank you. Other?
- I also just want to send out appreciation to all the staff and also volunteers who work with our animals in our animal shelter You know, I'm I referenced I have a lot of animals and animals can be very rewarding but it can also be really challenging I think to both work and volunteer in that kind of environment as dr Weiss and mentioned in terms of just the the stress level and the kennels and then animals are often also stressed while they're there and so it Can be really challenging and I also want to call out the thank you to the foster
- That we have because I know that there are a lot of animals that have foster homes temporary homes so that they don't have to spend that time and Stressful shelters and can get socialized in other ways. So there's just a huge broad network working in Bloomington to try to To administer to the pet population and I'm very appreciative of all of you. Thank you Further comment
- I'll just say I think thank you both for all that you do and deeply appreciative You do amazing work. I do want to put my yearly plug-in that Deer management, I think is something needed. I hear this time and again mostly people who would like to grow gardens, but also people
- People complaining about deer that have been struck by cars which turns out to be probably the biggest predator of deer in Bloomington our automobiles So I'll put my plug in that I know resources are scarce right now But I think that we could be in a position to count them cheap and with drones and that would be the first step toward management so I'll conclude there and we'll move on now to the Department of Public Works sanitation division and
- All right, good evening me once again Adam Wason public works director This is our divisional budget for the sanitation division of the public works department As many of you already know the sanitation division Okay provides
- Solid waste collection recycling collection large item and appliance pickup yard waste collection as well as collection of waste from the downtown All of our city facilities and buildings police station fire stations City Hall and city parks facilities and
- All of the city parks facilities including their buildings and actual city parks Lazarus Sears our sanitation director and the entire team at sanitation are a dedicated bunch that rise early They carry out their duties in all weather conditions, whether that's from rain and snow Heat and humidity all they are out there every day in all conditions and their efforts are tremendous
- We in 2017 worked on a major overhaul and modernization of our entire sanitation division and how we provide that service and Many of the anticipated results of lower injuries higher customer satisfaction and better collection efficiencies have been realized and we are quite proud of that
- It's somewhat ironic that we're presenting the sanitation budget on August 25th as today likely has this Monday route has likely been the highest volume pickup day of the entire year. We had all of our friends over on campus return to Bloomington these last few weeks and so the note the volume of cardboard boxes
- Pizza boxes, bottles, cans, trash, all of it was quite evident on Route 1 today. If you drove anywhere near campus, hopefully you did not. But it was quite noticeable, very visible of the amount of move-in volume that we were taking in. So the team was quite busy today and really appreciate their efforts to keep Bloomington looking great even when so much goes to the curbside.
- So talking about some of our initiatives and our budget requests We are still maintaining about a 32 to 35 percent diversion rate overall month to month that is the amount of waste or the amount of Volume that we are keeping out a out of the landfill. So that's our recycling. That's our appliance and
- Recycling and our yard waste green waste efforts to that goes into determining that rate of diversion
- We've continued we're going to continue to work on our worker safety and injury reduction programs So sanitation work is some of the most dangerous work we do at the city. We're out in traffic early in the morning until middle of the afternoon You know, we've got about half of our homes on automated side load routes right now, which are much safer overall both for the the employee in terms of being in the vehicle and using mechanical
- Lifting compared to our rear load where we do still have individuals on the back of trucks and On and off the back of the truck and wheeling the carts to the back to have those tipped
- We have done a good job in decreasing injuries over time and that was a real big focus of the modernization efforts by not having to manually pick up literally tons and tons of trash each day. That's been a huge improvement with the whole system. Additional modernization, so one of the things that we have struggled with the most since we went with our new modernized system is having a software venue that can actually do what they tell us they can do.
- Tracking 30,000 carts throughout the community is no it is a daunting task Making sure that those carts remain at the right address that they were first assigned to that The RFID chips are reading on a regular basis that we know every time I can is tipped We've been promised by several two companies in particular right to date that they could do that and neither were able to meet their promises for that so
- We have gone back to monitoring that in-house with our own tracking. It's been successful. We're working with our ITS department on some routing modernization, or routing efficiencies with our technology friends in ITS, but that's still something that has been a big effort to overcome when it comes to how we manage the customer database, for lack of better terms. Some continuing challenges.
- That we're facing and then I'll just highlight a couple of our budget figures.
- Operational costs are ever rising, you know fuels been pretty stable here lately For the most part, but when it comes to the parts and and supplies to maintain the trucks It's a very maintenance heavy division of public works. Those trucks have a lot of different components different systems whether it's hydraulics and Or the engines and things they are a really maintenance heavy division of public works with our fleet
- division so those costs are continually rising and we're trying to you know manage that day-to-day with by
- Replacing capital on a frequent enough cycle that we're not getting into the position where we're having to fix Put good money after bad fixing old trucks that aren't performing how they should We're continuing to try to work with all of our residents whether they're incoming students coming back each year or Just general residents on all of our current practices when it comes to recycling Thank You councilmember Piedmont Smith for bringing some things to our attention with the website recently But you know, we did a big push
- here leading into August with the with Angela Van Roy and the Housing and Neighborhood Development Division and the apartment association all the landlords trying to get the information out in advance to say hey here's how you deal with that extra volume here's who you call here's all the resources that are out there but that does continue to be a challenge some of the other
- Oh, well, this picture is not as pretty as the cats and the dogs. But this is our yard waste facility. But just to finish up some of the things that we're looking with looking at in the 2026 budget.
- We like I mentioned we have higher costs on supplies whether that's for the carts that we have to purchase to keep out and at all the different addresses or The different materials needed just to maintain and provide the services we do There is a pretty big decrease in the other services line. That's because we're building out a small space for staff break room in 2025 we won't be needing to fund that into 2026 and Then there's also pretty big
- capital decrease we did get two trucks here ordered for 2025 and so that won't be quite as high
- Overall, we're going to try to improve route efficiency And continue to maintain those high levels of diversion from the landfill We will also be undertaking a rate study. We've done some preliminary study on that to Offset the amount of general fund support that goes to sanitation so that it is a revenue neutral program where the users would be paying the full cost, but that'll come later in the year with a
- With council process as normal with anything rates. So happy to answer any questions and appreciate the time to present Thank You director Wason questions on sanitation councilmember, sorry
- Thank you. Thank you so much, Director Royce, and a handful of questions. The first one, most of them about recycling. We've talked a lot here. Actually, let's start in a different place. Last year, I think you put a pilot study in the budget for some educating, particularly of students, around how to recycle. It was quite a substantial amount of money. Do you have any data on how that went?
- I can get some more specific information, but it was sort of the things that we were talking about. It's pamphlet Printing it's working with the apartment association and landlords to get information out to them But we'll get you a more I'll get you a better synopsis of all what's gone into that And are those activities still represented in the current budget? I
- At some level I don't know if it's at the exact I don't have the line item budgets right in front of me. It's certainly going to be maintained at some level but I don't know that we'll need the level of funding we needed for 2025. OK. So I'd be really interested in seeing like you know did it did it actually work. One of the things that we're we're utilizing more and more is simply technology. So we've got a couple we've got a system recollect that the residents could use to get specific information about.
- Hey I've got a TV how do I dispose of it or you know things like that. So we'll get you a good synopsis of how those funds have been used and what's that what what metrics we have. And then in terms of the diversion if that's our main goal. Do we have any data on.
- And I don't know the technical term for this but if you know if there's a series of houses that are that are putting things in the recycling and one of them you know puts I don't know a dirty pizza box does that mess up the whole set of things that have been collected. Not necessarily. So what we get is information back from the recycling processor on
- And I'm sure director Sears is on the call to if he wants to correct me if I say anything wrong here but we get reports back from our public services on the quality of the recycling that our vehicle that our trucks are dropping off. So when it gets up to the materials recovery facility on the east side of Indianapolis.
- The way recycling works we pick it up it goes down to the transfer station on South 37 and then it goes to the material recovery facility in Indianapolis I know some of you have taken a tour of that. It's pretty fascinating So we'll get reports back if we have a particularly bad load for example You know that there was a lot of cardboard that wasn't actually recyclable or there was a hose in it There was a bowling ball. I could name other things that people have tried to recycle that are absolutely not recyclable But that's how we get that information back
- And then and then the last question is about our provider Rumpke I think and not to speak about them specifically, but they don't do Glass and certain certain materials that they do in the county. Is there a cost associated with us changing some of those capabilities? With our with our partners or like why why haven't we moved to a partner that recycles more things? So we use Republic services. We don't we don't have any contracts with Rumpke Republic does you recycle the glass? So I'm not
- Exactly sure, but I can follow up with you on more specifics there Yeah Perfect Further questions from council Yes, I don't think I have any Council member Stossberg sir Sorry, I kind of put my hand up late. Um, so
- In 2025 in the adopted budget there was an eight hundred thousand dollar in our fund transfer for sanitation Which is lower than the 2023 actual and 2024 actual this might be a controller question Do you know what the actual has been right now a year to date? I don't have that off the top my head, but I'm sure we can get that for you The controller standing behind you just you know I Didn't hear you. No, we don't have it right available right now, but we can definitely get that to you. I
- I Guess I guess the question is if we budget like just the seven hundred thousand dollars and then council doesn't approve an increase in fees then what happens We would come back for an additional appropriation. Okay. Thanks Other questions Okay, we'll go to the public anybody in chambers would like to ask sorry make a comment and
- This is on sanitation vision of Department of Public Works Or online anyone online no, no, okay back to council then Comment on this budget Okay, seeing none, thank you director Waisen See you next time Okay, we'll now go to city Bloomington utilities director Zager
- Welcome. Hi. Hi, I'm Director Zager. Welcome.
- director of city Bloomington utilities presenting the twenty twenty six budget. The mission of CBU is to enhance the quality of life in our community by providing safe sustainable and high quality drinking water wastewater and stormwater services in a cost effective manner promoting public health economic vitality and environmental stewardship with our vision being to be the leading municipal water utility organization in Indiana.
- We currently have a staff of 194 regular full-time employees three regular part-time employees and one intern This is split into our six divisions administration finance environmental engineering operations and transmission and distribution First I'd like to start off with our current status and some of the successes we've had this year in water We've completed our filter media replacement project and solids handling improvements at the Monroe water treatment plant and
- We also issued a notice to proceed in March of 2025 for the chemical feed line project. As a reminder, this chemical feed line project replaced chemical feed lines to ensure redundancy in our feed systems. This is scheduled for completion in fall of 2026. This also adds a new backwash pump to add resiliency as required by IDEM.
- We also did a full asset inventory with a business risk exposure analysis at Monroe water treatment plant to direct and prioritize our capital improvement projects We developed a respiratory protection program ensuring proper selection use and maintenance of respirators to protect workers from airborne hazards We cleaned multiple chemical tanks at Monroe water treatment plant some of these being cleaned for the first time in their life
- We finally our state certified lab is prepared to start accepting drinking water samples for lead sampling as we progress in our lead service line inventory At Blucher pool wastewater treatment plant we have partnered with ITS to complete upgrades to our fiber optic network and server infrastructure We've completed the design and process programming for instrumentation upgrades with full project completion goals being the end of this year
- At Dilman, our capacity improvements project to achieve 19 million gallons per day and improve safety at the plant is ahead of schedule. Our construction for this started in the spring of 2025. We also completed our bar screen replacement project. I've added this picture here to be the visual example of just how large some of our projects are at our plants. This is a picture that was taken during our bar screen replacement project. That piece of equipment that is larger than the building it is being dropped into
- the bar screen in question In our stormwater utility we have fully implemented our street sweeping program with water quality focused routes We have partnered with the city of Bloomington engineering to build rain gardens as part of the Winslow Road Park project We launched our stormwater management permit and EPL recently We were also accepted into the item clean communities program for our commitment to environmental leadership and
- The Indiana clean communities program is a voluntary program which recognizes Indiana municipalities that take proactive sustainable environmental actions by being a member We receive recognition when applying for competitive grants and will receive advance notice of regulatory inspections Once we reach the gold level which we anticipate doing soon We also awarded six residential stormwater grants this year totaling over $56,000
- In customer service, we've spent over $17,000 this year to date in customer assistance and are further expanding our eligibility criteria. This financial assistance amount is double what we spent this point last year.
- Speak more on our expanded eligibility before the end of the year We will be removing the requirement that customers must apply for assistance before their water is shut off This will allow us to offer assistance when people need it the most This will be in addition to expanding our assistance to cover fees and any additional expenses that may have shown up on their bill We want our program to be about getting people back on track and these changes remove the barriers that weren't allowing us to do this previously
- We've also opened our service center for walk-in appointments for the first time since COVID. We are now utilizing an intercom check-in system that ensures that our staff remain safe while we're able to provide excellent customer service. We are installing a customer kiosk by the end of this year to provide 24-7 service at our service center.
- We've also moved to text notifications for all customers to communicate important updates. That's through using the Everbridge system to communicate boil water advisories to all impacted customers, not just ones who voluntarily signed up. And Tyler notified to provide our customers with urgent account status updates such as delinquent bills. Now I'll move on to some of the challenges and needs we have here at CBU. The primary challenge we're facing right now is our water fund.
- Operating expenses and project costs have significantly increased compared to the estimates that were used to build the last rate case Those estimates were pre-pandemic costs right now we're continuing to closely manage our cast cash balances for water expenses and Unfortunately the delays in our data acquisition for our rate case have pushed that back prolonging our water fund situation and
- Another challenge we face is that the space needed for staff and equipment as we outgrow the current service center and garage our current store our current service center is not meeting our modern utility needs and in some cases Accelerating the aging and wearing and wear of our equipment Speaking of aging and outdated equipment aging and outdated infrastructure and this is one of our challenges specifically, I'd like to highlight three issues and
- One is our chemical tanks and feed lines many of our chemical tanks and feed lines are over 20 years old This is what delivers the disinfection chemicals that allow us to treat our drinking water Ensuring equipment redundancy is essential to producing drinking water Next is our electrical and instrumentation at Monroe
- Many of the electrical systems and instrumentation at Monroe are outdated Monroe water treatment plant are outdated and approaching their end of life an overall update of these systems is in our CIP that will be submitted as part of our rate case in the meantime, we are ensuring that we are budgeting for the replacement and repair of equipment on an as needed basis and then finally, I'd like to address fluoride and
- CBU has had issues delivering the recommended point seven milligrams per liter of fluoride since the end of 2019 due to leaks in our system our Bulk tank which was the source of the leak originally was relined in 2022 but continued to leak Temporary delivery systems were tried but post safety risks to staff We are currently testing all components of the system to determine if additional relining of the 20 year old tank will even be effective and
- Our goal is to have a temporary cost-effective solution finished by the beginning of 2026 so that we can safely continue the addition of fluoride to our drinking water. Additionally, we have a capital improvement project slated for 2027 for a more comprehensive overhaul and assessment of the system along with other chemical building improvements in our pending rate case, which was presented to the Utility Service Board today. Just kidding, I wasn't done with that slide.
- We are also, one of the challenges we face are changing weather patterns that are driving changes in our source water. Of course, one of those that I need to mention is taste and odor, which is caused by geosmin in MIB. And this is caused by long periods of drought and high temps that we're seeing year after year. Currently, we're budgeting almost $223,000 a year on coconut-based activated carbon to help mitigate that taste and odor. We're also,
- We've been also facing some issues with water discoloration, which happens because of the unusually high lake levels we were seeing this year, which were causing anoxic or without oxygen conditions, increasing the levels of iron and manganese that cause that discoloration. I'd now like to talk about some of the opportunities that we have on the horizon. We have made substantial progress on the Winston Thomas
- In the proposed service center, we've spent a fair amount of money in the design to date We have finished our site remediation and put the parcel in a good position for future development of the service center We also still have our 50 percent percent designs from Champlain and
- To move forward with we've done floodplain redetermination, which is still in progress We have secured our no rise certification, but we are working on our letter of map revision using the same hydrological modeling Another opportunity is the progress on our water rate case The rate case will hopefully allow us to have rates that align with the rising cost of service and address the issues with aging infrastructure that we are currently facing
- The proposed rate case was presented in a public meeting of the utility service board today There would be additional public there will be an additional public meeting this Friday the 29th at 5 p.m. At the utility service center We are really encouraging anyone who has an interest in these proposed rate changes to come to this meeting to ask questions and voice any concerns The proposed rate case will be brought back to the USB on September 8th for a vote on
- Approved it is scheduled to come to this council September 17th for a first reading and then again on the 30th for a second reading Because CBU's budget is separate from the general fund we felt it was best to fully classify CBU's budget into the community health and vitality as this was best suited priority and Kept this budget set aside from further analysis that will take place during priority based budgeting here instead we show how CBU's budget is split into its six different divisions and
- bonds and interdepartmental payments and I'll go through those Here's another way to visualize that First I want to talk about our interdepartmental payment, which is 17% of 2026 is budget at ten ten point one million dollars in this interdepartmental we have included the 2024 and 2025 interdepartmental payments 2024 and 2025 payment in lieu of taxes and benefits for 2025 and
- Our next division is transmission and distribution which accounts for 13% of our budget or seven point four million dollars We have five work groups in transmission and distribution. That's wastewater water stormwater meter services and inspection and location Our next division is operations which accounts for 22% of our budget at twelve point
- at about $12.6 million. That accounts for all of the expenditures at the three treatment plants, Monroe Water Treatment Plant, Blucher Pool Wastewater Treatment Plant, and Dilman Wastewater Treatment Plant, along with the Maintenance Booster and Lift Station work groups. Next, we have our Finance Division, which is 8% of our budget, or $4.5 million. That's split into Finance and Accounting, Billing and Collections, Purchasing, and Customer Relations.
- We then have environmental at $2.2 million, or 4% of our budget, which is water quality, pretreatment, MS4, which is municipal separate storm sewer system, hazardous materials, compliance, and laboratory services. We then have our engineering budget, which is $2.2 million, or 4% of our budget. Those work groups are capital project management, plan review and inspection, new services, and GIS. Finally, we have our administration division,
- 3% of our budget at 1.6 million dollars that includes the director's office and support administration and our Communications which staff our control office which is open 24 7 365 Here's our revenue budget summary our Revenue for water in 2026 is estimated to be about twenty three point one million sewer is about twenty nine point eight and
- Storm four point seven million with a total 2026 budget of fifty seven point seven million dollars Here's that departmental budget by fund With personnel services being seventeen point one million supplies being five point six million other services and extensions and replacements being twenty point six million sinking in depreciation at fourteen point two million
- And now some of our budget notes. Our water personnel budget went down 13.1%. Part of this is because we did correct some errors in the New World software that had artificially inflated our personnel line budget in the 2025 budget. But we did also leave room based on our historical run rates to cover proposed compensation adjustments that HR had worked on. Our supplies went down 15.1%.
- One of our biggest supply costs is chemicals. So we're using estimates for chemicals based on past usage and input from staff For the past few years We've been utilizing a reverse bidding process for our chemical purchases that ensures that we are getting the best rates for our chemicals Which has helped to reduce our overall costs We're also using current trends to estimate main break costs We are aligning this more with our historical results. And in general, we're doing some belt tightening due to our water fund situation and
- Other services went up forty four point three percent again. We had some general belt tightening due to our water cash situation here You'll see that we have our mark multiple interdepartmental charges that were included We're working with the controller on the interdepartmental process currently to make it more transparent so that they're so there may be some variability in this line item and
- You'll also notice that there is a five hundred and eight thousand dollar shortfall in ENR due to possible budget shortfall in 2026 in the water fund If there is a shortfall the water utility will take out a loan from the wastewater utility This is a one-time loan from sewer that will be paid back once our rate changes are implement implemented This is our short-term solution to getting out of the bite the bad financial situation that we inherited
- Because of the careful water cash tracking that our staff has been doing we have done really well not to need this loan so far this year and I really commend our staff for being able to watch it that closely. But it's very likely that we will need this next year if there are no increases in the funds and water. We now have regular meetings to stay updated on the status of both our bonds and cash funds for all of our utilities so that this shortfall does not happen again.
- Sewer budget notes our personal line item is down 17% This is for the same reasons as water Our supplies are up twenty four point four percent We're using estimates for chemicals same as in water and then we have Reclassified some spend two other services from supplies And our other services has gone up fifty point one percent
- This is where our multiple interdepartmental charges are included in the budget and then some of our expenses Were moved to other services from supplies and this is really just to have better accounting accuracy In storm our personnel has lineup
- Lines have gone up nine point one percent. This is because personnel are being moved to be paid out of the storm fund where historically they were being only paid out of the water and wastewater funds. For example we have an engineer who is just an example job.
- Take an engineer they spend their time in water wastewater and stormwater but currently they're only being paid out of water and wastewater because that's how it was initially set up before we started growing our stormwater utility. So now that the stormwater utility is growing we're able to start putting some of those personnel charges onto storm where they belong. We've also again left room based on the historical run rates to cover proposed compensation adjustments.
- Supply line has gone down 44% this supply line funds some of our smaller stormwater projects And really this has gone down because we want to make sure that it's in line with what we've been spending historically Our other services has had no major changes and has gone up 4.2 percent and of note This is where most of our larger stormwater projects are funded That is the city of Bloomington utilities
- 2026 budget. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your questions. Thank you for your presentation questions from council Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes, thank you for your presentation Could you either you or the controller our tag team at maybe? describe what this interdepartmental 17% is
- Yeah, I'd be happy to describe the interdepartmental so We have a separate fund from the general fund, right? What the interdepartmental does is help allows us to pay for the services. We're receiving from the city. So for example HR we get our HR services from the city. We also have IT services we have
- Services from the various departments and so we pay a portion into that based on The size of our department and based on our use of those services Other questions Thank you
- So I saw that bonds is the biggest percentage of your budget and I'm kind of wondering is that typical for large utilities like CBU to have just large bonding payments every year. And then also does SEA 1 change bonding for utilities in the same way that it's changing bonding for municipalities and counties. So yeah I do think that it's pretty typical. Lots of our projects are extremely expensive and are most of the time bonded for.
- And I do not believe that we are impacted in the same way with our bonding. Okay, great That's that's good to hear and then the other question that I had let me scroll down to it You referenced your in-house programs related to utility assistance and I'm wondering how your in-house programs work together with other
- programs for utility and assistance around town. I know that SCAP has programs and trustees have programs and various churches have programs. And so I'm just wondering how much collaboration there is between units. Absolutely. Yeah. So we actually run our financial assistance program through SCAP and we have a contract with them. And so a lot of the applications for our assistance program are run through SCAP. Great. Thank you.
- And I also actually real quick you don't have time to ask this but the other thing I'm wondering that I'll follow up with written is on your slideshow you had the the revenues for like the actual revenues in 2022 I think 23 and 24 but there weren't the actual expenses and I just think it's really interesting and maybe I mentioned this last year that like in your budget you kind of you know have an even in even out but I'm sure in real life like there's
- it doesn't come out perfect at the end. So I am curious to follow up on.
- The actual expenses in those years to compare to the revenue So I don't expect the answer in one minute, but I I just wanted to that's a that's a teaser that I'm gonna follow up on Thanks, I can give you a quick answer and actually our assistant director Matt our assistant director of finance Matt. He's here with us today I think the quick answer on that is that we are actually bringing our close our budget closer every year towards our actual expenses and that's some of those negative percentages you saw is Bringing our budget to the closer to actual expenses
- And then When you think about money in money out We're able to Like hold money year to year the it doesn't operate the same way as a general fund So we're able to hold money year to year. And in fact, we have to You know just in case something bad happens and we still want to provide services Yes, thank you. I kind of expect that I'm just kind of wondering I just want to see the numbers. That's oh, yeah. Thanks. I
- Other questions. Consumers sorry. I have an admittedly dumb question. Most of my questions are but could you help us understand particularly because of the conversations around the potential rate changes sort of tension between what is an ongoing structural problem versus what is you know due to a series of decisions that were made in the past. So I'm trying to understand I mean is this like a
- necessary change forever or is it sort of a we need to catch up type of situation and then there may be an adjustment again as I'm trying to just understand really like where the shortages come from and and sort of where they're going if that makes sense I think this is that's not a dumb question at all and so yeah so the rate case is built on
- you know, actual expenses, predicted expenses, it's built on a test year of what we spent. And it's truly built on the cost of service. So when you think about rate cases and rates needing to raise, in that way, that is not, you know, oh, a combination of a bunch of bad decisions. That's truly just,
- You know operating expenses increase every year and we haven't adjusted for that since before the pandemic But when you think about when we talk about that one-time loan, I think that is more of hey, we're making up for Some accounting issues from the past and we're planning for that so that we don't have to do that in the future Further questions That's my rough
- little more about the history of the the fluoridation issue my understanding real quick and this is part of the question because you can tell me if it's accurate or not is it at some point a handful of years ago and a critical piece of equipment for the fluoridation process went bad and it's a massively expensive piece of equipment and so in the interim several
- Kind of short-term fixes were tried none really worked Levels fluctuated went down generally but the intent was always there to eventually try to get back to where it was before and Finally in the end was a formal presentation ever made to the USB about what was going on with the fluoridation thing
- So I'm going to answer your questions backwards. So the formal I'll start here and move towards past. So a formal presentation to the USB was not made until this year. And you know the formal presentation that we have not been able to feed fluoride was made I believe a couple of months ago. Sorry I don't have the exact date and
- Before that it was reported for the first time for the last two years it's been reported in our consumer confidence report but it wasn't presented exactly.
- and then before that it wasn't in the consumer confidence report, nor had it been presented to the USB. We've had contracts come to the USB to fix things, so I would assume in 2022 when we did the relining that that contract went to the USB. Trying to answer it backwards has got me, what was the beginning?
- So does that help answer your question? Or I guess you wanted to ask about the temporary fixes? Yeah. Sure. Sure, yeah. So it started with a leak in our bulk tank. And so our bulk tank holds, correct me if I'm wrong, Hector, 9,000 gallons of fluoride or hydrofluorosilic acid, which is used to put the fluoride in the water.
- That bulk tank sprung a leak. And so it was relined in 2022. We also replaced our day tank as part of that relining. And so the day tank was replaced, it was relined, and then it sprung another leak shortly thereafter. And then there was an effort to use what are called, what we call totes.
- and those are, I don't know if you're familiar with what an IV-C toad is, it's a big square jug with a metal cage around it and you just plug it in and you try to feed from that. But when you try to plug a pump into something like that, now you're, that's when I talk about safety risks to our staff because we're dealing with a concentrated hydrofluorosilic acid which
- We don't want to have regular exposure to we don't want our staff having regular exposure to and that system was giving them that regular exposure and then Yeah, so those were some of the temporary solutions now we're retesting the system to see if we hope sorry. Sorry. I forgot they were timed I hope that satisfies your Yes, yes
- The intent has always been to go back to feeding floor Thank you for that further questions from council I've got one Thank you for your presentation So the service center on Winston Thomas that's going to be it's being constructed is going to be bigger better it's going to be what anticipating more employees dissipating
- growth and To what extent is this rate increase which is substantial it's coming the last rate increase was in 2021 and then it was done incrementally per year and This one is significant part of it is for infrastructure for Attending to maintenance and things like that old stuff and part of it is to the new service center, correct and to
- Service bonds to pay for the facility itself. What what will that be used for specifically? What will the service bonds well, what will be what would what was that portion of the rate increase? Be directed to for the service center so the costs for the service center are We are planning on bonding for them. So that will go into our debt service and
- Our debt service we are planning it so that we keep it flat throughout this process So as some of our other bonds payments drop off, we will take on new bond payments to keep that at the same level So we're actually at a unique opportunity to take on this kind of Bond so the rate increase or at least portion of it is used to basically pay for debt for the expansion of the service center Yeah, yeah
- Can we Well, I'm gonna leave it there and Any other questions? Okay, seeing none we'll go to the public then Anybody in chambers Anyone in line no Okay back to council for comment on the
- So you Bloomington utilities budget for 2026 any comments Okay, I will make a comment I guess barring anyone else I guess what I was getting at is, you know looking at the budget of the utilities department fully 26.6% is used for bonds for servicing debt That's the biggest portion of the budget
- Is servicing debt? Okay, we're retiring bonds, but we're gonna pick up new ones and we're gonna raise rates for the customer to do this I Guess what I'm getting at here is that what it says to me is that there are hidden growth costs the growth as I said the other day Gross does not come free for city cities are expensive. This is a key component of why cities
- We can demonstrate that it's expensive the incremental costs are subsidized by the public to a large degree Developers enter don't internalize the costs Those costs are hidden and then later on we end up incurring debt that we have to pay for over time So people are paying for this kind of development in the city. I think that it's Important to be cognizant of that. I mean as we go forward I
- I mean, I maybe you're for it. Maybe that's a good idea. Maybe Growing the city is worth raising rates for or taxes for local Residents, I don't think so, but I think that we ought to we ought to quantify it and we ought to Describe it because I think it's important So with that that concludes this evening I believe City of Bloomington budget hearings for 2026
- Will reconvene on Wednesday and the topic is priority area introduction transportation Bloomington Transit Planning and Transportation Department Department of Public Works Street and Traffic Division Parking Services Division will be covered that evening. So thank you for attending and we are adjourned