All right. Hi. Thank you very much everybody for your patience. I am really sorry. Welcome to the opening
night of departmental budget hearings. Twenty twenty seven for the twenty seven budget for Bloomington.
Awesome. All right. So I will give us just a quick no I don't do that. First we do roll call. Deputy
city clerk stole would you mind taking role please. All right. Councilmember daily here.
Rallo, Ruff, Rosenberger? Here. Flaherty? Here. Stasberg? Here. Piedmont-Smith? Here. Zulek? Here. Asari.
All right, thank you very much. So just a quick overview of our agenda for this evening, Monday,
August 17th. We have a few presentations on deck. We're going to start with an introduction by the Office
of the Mayor.
followed by an introduction by controller Jeff McKim. And then we will hear from the fire department
and then the presentation from the police department and dispatch followed by presentation from community
and family resources development. And then finally closing out the evening housing and neighborhood
development also known as hand will be presenting their 2027 budget. So with that out of the way we
will now move on to the presentations. So
I welcome Mayor Thompson up to the podium. Thank you very much. You have 10 minutes. Thanks and thanks
for starting the budget hearings with joy. It's awesome.
My administration is proud to present the city of Bloomington budget proposal for 2027 our total budget
for this year is proposed at 165 million dollars and it cuts our combined operating an ed lit deficit
by more than half this year a total reduction from the 2024 budget with which this administration began
of more than ten point five million dollars and
While funding is just one of the tools that we use to get things done, the budget of a city speaks to
its vision and what we truly hope to accomplish together. Our vision of a safe and welcoming Bloomington
where everyone has a good and safe place to call home, a good paying job, and a community of belonging.
is accomplished through many choices. Together with the council and our city residents, we share many
priorities and goals for improving our city. And the budget that you'll review over the coming weeks
delivers a proposal which prioritizes maintaining the many assets that we have and the services uniquely
provided by the city, along with
Responsible fiscal choices that unlock potential for our community and for the residents who live here.
We will continue to prioritize maintaining what we have and the services that only the city can provide
and responsible fiscal choices that unlock our potential. Often as leaders we think creativity only
arrives in the form of a new idea.
But sometimes the best innovations that we have in humanity come when we're forced to work on our shared
priorities within fiscal constraints that did not exist when we created those innovative ideas. Fiscal
responsibility today requires true grit and creativity. And I'm proud that we have continued to reduce
the anticipated deficit in the city's budget in each and every annual budget my team has produced.
Achieving this reality this year will take creative thinking about funding, partnerships, and innovative
pathways. We now have our budget to a point that with the exception of a payment of the final commitment
to Bloomington Transit and our share of election funding, we would not be forecasting an operational deficit.
The city frequently budgets a deficit because expenditures usually come in much less than budgeted.
For example, staff vacancies usually result in unspent appropriations as well as budgets for temporary
salaries and capital items. A balanced budget on paper generally leads to growing reserves. My commitment
to the residents of this city continues to be responsible fiscal management and with each budget we
have reduced
that anticipated operating deficit and will continue to make the hard choices to ensure that we are
operating a city government within our means. First our focus this year our city has responsibilities
to taxpayers that for services that only we provide and we have to fulfill those duties before anything else.
clean waters, safe roads and sidewalks, beautiful parks and trails, public safety. Second, we have new
assets to protect and maintain, like Switchyard Park and Hopewell Commons, and older assets that need
to be repaired or replaced, like hand-me-down public works buildings and our policed headquarters.
The controller and our financial advisors have outlined a path forward for funding critical infrastructure
in these areas. Third, when we prioritize our root cause issues, housing, homelessness, wage growth,
and public safety, we create lasting, transformative change. Each choice comes with trade-offs, and
our first priority must be fixing what's broken and filling gaps. If the city
at this stage were a house, we would still be or be back in the stage of investing in plumbing and electrical
repairs and HVAC before we can think about decorating. I wanna talk for a minute about outcomes-based
budgeting and where we are with that. A priority describes, of course, what we value. An outcome describes
how we measure our success in living up to that value.
In the 2025 budget, we started exploring how we could move toward an outcomes-based budget to make our
desired priorities and outcomes transparent. With a new controller and the many phases of implementing
the broken financial system, we have found that that financial system is simply inadequate to provide
the data that we need
to produce a true outcomes-based budget. We've planned for a new financial system in 2027 for many reasons.
And once we've implemented that, we can continue the conversation around budgeting practices.
In the meantime, council shared a list of their priorities with us this spring. And with the controller's
office, we examined that list to define areas of shared priority that are within the wheelhouse of municipal
government.
those that have measurable spending and could potentially have measurable outcomes. There's lots of
good news. Council the administration and residents share many of the same priorities and together we're
working diligently in all of these areas as you see reflected in the budget proposal before you. We
will be working on asset preservation transportation and safe streets for all climate
economic development, homelessness solutions and diversion, public safety, including alternative response,
and of course, housing. While we know that we won't be able to implement our ideal solutions or do everything
we would like to do this year, I am committed to making just the promises that we can keep and no more,
and focusing on incremental improvement in the areas where we are unable to fund dramatic impact.
I am tremendously grateful for your consideration of this budget. And as we know, as SEA 1 rolls out
and we continue to face decreasing income, we can and will achieve a Bloomington that meets our vision.
And together, in collaboration, I think that we can achieve some tremendous things in the coming year.
I'm happy to answer your question.
Thank you very much. Does anybody have any questions at this time. Councilmember Piedmont Smith. So
my question is about process. So I mean I submitted a couple of general questions on the spreadsheet
that has been shared with the public. Am I supposed to ask those now as well or is that going to
the answered in writing or is it up to me. You're welcome to ask them now as well. We've been working
diligently on that spreadsheet answering the things that we're able to answer within the time that we've
had so far. And we'll continue to work on them. All right. So I'll go ahead and ask. So in the absence
of data driven outcome based budgeting is your administration
at least discussing the budget internally within the paradigm of how does this expense help us meet
our common goals. I see the department heads memos do refer back to the list of shared council and mayor
goals that you had just had on the screen. But did they consider each position program or other major
expenditure in this context of how does this expense help us meet our goals.
So the priorities were taken very seriously, not only by the administration, but by each department
head. And they have targeted their spending to meet those priorities. So you can expect to see impact
in those priorities. And we've made, obviously we have really produced a budget where we have
had to be lean. So we are not able to make as much progress as we would like in some areas. But you
will see spending reflecting those priorities. Guess what I'm getting at is what's the paradigm you
discussed with your cabinet. Is it you know try to do more with less. Is it take last year's budget
and see what you can pare down keeping these priorities in mind or is it really
Go to each expense or each project and think about how it makes it gets us closer to our common goals
and therefore deserves funding. Yeah, so I think we're you know, the way I talked to the cabinet about
the budget is much like I just did with you all that we have a certain amount of money to work with.
These are our priorities. How much can we get done within these priorities?
in your budget. And so you'll see, for instance, when Hand speaks tonight, their impact on producing
housing, making sure that housing is accountable and safe and habitable, et cetera. The system that
we have, just to be clear, has no way of producing the
the expenditures from each department that go into, say, homelessness, right? There's no way to outline
that and get a simple report. And in the end, the report that we have to, and the files we have to submit
to the state to get our budget approved there, still have to be in the conventional format. And so it
is literally a manual transfer to get
The threads pulled into separate spreadsheets from every department for every different outcome Then
we produce a budget negotiate it with you all and then we have to manually Transfer it back into all
of the separate funds. It's incredibly labor-intensive and so we've taken the the priorities based budgeting and
Focused our spending where where it's flexible and I'll just be clear lots of the things that we do
in the city That are just the basic city services that takes up most of this budget so the choices that
we have are few the the the deliberations that we have in terms of percentage of dollars
Less than you might anticipate Councilmember Stossberg and then council members who look after thank
you So in your memo one of the things that you wrote under the every dollar comes with trade-offs and
questions starting with and then you have a list
And you kind of referred to it a little bit in your in one of the slides as well One of those the last
one states does this spending serve an area of greatest need something that is in poor condition Missing
or due for replacement or does it improve on something that is already good? and I know that I've heard
this as kind of like a sort of debate before in terms of
you know, the trade-offs of like trying to take a D or an F and get it up to a C or a B versus taking
a C and getting up to an A in terms of like how do we, because there are kind of two different approaches,
right, to improve different pieces of infrastructure especially. So I guess what I'm asking here is
I feel like that statement kind of raises this question of like which one of these
Do we prioritize? And I'm not totally sure that you really answered that question with your presentation.
So I guess I just want to hear your perspective on that answer, on that kind of philosophical concept
there of Fs to Cs or Cs to As.
I think it entirely depends on what we're talking about. If we're talking about a core city service,
we can't be at an F and frankly, we can't even be at a C. We need to be at a B plus or higher and always
striving for an A. Then there are things that I think we're doing moderately well. And if we had extra
money, would we like to get them from a C to an A? Sure.
Absolutely, we would. And I've talked to several of you about the various plans that we have in place
that have, we intend to implement this by X date. But many of those plans are not tied to funding. And
so we have to consider when we're looking at something that's a C, can we even meet the plan here? And
what are we sacrificing to meet the plan? And other things.
That are at seas Can you know need to be lifted to an a? So I would say entirely depends if there's
something we're not doing yet, and it's not essential We won't be picking it up this year So as a follow-up
I just heard you say that core city services need to be a B plus or higher. And I guess I'm going to
ask again, like what you consider core city services. Yeah. So I think I defined those in my, um, in
my opening remarks. Um, so those are obviously water sewer, um, public safety are all core city services.
We have to have clean drinking water. We have to be able to flush our toilets and have it disposed of
in a sanitary way.
If I could finish what I was going to say that one of the places where that debate has been especially
vibrant you can say is in transportation planning and the idea of streets and their street design. So
do you consider street design to be a core city service or transportation design to be a core city service
in this context.
I think our responsibility to provide transportation infrastructure is a core city service and I think
we have worked really hard to get safe streets for all implemented and we continue to prioritize that
in the budget. That's all right now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Mayor Thompson for your
presentation.
Being here tonight, I thought I heard you say in your presentation that we're instituting a new financial
system next year. It's in the budget to purchase a new financial system. So you'll hear more about that
when the controller speaks to you. OK. In that case, I will hold my next question for the controller.
Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any other questions from council members? No? Going once. All right.
Thank you very much mayor Thompson and next we have an introduction from the city controller You may
step right up to the podium introduce yourself and you have I believe 10 minutes also 15 minutes. There's
no Cut back but I'm so sorry. Oh Sorry, I thought those were all mixed up together. I apologize. Apparently
I skipped over the next part of councilmember comments Yeah
So what you're telling me that yeah, well I was asking if we were gonna have councilmember comics I
did have a comment that was definitely not a question. Okay. Sorry. I didn't realize we were I'm confused
since we are not doing Public comment. Okay, I thought it was just questions and comments all in one.
So go ahead if you I didn't know that we weren't doing public comment either Okay councilmember Flaherty.
Did you have something on this as a point of order? We've I believe in recent years made a motion to
structure the format of debate for the
Duration of the the budget hearings, which we did not do at the beginning of this meeting I would say
until then we're kind of at the chair's discretion I'm happy to try to identify a prior motion if we
might want to use that for a template for how to structure from here I'm happy to entertain a motion
Why don't we do councilmember comment while councilmember Flaherty I love this motion. Yep. Yes, so I
Is this a council member comment or related to the motion from last year. Awesome. OK. I will entertain
a motion. I move that for the duration of budget week we a limit council member question and answer
periods to a maximum of three minutes per council member per presentation be limit council member comment
period to three minutes per council member per presentation.
See limit public comment to two minutes per speaker per comment period and then number two I moved we
suspend the rules to dispense of the requirement to. Oh no never mind. Just just those three points
and I'll second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any debate on this. Any discussion. Council
members Stasberg I guess I'm just wondering about the
the three minutes per council member for a question and answer because so many of us don't have questions
at least in the first session. So I think that the point of that is to not go on and on forever all
night long. But I don't I don't know. I guess I just want to raise that as a potential saying you think
it should be extended. I don't know. I don't think it needs to be okay. Yeah I think just because we
have the space doesn't mean we need to try to fill it.
Any other comments before we vote on this. I would like to ask a question. Where did this proposal to
not have public comment come from and does that only apply to the intro and not to the departments or
I thought we usually have public comment. That was my confusion when I rushed in and we will tap in
attorney Allen who I asked about this. I wasn't going to throw anyone under the bus.
motion for special rules we hadn't discussed it typically these would just be presentations for the
information of council you could ask questions but if you want to have a public comment as you just
moved then that's perfectly fine by special rules can I amend my motion then councilmember Flaherty
reference I think was the same motion we had in 2024 as well so we have had public comment at the prior
two years and probably before that as well I support the motion as as made I guess but you included
public comment did you not
I did not. I thought you did. I thought it was two minutes. Two minutes per. Oh, I did. There was two
minutes. But I said limit public comment to two minutes per speaker per comment period. And it is not
clear what comment period there will be under your motion. What I understood it to be was that there's
a comment period following each speaker and that each public commenter would be allowed two minutes
to respond to that particular speaker and no others. That is what I intended. That is how implicit in
the motion you think. Yes. All right. Thank you.
Mean I I told people to come and comment. I mean nobody's here, but I Know I'm open. I think that people
should have that right. All right Deputy city clerk stole would you mind calling the roll on this motion,
please? Councilmember ruff Rosenberger. Yes Flaherty. Yes, Stasburg. Yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes, Zulek. Yes
Daily. Yes All right. Fantastic. So now then we did our questions for the office of the mayor's introduction.
So now we are going to open it up to public comment public Comment. Yes. Sorry and my deepest apologies
especially to Controller Kim for calling you up and then putting you on standby. So McKim, sorry All
right. This is what happens when I'm flustered and I'm rushing in late for the meeting. I
Any public commenters in the chambers or online? There's no one online All right super we have no takers.
So now we will move to councilmember comment Councilmember Stossberg. Thank you. I just want to make
a quick comment on outcome based budgeting and I can appreciate, you know having been related with like the
the temporary fiscal committee or the special fiscal committee over the last couple of years in terms
of the complexity around software with this and like pulling out the all of those individual numbers
and and I Have really understood that but I also think that there is a potential parallel process of
actually Identifying the priority outcomes that we have and that that can be done potentially even
figuring out ways to measure those outcomes without necessarily having to have all of that software
done. And I guess that I would appreciate it if we could kind of move in that direction of starting
to think about what outcomes do we want to see in our city? And even if we can't nail down to the dollar
exactly what we're spending on those outcomes, I think that we can.
Make some some inroads into whether or not we are meeting those goals. And so I guess I would hope that
we move in that direction because it's Kind of disappointing that this seems pretty wiped wiped clean
of that. Thanks Councilmember Flaherty Yeah, first just thank you to mayor Thompson and department heads
and city staff for developing this budget proposal I really appreciate all the work that goes into that
and I look forward to
hearing the presentations and asking questions. A quick note on that, I mostly intend to ask my questions
in writing to keep this manageable from a time perspective. And on the comment side, I think just, I'll
briefly second what Councilmember Stossberg noted, which in my mind, outcome-based budgeting starts
with outcomes, and that's been a barrier we've identified and talked about in each of the prior years
of this administration, that we actually, with limited exception, don't have a lot of shared outcomes.
And where we do have them, they're quite disparate in kind of the framework and what type of times horizon
we're talking about. And to me, that's the real investment here is identifying and developing shared
outcomes across the major areas of city services and governance in a kind of common paradigm that would
allow us then to measure and track progress over time, which I hadn't even thought about but agree that
may or may not entail line item budget tracking. You know that they might actually even need that from
an outcome based budgeting perspective. So I hope we can continue that conversation too about how to
make progress toward that with keeping the outcomes at the front in the center. Thank you. Thank you
very much. Any other council comments. All right. Great. Thank you all very much. And now for real this
time the introduction by Controller McKim.
Thank you. Please introduce yourself and you do have that full 15 minutes Jeff McKim good evening council
members Thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you the overall financial picture of the city
as we begin the 2027 budget discussions My goal is to give you the clearest financial framework I can
for evaluating those choices Including where the numbers are firm where their estimates and where I
see financial risk It works Wow
So during this budget process, you'll be considering a budget proposal for around 38 different funds.
Some are very general in use such as the general fund, some are very limited and specific. I know one
question that has emerged is
Why these funds and why not others? If you look at the city's annual financial report, for example,
you will see over 100 funds. That doesn't even include those associated with utilities. However,
by statute, there are only certain funds that you appropriate as part of the annual budget process.
Some of the others are very specialized, and some may not be actively used. Some are associated with
grants. Some are associated with TIF districts and the Redevelopment Commission, which you don't budget for.
And some are old bond funds or even current bond project funds that you've already appropriated.
So today, I provided you through the spreadsheet with questions with a list of all of the funds that
appear in the 2027 budget proposal, including a brief description of each fund.
Even of the 38 or so that you're being asked to approve a budget for there's some that focus on more
than others because they involve a larger and more complex decision space that is the need and ability
to trade off between multiple priorities as You know the 2027 budget proposal includes a five point
four million dollar budgeted deficit in the general fund which is less than the budgeted deficits that
you've approved in 2024 25 and 26
But I actually think it is most useful to look at the general fund and the ED lit funds together. Why?
First because many expenses have been moved between these funds and so you can compare like with like.
And then also because they are essentially identical in how they're allowed to be spent. These two funds
together essentially represent the majority, not all, but the majority of the decision space that you
have with respect to the general operations of city government.
And so if we add up general and Edie lit we wind up with in 2027 a proposed general and Edie lit budget
together with the deficit of four point eight million dollars We've seen some additional and increased
expenses in the 2027 budget proposal and we'll talk about them in a few minutes We were also moving
some more expenses from the general fund to Edie lit
This moving simply serves to balance out the revenue and expenses of the two funds. It doesn't represent
any new expenses or savings either. And I'll talk about these moves shortly. As with past budgets, we
have seen a budgeted deficit in these key operational funds.
The city has historically spent less than its full appropriation and the proposed year-end fund balances
mostly remain substantial. However, I do want to acknowledge the rising costs of fully funding what
we already have with limited revenue coming in and few opportunities for revenue growth.
I do want to emphasize a point that I made in my component of the budget memo as well, that while the
expenditure proposals being discussed are very specific, the revenue numbers may and will change before
the budget is passed. There are best guesses based on the information we have. And of course, even though
the revenue projections will become part of the record when the budget is passed, the actual revenue
could come in at or below or above the projected revenue. Many of the important revenue numbers are
not even known before the budget book was produced.
For example, the final lit numbers for 2027, the PSAP distribution from the county for dispatch, and
the circuit breaker tax cap estimates from the state. Some depend heavily on future events that we don't
have a lot of control over, such as interest income. And I mention that just to say that throughout
the process, while the budgeted expenditure numbers will only change through this process if we together
agree they will, the revenue numbers will continue to change as we get new information, as
I have opportunities to further analyze
projections, etc.
Based on questions that I've received from council members already as well as information that's already
been received I'll be reduced releasing some additional data tables over the next week Those tables
will include information like current and projected fund balances for each of the funds that make up
the budget proposal updated reserves Projections and the actual budget expenditures to date some of
that information is already presented to the fiscal committee But I'm hearing that all council members
would appreciate that information and actually my first cut at that was released today
I want to talk for a few minutes about some of the larger scale changes in the operating budget from
2026 to 2027.
First, we've included a 2.7 cost of living, a 2.7% cost of living adjustment for civil city employees,
which represents the December to December increase in the urban CPI. We're also including 3% cost of
living for the employees of our three unions, Ask Me, Police, and Fire. Overall salary increases come
out to 2.9 million across the city, with 623,000 in the general fund and 1.2 million in ED lit. We've
also seen increases in pension expenses.
For civil city employees, the perf contribution rate remains at 14.2%, so the only increases are driven
by the additional salaries. However, for sworn public safety employees in PERS, the perf pension trustee
has increased the mandatory employer pension contribution rate from 23.3% to 26.5%, which is a very
large increase, coming out to approximately $1.8 million increase in the general fund.
Note that these increased perf contribution rates do not mean that the police officers and firefighters
will actually get additional retirement compensation. It just means that their pensions will continue
not to be underfunded. We, like every other employer, are also seeing increases in healthcare insurance
costs. This budget includes the preliminary increase of 9% that we were given from our insurer, the
AIM Medical Trust. This increase totaled 876,000 citywide,
with 390,000 in the general fund and 216,000 in the ED lit fund. The budget book was prepared using
the preliminary 9% increase. We have since received the final figure as 5.8%. And I have not yet revised
the appropriation because the allocation of that increase between city and employees has not yet been
finalized before advertising the budget will update that number once the decision is resolved.
This budget also includes $650,000 for the city's portion of the 2027 municipal election. This is a
mandatory expense that only occurs every four years and is paid out of the public works budget in the
general fund. We're also seeing the restoration of the streets contribution to the fleet maintenance
fund, which is split between MVH and cumulative capital development. Sorry, I'm gonna try to move fast
through this because I've got a lot.
We're proposing several critical capital investments in maintaining our assets through a 2026 general
obligation bond. I'll talk a little bit about that shortly. Several expenses were shifted from the general
fund. Edie lit in particular. Those included $500,000 transfer to alternative transportation, $500,000
to Jack Hopkins, 202,000 to the vehicle replacement fund and 1.6 million to sanitation.
The personnel from CFRD were also shifted to E.D. lit in the amount of one point three million. And
I want to be very clear about these transfers because I don't want the presentation of the funds to
obscure the underlying spending. Moving an expenditure from general to E.D. lit does not reduce total
city spending. That's precisely why I like talking about the general fund and E.D. lit together when
discussing the overall operating budget.
And then finally there's still some uncertainty in our revenue numbers We've received more information
on property taxes including the projected circuit breaker impacts, which I'll talk about in in a moment
We've also received partial information about income tax We know that the overall countywide lit has
increased by five point thirty eight percent Which is a respectable growth rate, but not as high as
we'd like to see in the community what we don't have yet though are the state distributions to all of
the individual taxing units and
As is the case for most local government, personnel remains our largest driver of expenses. The salary
study has now been implemented along with significant compensation adjustments for public safety employees
that were necessary to address recruitment and retention challenges. But now that we have market level
salaries, it's also important to maintain them and provide appropriate cost of living increases in order
not to be right back where we started.
One important characteristic of personnel spending is that it tends to represent an ongoing commitment.
Unlike a one-time capital expenditure, adding a position or increasing recurring compensation affects
the expenditure base in future years. That's why we're being particularly cautious about adding positions
in the current revenue environment and have not proposed adding any in this budget.
The city remains in a strong financial position, but I want to talk about reserves in a little bit more
detail. The reserve numbers that I included in the budget book have changed as new revenue numbers have
become available and expenses have been moved from fund to fund. And in response to one of Council Member
Piedmont-Smith's questions that was actually essentially asked in a different way by Council Member
Asari as well, I have released a table in the spreadsheet
That you've been given that includes every fund that has a proposed budget along with its current cash
balance It's 2027 proposed budget and revenues and the projected end-of-year fund balances for both
2026 and 2027 I was going to talk in more detail about how those balances are projected But I'm thinking
that this may not be the right the right format So
Using the numbers from the table that I gave you, we do see a projected operating balance or reserves
of $54 million in the general fund and $11 million in the ED-lit fund. Other funds have different levels
of reserves. And in addition, we have a rainy day fund which has an additional $3.5 million or so of
cash that can be used as reserves for any lawful purpose of county or city governments. Nothing is being
budgeted from rainy day this year and any use would require your appropriation.
Why are reserves important? Well, first and foremost, they provide cash flow for salaries before property
tax collections come in for funds that collect property tax. Property taxes don't come in until June
usually, so it's important to be able to fund any salaries or other essential expenses before property
taxes come in. Reserves also provide flexibility in the case of emergency, additional support for bond
ratings, and stability during revenue uncertainty, as we've seen with SEA-1.
So I don't think any of you are unaware of the challenges that lie ahead from SCA 1, Senate Enrolled
Act 1. First, on the property tax side, we'll continue to see decreases in our net assessed value due
to new deductions from SCA 1. Just last week, after the budget book had been produced, we received our
new net assessed value numbers for 2027. What we see is a reduction of $142 million in net assessed
value in 2027 for the city of Bloomington.
This is a direct consequence of SEA 1, and in particular, of new exemptions for owners of rental housing
that will continue to increase through 2031. And incidentally, because Bloomington has so many rental
properties, we are disproportionately affected by these SEA 1 reductions. And there's gonna be a couple
of follow-on effects from this loss of AV. First, we'll see a loss in our rate-controlled funds, which
is primarily our cumulative capital development fund.
And then we'll see greater circuit breaker impacts. So just so everybody understands the kind of chain
of logic here, additional deductions for rental property owners makes the net assessed value go down,
which makes the tax rates go higher, which makes the circuit breaker losses to local government go higher.
And we have just received our estimates for circuit breaker losses for 2027.
This past Friday as well. We expect to see about 1.3 million dollars in circuit breaker losses across
all city funds This is an increase of about eighty seven thousand from last year and the big seua1 hit
came the year before where we saw a six hundred twenty six percent increase or over a million dollars
in additional circuit breaker losses, but the important thing to know is that these losses are permanent and
Permanent lower reset of our property tax revenues that will continue to get worse as the deductions
for rental properties grow through 2031 One of the things we've we've done as part of this budget has
developed the first iteration of a more comprehensive capital improvement plan that plan will continue
to evolve but it gives us a much better framework for identifying our capital needs and Planning for
them over multiple years rather than addressing them
one year at a time. While SEA-1 changes some of the tools we've historically used to fund those needs
by effectively eliminating our ability to issue short-term geo bonds, but it does not eliminate our
ability to make stable, predictable capital investments. The financing strategy we intend to bring to
the council for consideration is a rolling series of six-year general obligation bonds for both city
and parks. This allows us to continue making regular capital investments while planning those investments
over a longer horizon.
The objective isn't to increase capital spending simply because the authority exists. It's to create
a predictable replacement and maintenance cycle so that known capital needs don't accumulate until they
become emergencies. As part of that transition, we've also pulled a number of significant capital items
out of the departmental operating budgets. We think this provides a clear distinction between the ongoing
costs of operating city government and the cost of maintaining and improving our long-lived assets.
And we'll have opportunities to talk about the the bond proposal in more detail I did just want to mention
that there has been a change since producing the budget book after conversations with parks and our
bond advisors and bond council We've decided to propose the new six-year parks geo bond early next year
rather than this year that'll allow the existing 2022 parks geo bond to roll off and Therefore will
keep the overall debt service tax rates down
So it looks like I've run out of time, but thank you very much for listening I'm happy to answer what
questions I can hear and I will also be here throughout these budget discussions in case Because undoubtedly
there will be fiscal questions that come up with respect to other departmental budgets Thank you so
much for that presentation and for being mindful of your time and not making me cut you off I appreciate
that any questions for controller McKim councilmember Zulek
I have a short question and maybe perhaps a longer one are the exemptions for rental properties for
both long-term rentals and Short-term rentals like Airbnb's is it is there any difference in the two?
So what the way the the tax nerds talk about it is they are those properties that are subject to the 2%
circuit breaker cap. So what it means is that they are residential that are not home that do not have
a homestead exemption with it. So if you had a short term rental in which that you know, you rented
your own basement in your house, that and you had still had the homestead deduction on your property,
then that would be that that would not be increasing here. But in general, yes, non homestead residential
properties are what we're talking about.
Thank you. I also had one more question, just what changes are you hoping to see in a potential new
financial system that might offer us better insights? So actually, I was really hoping that we could
defer that question until the IT services, because it's actually that expense is in the IT services
budget, and we were going to talk about that in more detail. But let me just, in brief,
The big issue is that simply our financial system is 15 years old and doing everything is a slog. It
just takes time. And that's what it's really about. It's not that there's any one thing that we just
can't do. It's that every little thing takes time, that every report we get to be able to present it
in a format that's accessible, for example, takes
you know, anywhere between 20 minutes to several hours of cleaning, of relabeling the columns and the
data. It just takes a lot. So it's really, it's finding something that is just simply more efficient
and reduces the amount of manual time that everybody has to spend. So that's the big picture, but we
will talk about it a little bit more during the IT services budget. Thank you so much. And those are
my questions. Thank you so much for being here.
Any other questions from council members. Council member Stossberg. Thank you. Thanks so much. Controller
McKim. So I have a question about the actual like numbers in terms of its label 2027 revenue and expense
detail in the budget book on page 14 because it has like
total revenue categories for 2027 and then expense categories for 2027. And it shows a gap of like a
deficit gap of 28 million dollars. But then the chart that you showed up there seemed to not say the
same thing. And so now I'm a little bit confused about the differences.
Yes, so I did not talk about I only talked about Edie lit in general and the general fund that I actually
provided a kind of a more detailed spreadsheet that I think answers your question in response
to councilmember Piedmont Smith's question it's in the same document that the answers to our other questions are
Are providing it shows the it shows every fund all 38 or 39. However, all all of the funds that you're
budgeting not just general and and ed lit it shows the projected revenues and the expenditures and and
then the Deficit or surplus for each fund and if you total those up, that's where you get approximately
20. It's 28 point something million But really then in terms of 2027
Like there's 28 million dollars more budgeted than expected revenue if you look across all if you look
across all funds But there's an important thing to to know about that is that a lot of those funds are
in this case a lot of those are simply are either planned capital expenditures or planned spend downs
like like a good portion of that revenue is actually or that that deficit
from the food and beverage tax where we plan to not only we still have one more year or one half year
of the CIB of the actual construction project, but we're also planning on on making two additional lease
payments as part of the revenue stabilization fund that had been promised to council when When the bond
had been issued for the Convention Center expansion, but I would
I would encourage you to look at that spreadsheet first and see if that answers the questions you have
and if it doesn't I'm I'm more than happy to add additional information I think that it does because
I was like why is the 2027 proposed budget then only five million in deficit Yeah in my last 20 seconds,
do you have any idea a projection on the actual? 2026
Deficit or surplus that we're gonna end up in. I mean, I know it's just a projection right now, but
That was actually part of the part I skipped in my in my presentation. So you give me the opportunity
to answer Yes, sort of and and actually it is in that In that spreadsheet, but I you I'm using the state
standard methodology for projecting
the end of the year balance, which is basically you take the June 30th, 2026 actual balance and then
you add in all anticipated revenues for the rest of the year based on what you projected.
originally when the budget was passed, and then you add all, or you subtract all unspent appropriations.
And that's a really crude way of doing a projection. And in particular, it's particularly inaccurate
when it comes to salaries, where there are often reversions in salaries, because any time you have a
vacancy or a senior person who retires and is replaced by a more junior person, you wind up
with appropriations. So I think, given a little extra time,
Which you know, I just have not had this this last week. I Would like to do a more detailed projection
for the general fund it's one of those things you can't do mechanically like I can't just run a report
and I have to actually look at what the expenses are. I may have to talk to some department heads But
it is definitely very much on my radar and I think we can do it much in a much better job than Than
the kind of mechanical state
Sanction projection method is thanks. I'll go ahead and follow that up then in writing so then it can
get part of that. Thanks Any other council questions for controller McKim? All right, awesome we will
move to public comment now, thank you Anybody online or anybody in the room who would like to make comment?
Let us know With a hand raised
All right, super, thank you very much. You can take yourself off mute, state your name, and you have
two minutes for comment, please. Yes, Kevin Keel, can you hear me? We can. All right, I wanted to thank
the council members who have expended considerable effort submitting written questions concerning the
proposed 2027 budget. I've expressed concerns at the fiscal committee about how difficult the budget
document is for members of the public to digest. After reviewing these questions, I was impressed
by both their breadth and consistent approach behind them. They also reinforce a concern that I've developed myself.
The city provides a great deal of financial information, but it can be extremely difficult to assemble
that information into a clear picture of the city's overall financial condition, financial trends, and
what the taxpayers are receiving for the resources that are being appropriated. I also appreciate that
many questions focus on performance indicators rather than simpler activities. What is the objective?
What does it cost? How will the sex be measured?
And what evidence will the Council have afterwards to determine whether the expenditure accomplished
its intended purpose?
Your questions have also caused me to think more about whether some of the information Council is now
having to request separately could eventually become part of the City's standard budget presentation.
That would, in my view, help move the needle towards a more public-friendly budget document. I recognize
the amount of work that must have gone into developing these questions and want you to know as a citizen
following this process, I appreciate the level of financial and operational scrutiny these questions
are bringing to the budget hearing.
Thank you so much, and I've got time left over, but I'm that's it Super thank you very much for those
comments anybody else online or in chambers who would like to make public comment We're all good all
right Yeah, thank you very much all right back to council for comments any last comments before we keep
moving on councilmember Piedmont Smith
Yeah, I just was looking at the budget a little bit in a historical context. I was thinking back to
previous administrations and previous budgets that I voted yes on. And it's interesting to me, so in
the 2017 budget proposal 10 years ago, 49% of revenues in the general fund came from property taxes.
And this year it's only 31 percent. And then in local income tax revenues in 2017 it was thirty to thirty
two point seven percent of the general fund. And this proposal is thirty three point six percent. So
I think we see that there are more other revenues now other than property tax and lit. And of course in 2022
We passed a new Edie lit which just didn't exist in 2017. So anyway as a student of history, it's just
interesting to see these trends So want to share that Thank you councilmember Flaherty and then councilmember
Stossberg Thanks. Just yeah briefly on the history vein as well when we considered and passed an edie
lit which was a required action of the the
local the names escaping me the shared body across the Fiscal units of the county the city Ellsville
and Steinsville, I believe But the the voting shares were apportioned a certain way. We're in the City
Council Eight members of the City Council could change an income tax rate, which is in fact what we
did with that ed lit
I heard at times support for their revenues and what we could do with them from the county colleagues
that we have but did not enjoy their support in the votes itself You know, that's all just history I'm
bringing it up because When we passed that ed lit it was of course for all new things. It was by definition,
you know doing things that we had not been doing previously just four years ago
And the council at the time expressed a lot of concern about how that would evolve over time. And would
the priorities stay aligned? Would they remain something that was very deliberately negotiated,
in a sense, between the mayor's administration and the council? And a fix for that was to make sure
the revenues went not in the general fund, but in a special fund, the ED-LIP fund, so we could track
for that purpose.
That pretty quickly did not happen. And I think there's a lot, I think obviously there's shared blame
for that. Obviously both prior administration and this administration did not do that, did not kind
of maintain the ED lit just for the things that were passed and didn't engage in conversation to figure
out what would change if anything. But the council also didn't ensure accountability around that. And
that's on all parties. We've commented on this a little bit in recent years.
budget hearings. And we're so far removed, with the exception of any obligations that were set in stone,
like commitments to transit over a certain period. I think we're so far removed from what the initial
kind of proposal and the new things that we were going to do and invest in that really needed investment.
And the council believed, almost everybody, I think, that we needed that investment. We're just very
far from what that looked like. And I think that complicates the picture quite a bit.
for how we think about those revenues, how we think about where there are potentials for savings in
the overall budget. Because once it all gets blended, it all just becomes functionally kind of a general
fund with two names. So that's a challenge for all of us to puzzle over. I wanted to share that context
as well. Thanks. Thank you. Councilmember Stossberg?
I first just want to say my kind of long-standing I think every every budget year that we've had I've
mentioned the I'll say problem of having an across-the-board cost of living increase or adjustment Because
it extends the wage gap that those earning the most get the largest Increase in wages and those earning
the least get the
the least. And I just will once again point that out as just being a problematic nature of COLA increases.
And I didn't get a chance to ask this question, but I will follow up with this question in the written
questions, whether there have been conversations about how to manage that in the future. And I think
that to some degree, the different adjustments that we've done
have potentially fixed some of that issue right now, but it'll come around again. And so we've got to
have some kind of, it would be great to have some kind of consistent concept of how we want to make
sure that the wage gap doesn't increase long term. And then for the rest of my comment period, I just
want to highlight something that Controller McKim said that I think is really important that we talked
about in fiscal committee, the last fiscal committee, and that is the $142 million drop in assessed value.
because of the state's change in property taxes because they are Giving larger property tax benefits
to rental properties and we have a lot of rental properties so if you're a renter out there and your
rent actually decreases because the property tax that your landlord is paying decreases like let me
know because I think that would be pretty much a miracle and What it's gonna actually in effect do is
it's going to put more money in the pockets of landlords and the bigger landlords are gonna get
even more money in their pockets and that is at the expense of city governments of County governments
of police of fire of libraries a lot of library issues and the biggest one is public schools So I just
wanted to make sure to say that again to emphasize that again Because the more times we say it the better
it is a problem with what?
the state government is doing, what the legislature is doing that is supported by our governor and the
more voices may be in their ears and the more votes against that kind of taxation, the better. Thanks.
Thank you. Any other council comments? All right.
I see none. So thank you very much. We will now move on to presentations from the fire department. So
you may come to the podium. Please state your name for us. We know who you are but state your name and
you have 15 minutes. Thank you. Roger Kerr chief of the department fire department. Thank you for letting
me present the twenty twenty seven budget. I want to start off by this up here represents everybody
who works in the fire department and that's the most key component we have is our personnel.
What we do after that and what is in this budget is to support them in what they do The top row is the
three shifts that work operationally the middle rows kind of support and down to bottom is the mih and
Prevention and then community outreach, but I will reiterate that is the key to our department without
that We don't have a department. That's that's even we're talking about and Thanks to the mayor and
the council over the last couple years of putting that as a priority
that we're fully staffed, and we've stopped that drain that was leaving here a couple years ago at a
rapid rate, so we're very happy about that. Just a little bit, we have 120 full-time staff, one permit
part-time. As you can see, our budget did not go up very much. Most of our capital expenses have been
taken care of, but we do have two key things that we like to do, and I'll get into those a little bit
more here as we replace the self-contained breathing apparatus, which we call SCBAs, and then our 100-foot
platform truck.
is up for replacement. Just some quick highlights. Hopefully here in about a month our operations center
south of town will be up and functional. It's getting really close. In January we received a delivery
of an apparatus, an engine. In March we received another engine, so we're pretty good on engines. We
also purchased 72 radios out of last year's budget. That has been done, which has enhanced our communications.
Sometimes we would go in some IU buildings and our radios wouldn't work because of the way the buildings
are made But the new radios have either Wi-Fi connectivity or cell phone connectivity so that we now
don't have dropped radios when we go into some IU building so it's a huge Increase in the way that was
and then just some highlights in 2026 so far. We've made 3,145 calls in 2025 on the fireside. We've
made 67 45 for the total year. So we're on about the same pace we had
91 so far mih contacts last year we had 186 for the full year and we've had 420 inspections and last
year he had 1168 for the full year one thing I will add is not on that slide is we had 48,000 671 hours
of training last year for our department Which was 116 percent of our goals. So we exceeded our goal
last year in training This is just some slides so you can see what we've been doing. This is the ops
center down south of town It's getting ready to open hopefully here in about a month
This is one of those engines that came in back in January. We had the opportunity to pick up an engine,
so we used some funds that we had saved on radios, and then we had another engine that had been budgeted
that we decided to add the radio money to it and got an engine instead of a mini bumper. We thought
that helped our department out in the long run. This is an engine that had actually been budgeted and
in our budget three years ago. That's how long it took for it to get completed in here, so sometimes
there's a long turnaround time.
For our top priorities this year are self-contained breathing apparatus. Cost about a million dollars
to replace them. This is what they look like. The bottle looks old and beat up. It's not really that
bad. It's just dirty and nasty from where they were at in the fires. And then on the right side is their
face pieces. Other than their turnout gear, this is the second most important piece of equipment they
put on themselves every day. This keeps them from getting the smoke and the gases and all that in their
lungs. But this is one of the key components.
And some of the highlights, there's a lot, but I'll just pick out a couple. Going from the 2013 edition
that we have now to the 2025 edition, there's two components that I think are very important.
Buddy breathers, which means that if you get down in a fire that somebody can help you. Monroe Fire
does not have the same SCBAs we have, but now if we go to this new one,
We can do it now, it just takes a different connection, but the new standard is everybody has to have
the same connection so that we can have interoperability a lot easier than what we currently have. And
the last thing is, you can't see it there, but the very top on the one with the gear on, you can see
the shoulder straps. Those don't come apart currently. In the new standards, they have to come off so
they can be washed and decontaminated so that we're trying to meet better cancer protocols to keep the
cancer from
Getting spread faster. So that's that's two of the key components on the SCBAs. I really wanted to point
out plus these are going out of warranty right now. They get repaired. Does it cost us anything that
warranty runs out next year. One thing I will add the new SCBAs will have a lifetime warranty. So as
long as it's a covered component we will not have to pay to have it replaced which is a huge improvement
I think because they do break and they do wear out. So anything we can get replaced under warranty is
is a is a plus.
The other thing is an aerial platform, a very expensive piece of equipment. The one on the right is
what we currently have right now. The one on the left is something that we are looking at as well. They
make some different configurations that help with maneuverability around the city as some of the places
on campus and some of the neighborhoods get tighter. The one on the left is something we're looking
at. I'm not saying it's what we're gonna use, but we're looking at our options there. Just for comparison,
the platform is a 2019.
We've been told right now if we would speak for it now it would be 2028 before it would be delivered
just so it takes a while to get those here like we talked about. But the key thing is in 2024 that truck
on the left was down 30 plus days in 2025 it was down 60 plus days and so far this year it has been
down 90 plus days on repairs with the repair cycles are catching up with it rather rapidly. I think
that's all I had on that.
The major programs we have obviously is operations, which is when you call 911, that's what you expect
to happen as one of our trucks show up. Whether it's a medical call, an alarm, you're trapped in a car,
trapped in an elevator, doesn't make any difference what it is, we show up. Mobile integrated health,
as you know, it's a program that started about three and a half, four years ago, and it hasn't been
a huge success. It allows us to spend more time with the patients who need it. Just where I'll give
a quick example, we get a lifting assistance call,
Firefighters go and pick that person up maybe put them back in their bed And then the mih just follow
up and try to figure out how we can help them does that mean any another bed? Does that need a different
wheelchair does that mean any different? Maybe different living arrangements, so they get a chance to
do all that and plus much more install car seats a lot of other things that they do that help out the
citizens the residents and in inspection investigations they probably get the most unsung and
They go out every day in public buildings and make sure that they're safe, that they're meeting code,
and then they review all the plans to make sure that everything is up to code. And as you know, there's
a lot of big apartment buildings going up in town, and we had to make sure they meet code. So they're
kind of the unsung heroes behind the scenes. They don't maybe get a whole lot of limelight, but they
do a very important job. And then the second thing they do is if we do have a fire, they investigate
those. They come and determine cause and origin, what happened, why did it happen, because there's something
we can do to educate the public to keep it from happening again.
And then we have a community outreach officer who does pubhead fire extinguisher training CPR training
of just about anything it can do as far as pubhead with the with the community. The budget will allow
us to maintain the same high level of service that we currently have and it will also help us keep up
with the replacement cycle that if you get behind on as we found over the years is very hard to get
caught back up. So with that I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Fantastic. Thank you so much for that presentation. That was that was fabulous any questions
from councilmembers Councilmember Stossberg. I Thank you so much. I just have a couple of little questions
So first you mentioned radios and that the radios are on Wi-Fi or cellular network What if the cellular
network goes down? Well, first off they start off there's a radio towers at the state have that that's
actually how they work off of it just like a regular radio it's called 800 megahertz system and
What that does, if for some reason they can't receive that signal from the radio towers, then they convert
to a Wi-Fi if that building has it. Then lastly, if you're out someplace, let's say away from that,
and the Wi-Fi is not there, and the radio tower is not there, if they can get a cell signal, then they
can use that. So it's kind of redundancy built into the radio to keep us from having dead spots. Great,
thank you. I think it was the first part of that that I was like, wait a minute. Sure. I missed the
first part.
And the second question that I have about the replacement aerial platform that was two and a half million
dollars you said likely funded via bonding. So is that two and a half million somewhere in the budget
already or not. I'll let controller McCann answer that question.
It is not in the budget. It is in the proposed 2026 geo bond that I mentioned that we will be bringing
to you for later in the year or well Actually in September so very soon, but it is it is part of that
proposal Okay, great. Thank you. And then the last question I have I'm just wondering whether all of
your positions are filled except for that MIH program manager. Yes, I
We are full everybody is full except for the NIH program manager, which just came open on Friday And
so it's been open a couple days, but we've already had I think six or seven applicants and it's open
till the end of the month All right. Great. Excellent. Thank you Presentation I had a follow-up From
the comments from controller McCann that did answer a question I had which was how we anticipate the
the bond to be supported. I was curious, I guess, why not PS-lit as the revenue source to pay for the
bond that's anticipated? If I'm understanding that correctly, I think the geobond would not tap the
PS-lit funds. Is that correct? And tell me more about the rationale, please. The problem with PS-lit
is just that there's not enough money. If you look, that's already budgeted in deficit right now, and
there just isn't enough revenue now to be able to support it in an expense like that.
Okay, so I think when the PS let was adopted its its intent was to cover capital expenses in the public
safety front But I'm hearing now that it's not adequate for current Capital needs is that right? That's
correct. And is it possible to change the PS lit or is that not possible? Yeah, actually you still do
have a little bit of time Yeah, a little bit of a window that you could raise it and actually
I think you ought to seriously consider it specifically for dispatch as well and that that may come
up during the police presentation But yes, there is a there is a window that you could that you could
raise it How would that factor into something like this if the the window for continuing to exist as
such is is short? for the purpose of bonding say like like would we not be able to bond bond against
an increased rate because
The increase is short-lived pending other state changes. Oh, I see. I see what you're saying. There
is no way we could bond against the PS lit at this point because it won't exist in a couple of years.
So no, the bond that we're talking about here is a general obligation bond. So we would have a property
tax rate associated with it. But yeah, right now, there's essentially no option to bond against lit
just because there's so much uncertainty associated with all of the forms of lit.
Okay, and I assume all existing bond repayment obligations through those lists will then just be Become
general obligations of the city or like auto automatically covered as the first things in any updated
lit like integrated lit So we only have one Which is right now, which is the the public I think you
guys call it the public safety bond that's the only one in which lit revenue is pledged but that's actually
What's known as a general revenue bond, which means that we are it doesn't come with a separate tax
rate So it doesn't get additional revenue to pay but we are essentially required to pledge any available
revenue to pay it to pay it off Okay, so yeah, essentially. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thanks Thank you.
Thank you chief Kerr I was Could you give us a status of the proposed fire station on Tap Road? I
That is at the summit development. Sure. We have started internally the process to determine you know
what kind of station we would need how many people what kind of apparatus and then like a plan to put
it in over a three or four year five year phase in plan. So we have started that internal process to
figure that out. So the lands provided by summit development and where are we going to bond for this
fire station. Does it come from TIF funds.
How will it be financed that'd be another controller question That has not been determined yet I mean
the Redevelopment Commission has certainly discussed the topic but not in a lot of detail just because
there's a lot of other things that come first in in getting the summit the summit program going but yeah that
Everybody is aware that that there is this long-term need for a new fire station. Yeah, it was in the
2002 growth policies plan believe it or not and I I just wonder would you have a time horizon like when
when might this occur? I hear the following year. I really don't it definitely won't be in the next
couple of years I mean that that my my understanding and I know that I've not been central to those
discussions, but my understanding and your discussion
Discussions with legal that there's a fair amount of time before before it's actually needed. So, okay.
Thank you Councilmember rough The data of the numbers you gave for calls CMS calls and inspections and
MIH contacts were I mean given that we're going in a month nine, right of the year and
They seem to be lower. Yeah, those numbers are actually pulled from right at the end of Like I pulled
those from either the end of June or at first as you lie So there's a cut there a couple months back
So we're probably on pace for about the same as we have been in the past and honestly I don't think
we've been a year here where our run volume hasn't gone up at least some and I'd be surprised if that's
not the case we've timed the end of the year out as you know in the emergency service you could be
Nothing this week and next week you might make four or five hundred calls So you just don't know but
I anticipate it's being about the same level with maybe not a little above To that is does that really
represent? Regardless of what it comes out in terms of the total numbers of calls relative to other
years Is it really just represent a fixed cost anyway, it's not really Room for savings of any kind
based on No, I think it just shows that
Our department hasn't grown hasn't had any personal added to it since 2002 But a request for our service
has continued to increase and so I just think it goes to show that our personnel are doing What they've
been asked to regardless of you know, the cost is the same but what we're been asked to do is has increased
Every year and so it just continues to increase So one more long same line on the follow-up on what
you just answered so that suggests to me that I
Morales pretty good. Would you say I mean I would say morale right now is really good. Yes Yeah, I would
think so. Thank you Any other council questions Yeah, I think this is probably for mr. McKim what is
the status of the 2022 29.5 million dollar public safety bond it's related to fire since we spent most
of it on fire, but
Like how much is left? How much is what are the nearly nothing is left to be spent? We were paying it
I mean we're making the payments every year out of out of ED lit and in that those payments are in the
ED lit budget But they they have essentially been expended for the fire logistics training center for
the fire station refurbishments and for the purchase of showers west Okay, so there's pretty much no
money left. Yeah, there's not very little left
All right, thank you. Any other questions? I have a question. This may be one actually for Controller
McKim, but. Sorry. That doesn't bother me at all. I have one for you, too, also, but since Controller
McKim was up there. So replacing the SCBA equipment and getting a new truck, those are life-saving equipment.
And the GO bonds keep them out of the operating budget.
For now, but what happens if the bond gets delayed or scaled back or there's an issue with that? What's
our backup plan for replacing this essential gear? So the SCBA equipment is in the budget that that
you're considering it's only the app or the aerial ladder truck that we pulled out of the operating
budget and put into a or want to put into a proposed bond so
Yeah I agree. We did not want to take the chance on delaying the CBA. So so then with the truck then
we just kind of have to put it on our wish list for next year maybe and keep using the old one. I mean
fixing it. That's essentially what it is. And yeah. And then the chief can talk about how desirable
that would be. But that's where we are.
But I talked to them about which was the priority and I was I was told that having the SCBA apparatus
replaced was absolutely essential. Sure. Absolutely. Thank you. And then just out of curiosity with
the SCBA equipment you said the year that we have now it's on its next year will be its last year for
the warranty. How long does that warranty last. I know the new ones we're looking at our lifetime warranty.
Right. The current SCBAs we have now had a 10 year warranty on those.
And so that's up at the end of I think don't quote me on exact month was about middle of next summer
That warning will be up and then the repairs that would come with that after that would be
on our responsibility And so we're trying to get this going before those repairs become our responsibility.
So a lifetime warranty is quite an upgrade. Yes, absolutely Okay, great. Thank you very much We're good
with questions Okay, we will move to public comment anybody in chambers or online with public comment. I
All right, I'll give it a sec and we're good. Okay Great. Thank you back to Chambers or back to council
any council comments council members Ulick Being fully staffed and BFD is a huge deal. And so I just
want to congratulate chief Kerr and all of our fire department because This has been something we've
been working on for a really long time So thank you so much for all of the work that you've done to
accomplish this. I
Thank you. Any other comments. Council member Stossberg that was the only comment I had to. So that's
great. Thank you. Any other comments. Good to go. OK. Fantastic. Well thank you very much Chief Kerr.
We really appreciate you being here. And now we move on to the next part of our hearings with the police
department and dispatch and Chief Decoff you may introduce yourself and you also have you have 20 minutes
for your presentation.
Good evening council. My name is Mike Decoff. I am the police chief for the city of Bloomington Police
Department. I appreciate the opportunity to present my twenty twenty seven budget request. So the department
has one hundred and five authorized sworn officers and eighty one non sworn employees. The change in
budget from twenty six to twenty seven is a two million four hundred ninety three thousand two hundred
ninety eight dollar difference.
Our key budget needs and issues for twenty twenty seven are continuing our alternative response programs
continuing equipment replacement cycle and upkeep on our capital assets and a new police headquarters.
Category one increases of one million six hundred fifty eight thousand forty eight or due to changes
in the new collective bargaining agreement that was negotiated this year as well as coal increases for
the non sworn personnel.
Category two increases of $178,957 are due to fuel costs and inflationary price increases. That doesn't
necessarily mean that we're using more fuel, but the cost of fuel has increased significantly. Category
three is $770,362 change due to the insurance that was once paid from the risk management budget has
now been moved to the police budget, and we are now paying that
And there's a category four decrease of a hundred and fourteen thousand one sixty nine due to the completion
of a maintenance project that was at the public safety training complex Some highlights on overall crime
in Bloomington. We had an overall decrease in the crime rate of six point four percent from 2004 or
2024 you see on the left the decrease in property crime in larceny
and in vandalism of those were mainly due to the work of the patrol officers and investigators in just
basically the way we investigate things and how we focus on certain individuals who are responsible
for doing a lot of these types of crimes and making sure that they're not able to do that anymore.
Little bit of information on vehicle accidents and there was an overall decrease in accidents of 6.99%.
You can see on the left, personal injury crashes decreased 16% and property damage crashes decreased
4%. I will give you some information about the traffic safety initiative that we started in July that
we made an announcement on prior to school starting. We've ran that detail
80 hours so far as of the 12th of August. We've had 111 traffic stops, 81 citations and 29 warnings.
The areas that we focused on were high accident areas and intersections and the complaints that we get
from you reports. I will say to date, as of 2.30 this afternoon, we had made 8,182 traffic stops.
27 priorities and goals we want to continue our alternative response partnerships we want to Start the
design and being begin building our new police headquarters And we want to continue our enhanced traffic
safety and violent crime reduction initiatives a Little bit about our alternative our alternative response
We have partnerships with several different agencies that include new leaf new life and
Heading Home, Beacon, Wheeler Mission, Stride Mobile Crisis, Health Net, Centerstone Outreach, and the
Mobile Integrated Health Unit with the Fire Department. We do a lot of intervention with people who
are experiencing homelessness, people who have mental health issues or substance use issues. These officers
that work this and the partnerships that we have are invaluable
And we believe are saving lives every day for the people that are affected by those those issues that
I mentioned earlier Our new police headquarters, we're looking at 714 South Roger Street. It is a major
goal for 2027 We believe that once this is done this facility will last us at least 50 years Because
it is larger than what we have
Will be able to design it in such that we will be able to fit all of our All the components of the department
within one building. Whereas now they're spread out over several buildings Enhanced traffic safety initiative
as I said, we announced the one earlier this year We continue to do more of those so that we can make
the city's streets safe and so that people Not only that are driving but are also
riding bikes and pedestrians feel safe and we do make a Concentrated effort to make sure that they're
protected when they are out on the roadways as well Our violent crime reduction initiative again, we
will focus on areas that we see violent crime happening so that many times it's in neighborhoods that
don't necessarily have the resources that other neighborhoods might have and
So we want to focus on those to make sure that people living in those areas are safe and can also enjoy
a quality of life like everyone else in Bloomington. Our 27 challenges and opportunities. Our overall
call volume continues to increase. In 2025, we had 80,450 calls for service. That was a 5.9% increase
from the previous year. As you can see, it's a 48%.
increase since 2020 Funding has fallen short in some areas Requiring us to not make the necessary equipment
replacements that we need to but we will continue to focus on That equipment that is life-saving to
the officers so that we make sure that that they're safe while they're doing their jobs And as staffing
levels continue to increase at the department We will continue to fully staff our downtown resource
officers and our detective division
And that is my conclusion and I will take what questions you might have. That was very fast. Thank you
very much. Great presentation. Council member Rallo I get you take off. So we've reached 105 sworn officers.
No we're not there. That's the total authorized staffing. We're currently at 93 93. OK. So we still
have a little ways to go.
105 I'm sorry, the goal is still yes 105 So you attribute the significant decrease in crime to increase
personnel Well, I think it's how we're policing different because we are short-staffed I believe that
as we get closer to being fully staffed that we'll be able to do other programs that will also benefit
crime prevention efforts
and those reduction efforts that we're seeking so Clearly the more people we have the more resources
that we have available to us the more that we can do to work towards those goals Yeah, it seems Kind
of maybe self-evident that you have success in solving crime when you've got People to investigate them.
Yes identify the perpetrator or arrest them
Do we still patrol trails? The beeline not as frequently as we would like Parks does have a security
company that helps do that when they encounter problems They do call us and we go and assist but we
do not We don't have the resources to do it very frequently So we so we outsource The trails to parts
of that yes higher
I see is that cost-effective? I mean would we be better off and you know? Having patrol officers.
It's war. It's our trial eyes and ears out there They can do less than what a police officer can do
So, you know if we had the resources where we could put out more patrols on the trails It would be more
effective because if they encounter something they don't have to call somebody to take action We can
just take that action
And I'm also thinking is it true that you know having police officers out on the beat walking a trail
riding a bicycle Where they interact with the public is it is a good? Experience for both the officer
and the community because yeah, I would agree with that. I think that that builds trust that's something
that we're always trying to do with the community is you know, there's lots of studies that have shown
that people who interact one-on-one with a police officer and a non
Emergency type situation. That's a benefit And so if you know if we had more people would we would be
able to do that and I think that would be an overall benefit for You know the parks the trails the sidewalks
downtown and the department. Yeah Okay. Thank you Any other questions councilmember rough Would would
moving more towards fully full staffing
Would any would you anticipate any more effort put towards? Enforcement of speed speed speeding violet.
I mean we had a lot of complaints to the council about safety of Pedestrians and bicycles based on speeding
speeding cars You know councilmembers ask about increased patrols on trails seems like anything you do
Opportunity cost right? You can't do something else if you but so is more working towards full staffing
really the only Solution to that dilemma. I think that's most certainly true I think that if we had
more resources we could focus on those types of activities as I presented, you know every year our calls
for service continue to increase and so those are people who are calling in and
requesting services from the police department so that takes away someone who might be able to go sit
somewhere and run radar and do speed enforcement because we're answering calls so most certainly I think
when we're fully staffed we will be able to look at those types of traffic enforcement and Safety types
of initiatives that will make things safer Thank you And then councilmember Stossberg after
Yes, thank you for your presentation So under in your memo under violent crime prevention initiative
you imply that increased officer presence reduces violent crimes Could you please cite data or studies
to back up this claim? I don't I don't have anything off the top of my head that I can cite for that
what I can tell you is that When we have done those types of
of high intensity type patrols, people don't tend to commit crimes when there's a police officer standing
right there. And so I know there are studies, I will look for some of those for you, but I don't have
any that I can cite off the top of my head right now. And of course the police officers can't be there
24-7. Correct. So the crime may just be happening later.
It could be yes. Yeah, I'd like like to see that data. Okay. Thank you That's member Stasberg
Thank you. Maybe following up a little bit on what Councilmember Ruff was was talking about in terms
of traffic enforcement especially with regard to vulnerable road users cyclists pedestrians and crashes
involving those road users because that is one of the things that I've heard of several constituents
talk about this year in terms of any kind of consequence for at fault drivers when
they are responsible for a crash, especially with a vulnerable road user. What is your official department
policy on consequence for at fault drivers in crashes, especially with vulnerable road users, but any
other crashes as well? So it's left to officer discretion. I don't believe that we should issue a policy
that mandates that people should get some kind of punitive ticket
for something, I've not seen studies that have shown that because someone got a ticket that made them
a better driver, it's really a punitive type of enforcement action. A lot of times when, in crashes,
insurance takes over, insurance decides who's at fault
and so We have I have never I've never issued a policy we've never had a policy at the department that
mandates that an officer has to write a Traffic ticket when someone is at fault because a lot of times
it's a gray area when someone is at fault, too So as a follow-up to that If it's left to officer discretion
Do you happen to know or can you get me please and I will follow this up in paper?
on paper if you don't happen to know how many tickets were issued last year at officer discretion's
for at fault crashes. I don't have that data. No. OK. Well I'd be very interested in that data because
when something is left to officer discretion but then just never done then we may as well have a policy
saying that we just don't do it. So that's that's one of the pieces that I just am wondering what kind
of discretion is actually being
Used so to get that type of data. We would have to look at every traffic accident and then figure out
if we can even determine who might be at fault and Go back through that but if you want that information,
I will I will start working on that I'm just interested in how many I'll say discretionary tickets actually
were issued by officers related to at fault crashes, okay
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Chief Dika for being here and especially for coming in under
time. We very much appreciate that. Could you tell me a little bit more about the call volume increase
and what your opinion is on why it's increased and maybe what could be done to reduce it. So I think
what happened was when Covid happened we had a decrease in calls for service. A lot less people were
out and about.
a lot less things were open. And so as things opened up, each year it just increased. Why it continues
to go up like it is, I'm not sure I can give you a good answer for, because when we look at the data,
it's across the board with just about everything. And so it's not one particular area that is increasing.
And so it's kind of hard to pinpoint why that is happening.
Call-for-service data also takes into account some officer initiated activity, but we've not seen spikes
in that activity. It's more for people who call, you know, 911 or call the administrative line requesting
some kind of police service. Thank you. That's very helpful. Other questions from council members? All right.
Thank you very much chief decaf. We will move to public comment now. Anybody in chambers are online
who would like to make public comment? I See somebody in chambers. Yes Please sign in state your name
for the record and you have two minutes Good evening council. This is Christian G from the
Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce the chamber supports continued investment in the Bloomington
Police Department I get a lot of complaints emails and calls
sort of vagrancies Property damage a lot of due to homelessness and but what usually includes in that
is a wonderful responsiveness of Bloomington PD and so when we think about and evaluate BPD based on
the department we actually have here in Bloomington and not policing in in America we saw from the community
survey that 61 residents satisfied with the police protection public safety a residents identifying as a
real core important service BPD has earned the tier one clear reaccreditation for the third time the
national recognition of a department that trains hard Operates under professional standards and holds
itself accountable and that matters in this discussion is we just saw about call volume that has increased
49 percent since 220 Bloomington PD remains below its authorized staffing levels. We also saw and some
equipment replacement has already been deferred and
I mean, this isn't a blank check, but it's grounded in Bloomington's actual experience. Bloomington
businesses here are in field public safety conditions every day. We support making sure BPD has the
people, the equipment technology, and hopefully soon headquarters, necessary to do their job and making
those investments before deferred needs become more expensive problems down the road. And thank you
for your time. Thank you very much. Anybody online? We have one person online.
Mr. Paul Russo. Fantastic. Mr. Russo, you can unmute yourself and you have two minutes. Hi, Paul Russo
here. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. I'll be brief. I think that a speeding motor vehicle is
like a loaded gun. Operating a motor vehicle at illegal speeds or while impaired is violent crime.
Why don't we treat this like violent crime of other kinds? I'm also astounded that for traffic enforcement,
police chief Decoff doubts that punishment deters crime. That's all. Thank you. Thank you very much,
Mr. Russo. Anybody else online with a comment? No. Anybody else in chambers? No. We'll come back to
council for final comments. Council member Piedmont-Smith.
I was just wondering, is there a separate presentation for dispatch? I don't think it was addressed,
really. Because I do have a question about it. Maybe I should have asked earlier. Go ahead. You can
ask it now. So in the org chart for dispatch, it says, or maybe I was reading it wrong, but it says
18 positions and 14 vacancies.
Deputy mayor nap is shaking her head. I know I checked with her earlier, but I wanted to for the public
record Clarify that please Let me find the numbers I'm sorry Go ahead Deputy Maria nap. I just updated
the answer actually and I
Your questions, but there are 32 positions and at the time that total and at the time we created the
org chart It was 18 filled and 14 empty. It's now 10 empty and 22 Well, that is a relief. Thank you
very much Any other council comments as we wrap up this section councilmember Rallo
Thank you. Thank you. Chief deep cough. First I want to say I want to extend my appreciation to the
mayor and administration for their for locating and working on the new facility that's to your liking
that works for you. I fully support your goal of reaching 105 officers as was the target in the Novak
report of 2020. I think it's important to deter reduce and investigate crime.
To make sure that we're not you know Imposing over to over time on on our officers current officers
and I think it allows greater interaction with the public if we have you know police that can actually
walk a beat be seen in the community and And also as mr. Rousseau said to deter speeding if we're going
to be serious about public safety and public that includes
pedestrian safety, biking safety. We can't have people speed with impunity, which I happen to witness.
I think a lot of people have described. And I think one, not the only way, but one way to address that
certainly is to have more police issuing tickets to send a message to people that they can't do that.
It works in other communities. It should work here, it seems to me. So thank you for your work.
Thank you. Any other comments from councilmembers councilmember Stossberg I just want to address the
discretionary nature of giving Tickets to at-fault drivers from what I understand the discretionary
nature of that tends to mean that there are just not tickets issued not just for Bloomington PD but
across the state from what I understand and the bits of research that I've done around this and
I find that simply just not sufficient in general and I as councilmember Allah just said and as our
public commenter mentioned I I do think that Whether or not we feel like it deters it is one of the
only things that we can actually do and I think sometimes we just have to use the tools that we have and
because our tools are perhaps limited and this is one of those situations where You know, I do think
that there should be some measure of officer discretion But instead of that discretion leaning toward
the side of just not issuing something I feel like it should lean to the other side Generally issue
unless there's some mitigating situation where you think that we shouldn't and my understanding right
now is that that is
that it works in reverse and that's disturbing to me and I know that's disturbing to several
of my constituents some who have been victims of vehicles and their drivers with preventable crashes
including admissions of fault that then our officers still have not responded to so I hope that something
improves with that or changes with that
Thank you Thank you any other comments councilmember Flaherty Yeah, just for public benefit to all briefly
follow up on that item, which is that we have discussed this at length in the Transportation Commission
Including the particular crash that I believe my colleague is referencing where a little girl was hit
by a driver Who did not come to stop at a stop sign? She was in a crosswalk
No ticket was issued. My understanding is that had some impacts on their ability to recover funds to
support medical and other treatment needs. So there's broader implications here, including, yes, insurance
companies can try to figure this out amongst themselves. But when there is an assessment from an officer
and a ticket issued, it seems like that's a factor that has real implications for people. This was quite
a few months ago at the traffic
Transportation Commission and we did request that staff work together so this would be probably planning
engineering police to come back with Options to consider from a policy standpoint. Is it do we need
maybe more education of our officers around? The vulnerability and and risks to life and actual loss
of life in our community I see this as part of the broader, you know safe streets for all and and vision
zero Zero deaths and serious injuries in our streets by 2039 that we've targeted
And you know making some mixed progress on toward that I think so just noting that this is an ongoing
policy conversation with one of our commissions that I serve on and We haven't heard back from staff
on it, but I most recently I've requested that any outstanding items that you know kind of Are out for
multiple months that we're getting reports on those on a monthly basis at Transportation Commission
because we do have a number that might be considered more
I don't know more challenging items so to speak from the administration perspective if it wasn't something
they proposed and they've sort of languished and kind of fallen off our docket so we're trying to make
sure that we those we don't lose sight of those policy issues because it's really the Commission that
should be driving that agenda as a Resident-led body supported by appointments from the mayor and council.
Thanks Thank you any other comments All right with that
We are moving on. Thank you very much. So up next we have community and family resources department.
I see director Moss making her way up to the podium. Thank you. Please state your name and you have
15 minutes to present. Good evening council members. My name is Chitoya Moss and I'm the director for
the community family resources department. This evening I will review our 20 27 budget through three
pillars that really define our department resources partnerships and belonging. Those three areas answer
very particular questions.
Can residents find help before a problem becomes a crisis? Can the city leverage its partnerships and
the organizations that exist and are we creating a Bloomington where people feel connected enough to
participate volunteer invest and call this community home? That is the role that CFRD plays and that
is the story behind this budget
CFRD is an 11 person department and our proposed 2027 budget is just over 2 million Representing a 10%
decrease from our 2026 budget. Our largest reduction is in other services which decreases approximately
27% Primarily due to one-time grant funding initiative at the same time We continue to study the trends
affecting our community from growing local demand for assistance to changes in federal and state funding
And we're aligning our resources around how we can have the greatest impact
Fundamentally this budget is about maintaining our core services while becoming more strategic and efficient
in how we deliver them Our first pillar resources is directly connects to the priorities around housing
homelessness public safety and community and well-being One example of what targeted intervention can
accomplish is our forty six thousand emergency food access investment to Hoosier Hills food bank and
This investment supported approximately 330,000 pounds of food and 275,000 meals distributed through
84 partner agencies. We identify a critical community need invest strategically and the infrastructure
that already exists and multiply the city's impact. That becomes increasingly important as federal resources
like snap restrictions and other funding changes place additional pressures on our local services. Our
second pillar is partnerships.
And this is where we create tremendous value by leveraging the power that exists in our own community.
Through the Bloomington Volunteer Network Be the Change Challenge, more than 51,000 volunteer hours
have already been recorded. Using the current value of the volunteer time in Indiana, that represents
approximately 1.75 million in community value supporting nonprofits, schools, neighborhoods,
and organizations throughout Bloomington.
We are also strengthening our town and town connections through a new partnership with Indiana University
Volunteer Central by connecting new and current students with meaningful opportunities to serve. We've
also begun conversations with the Monroe County School Corporation about connecting high school students
with volunteer opportunities that can support the new diploma requirements. We're on track to reach
our 100,000 hours goal by December, which would represent approximately 3.4 million in community value.
Maximizing public dollars by building
The connections and the capacity that allows Bloomington to solve problems together. And I want to point
out at the time that we submitted these slides that was the current number for volunteer hours. We are
currently by today. Fifty eight thousand which is easily translated to one point ninety seven million
dollars in community value. Our third pillar is belonging. I don't want this word to be mistaken for
something that is simply nice to have. Belonging is a community asset.
This year's Juneteenth celebration brought more than 11,000 people to Switchyard Park, the largest attendance
we've had for this event, and included more than 40 community vendors, along with Indiana University,
businesses, nonprofits, artists, and other partners. Programs like Juneteenth, the Women's Market, Fiesta,
accessibility programs, youth leadership initiatives, and others create opportunities for people to
participate in Bloomington. We talk about what makes Bloomington Bloomington. This is a part of it.
Don't experience their city through budget spreadsheets. They experience through the community we create
around them Looking ahead to 2027 our resource strategy is centered on one idea access before crises
We will continue strengthening the after-hours ambassadors program by expanding community-based de-escalation
training This is a free training that equips residents with practical tools to safely de-escalate situations
build rapport and help move someone toward a safer outcome and
We've already seen a strong interest with more than 50 plus signed up for our next training, which just
takes place on August 20th. We will also expand helping bloom into Monroe by bringing more kiosks to
two additional library locations and making it easier for residents connect with assistance where they
already are. Together. These efforts create prevention infrastructure when people know what to do, where
to go and how to respond early.
We have a greater opportunity to address challenges before they become crises, reducing the impact on
both the resident and the broader community. For partnerships, our focus is on strengthening the systems
and relationships that allow organizations across Bloomington to succeed. We have begun planning for
the modernization of the Bloomington Volunteer Network, improving volunteer matching, data collection,
and reporting so we can better connect community capacity with community need and continue to grow those
volunteer hours.
We will also continue our community grants programs advisory coalitions and targeted public
safety investments including efforts addressing violence reduction downtown outreach substance use impacts
and crisis response. This work intersects with several city priorities at once particularly public safety
economic development homelessness and community assets.
And we can see the impact of those partnerships in variable ways from working with new hope for families
to ensure families with children have a safe place to sleep to partner with the Monroe County Health
Department to equip local bars and restaurants with Narcan and the knowledge to respond for an overdose.
For belonging our strategy is quality over quantity.
We want to strengthen what is already working expand collaboration with parks and recreation and other
partners so we can share spaces staff expertise infrastructure and resources. That means continuing
continuing successfully offering opportunities for residents to engage with their city. The economic
development components of this work creates for local vendors entrepreneurs artists performers
and organizations. It also gives our department an opportunity to talk to community members who otherwise
wouldn't find city resources.
Belonging isn't separate from economic development or public safety connected community strengthen both
The challenge is going into 2027 is that community need is not declining simply because resources are
becoming tighter We are watching changes to programs like Indiana CCDF child care assistance systems
shift in federal and state funding housing affordability behavioral health needs and the increasing
pressure on our local nonprofit partners
but we are also using our own data to better understand where those needs are showing up. In just the
first half of 2026, helping Bloomington Monroe recorded more than 7,000 searches and 41,000 program
interactions along with the direct connections and referral to services. That information helps us paint
a clearer picture of what residents are looking for and what direct resources and energy where they
can have the greatest impact. So the question for us is how do we respond to an increasing need without
relying on increasing resources?
Our answer is collaboration and capacity building technology helps makes resource navigation and volunteer
matching more efficient grants brings outside dollars into Bloomington volunteers expand community capacity.
partnerships allow organizations to build on each other's strength rather than duplicate services and
Collaboration across city departments allows us to share infrastructure expertise and resources. These
simply aren't efficiencies They're how CFRD plans to extend and reach strengthen community capacity
and respond strategically to the Bloomington changing needs in 2027 To close our goal for 2027 is simple
to make sure Bloomington has the resources partnerships and community infrastructure to do more together and
That means helping residents find the right support early before instability becomes crisis, recognizing
the value of supporting and strengthening people and organization already doing the work, and protecting
the qualities that make people choose Bloomington, not simply as a place to live, but as a community
they want to be a part of and participate in. That is what this budget is designed to sustain.
Thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much for your presentation.
That was awesome. Really appreciate you being here tonight.
Any questions from council members. Council member Stossberg. Thank you. Thanks so much for the work
that your department does. I want to dig in a little bit into the volunteer numbers partly because in
terms of community value the budget of your department or the community value exceeds the budget of
your entire department. And so I just want to highlight that.
that concept but also acknowledge that there are probably a lot of people out there who aren't getting
counted in that and then potentially there are people out there who are being counted that would already
be doing that volunteering but then they're also getting counted.
For the city and so I'm just wondering if you have any data over the last few years because I feel like
this has been kind of a developing Network over the last few years of like number of organizations you've
added What you hear from the organizations in terms of more of their needs being met? partly because
of the advertising that's being done and that kind of that kind of feedback that supports
that what you're doing with that volunteering is more than what would kind of be being done already.
Do you know what I mean? Yes. Sorry, that was super awkward. So with the Be the Change Challenge, that
was part of one of our departmental goals, was to really dig into the network and find out what's working
and what's not working. Aubrey Cedar, who is the new Bloomington Volunteer Network coordinator, has
done a wonderful job
touching base with all of our partners doing some new education on how to actually use the program if
they've never used it before and Then doing some digging to see get all those old volunteer hours and
things that have just not worked out As I pointed out and my budget goals is that we're looking to update
the system So it's a little more user-friendly and then we can see real time some more data Am I answering
your question?
I think so. It's just this idea of like outcomes right that I want to try to get back to in terms of
outcome-based budgeting and so a piece of that outcome I think generally speaking maybe for your department
particularly is to add community value and One of the ways you talk about adding community value is
to do that through like belonging and having that kind of community sense But another piece of that
community value which can be monetized are those volunteer hours so I'm just trying to like
like suss out a little bit how the additional value that your department with its organization adds
on top of who would already be volunteering in this community. So that's it. So I think you've kind
of answered that a little bit.
And I only have 12 seconds left, so I might follow up a little bit just in terms of you know the number
of organizations and how that has changed and you know if you've done surveys of the organizations and
how they have how their responses have helped you shape things so that then the Community can be served
better in terms of adding that value. So yeah, so we can supply that data to you. Yeah, thanks Thank
you any other questions
All right. Thank you, Director Moss. We are going to move now on to public comment. Anybody in chambers
or online with public comment? No. Pausing, pausing. Nope. OK. Fantastic. We'll come back here to counsel
for comment and council members who look. You have a comment. Yes, I do. Thank you. Just a short one.
I just want to say that in a time where our most vulnerable communities are consistently under attack
by the state and federal government, the community and family resources department in Bloomington has
become increasingly more important. It is not the infrastructure or our assets that makes Bloomington
special. It is the people. So thank you, Director Moss, and to your entire department for making sure
that they're supported. I second that. Any other comments?
Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yeah, I think last year I said this department brings the joy In our city
budget and and it really does I think This is such a small sliver of our overall budget, but it is so
important This is the best two million dollar investment I can imagine in our community It's
like councilmember Zulik said particularly
in this day and age where many members of our community are feeling that they don't belong in this country
anymore. I think this is the events and services that your department facilitates and provides are more
essential than ever. So thank you very much. Council member Stossberg.
I'm sorry. I said that weird. I thought you had already commented. That's why I was oh No, that was
because my question name kind of turned a little bit into an explanation slash comment, but thank you
Yeah, I just want to to kind of second what my colleagues just said and also You know because we're
talking about budget and budgets are kind of like black and white right but it is not black and white
what a department like CFRD does because it's about
feeling, and it's about this gray space of mushiness. And that's why I wanted to get into those volunteer
hours, because those are not mushy, and those are not gray. That is very black and white. And so that
is one part, I think, of this department that you can really go like, what is the value that this department
adds to the community? Here's a very solid black and white kind of value that they add. And yes, all
of these other things are also very important all by themselves, and they can stand alone all by themselves.
And it's important, with or without the volunteer
hours, but I just wanted to highlight that piece of black and white that sometimes I think when I hear
people talk about CFRD, it's the belonging, it's the mushy gray space, and I wanted to call out that
there's more than just the mushiness in there because some people really need that in terms of justification because
We've got to justify all of our expenses. We've got to justify all of our investments in our community,
and that this is just a wonderful investment in our community. Thanks. Thank you. Is that it for comments?
OK. Fantastic. Thank you very much, Director Moss. Really appreciate it. All right. And so for our final
portion of the evening, Housing and Neighborhood Development, I see Director Killian Hansen making her
way to the podium. Thank you so much for being here.
Please state your name and you have 20 minutes for your presentation. Thank you so much. Good evening.
I am Anna Killian Hansen director of housing and neighborhood development here tonight to present our
proposed 2027 budget. Housing and neighborhood development currently has 21 full time and one part permanent
part time positions.
Our mission is to expand housing opportunities, protect and support neighborhoods, help residents remain
safely housed, build community and support community needs. Those responsibilities cover a lot of ground
and I want to spend the first part of tonight talking about the work that hand has been doing over the
past year before turning to priorities. Supporting neighborhoods and helping residents remain safely
housed also means addressing the conditions that affect health, safety and quality of life.
code enforcement, and property stabilization are one part of the city's broader proactive work to address
these concerns and prevent them from becoming larger neighborhood problems. Through that work,
our neighborhood compliance officers have issued 1,631 citations for trash, grass, weeds, and snow under
Title VI. When properties fail to comply, we can take additional action. Troubled properties may be
brought before the Board of Public Works for approval of abatements, including one-time cleanups or,
necessary continuous abatements our team has issued nine continuous abatements for properties under
title six for properties where conditions rise to the level of an unsafe building we have another tool
available we administer the unsafe building law and when necessary which allows us to Issue orders to
vacate seal repair dangerous conditions and when necessary remove buildings that pose a threat to health
and safety of the community
Through this process, more than 20 unsafe properties have been addressed under the Title 17, with conditions
ranging from fire damage and deteriorating or collapsed structures to failing retaining walls and breaches
in vacant or abandoned buildings and more. This is not always the most visible part of our work, but
it is important to maintain safe and healthy neighborhoods.
Protecting and supporting neighborhoods also means creating opportunities for residents to take an active
role in improving their own communities. Beyond code enforcement and property stabilization, the city
supports neighborhood led efforts that strengthen the places where people live. Over the last year,
that has included providing both direct support and resources to residents to address neighborhood needs
from organizing cleanups and removing unwanted materials to funding projects and building community
that improve neighborhood spaces.
In the last year we supported three neighborhood cleanups which removed twenty seven point nine tons
of trash and diverted ten point three eight tons from the landfill. We also provided supportive grants
to eight neighborhoods giving neighborhood groups resources to identify and address priorities in their
own communities. This work is important because healthy neighborhoods are built through partnerships
with the people who live there.
Building community also means being out in the neighborhoods engaging directly with our neighbors connecting
residents with the city and with one another and creating opportunities for people to participate in
life of their communities this year that included 37 community trailer events 45 resident Academy applicants
a vinegar Hill walking tour and numerous community events such as blooming neighborhoods that we table at
As we strengthen community connections, we also protect the places where we live. Through our rental
inspection and permitting program, we work to protect residents by enforcing Title 16 and holding property
owners and tenants accountable when necessary. This year, we conducted 550 complaint inspections and
2,984 rental inspections, resulting in 1,107 rental permits issued with many properties undergoing continued
compliance enforcement efforts.
As we enforce housing standards and protect residents through our rental program, we also focus on keeping
people safely housed in the first place. Supporting residents and remaining safely housed is central
to our work.
This year we provided housing stability assistance to 25 at-risk households, eviction prevention assistance
to 31 households, and emergency home repairs to help residents remain safely in their homes. We completed
two emergency repairs with nine additional applications currently underway. Preventing a housing crisis
is almost always preferable to trying to solve one after a household has already lost its housing.
But helping people remain housed is only one part of the housing equation. We also create opportunities
for people to find housing that meets their needs and is within their budget. This year, we helped 19
home buyers secure housing, 40 renters secure housing, provided housing counseling to over 100 residents,
which included foreclosure assistance. We happen to have the only HUD certified housing counselor in
the region, as there are only nine across the state.
We also provided the lifelong benefit of homebuyer education to 78 first time home buyers to truly support
Bloomington residents. We have to look beyond the front door.
The stability we help people achieve, whether through home buying, renting, counseling, or education,
depends on the strength of the community around them. Housing success is reinforced by the services,
facilities, and organizations that help families stay stable, navigate challenges, and build long-term
well-being. That's why hands work doesn't stop on housing access. It extends into the broader network
that keep people supported. Building community and supporting community needs means recognizing that
housing is connected to so much more.
Stable housing is important, but so are the services and community resources that help people stay stable,
support their families, build successful lives.
Handheld strengthen that network by investing in organizations and facilities that provide critical
services to our neighbors this year We provided social service funding and facility improvement support
to homeless sheltered Provided social service funding to food banks supported early learning and child
care center facilities supported facilities serving mental health special needs housing and self-sufficiency
that network is an important part of how we respond to housing instability and homelessness and
Expanding housing opportunities also means protecting the affordable housing we already have and supporting
new models of housing stability and homeownership. This year we helped preserve 48 units of existing
housing as permanently affordable, supported the creation of 10 affordable cooperative housing units,
and continued support for Habitat for Humanity home builds. Expanding housing opportunities requires
more than supporting individual households or isolated projects.
It requires enabling change that strengthen the entire housing ladder and improve affordability across
the broader market. That means advancing projects that add homes to our community and removing barriers
that slow or prevent unit creation. This year that work included Hope Wells first residential neighborhood.
which will create 98 new homes. Hopewell South was designed to be different by intention not exception.
It serves as a pilot to demonstrate how Bloomington can deliver the types of homes our community needs
more efficiently. We are at a critical economic crossroads. This project allowed us to test a more flexible
scalable approach.
We created Bloomington's first residential TIF which supports infrastructure investment that directly
enables new housing supply And we remove barriers to unit creation in the summit PUD ensuring that homes
planned there can actually be delivered Each of these efforts helps unlock new housing opportunities.
None of them are about special treatment They are about strategically using tools available to us to
address structural housing scarcity and a land-constrained city and
When we pilot new approaches, it is because the status quo has not produced the supplier community needs.
Our responsibility is to support pathways that actually deliver homes because without advancing approaches
that move the entire housing ladder, we cannot meaningfully address affordability.
Everything I've outlined tonight shows just how much hand is doing and how much of our community depends
on this work. I'm deeply proud of my staff and the immense amount of work that they carry out every
day. The twenty twenty seven budget gives us an opportunity to meet Bloomington's complex housing challenges
with strategic targeted investments investments that expand housing supply to improve affordability
prevent and reduce homelessness strengthen neighborhood infrastructure and support Bloomington's long
term economic sustain.
Stability, I can't talk. Homelessness.
Is a wicked problem one with no single root cause or no solution Single solution and strengthening our
response requires the ability to provide nimble solutions People will experience housing crises for
different reasons and there's no single intervention that will work for every household The shortage
of safe stable and affordable housing is the primary structural driver of homelessness But individual
households may also fight face financial hardship
deteriorating housing conditions disability behavioral health challenges or simply an inability to find
an available unit. Those circumstances require different responses. Our goal in 2027 is to give the
city the flexibility to respond to different needs before a housing crisis becomes homelessness when
someone is experiencing homelessness and as they transition back into stable housing.
The goal is simple prevent homelessness whenever possible Stabilize people when a crisis occurs and
help them return to permanently housing permanent housing quickly. The key is flexibility We cannot
rely on one program one funding mechanism or one housing model to meet every need Our success depends
on having a range of tools that respond to what actually happened What's happening in our community
when it is happening? We will strategically
to pair these resources with other local federal funding, including home home art CDBG to maximize the
impact of our investment.
is the most housing cost burden metro area in Indiana. That is why my goal of improving access to housing
and increasing housing supply are critical to addressing affordability at a market wide scale, not simply
asking individual projects to solve affordability one project at a time. Bloomington's housing challenge
is fundamentally a supply problem. When we do not produce enough housing to meet demand, competition
for housing that is available increases. That puts upward pressure on prices and makes it
difficult for people to find housing that both fits their needs and their budget and when people cannot
access housing that works for them the consequences extend beyond affordability. It can lead to housing
instability prevent households from moving as their needs change and ultimately push people out of the
community.
We are already seeing the broader economic consequences of that shortage. Nearly 72% of Bloomington
jobs are filled by people who live outside of our community. When workers cannot find housing here,
they are pushed farther away or out of the community altogether. That makes housing supply a workforce
and economic issue, not simply a housing issue. At the same time, the economics of what gets built matter.
High land costs, limited on-campus housing relative to enrollment, and the cost and complexity of our
development process has created conditions in which high-end, high-density projects are often among
the few projects that can financially pencil. The market is responding to the incentives and constraints
in front of it. If we want a different housing outcome, we have to change those conditions.
Bloomington is land constrained. So increasing supply means finding ways to produce more housing within
the community that we already have at the same time the cost of producing housing has increased significantly
making it even more important that we support viable projects and remove unnecessary barriers to production.
I currently have 11 project requests totaling approximately six million dollars in funding. We do our
best to leverage
Our existing resources and fill the gaps but without additional capacity
These projects will remain on paper rather than in reality. Partial funding does not always get units
built. We also need to be nimble enough to deploy resources when they are needed. Recognizing that the
path from a funding commitment to completed housing can take years without increasing production. Bloomington
will continue to experience the impacts of constrained supply including rising costs limited housing
access housing instability and workforce displacement.
Increasing housing production is not only a housing strategy It is an economic sustainability strategy
and that is particularly important as we navigate the fiscal constraints created by SCA one The question
before us is not simply how we respond to today's housing needs It is whether we are willing to make
the strategic investments necessary to expand housing access reduce instability retain the people who
work here and ensure that Bloomington remains a viable and economically sustainable community for the
long term and
Our final priority is neighborhood infrastructure. And I want to be very clear about what we're proposing
here. This is not a new budget request to council. It is an opportunity to respond to a council priority
and offer a partnership to target their priorities. Council has identified neighborhood infrastructure
and quality of life as an important priority. Community development block grant resources can be used
for eligible infrastructure improvements in low and moderate income areas.
So rather than asking for additional city resources we are trying to think about how we might leverage
existing resources and can partner with council and the appropriate city departments to establish a
targeted sidewalk repair program.
The program would focus on qualifying low to mod areas consistent with federal requirements and prioritize
deteriorated sidewalks where repairs can improve pedestrian safety, accessibility, and connections to
schools, transit, employment centers, parks, and other community assets. There is no associated budget
request to council. What we are asking for is the opportunity to work together to determine how those
resources can be used most effectively. In this case, we have an opportunity to take an existing federal resource
and turn it into a safer, more accessible neighborhood infrastructure without adding to our local budget.
If this is truly an important priority for council, let's figure it out, but let's figure it out together.
As we look ahead to 2027, several challenges and opportunities will shape our ability to deliver on
these priorities. The first is the widening gap between what it costs to build housing and what the
market can support. That makes timely strategic
support even more critical a well-placed funding gap can determine whether a
project gets built or stays on paper. At the same time, we have an opportunity to reduce regulatory
barriers that contribute to those costs. The 21st Century Road to Housing Act signals a clear federal
direction. Communities must be prepared to produce housing if we want to address affordability. The
act incentivizes increased production, streamlined development processes, and better use of existing
programs. For Bloomington, this is a chance to become a housing-ready community with zoning, permitting,
infrastructure,
capacity and a project pipeline pipeline capable of actually producing homes HUD specs best practice
framework addresses barriers we are already examining and seen in our work at Hopewell crucially federal
investment will increasingly be tied to housing production performance under the acts of
Performance provision communities that produce more housing will receive funding while those that fall
short may see reductions Being housing ready is no longer just good policy. It will influence our ability
to compete for federal resources This moment gives Bloomington an opportunity to align our housing policies
development regulations funding strategies and project pipeline
with where federal housing policy is headed positioning us not just to respond to the crisis but to
take advantage of the resources designed to address it. And finally we must recognize the fiscal pressures
created by SCA one. The legislation requires communities to be even more strategic with limited public
resources and makes addressing workforce displacement even more urgent. If housing costs continue to
rise while more of Bloomington's workforce live outside the city.
The implications extend beyond housing to Bloomington's long-term economic sustainability.
The most recent point in time count identified 305 people experiencing homelessness in Monroe County,
including approximately 160 people who were unsheltered. That number represents people who are experiencing
a housing crisis at a particular point in time. But it also tells us something important about the capacity
we need in our system. We need more tools to prevent homelessness, more options for people experiencing
homelessness, and more pathways into stable housing. Senate Bill 285 adds urgency to that work.
The new state law restricts camping, sleeping, and long-term sheltering on public property, which means
communities will need to have meaningful alternatives and stronger connections to shelter and housing
when people are displaced from the public spaces. At the same time, the federal funding environment
is changing. HUD's current approach places greater emphasis on transitional housing, supportive services,
recovery, and self-sufficiency, representing a significant shift from federal homelessness policy away
from the previous emphasis on housing first. We need to be prepared
that shift without losing sight of what we know about our local community and the range of interventions
people need. And we are facing another transition at the local level ARPA resources which hand has deployed
nearly six million dollars since 2024 which have supported our community's response to homelessness
will no longer be available after December 31st. That means 2027 will require us to be particularly
strategic about how we use resources that remain available.
This is exactly why flexibility matters. We cannot assume that the funding environment, the causes of
homelessness or the needs of people we serve will remain the same. Our responsibility is to use every
available resource
to prevent homelessness whenever possible, respond effectively when it occurs, and build pathways to
stable housing that reflect the realities of our community. The challenge is significant, but so is
the opportunity. By investing strategically, leveraging federal resources, reducing unnecessary barriers,
we can develop a response that is more coordinated, more adaptable, and better prepared for what comes
next. HAN's 2027 budget is focused on addressing Bloomington's most pressing housing challenges,
Expanding housing supply improving our response to homelessness and investing in neighborhood infrastructure.
Those are not separate issues housing supply affects affordability and workforce stability
housing instability affects homelessness and strong neighborhoods require safe accessible infrastructure
and The resources to maintain quality of life We have reduced all other categorical budget requests
to the greatest extent practical
Practicable, but we have requested an increase to the housing development fund to address the demand
the resources in this budget are designed to leverage federal funding support community partnerships
and respond to emerging needs and Help viable projects move from concept to reality That is the work
that hand is committed to moving forward in 2027 and that is an overall budget change of 1.74 million
dollars. Thank you. I
Thank you very much for all that and for all your work any questions from council Thank You director
killing Hanson I just to pick up where you left off about The federal government shifting from housing
first model to to To a different model, I guess Continuum of care I guess
and So you mentioned that you know We need to shift strategically in terms of how we can be Get resources
from the federal government within that structure Could you unpack a little bit about what that might
look like? For instance if people are afflicted with substance use problems You know, this is
Seems to me may take a coordinated effort with the county Because they run the justice system judicial
system and things like that to try to help people so they're not just simply jailed, but they have the
opportunity to to To address their addiction problem. For instance, is that something you're exploring
and could you impact that a little bit more or you
Are we at the initial stages of that? I don't mean to put you on the spot, but you know I'm just trying
to envision what that could look like and how we can get federal dollars because we clearly have a Problem
here. We ought to try to you know work I suppose with what we're given. So could you address it?
That is true. That is complicated We are not working with CoC funding. So we have to supplement whenever
available I think one of the challenges that we're gonna face is that there is an overall funding
Decrease towards a lot of the programs and organizations that have received funding historically and
so we have to be able to step in with our funding to help bridge the gap so whether that is additional
caseworkers or whatever our budget can allow that's why the housing development fund is Helpful because
it is local. It doesn't have an impact to the general budget, but it can help fill those gaps and
I am not currently working with the county on anything like that. We, again, are not part of the COC.
But you're not wrong. I mean, a lot of things changed in the Reagan era with the elimination of state
mental health hospitals. And the state, the federal government have not filled the gap with the mental
health and drug addiction issues. So those are things that have to get addressed.
Not my bailiwick completely Thank you director so the county is involved in various discussions that
are happening right now around Comprehensive services that are needed for people who are experiencing
homelessness But I do want to add that I met with Braun about I don't know a month and a half ago and asked him
for his support and his leadership in funding the impacts of SB 285, which is the state bill that illegalizes
sleeping outside on public land. And his biggest support there is in mental health and addiction. Seems
less interested in actually funding housing, which, of course, is what solves homelessness.
I'm I actually I'm leading a coalition of mayors to do the ask at the Statehouse for that funding and
other funding and so if council members have input into what you want that asked to be We have we've
been working since March on this and and we have some support at the state some
Republican leadership support which will be critical of course at the state house to get To get some
funding behind mental health and addiction support. I Appreciate that. I appreciate your efforts and
meeting with governor Sorry, can I just remember all of your three minutes? So the rest will have to
go. I talked too long. Sorry I'm sorry. Keep us on track any other questions Councilmember Piedmont
Smith and then councilmember Stossberg
Um, yes. Thank you. Ms. Killian Hansen. Um, you had to talk quickly and go through a lot. So I hope
you got a drink of water in between here. Um, the housing development fund, could we get a report on
what has been funded in 2025 and so far this year and at, at how, at what level and how many units of
housing were produced? I do not have it off the top of my head, but I'd be more than happy to provide it. Um,
More than happy to provide that to you. I know that we provided two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
to the landlord mitigation fund Which we were not able to fund previously. I think There was a year
gap there where they were operating on old funding. So their demand was was there but we did provide
that to help bridge the gap with the loss of vouchers and
And then maybe since the housing development fund is not the only avenue used to support retention or
creation of affordable housing. Yes. Could you give us an overall report. And you mentioned a few data
points in your presentation but an overall report of how many units preserved or produced how many households
were served costs per unit that resulted from the subsidy from my slide deck I can tell you the
48 units that we preserved as permanently affordable cost us six hundred thousand And the ten units
at of cooperative living units that those were about two hundred and fifty thousand But I can give you
that Information and an overall spreadsheet. Yeah
Yeah, absolutely. But part of the problem with the housing development fund this year has been that
we have 11 funding requests and One of them alone is three point two million dollars We only have one
million dollars of housing development fund to provide so again as I mentioned you can't partially fund
projects And so we've had some feasibility issues of getting them off the ground It's meant to be a
supplement
It is meant to be a supplement. It's not a sole funder But when we are asking somebody to replace a
large water line that cost them two million dollars and that is the difference between Like how much
of it if we can only give them? 500,000 that doesn't mean it's going to get built and I'm not proposing
that we fill the entire gap but we have to examine the projects that have made application very closely
and make sure that we're aligning our community needs with the funding available and
And so the funding request is not tied specific projects. It is tied to the ability to respond when
those projects come up. Thank you. Thank you. I wanted to follow up on the housing development funds
too and I might need the controllers help.
for this one because I also wanted to look into how much of that million have we spent this year and
is it practical to do another $3 million in that. And so one of the things I looked at was the second
quarter year to date expenditures that our controller provided the fiscal committee. And according to
that information, so it was just through the first two quarters of the year, less than $10,000, I think,
was taken out of the Housing Development Fund. And then similarly, very little was spent from the lit
grant line, which I assume also goes to some of this housing assistance and stuff like that. So can
either you or Controller McKim fill in the numbers that you were saying and what are
Were those just did those happen after the second quarter or only provide? You a summary of the claims
that have been submitted not the contracts that have been executed And so it does take a while to navigate
the contract process It's no surprise that you wouldn't see all of that fun I mean typically you would
want to check on that at the end of the year just to make sure that the money is rolling out, but there's
a number of
Contracts that have been executed that haven't been drawn down with funding yet or are in legal currently
And or we've had projects that just haven't reached fruition We've entertained we've evaluated we've
spent staff time But then it the feasibility don't doesn't end up panning out But no, it's being spent
being spent very well. Okay. Thank you. I guess I would
Also wanted like the accounting that Councilmember Piedmont Smith asked for so I guess I would also
be interested in like the the contracts and you know what we have going just because that is a really
big increase and I feel like capacity is one of the struggles that especially the hand department has
because there are so many things to do and so I just kind of want to make sure in terms of due diligence
that the department actually has the capacity to like
Like award those those grants and spend the additional money because the housing development fund is
not like we won't necessarily It doesn't have unending revenue. And so like kind of in some ways once
we spend it we spend it I think where you're caught is the idea that they all have to be tied to a project
We are saying that the three million dollars is to be able to respond nimbly to the requests at hand
and get it out the door It
It's not a one-to-one. It's not a capacity issue It's be giving us flexibility to respond because what
happens is if it's not spent it reverts back to the housing development fund If it is spent it goes
out the door. We get the units created It's going to take years in some cases for the funding to actually
create the units So we have to move quickly can't wait for the next funding cycle to get them off the
ground I'm out of time
Sorry. Yes. Sorry. Thank you. And thank you for your presentation. Would you be able to talk a little
bit about how our strategy might change based on the physical locations of different services directly
in regard to homelessness response. So for example the jail.
We don't know where it's going to be but I'm sure that we will have to Accommodate that same with I
know that beacon is moving to the Near East side I'm just curious how the shift of the physical locations
might impact the work that you do That is a very good question. I'm not sure that I can answer that
question obviously being close to Services is really important But how that would change our funding.
I'm not sure
Not aware we need to provide the support where the support is needed Any other questions councilmember
rough I Guess this is maybe more of a comment than a question But there the question would be I guess
Have you thought about a strategy has the department thought about strategy related to
What I hear about from constituents a lot related to public safety quality of life for neighborhoods
and for the community overall and that is the side the issue of keeping sidewalks clear from Trash recycling
bins that will often sit for days and days and days or maybe a week around and then of course we hear
about the scooters issue periodically regularly, but You know, it's funny. I've lived
my area of my house for over 30 years and if I leave if I pull my car out onto the street without a
hang tag to move something around in the carport and I go inside and do something I'll come out I'll
I'll have it more often than I'll have a ticket it seems like you know or at least I have a warning
and it literally centers within it seems like 20 minutes or 15 minutes of forgetting that I left my
car out there
It just seems like it's got to be a way that we could have better enforcement of clearing the sidewalks.
I'm not talking about snow right now but I'm talking about mainly trash cans and scooters too. But so
that's a priority. That's a priority for me to figure out a way and maybe if it requires some kind of budget
Contribution or in combination with another program Another department something but that's a priority
for me this time Is that a question should I respond to yeah if you can if you thought about it Well,
I think it's important to know that the neighborhood compliance officers that are out inspecting all
the rentals and taking care of the complaint inspections are the same staff that are patrolling the
neighborhoods they get
Four hours a week following their trash the trashy day for their neighborhood. They're assigned neighborhoods
to issue citations and warnings and that kind of thing Alternatively, I think you can see that the parking
division is the most efficient Department in the city They're out there immediately, but that's their
full-time job. So I think that that's part of the issue and
With the creation of so many units. I know you guys were gracious enough to give me another neighborhood
compliance officer because the demand was so taxing And that has helped a lot But it's difficult in
four hours to make it down every single street that being said I am looking at trying to help the
the routes that the compliance officers are taking. So sometimes they're not always taking the trash
route. So what we're looking at is how is sanitation picking up all of the bins? How are they hitting
all of the addresses in the various neighborhoods? How might we look at targeting the routes a little
differently to make sure that we're getting all of the properties instead of just like the main areas,
that kind of thing.
We're always trying to improve efficiency in our department, but I will take that back. Thank you any
other questions All right, thank you very much we're gonna move on to public comment now anybody in
chambers or online who has a question For housing and neighborhood development. I see somebody approaching
the podium. Thank you very much Good evening again
This is Christopher MG from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. I just want to say before I
get to the budget that I want to recognize Ms. Killian Hanson and the work of Hand. She's brought some
clear direction, both to Hand and the RDC, along with that practical perspective of someone who's worked
in business and on the development side. And as we've seen with that presentation, which I think could
have been a seminar, what direction and what reach they're having, Chamber strongly agrees with
the direction of housing, and particularly the recognition of affordability to scale that requires more
housing supply. I just want to highlight a couple things on moving the budget toward improving housing
access, increasing housing production. It's a significant increase in the housing development fund that's
going to move these things forward. And so we appreciate how that increased production is a market-based
strategy that supports workforce retention and our long-term economic health, as she linked it so well.
Employers need workers who can afford to live here more supply and more housing choices are an important
part of recruitment retention and growing the tax base But obviously that funding alone doesn't produce
housing. It has to be paired with faster clear permitting and development standards allow good projects
to move Financially more feasible, but that is for another department I also want to say that the flexible
homelessness intervention that targets approaches that help people move toward a
Housing will recognize that homeless responses, increasing overall supply are related but distinct
challenges. So we strongly agree with Han's premise that improving affordability at a scale requires
increased supply. The goal should now be making sure our investment strategy and our development process
are pulling the same direction, getting more housing built. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody
online for the comment?
Any last comments or any more commenters in chambers? I don't see anybody. All right, so back to chambers.
Any council? Any council comments? Councilmember Stossberg. Thanks. I want to just comment on a couple
of things that I didn't get a chance to ask about in terms of hopes.
Interesting that we're focusing CDBG grants on sidewalks When we don't have a sidewalk plan and similarly
right now owner property owners adjacent property owners are responsible for maintenance of sidewalks
and so I just really hope that whenever that CDBG grant process goes through
that ends up being focused on low-income owners and maintenance of those sidewalks. Now, I'll ask in
the follow-up questions, as opposed to I just don't want to supplement landlords that should be taking
care of their sidewalks already. So I just wanted to mention that as I hope that's the way that it's
going to work. And I need to get back in my comments to the other things.
And then going back to the housing development fund like I I recognize that that just reverts but at
the same time I also know that you know two three years ago when I was having lots of meetings about
affordable housing and some of the things that that housing development fund was spent on a number of
years ago in prior administrations there was definitely some concerns raised and so I think that that
lead some of my questions right now about the Housing Development Fund just to make sure that future
expenditures out of the Housing Development Fund are not things that some future administration or council
member looks back on and goes, oh my gosh, what on earth were they doing spending money on that? And
so that is one of the reasons why I'm asking extra questions about the Housing Development Fund. Because
once we bless this $3 million, which is very vague and unspecific, then it can be spent on whatever.
that is, I appreciate that you need to be nimble, and I appreciate that you need that flexibility, but
I hope that you also appreciate that as a decision maker, I feel like I at least wanna box some rough
kind of idea about what it's been spent on so far, and then what direction you're hoping to bring it
toward, because that is quite a big increase.
Otherwise, thank you very much and thinking think think everybody else that was involved in this budget
hearing this evening Any other council comments councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes, I just don't want
to lose sight of the fact that we have a problem as a city of keeping sidewalks clear I know there are
not enough people in hand to issue all the citations that are needed and then there's
You know once you issue a citation then the property owner has a certain amount of time and in the meantime
people are walking the streets. So I just want to acknowledge that that problem is still there and we
need to have more conversations and try to figure out how best to accommodate pedestrians in snow and
ice situations. Thank you. Any final comments. Councilman Barallo you know I got a couple.
Regarding sidewalks. I maybe we should be considering using some of the council sidewalk budget for
Targeting and repairing areas with accessibility problems Because it's been brought to my attention
actually councilman rough it at constituent meetings that this is a chronic problem and you know with
a lack of resources or you know skim resources this time around we
You know that they should be dealt with I I just wanted to follow up on my query of the administration.
I want to credit mayor Thompson for meeting with governor. I think that as Director Killian Hansen said
it the housing is a very it's a complicated Multivariate problem and and so there's no easy one solution,
but certainly one of them is to to
Do the best we can to get resources brought back to Bloomington from state or federal sources And so
I applaud you Duke for doing that for trying to do that and it seems to me Maybe there's an opportunity
with the county because as they build the their jail I think we all want to see that not just as a as
a punitive a place to place people You know just to punish them but
particularly of people are suffering from mental health and and Addiction problems that they ought to
be treated and helped So so to the extent that we can maybe help that situation our county colleagues
could be responsive to that Perhaps hopefully so. Thank you We hope all right last comments. I
Okay, well thank you very much. We really appreciate you being here. We appreciate everybody being here.
That's it for night one of budget hearings. Thank you all very much for your help and your info and
answering our questions. And we'll see you back here Wednesday night at, was somebody snapping? I know.
Sorry, see you back here Wednesday night the 19th at 5.30.