- All right seeing that we have a quorum I'll call to order this Special session of the Bloomington Common
- Council our third evening of budget hearings Tonight let us start with the clerk calling the roll. Thank
- you Here Stasburg Zulek here Piedmont Smith here Rallo here
- And I see council member sorry on the screen and he's saying that there's no audio. While that's going.
- Council member rough and council member Rosenberger. All right. Thank you. Council member sorry can't
- hear us. Oh he can now.
- Yeah we can hear you now. OK thank you. Present if I was asked. Yes I think you were. All right. So
- today we have parks and recreation then we will go to economic and sustainable development and then
- we have a whole lot of public works department divisions. We have administration animal care and control
- facilities maintenance fleet maintenance and sanitation.
- So let us start off with parks and recreation and mr. Tim Street director Good evening. I know we're
- waiting for the presentation to get up My name is Tim Street. I'm the director of parks and recreation
- for the city of Bloomington. Let's test the clicker here We're working. All right, great to be with
- you tonight and
- Tonight we have several of our leadership staff in the room with us. I'm gonna introduce them. They
- play a huge role in directing the department and setting the budgets that you're seeing tonight. So
- we have Rebecca Swift. Sorry, my timer decided to go off after 20 seconds instead of 20 minutes, I think.
- Let me fix that real quick. 20 minutes is a more appropriate amount of time than 20 seconds. Okay. Rebecca
- Swift, our operations director,
- Julie Ramey our community relations manager Molly Cochran who's in about one month as our office manager
- now Leslie Brinson our recreation director and Satoshi Kido our sports director So a huge thanks to
- them and to all of our park staff who just make all of this so possible You know, we recently went through
- master planning and had a community prestige rating and about 90% of the community said
- High prestige or good prestige for the parks and rec department and a big reason of that is our staff
- And we hear constantly how great our staff are. I want to particularly recognize the staff that are
- out there Dealing with all kinds of stuff all the time and very thankless jobs We just shared an article
- recently that was from beyond the civic commons. That was about how well-maintained public spaces are
- vital for both actual public safety and the perception of public safety which are often two different
- things and
- And I just really think our staff are the front lines of that So our department is in the midst of Updating
- our mission and it is not finalized yet But we are working towards something very much like this Parks
- and Rec makes Bloomington a resilient healthier and more connected place to live and play Resilience
- health and connection are the things that we're after with all of our programs and parks and offerings
- across multiple different meanings so physical health mental health environmental health
- Resilience same thing connection to the environment to each other to our community. All of those things
- are what we're setting out to provide Council will be aware I came recently and gave you an update as
- we were nearing the end of our master plan process we went through that largely in 2025 and even in
- early 2026 to set priorities for our next five years and
- We did this with a big focus on financial sustainability And in the end the strategic actions that we
- arrived at fall into these four categories Which will look familiar as I go through my presentation
- tonight Meaningful community impact. That's what we're here to do through the lens of what I just talked
- about Investing in what we have is very critical for us right now after a period of growth and a period
- of uncertain revenues Being financially sustainable and how do we do all this? We do it with a strong
- connected staff
- So that is the lens by which we have organized our strategic actions for the next five years Speaking
- of our staff. We currently have 64 full-time staff in the salary ordinance as of creating this presentation
- We had 87 permanent part-time employees that tends to vary throughout the year And those numbers don't
- include the hundreds of other seasonal and temporary staff that we hire to help run our programs in
- our parks throughout the year
- While we set out to create as flat of a budget as possible this year Some inevitable price increases
- do have us at a 4% increase and I will talk more about that as I go on And critical needs and issues
- for 2027 will be maintaining our level of service Again throughout some uncertainties throughout uncertain
- revenues dealing with some older facilities which leads to planning and investing in capital needs and
- then implementing priorities and actions from our master plan and
- I will mention our master plan is getting ready to go on our website now, and we will certainly share
- a link with you all as soon as we have that ready. Gonna just use some 2026 highlights as a lens for
- things going on across the department and the ways we're achieving some of those outcomes that we're
- after. This year we've had a really great partnership with IU Arts and Humanities. You're gonna hear
- me say that partnership word several more times during the 20 minutes. This has been a great success.
- We need partners like this to put on successful programs.
- We've had a lot of natural world highlights. We achieved Bee City USA certification for the first time,
- renewed our bird town Indiana, worked on our downtown planners, had another prescribed fire at Griffey
- to promote hardwood native species. And one of my favorite highlights of the year was when we had a
- very visitor heavy great horned owl nest on the Jackson Creek Trail that attracted a crowd nearly every
- day for about a month.
- And Jeff McCord sent in this great photo of one of the outlets In our sports division, you know, we're
- maintaining active sports and recreation programming across the city a photo of Winslow here one thing
- I'm proud of our staff is they cut down rainouts the spring at our baseball fields by 50% Which is incredible
- from 42 to 21 or 100% depending on how you're looking at it While the weather certainly has something
- to do with that
- Management practices on this old facility have really helped they've renewed management practices to
- reduce rain outs Which has really helped serve our residents better Twin lakes thanks to some funding
- from ESD just had an entire LED retrofit It's better in there. It's much better And when I stopped by
- I was really struck by our senior fitness class that meets on Wednesday mornings. So again promoting
- health and connection and
- Community events, by the time we reach the end of the year, across community events and our various
- programs, we expect to have around a million participations in the various things that we offer. I love
- the photo on the left, that's the beeline after the Fourth of July parade, big crowd using the beeline.
- The photo on the right is from a Tuesday market in our youth market. We are through three or four of
- our youth days at the market, which are really fun if you haven't experienced it. Getting to see all
- the different things that the youth in our community create
- and sell and just being a little entrepreneurs, it's really fun. Some other 2026 highlights, Banneker
- Center received about $80,000 in grants to redo the front steps in appropriate historic fashion through
- the state DNR, and also received another 20K from the Black Historic Preservation Program to help with
- some water penetration and roof issues.
- Across Banneker and Alison jukebox. There were about 250 different summer campers who had really great
- experiences this summer Learning to grow and again connect with one another And a few final highlights
- I want to mention that just hit on a few different areas The urban forestry area gave out forty thousand
- dollars in partnership with the economic and sustainable development Department via the tree assistance
- program That forty thousand dollars went to seventeen households at or below area immediate
- Area median income to help deal with hazard trees homeowners also had to make a contribution on their
- end But this was a program to help people deal with hazard trees because we know that that is a problem
- for many people Our legal department engineering department and urban forestry work together I think
- this is worth mentioning again to save half of the trees slated for removal as part of an in dot 10th
- Street projects That is a significant win. We should not forget that and
- Our power line trail construction is ongoing. We expect that to wrap up and be celebrating that by the
- end of the year, a project eight years in the making. The Bloomington Parks Foundation funded new switchyard
- pavilion lights, and we are again working with ESD, lots of connections there, on an energy efficiency
- grant at the Buskirk Chumley Theater. So I share these just to give a broad sense of the work being
- done across the department. So the four goals I'm gonna talk about
- For 2027, again, this one you've heard before, maintain and enhance community impact. Number two, invest
- in critical capital needs. Number three, updating our website registration and communication systems.
- And number four, update reporting on core performance metrics. You'll see the council priorities at
- the left as we go through these where appropriate and where it sort of fits into the actions that we're
- taking. This first one is almost verbatim our first master plan priority.
- And not to be a broken record, but again, funding is uncertain. Times are tough. We've already seen
- one area nonprofit, Shutter Girls Inc., right, in the last two weeks. It's an interesting time, and
- we really want to focus on maintaining those prestige ratings and the impact that we have on the community.
- The significant increase that we have in our budget this year is something we had to reabsorb from ARPA,
- which is 250K in security funding.
- While I wish we were at a place and I hope we will be in the future where we do not need to have parks
- contracted security It is still an important need right now for our staff and for our residents That
- said we felt like we could cut as we reabsorb this from ARPA So we cut the amount by about 30 to 35
- percent and feel like we can can make reasonable security patrols with that this year and continue to
- talk with BPD and the office of the mayor about further interventions in the future and
- You're going to hear me say this a lot too, focus on quality and partners and collaborators. I'll give
- an example later in some of our successes, but really focusing on the quality of programs and over the
- quantity of programs. We do a lot of concerts. We do a lot of events. How do we really focus on making
- those really quality, high quality, not all big, but valuable community events? And one way I think
- we can really pursue that is through increased partnership and collaboration.
- The second goal is invest in critical capital needs a lot of this obviously isn't in the general fund
- budget tonight But I think is very significant to what we're doing and where we're heading and I wanted
- to bring that to the council's attention You've heard me stand up here before and talk about how we
- were looking into aging facilities it was part of our master plan to do a conditions assessment all
- of these different things and We're getting to a point. We're ready to make some decisions
- Exclamation point on the issue is a couple critical leaks this year one at the ice arena right before
- it closed One at Mills pool right before it opened and so we actually have a September 28th meeting
- set To review what the department's draft priorities are for investment recommendations for a 2027 bond
- a geo bond We've been working with the controller on That will go to the board of park commissioners
- on the 28th as well as public it will be open for public feedback and then in early 2027 we are hoping
- to work that through the process of
- including council review to issue that bond for capital facilities Again that goes back to invest in
- what we have In the general fund this year, you'll see about two hundred forty five thousand dollars
- Which is just some critical infrastructure items similar to last year's amount that's covering backflow
- Equipment replacement replacement dump truck some roofing related items things that are critical to
- our operations Third goal
- Updating our website registration and communication systems. We recognize website is sort of above us.
- That's a bigger city thing that's going on, but it relates really well to this goal, which is sort of
- an amalgamation of several different master plan actions that we identified. Modernizing and improving
- our reach and user experience across platforms, particularly our registration system. We've been using
- the same registration system for a while.
- We've convened a software action team of staff to look at that To say how are we using this? Are we
- using this effectively? Is this modern enough for our users our residents? And are really starting to
- look at that now for potential reinvestment in 2027 30k annually is earmarked for software. I should
- say that's actually not just our registration software I was looking at the line that also includes
- some of our city works software And then a point that came up in council questions was this the program
- guide question
- We do spend about one hundred and ten thousand dollars annually for printing and distributing our program
- guide three times annually. When we did our community survey in the master plan it showed that the highest
- number of people twenty nine percent preferred to get their information about parks programs and offerings
- through the program guide. That was still the number one preferred source and that 50 percent of all
- respondents said they get information from it. So it is still very important that we have a mailing
- presence for our residents.
- And out in the community where you can pick it up at the library or other places But we are looking
- at strategically. How do we do that and printing is very expensive You'll already notice the one that
- just came out has less pages than before So we're experimenting with that and then the last goal update
- core performance metrics our staff have talked recently about Parks is a very diverse department. We
- have many different departments that do different things within us are
- Goals for urban forestry are going to look very different than goals for golf, than goals for cemeteries,
- right? Those all have very different goals. And while each area is keeping metrics on their performance,
- we want to work on consolidating what we consider to be some of what we used to put in budget goals,
- which is a system we're not really using anymore. But we want to compile that into a performance metrics
- dashboard and have some consistent metrics that we can use across areas as much as possible.
- The goal is not to create a live dashboard. I don't want to promise my staff we're going to promise
- we're going to make a live dashboard, because that's a lot of work, but at least a consistently updated
- dashboard. So key programs and initiatives for 27, largely the same. When we set out to prepare a flat
- budget, when we're looking at we just got our master plan done, this is really the beginning of implementing
- some of the master plan items, focusing on that quality over quantity in programs.
- Overhauled our financial sustainability policy did a financial review looked at our cost recovery goals
- Those are all things as our honor radar as we look at evaluating Programs and initiatives, but in this
- budget they are largely the same We plan to continue to invest further in climate items resiliency with
- electrification funding from ESD That has been really impactful to us these past few years we're working
- to really reevaluate our health and wellness area and
- Along with the potential large-scale partnership with IU School of Public Health Which is also under
- new leadership and seems to have a new renewed focus on health and wellness And I know director Sager
- mentioned it But we are excited to partner with them on the design and eventual implementation of stormwater
- improvements at Winslow Sports Park When people put a three acre parking lot in in 1979, they weren't
- thinking about stormwater detention, but we are now so we'll partner with them to figure out ways to
- make that better and
- Overall our budgets category one is up three percent. That's just the the standard step increases cost
- of living living wage increases that impact us their Supplies are up a little bit just due to necessary
- supply increases Services are up. The majority of that is the park security being reabsorbed from ARPA
- We had to cut a few other things as well because other things are up as well utilities are up across the board
- Workers comp is up liability insurance is up. Everything is more expensive And our capital is largely
- the same as last year This is a breakdown of just where that money goes within our divisions admin includes
- community relations in this graphic So, you know 53 of percent of our costs go to areas where we don't
- really expect much cost recovery These are general public service in operations
- with a couple small exceptions. Admin is supporting all of our divisions. Recreation has some cost recovery
- in different areas, depending on which area you're looking at. And sports tends to be our most
- entrepreneurial of areas, because you have things like the golf course in there. And the golf course,
- as indicated in some of the questions you received, does actually cost recover more than 100% of its
- investment right now. Wrapping up, challenges and opportunities, extreme weather,
- continues to be a challenge. We had a tornado in February. That's crazy. Thankfully, it didn't do a
- whole lot of damage within the city. Not to take anything away from the damage, it did do.
- And then summer, it's either all the way dry or all the way wet. We're trying to figure that
- out. Homelessness, vandalism, and bad behavior continue to be issues. That is not a perfect, that Venn
- diagram is not a circle. Those are three distinct issues. I want to be clear on that. But there is some
- overlap, of course.
- We partnered with CFBMC to deal with the Browns Woods encampment this year And are really focused on
- not letting those establish because the damage from those multiplies exponentially as they go on Of
- course leaks and challenges with facilities ice arena in the pool and rising costs affecting everyone
- That said there are of course great opportunities as well I said I was going to mention some successful
- partnerships and
- I think Juneteenth this year with CFRD and various other partners was a really great partnership And
- a really great example of that quality over quantity mentality that we can do It actually ended up being
- one of our most attended days at switch yard park ever probably second to the eclipse And then the next
- day we had Grand Faloon, which is another great partnership. So putting on these really great big robust
- Community events where we're bringing multiple stakeholders together to make these events really high
- quality. I think is important We're working with big partners like MCC SC talking about how
- can we strategically partner? How can we share resources? How can we be smart in these tough times you
- I mentioned school public health Internally strengthening our focus on the data that came out of the
- master plan that we just received recently
- community needs assessments, engagement, community survey results from the master plan and our new financial
- sustainability policy, which the board approved this spring, all in order to strengthen our data-led
- decision-making. So trying to keep things high level, there was a certain amount of detail provided
- in the answers I responded to some council questions too. That gets a little bit more granular in terms
- of individual budget program areas within the park's budget overall.
- But I'd be happy to address anything else you would like to get into you. Thank you Thank You director
- Street, are there any questions on the parks and recreation budget councilmember Rallo Thank you. Thank
- you director Street Parks and rec always scores high and community surveys and for good reason I have
- just a few questions regarding
- Bond you're seeking what's the amount that you're we would be looking for a bond that is under the statutory
- Remonstrance amount next year, which is around seven million dollars and it would actually be Start
- payments would start in 28 which would replace the payments on the 2022 parks geo bond which would be
- expiring and those are for that this amount is for capital improvements of various kinds Okay Are we
- these are kind of?
- Not related questions, but they're under your purview. So are we still removing invasive calorie pairs?
- We are for the last few years. We've removed about 80 a year. I forget the exact number There were like
- I want to say 1500 inventoried calorie pairs when we started this plan so it was a 15 year plan to remove
- if not every calorie pair, at least every inventory purposefully planted calorie pair. And so we've
- been purposefully removing and replacing about 80 a year. Great. And we've replaced them as they're
- being removed. Of course. And I recall seeing from Haskell, there's only, I think, three inventory calorie
- pairs left of significant size and stature, like 30-inch DBH. Yeah. Wow. OK. So my last question is
- about managing Griffey. You had a prescribed burn.
- that's necessary at times to remove various noxious stuff. But deer were once overabundant. We addressed
- that. They were severely damaging the understory, so it was important to periodically reduce them, which
- we've been doing through yearly hunting. Have we been continuing to do that, and is Ecologic still doing
- plant surveys?
- What's the general Outlook is it is it recovering? There was a legacy effect. Are we doing? some ecological
- Remediation Could you describe that a little bit in the 46 seconds? You know We are so lucky to have
- Griffey Lake nature preserve as a city parks department is an incredible treasure state park level asset
- right on our doorstep And so managing our natural resources there for the long-term health is really
- important. So the deer hunt is continuing and
- We were actually going to have a new deer hunt provider this year. White Buffalo was unavailable, and
- so we found a new state USDA certified provider to come in and help us run the deer hunt. We are continuing
- the ecologic study. We think gathering that data on the effect is really important. Generally what we've
- seen with the deer hunt as the years have gone on is less deer taken than what we saw in the early years,
- Again, deer hunts are very tricky, or deer counts, rather, are very tricky to get an accurate count
- of how many deer are in an area. So we think it's really important right now to continue the momentum
- we have from the deer hunt, continue the study. The study has shown positive effects. We're still trying
- to control for outside factors, like there's been some really dry years and some really wet years, and
- we think longevity of data is gonna really help us make the case for management in an urban park like
- this. So yes, plan to continue.
- Thank you very much. I really appreciate it Other questions for mr. Street councilmember Stossberg.
- Thank you Director Street, I was just wondering in your memo under the budget overview by category you
- reference some increases to the general fund program revenues and I was wondering which program revenues were you
- expecting to increase and does that mean program charges are Expected to increase and I know that like
- there was some talk of that at one of the master planning sessions I went to and I guess I'm just kind
- of wondering How that is shaking out? Yeah, I don't have that at hand right now But I could easily get
- that for you which areas increased their budget revenues. It was most areas increased I know we increased
- our general fund program revenues non-tax revenues by about two hundred twenty thousand dollars
- Year over year from 26 to 27 But I'd have I could get you that detail if you like then with the written
- questions then. Thanks so much Any other questions from council members councilmember Ruff And I understand
- there's different levels of subsidy or not subsidy for certain programs is there an overall policy sort
- of general policy of
- Trying to keep Programs that do have participation fees or our costs for participation In line at least
- in line with just cost of living Estimates is that kind of the general? The general idea for those programs
- I would say that's that's one factor when we consider price schedules and and
- Typically every fall we take a price schedule to the board of park commissioners. So we do publicly
- discuss it. You know the board gives feedback. I'll give an example. Two years ago we were looking to
- raise our pool fees and the board was worried about exactly that affordability and push back a little
- bit. We ended up kind of meeting in the middle on a price increase. So there is some negotiation and
- board feedback is really important on that to set those prices. That said generally what I would say
- we try to take as an approach to subsidy is
- Targeting subsidy where it's needed is the best approach, as opposed to just broad, let's subsidize
- everyone who's coming. Getting people who can pay to pay is great. And then, for example, with the pools,
- having the pool fee waiver program, which grants free admission for people who line up with federal
- benefit eligibility, certain programs like SNAPWIC, Section 8, things like that, is the preferred approach
- for subsidy that we would take.
- And then just broadly, the greater the public value, the true public good in something that we're providing,
- because we have everything. We have the whole range, right? We have 0% cost recovery. We're just providing
- parks and trails and public spaces and keeping those up that are for everybody. We don't expect to cost
- recover on those at all. When we get more into individualized benefits, memberships, lessons, camps,
- things like that, depending on the specific nature
- That's where we see that that cost recovery go up. So the example at the high end of our cost recovery
- Matrix is the golf course which does cost recover a hundred percent Okay, I see I have 45 seconds left
- so I'll just real quick also ask One of your slides mentioned, let's see homelessness Vandalism and
- bad behavior. So from a budgetary perspective, can you elaborate on on that slide from we're talking
- about the budget here and
- Yeah, I wish it was easier to provide clear numbers on the impacts that we see but it's very difficult
- because For example, I know our staff go, you know, typically to Seminary Park every morning Most mornings
- there is quite a big mess for those staff members along with some of the members of our Brighton B town
- crew to clean up we try to quantify some of those hours, but I
- everything just kind of bleeds together because, well, how many hours would you spend normally? How
- many hours do you spend today? But I know with the time that our staff spends responding to messes,
- cleaning things up, what's the actual baseline we would expect for that? Because there's always some
- of that, right? It's very hard to quantify into a real number, but I know we spend significant staff
- time dealing with a lot of that stuff on a day-to-day basis. That staff time that could go into other
- beautification or taking care of things in different ways. Thank you. Council Member Osari. Thank you
- so much. And speaking of things that we're lucky to have, very grateful for your leadership,
- Director Street. And thank you also for thorough answers to my questions. I had just a handful of follow
- ups and I don't know if I'll get to all of them within a lot of time. But the first one,
- Just somewhat thinking about approach in your in your written response to my questions you noted as
- I think we've we've talked about in other years that Park spends about 88% of its allocated
- budget traditionally over the last five years while also overshooting revenue estimates. So just interested
- in your thoughts here.
- sort of in the context of a deficit budget overall, why it makes sense to continue to budget with what
- you expect to be sort of like an over budget rather than making allocations later in the year, should
- we come to that need? Yeah, to your end point there, I think that's a bigger philosophical question
- about reallocating or reappropriating under the system that we've been using. We've been successful
- at finishing in the black
- Most years which is kind of a funny thing to think about for a government entity But is important for
- us to maintain that cash balance exactly So we have it for for days like right now and we don't have
- to be reactionary to some of the things going on You know, we know we're never gonna spend a hundred
- percent of what we put in category one every year You know their staff positions that go unfilled for
- various reasons. There's people that take FMLA that end up with unpaid time off there's seasonal positions that
- You know go unfilled that's probably the majority but I say that without calculating that the majority
- of that savings comes from that In other areas, there's some projects we budget we anticipate, you know
- Finding something and it just comes in cheaper or I tell staff It's always a good practice to try to
- save five to ten percent for the end of the year, too Because as in the general fund and not reverting
- we cannot finish the year negative in anything. So I
- And then speaking of like areas of spending, like programmatic spending, I know you mentioned and thank
- you again for answering the question I had about marketing budget. If I'm not mistaken, the overall
- marketing budget is like 600,000, somewhere around there, I think 633 or something like that. And so
- I sort of honed in on the sort of three times of printing for the, but can you talk a little bit about
- where the rest of that goes? And then thinking about,
- what possibilities there might be for I don't know like centralizing services sharing with other city
- entities etc like why does parks need to spend so much on marketing. Yeah, I that's more time than I'm
- going to have right now for sure but I'd be happy to have that conversation or even provide that more
- in writing.
- part of community relations that we do. I mean, marketing, I think, doesn't do it justice. We're not
- just doing marketing. We're doing community engagement. We're doing community outreach. It's press releases.
- It's assistance with all of the various different printing and aspects of things that we need to run
- programs. It's graphic design. When we're going to have a million program participations across a year,
- there's a certain level of support that's needed with those as well.
- investment in social media. We added a digital content coordinator a few years ago, which has had a
- huge return on investment. The work they do is fantastic in our community relations area. I recall they
- told me recently we had something like 4.4 million views on our social media through June of this year.
- So getting the word out, making sure people are informed of programs, but especially of closures or
- other things that could impact them is important as well. Thank you so much, sir.
- Any other council member questions for Mr. Street. I have one. I think in the past we had something
- called the parks non-reverting fund and I don't see that listed this year unless I'm missing it. It's
- a lot of pages to go through. Does that still exist and if so what is that used for and where does the
- revenue from.
- So we do solve a parks non-reverting fund and so legally by state code the City Council is of course
- the fiscal body for our general fund and per state code in title 220 where the non-reverting fund was
- established back in the 80s the park board is the authority for the non-reverting fund so I'd be happy
- to share our non-reverting budget for 2027 if you'd like to see it it works in tandem with this and
- It's about, it's a little under $2 million for next year. Basically, it's the entrepreneurial fund that
- does not revert and it is funded through municipal code by things, programs that are entrepreneurial
- in nature. So not just public access, not general admission, but concessions, rentals, lessons, private
- rentals, private events, things like that that fund that and that money
- Is used in tandem with our general fund to go back and reinvest in our parks our programs in our offerings
- So the revenue comes from those entrepreneurial activities Okay. Yeah, there's no tax revenue that goes
- to the non-reverting fund. Okay, I see All right, if there are no other questions, I think we can go
- to the public Thank You. Mr. Street
- Are there any members of the public who would like to make a comment this time? I think I see somebody.
- Yes. In chambers. Do we have anybody online? Okay. All right. Go ahead here in chambers. Then you'll
- have up to three minutes. Hey, good evening. Council's Chris room G from the greater Bloomington chamber
- of commerce. I always want to preface it by the award winning Bloomington parks department. And my hats
- off to 10 street who does a wonderful job with outreach.
- The community survey always gives them amazing numbers that I think any department or anything within
- the city would Would be the real envy of And strongly support the investment we have I think that's
- kind of the mayor's budget and her approach and it's definitely what the parks is to continue that The
- one thing that aging facilities is and the maintenance it needs is it's sort of an ongoing issue that
- I've sort of brought up before but here when we're looking at the ice arena if we're looking at Mills pool and
- But yet I see the overall budget grows by 4%, but the capital declines by 6%, which I think is noteworthy.
- We just need to look at our entire assets, parks included, and what we wanna maintain as well as consider
- selling, transfer, or even closing that aren't worth the ongoing expense. I mean, survey aside, Bloomington's
- strength is as our parks, but I've seen where when money gets tight,
- Those capital budgets thin out we've seen it in the town of Anderson where the parks ended up just getting
- decimated I don't see that happening here, but we just need to be on the right side of that and you
- know the emphasis on I'm glad that mr. Street brought up That parking lot that the Y built I didn't
- know was 1979 but that flooding on at Winslow
- Sports Park has been an issue and I much better attention to the flooding for fields three and four
- by the by the staff there But that's where the investments gonna work out in the end because right now
- we travel there one out of eleven tournaments we go to Linton and North Vernon more often that shouldn't
- be the case Bloomington's a destination city. So we need to get some of those facilities attracting
- out-of-towners for income and economic purposes and
- Thank you. Anybody else. Would anybody else like to give public comment. Seeing nobody in chambers there
- anybody online Mr. Allen. All right. We'll come back to council members for final comments on the parks
- and recreation budget proposal. Anybody. Council member Rollo. Thank you for the presentation. Parks
- and Rec Department does so much and so much appreciated.
- I just wanted to give kudos for the concentrating on the ecological restoration of Griffey. I think
- it's very important for posterity to continue that work, so I'm happy to see it happening, as well as
- removing invasives, calorie pairs in particular. I'm a bit concerned about bonding, about acquiring
- more debt, even as we're
- dip into reserves, and we have a very uncertain economic future. But then again, I don't want to defer
- maintenance costs either that eventually end up having to be attended to and paying more for it. But
- going forward in the coming year, I'm going to be scrutinizing the various bonds
- in particular for those that may be discretionary or those that you know we could defer for future spending.
- Thank you.
- Thank you. Thank you for the presentation and I just want to take an opportunity because I have it to
- just say I love our parks department and I think that they do a fantastic job. And speaking of some
- of those folks that sometimes do underappreciated jobs it's
- been really interesting. It's happened not once but twice this year when I've walked on my normal trail
- and I've started thinking to myself, boy, it's about time that this trail got trimmed. And literally
- the next day, it was done. So it takes some really serious systems management to maintain all of our
- parks and trails and all of those assets. And the system that we have going on there is generally, I think,
- Very very good. And it's something to be very proud of. So thank you. All right. Any other comments
- from council members. Council member Ruff. This isn't really about the presentation. It was an excellent
- presentation. I appreciate it. But I just want to say having grown up and been sort of an outdoor
- recreational Lee oriented person in southern Indiana.
- Linton and and North Vernon are there there are communities around us and I'm sure they probably need
- The activities as as much as we do at least as much as we do I know it's up to every community to Mark
- themselves and do the best they can I understand that but you know with this convention center, I'm
- thinking you know, I
- We were told, well, there's conventions that would go to Bloomington that wouldn't go to Indianapolis.
- It's just bigger. It's a different market. If some of these events are going to places like Linton in
- North Vernon, maybe that's their sized market event. And just the idea of spreading the wealth around
- to our neighboring communities. They lost a lot of their medical service
- options haven't come to Bloomington for for for all kinds of things anyway that just struck me there
- at the end. So that's all I want to say. Thank you. All right. I think we are then ready to move on
- to economic and sustainable development department and director Cooper Smith. Welcome. Hi everyone.
- Jane Cooper Smith director of economic and sustainable development.
- Tonight I'll share some general information about ESD. I'll highlight 25 and 26 accomplishments, look
- forward to 2027 priorities and goals, and then share some key initiatives for 2027. My slide deck jumps
- back and forth between our different pillars, and so I'll try to signpost accordingly so you don't get
- whiplash. ESD currently
- is approved for 10 staff positions. One of these positions is fully grant funded for the Lilly Endowments
- College and Community Collaboration Grant. And then our transportation demand management position is
- currently vacant. So we have nine active staff members right now. And we have some of them here tonight.
- We have Dee De La Rosa, our assistant director for small business development, Jolie Perry,
- our sustainability program coordinator, and Sean Mia, our assistant director for sustainability. Really
- appreciate all the work that they do.
- Our department comprises four key areas of activity, economic development, including both major projects
- and small business development and capital projects, sustainability and climate, arts, and transportation
- demand management. These disciplines are placed in deliberate dialogue so that they can mutually inform
- one another and provide greater benefit to the community. A good example of this includes our Bloomington
- Energy Works project, which helped deliver I think 11 energy audits to
- employers across the community and helped identify 59 million dollars in private sector climate projects,
- which will then turn that List of 59 million and potential projects around for 2 million in low-cost
- capital for the community. So Leveraging those outside resources and being in the context to make those
- asks of our corporate partners is really helpful and
- Given our limitations I mentioning just a few 25 26 accomplishments for economic development We began
- implementation of our five-year downtown strategic action plan in partnership with downtown Bloomington
- Inc With our report that evaluated our specific community needs and included robust input business input.
- We were able to
- confidently move forward with hiring a downtown activation coordinator who has been promoting
- and implementing a series of micro events throughout the season, including family nights out, downtown
- shop nights, and Busket Dusk, as well as Bloomington Bites Bingo, which was a one-off event.
- This photo illustrates one particularly exciting small business event in April 2026 in partnership with
- the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. The city was able to bring zing train back to Bloomington.
- They led their business culture workshop which not only helps improve business culture and operational
- best practices for our local businesses but it gives them a low cost extremely high quality opportunity
- for professional development for their team members and it fosters connection across our business community.
- And this was a particular when pre pandemic DBI and blooming foods would bring zing train and occasionally
- and sort of foster this business community activity. So it was really great for us to be able to do
- that this year. What is this again just mentioning a couple of climate winds we were able to put four
- hundred and eighty thousand dollars into the community grants and activities that support climate action
- and climate resilience. This includes
- our SEAL and BGHIP programs, so solar energy efficiency and lighting, and the Bloomington Green Home
- Improvement Programs, as well as income qualified solar, which to date has primarily supported Bloomington
- Housing Authority housing. In 2025, we purchased two EV Ford F-15 Lightnings for Public Works, which
- of course reduces both fuel and maintenance cost.
- And then also in 2025, we used the heat map that was created with NOAA funding in 2024 to determine
- areas that were in need of bus stop shelters. So we had now the super functional heat map and we were
- able to look at it and see where anyone using transit would be kind of exposed to extreme heat and in
- need of a shelter. So that was a collaboration.
- with ESD sustainability and capital projects, and then with our arts team who commissioned local artists
- to create sort of freezes that go around the tops of the shelters. So there are six of them around the
- community, and I would encourage you to keep your eye peeled to see when you can find them. This photo
- features a new solar array on the roof of New Hope for Families, which was supported by SEAL. That's
- the program that funds
- Nonprofit and business investments and the photo credit for this one is to solar energy solutions. We
- like this array We thought it was really pretty Looking now at the arts It was another busy year for
- arts with funding issued for three major grant rounds that placed dollars in the hands of practitioners
- arts projects grants artistic advancement and
- grants and operational support grants. Beyond that, it was a major year for public art with the city
- diving into participation on the College and Community Collaboration Grant and helping lead the charge
- for the Capital Improvement Board's international call for the largest investment in public art in the
- city, which ultimately led to the selection of a form of connection by the Ball Nogue Studio. Staff
- also supported smaller public art installations like traffic box painting across the downtown and hosted
- artist professional development.
- events. Almost all of our arts efforts happen with significant input from the Bloomington Arts Commission,
- so I also want to thank them really specifically. They put in a lot of additional time reviewing applications
- and just supporting artists generally. This photo shows the fabrication studio for John Rasek's sculpture
- Undulate, which will be installed in the Trades District this fall.
- These tubular forms will emerge from the ground in different locations. And again, this is an example
- of a project while technically funded by the RDC. They are paying for the art and the installation.
- It requires staff input from both arts and capital projects in ESD to reach full execution, and then
- also collaboration with hand and engineering. So definitely a team effort.
- Looking ahead to 2027, I'll talk through goals in each of ESD's areas. Our major projects support housing.
- So when I say major projects, I mean the major economic development incentives that we're trying to
- attract usually or often from the federal level down to our local economy. So on the major projects
- front, we're always trying to support housing production, redevelopment, and job creation in service
- of really population growth and wage growth.
- We will know in October whether we will receive our opportunity zone designation for the three highly
- distressed census tracks for which we submitted applications to the governor. If awarded much of our
- major projects capacity in twenty twenty seven will be devoted to marketing and implementing
- these opportunity zones.
- Also on major projects our strategic sites initiative builds on the utility service boards update to
- its rules and regulations allowing extension of sewer service outside of city limits for strategic economic
- development sites. And together with EDC and other local partners we are working to promote the handful
- of employment sites that remain within city limits. So that's the big picture stuff economic development
- activities.
- that require significant budget include our efforts at addressing impacts of homelessness on businesses.
- Businesses in our downtown corridor experience, I mean it's sort of the expanded downtown corridor,
- experience a disproportionate burden of property damage, whether it be broken windows, camping detritus,
- biohazard materials, or waste, or damage from campfires. The city has issued grants to help property
- owners with prevention and remediation related to these issues.
- This administration understands that this particular program is a bandaid and it's not addressing root
- causes of homelessness. However it is a critical business retention effort while we are working on root
- causes in other areas. The city also provides major support for amplify Bloomington and the trades district
- since amplify represents.
- Oh, the name amplify represents new branding. Since I last spoke to you all, I wanted to make sure we
- know what it means. Amplify is the umbrella organization sort of over the trades district. Um,
- it's a, we call it a civic platform that advances our shared goals of wage growth and population growth,
- as well as trades district, real estate development efforts. And then amplify the big umbrella work
- happens across a number of sites. It happens in the trade stress trades district writ large at the mill.
- and at the forge. So those are kind of the locations where amplify does stuff. And then now also we
- have these sites that represent public investment. We now have private sites that are up and running
- and the kiln and the admin building. So hopefully you all have have been up to visit the new businesses
- in the trades district. And also I just wanted to offer that the trades district had a grand opening
- for its expansion. So
- Sorry the mill did so the mill hit max capacity and they converted their event space into more co-working
- space and I don't believe any council members were able to attend that event but I know the staff would
- be really excited to share the space with you and kind of what's going on there. So I'm sure you have
- their contact information but if I can help with that let me know. And finally amplify has been a key
- partner in leveraging. I'm sorry I didn't get all that.
- Yeah, so ED-LIT funding that council approved supports entrepreneurship programming at the mill. It
- funds scholarships so that membership may be extended to entrepreneurs who may not otherwise afford
- it. It supports Startup Summer, which is a cohort-based program where college students fast track their
- projects on summer break. And then it supports AMP Bloomington events, which bring together entrepreneurs
- and community for a range of events at the mill and culminating in AMP Week, which is in October.
- The mill is currently home to seventy seven small businesses. Our assistant director Dela Rosa assistant
- director of small business development Dela Rosa spends one day a week at the mill on their resource
- desk making sure that entrepreneurs are connected to our resources and receive
- support navigating any questions. Sorry, this is way more words than exciting slides. Additionally,
- Amplify has been a key partner in leveraging outside funding. In 2024, they helped attract that $16
- million college and community collaboration grant to Bloomington. And this year, they were a key partner
- in helping craft the programming proposal for the recently announced $3 million ready arts and culture
- grant for the Uplands Regional Creative Economy Commons. This rolls right off the tongue.
- Okay. Turning next to sustainability. Our main goal remains the same. The city works to reduce greenhouse
- gas emissions to 25 percent below 2018 emissions by 2030. So 25 percent below 2018 emissions.
- by 2030. Our primary approach to doing this is by tackling the built environment, which is the key driver
- of greenhouse gas emissions locally. This means we are leveraging our program dollars to continue improving
- efficiency of our own assets. We dedicate funds to converting gas equipment to electric. We leverage
- funding through BG HIP and SEAL programs to promote energy efficiency across the community. And maybe
- even more importantly, we work to attract outside resources, outside dollars to do this.
- work for us. Sean Mia and Julie Perry represent our very capable sustainability team. Thank you so much
- for your stewardship and all that you do. So building efficiency is the big swing. Secondary swings
- are vehicles and equipment. And since the adoption of the climate action plan in 2021 it has become
- increasingly critical that the city make efforts toward climate resilience as well. One area of convergence
- for these priorities is the epic grant
- from the Indiana Office of Energy Development that is facilitating HVAC upgrades and installation of
- a battery energy storage system at the Buskirk Chumley Theater. So this will reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- and operating costs for the theater, and it will allow them to ultimately serve as a climate resilience
- hub during periods of extreme heat. I think we say extreme weather, but realistically that's gonna be
- heat where we really need that. So thanks to Parks for their work in facilities management.
- and their collaboration on that grant and to the RDC for its recent approval of an LED stage lighting
- system. These investments will help this 100 plus year old theater embark on its next century in a cost
- effective and sustainable way. In 2027, our arts priorities mirror council and citywide priorities of
- asset management. Thanks to our 1% for the arts program, which I believe was approved in 2016, which
- requires that
- 1% of capital project budgets be dedicated to public art. The city has now amassed a collection of pretty
- amazing public art. Staff is turning its attention in 2027 to maintenance of these assets and developing
- policies and procedures for future development and management of public art. Asset management also refers
- to our support of two key city-owned arts facilities, the Waldron, which houses Constellation Stage
- and Screen, and the Buzzkirk Chumlee Theater.
- BCT management and constellation are doing amazing work shepherding these facilities But managing historic
- buildings is not without costs and we want to make sure that these community Organizations are able
- to continue their important work We will also continue advancing our three primary arts grant making
- programs arts project artistic advancement and operations and
- grants in 2027 both arts project and artistic advancement have seen upticks in the number of applicants
- for 2026 over 2025 and the arts operations support grant is open right now for applications that window
- will close in a month from today on September 4th. So just to repeat for the record the arts operations
- support grant is currently open and will remain open for applications for the next month.
- Our arts team is always working to leverage and deploy outside arts grant funding 2027 will we'll see
- a lot of activity in the ccc placemaking grant as well as the ready arts and culture grant These are
- enormous opportunities that leverage outside dollars to drive our arts Ecosystem, sorry forward So I
- described key priorities in the previous slides and here we'll look at
- key programs and their costs. Under sustainability, one of our key programs is related to city building
- efficiency and fleet electrification at $415,000. Municipal emissions are tracked on our climate action
- dashboard at bloomington.climatenavhub.com. The dashboard actually shows an increase in city emissions
- since 2018. However, since it relies on aggregated data from Duke Energy for the municipal data, it
- isn't possible to pinpoint exactly where
- where these emissions are increasing, we believe it's due to a variety of factors, including extreme
- temperatures that require more heating and cooling, increased precipitation, which increases flow through
- our wastewater treatment facilities, and the acquisition of buildings like Showers West, which would
- be, of course, inherently energy inefficient, and it was acquired after the initial data was captured.
- So things like that. And then,
- In 2027, OK, so turning to arts again, this is like a merry-go-round. We request another $102,500 for
- BAC grants. That's the same amount year over year. We request $163,000 in organizational support for
- the BuzzChum constellation and arts programming for the admin building. So that's flat year over year as well.
- This photo is by Lisa Wilson who's a local photographer and shows activities at the May 20 26 family
- night out on Kirkwood which is funded through our downtown action plan implementation coordinator downtown
- action plan coordinator anyway.
- Key programs in 2027 for economic development look nearly identical to 2026. We are continuing to support
- the trades district with staff time for our placemaking grants as well as dedicated funding
- for entrepreneurship development at the mill. This photo shows the trade 2025 trades district block
- party. Sorry. Yeah 2025. And it's an example of amplify bringing not just current entrepreneurs but
- future entrepreneurs and community members into the district the quadrangles
- Bloomington's hometown competitive high school robotics team are amazing. And these robots were programmed
- to pick up balls and shoot baskets during the night. Our main challenge is reflected in our budget requests.
- There are simply more projects than there is available funding. We are doing our best to become leaner
- and more surgical in all of our efforts. I'm incredibly proud of our department and the work that we've
- been doing the last two and a half years on process efficiency, quality of work product, and building
- a true team environment
- Other ongoing challenges are predictable at a staff of now nine. We are a small team and turnover that
- we've experienced in the past year has created drag. But I'm grateful that we are mostly staffed up
- and operating at full charge.
- Of course, we couldn't do that without our many incredible partners across the community. Our
- 36 commissioners supporting the four boards and commissions that are supported by ESD, Amplify,
- The Chamber, Downtown Bloomington, BEDC, Visit Bloomington, Project 46, Indiana Energy Independence
- Fund, and all the many incredible arts organizations. So I'll just share my deep gratitude for all the
- contributors who help support our work and make Bloomington a great place.
- And with that, I'll be happy to take questions. Thank you, Director Cooper-Smith. Are there questions
- from council members? Council member Zulek. Director Cooper-Smith, thank you so much for being here
- and for such a thorough presentation. Could you speak a little bit to how much of the arts budget is
- going to be put towards the matching REDI 2.0 grant for Amplify Bloomington?
- Okay. Off the cuff. I don't recall what we put in that application, but in the 2027 budget, the project
- funding that will go to that is $20,000. Great. Thank you. Um, could you also talk to me a little bit
- about the grants line for $180,050, um, under arts and how much of that is going to be allocated to
- the BAC for their three annual cycles?
- I apologize without having my budget directly in front of me but the 180 includes the BAC at 1 0 2 5
- and it includes additional there's a 41,000 that is sort of discretionary grant funding and then there's
- other sorry there's other supports in there I just can't recall off the cuff but I can put it in the
- spreadsheet with a written question and then
- I thought that there was an annual 2% increase to the grants line. So it is not an increase. So could
- you just elaborate on that, please? Yes. In the past, we did include an annual 2% escalator on all of
- our arts grant making. And I don't think it was universal across all the arts programming. But just
- given the funding environment, I didn't believe that that was
- Position that we're in this year. It's just a completely different climate Understood. Thank you. I'll
- follow up with some written questions. Thank you for being here Thank You director Cooper Smith for
- your presentation and I want to commend you for in you and your team for important invaluable work,
- but one thing that struck me I was contacted by a Constituent
- um, recently and she, she, um, isn't concerned about food security for the community. And, um, and it,
- it urged me to, um, take a look at our comprehensive plan where it mentions local food security, uh,
- numerous times. Uh, in, in fact, it mentions urban agriculture and, and, and local food
- almost 60 times and in comparison Parks has mentioned 90 times so it's important part of the plan and
- we used to have a Food policy coordinator Which then became I think a general coordinator of some kind.
- Could you talk about do you? has your team been working on local food and to what extent and if not,
- what could we do to Make it happen
- As per the comprehensive plan. Great. Thanks for the question. First of all the local food programs
- coordinator I think that position ended in 2022 and that was a grant funded position that was specifically
- tasked with encouraging institutional purchases of food. So it was a great problem to tackle. It was
- tackled by way of the creation of the farm stop. So once that program was concluded that
- that position or that grant funding was concluded that position was not renewed. So it's unfortunate
- because it was great to have a food systems person on the on the team. But we do support local growers
- through some grant funding that is awarded to the hub that allows them to purchase produce from local
- growers. But then I think otherwise we should just probably have a discussion about
- what food supply chain support could look like. And then also just understanding again that we are in
- a position this year where we're making choices. So if we wanted to advance something surrounding local
- food supply chain it would come at the cost of something else that we're doing in the 30 seconds I have
- left. Your team seems very busy doing really valuable work. So I don't want it to be an opportunity cost.
- for you to apply to do you know but maybe we need to either find grant funding or maybe an FTE or half
- an FTE or something in order to jumpstart that to get into compliance with the comprehensive plan. Yeah.
- So something to talk about. Yeah. I appreciate that. OK. Thank you. Additional questions from council
- members council member Stossberg.
- I have some questions to ask about the transportation demand manager So and I know I asked some questions
- about this last year and and to my understanding that position Was responsible for the go Bloomington
- software which was cancelled in 2025 and last year I remember bringing up the question of like like
- the position was still there but it seemed like you cut a whole bunch of
- their budget which I think if I'm reading it right you know in the sustainability and transportation
- there at the end where we're the organizational support is going to be T and then there's like fifteen
- hundred more dollars and I think that that if I remember right Okay, I'm just looking at at the actual
- budget printout in the sustainability the transportation sustainability part and so it has the line that's
- organizational support that goes to BT and then there's seven hundred and fifty dollars for instruction
- and seven hundred and fifty dollars for travel and if I remember from last year that is essentially
- transportation demand manager position and I guess the the question is because that position is currently
- vacant and I don't think that I have seen it advertised so I guess part of it is has that position been
- advertised are you going to fill it and then what are you expecting that position to actually
- like do in terms of accomplish because they have no budget. So maybe I'll share some context and then
- I'll try to tackle the question. So context would just be that the so the TDM plan. OK. I'll do the
- old part really fast. The TDM plan was created or adopted in 2018. So it predates the climate action
- plan and the climate action plan adopts certain parts of the TDM plan. But the TDM plans primary task was
- freeing up parking capacity in downtown Bloomington. It didn't have a sustainability position. So that's
- kind of interesting when we think about the dynamic and what is it that our actual goals. And so then
- the goals of that TDM position were really fostering turnover of cars in downtown Bloomington in order
- to drive economic opportunity for our downtown businesses. So since that time,
- The TDM plan called for the creation of basically an entire TDM department. So it was a manager and
- then to like project coordinators or program managers. I don't know exactly what our TDM person was
- hired and looked at this and said you know I think I can get a lot more done by using outside consultants
- and developing the software using this platform. So the city adopted the platform and it was live for
- two, three years, three years. And it looked great. And it had great response at our on-campus events.
- But what lacked was data showing conversion of those single-occupancy vehicle trips. So ultimately,
- last year, when we realized the reality of SEA 1 and we started thinking about what is our responsibility
- with our stewardship of taxpayer dollars, we didn't feel confidently that we could justify
- Expending that large sum of money on a program that we we just couldn't share what what it was doing
- so We didn't request new funding in 2027. We did retain some marketing funding that was already under
- contract and so that's being Leveraged right now for creating some content related to education which
- is one of the recommendations of the TDM plan to do education about TDM
- So that's going forward. And then in the interim I think it's a great time for us to be evaluating on
- our side what to do with the position. We're halfway through the climate action plan. As I said the
- climate action plan scoops some of the goals of the TDM plan and we are going to be engaging in an update
- or maybe even a distillation of our climate action plan goals which will have council involvement via
- the staff.
- climate action team. So I think this is just to say we're we're not posting it right now. We are taking
- a hard look at that role and what it's meant to achieve. And we're having a lot of conversations behind
- the scenes and with other departments and the Transportation Commission frankly about what needs to
- be happening for TDM. And is it a priority right now to fill that position. OK. Thank you.
- Sorry that was more than you probably ever wanted to know probably wasn't as much as I wanted to know
- so but I don't have any time so sorry Are there other questions I no longer see councilmember Asare
- is did he drop off the zoom Okay Any other questions here in the room Okay, I have a question I
- The explanation in your memo in the budget packet for the $97,000 increase in category three includes
- downtown activation support. Is this activation of the Kirkwood corridor for possible seasonal closure
- to cars? If not, what is your strategy concerning Kirkwood closure or not for next year? Can you tell
- me what page of the memo you're on?
- Let me see if I can tell you that what page in your memo is one fifty seven page one fifty seven of
- the budget book. Sorry I'm just looking for that in my
- memo where you have the budget overview by category and you show this rounded up it's ninety seven thousand
- dollar increase in category three and you say this will support the portal led seminary square. I have
- a separate question about that which was previously funded by parks and an increase in funding for downtown
- activation support. So that's interesting. My section of that says slightly increased funding will support
- the portal at seminary square which was previously funded by parks.
- Yeah and it does say increase in funding for downtown activation support. So basically we we are flat
- and our increase is really reflected in our category one wages. We don't expect that we'll actually
- see growth in that. So that is a holdover from different versions of the budget that were evaluated
- and I apologize for that error being in the
- So you do not have any increase in category three. No my final budget reflects the exact same amount
- in category three. OK. So what are your plans for possible Kirkwood activation. I'm sorry I'm just verifying.
- So 20 sorry there is a 2 percent increase. I apologize. I can answer this in writing.
- I can't answer it right now. I'm sorry. Okay. Well regardless of the ninety seven thousand can you just
- speak to your department's strategy before we finish the downtown corridor study so that they might
- possibly have a Kirkwood closure next year. Our department's funding strategy is requesting the same
- contribution as previous. So I think we had twenty thousand dollars
- in last year's budget for the downtown activation coordinator and that's what we requested this year.
- And I think you're asking a little bit whether there will be a closure and we're not there yet but we
- will be coming to you soon. Staff will to talk about this. OK. Thank you. Any final questions. We can
- go to the public. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on economic sustainable
- development department budget.
- Don't see anybody here in chambers. Okay. Person online. You should be able to unmute and you'll state
- your name please. And you'll have up to three minutes. Good evening council members. My name is Jamie
- Scholl. I'm a certified health and wellbeing coach and a former member of the Bloomington commission
- on sustainability and resilience. I'm here to ask you to fund a food systems manager for the city of
- Bloomington.
- This isn't a new idea. In 2019, the city's own sustainability action plan created the same exact position
- funded by the USDA grant to build our local food economy. That grant ended with the intent at the time
- to bring the position permanently on staff, even as the risks of our food supply have only grown since
- that time. Right now, the US cattle herd is at its lowest.
- since 1951, and Tyson is closing three plants. Bird flu is active in poultry and dairy herds across
- dozens of states. Farm labor shortages are threatening produce, harvest, and U.S. farm debt is projected
- to hit a record $624 billion this year, with bankruptcies up 46%. Data centers are now buying up farmland
- at prices no farmer can compete with, straining local water supplies, and their noise has even been
- linked to fertility
- problems in livestock. Add to that, fertilizer costs are up 45% from the Iran war and SNAP funding expires
- September 30th. That's next month. Bloomington's own food resilience strategy has mentioned this position.
- This isn't an abstract ask in a disruption. A food system manager builds direct farmer to consumer links
- when supply chains break down, coordinates emergency food logistics, so surplus
- produce reaches food banks instead of rotting, and fast tracks zoning for community gardens. Day-to-day,
- they write the ordinances that protect farmland and run our food system. We are not alone in recognizing
- this need. Austin, Seattle, Salt Lake City, and Cleveland all employ food system coordinators. So do
- a dozen more counties and states as well. Montgomery County, Maryland is one such. They actually have
- an Office of Food Systems Resilience.
- All right. Thank you. Thank you Are there any other comments online? No, okay. All right. We'll come
- back to council members Would anyone like to comment on the budget proposal from ESD? Councilmember
- all Just to say again, I really appreciate the work of your department and all that it does which is
- considerable I
- I'm glad that Jamie Scholl could speak to this point tonight. She brought it to my attention and the
- fact that it is and it's throughout the comprehensive plan and it it seems that most of the responsibility
- for good or bad falls on EST. It does tend to occupy other departments to some extent parks and rec
- in terms of community orchards and so forth. But
- I've been a member of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability and Resilience for quite a while.
- Last year they adopted a food strategy and it was in anticipation of potentially stressful times, which
- we seem to be seeing, especially for low income people. So I think it's a good idea to focus on this
- and try to see what we can do to meet the, you know,
- Meet the comprehensive plan goals And some things are low-hanging fruit so to speak other ones are going
- to be more challenging, but I look forward to speaking with you about this and Hopefully we can we can
- move ahead and the next year. Thanks Any other council members All right, I'll make a comment I
- And this is not a comment about any staff at ESD or the director or anything like that but just listening
- to the presentation and Miss Cooper Smith even mentioned director Cooper Smith even mentioned you know
- we're kind of going on a merry-go-round we're looking at this never look at this again. You know the
- department just to me it seems to lack cohesion in its mission. I mean the arts yes their economic
- development but they're also about building community.
- and embracing the different cultures that we have here. Climate action is not just about how we develop
- our economy locally. It's also about resource use, greenhouse gas reduction as we have the reports coming
- to us, local resilience in the era of climate change, like has been mentioned with the food security.
- And then the economic development in the more traditional sense is even more,
- more than just jobs and wages. We didn't even talk about wage growth. It's also about housing, which
- is taking up a big chunk of time of ESD. So it just seems like we need some kind of a visioning retreat
- or something to kind of try to either add cohesion to the mission of this department or somehow rearrange
- some of the programs and duties to match them up
- with programs that are more relevant because it really seems like three separate departments to me.
- So anyway I say that is as food for thought as we move along. And thank you very much. We now go to.
- Council member Stossberg. Council member Piedmont Smith's final comment also made me want to take a
- final comment about the TD manager thing because you know speaking of things being
- kind of all over the place. And I think I asked this last year or the year before, like, why is this
- position even in ESD? I don't think that it really belongs in ESD. And I think that there's some additional
- history there around the 4th Street Garage and some kind of wheeling and dealing to say, hey, we'll
- put this TDM position in, and so then we'll
- Keep this 4th Street garage and I'm gonna have to go back and refresh my own history on that But I think
- that it is an awkward place to have TDM. I think that it should be over and planning I think that those
- ultimate goals are good. And yes, it is related to climate action perhaps but it's also I think more
- related to how we set up our city in terms of
- you know what we build and how we build it and where we put things and and how we How we think about
- transportation in the city because that is literally what they're doing is transportation management
- So I hope that that is part of the conversation. They all are having behind the scenes of what exactly
- Should this person be doing? What exactly do we want them to be doing? because I I think
- Have been wondering what kind of impact that position has been having for the last
- Three to five years. I'll say not feeling like I was particularly seeing much impact from that position
- at all And so if we're gonna be funding something I want to you know be seeing some sort of impact and
- having some sort of purpose I do think that it's valuable but I also wonder if some of the other things
- that the planning department has been doing in terms of design of our city in conjunction with engineering
- has perhaps done more than that TDM manager position has done to
- change people's transportation habits. So thank you very much. And that's also not like a reflection
- on this administration. That was a you know a choice that was made well before this administration and
- this and this group of folks. So I just am glad that you're thinking about it. Thanks. Yes. Councilmember
- Flaherty thank you briefly. Well yeah I also directly engaged in that a lot.
- so it can be quite specific the Concept of transportation demand management was raised in the context
- of the 4th Street garage being torn down in a much bigger one being built but the idea was always turned
- on its head it was basically given as a concession for a controversial decision to Overbuild a new parking
- and to tear down a structure that could have had decades more life through repair the idea was it was
- at capacity ostensibly
- And if we had invested in transportation management, we could have maintained that asset instead of
- spending $30 million on a new one. But again, we got it in the wrong order. We tore the thing down,
- overbuilt the new parking garage, and then hired a TDM manager, which was always going to fail if it
- had no impact or no control over pricing, and if we just oversupplied parking in the downtown, which
- is what we did. And that's still borne out in the data today. That is a massively underutilized resource,
- as is the trades garage, which was built at the same time.
- So it was kind of doomed to struggle, I think, in its role. The other aspects of transportation mode
- shift that we have for climate reasons, for safety reasons, and more, and for equity reasons, are largely
- housed in planning and transportation and engineering. And we actually do often hear from engineering
- staff and sometimes planning staff that they are at capacity from a staff perspective with respect to
- how quickly they can advance projects.
- On on the safety and sustainability front and so just going to echo that I this is maybe a the right
- time and the right moment to take a very hard look at at The line I didn't put that that staff position
- and where it could be most effective in advancing our transportation goals were at large and kind of
- repurposing for that, so Those are my two cents. Thanks All right councilmember Rallo you already spoke with
- Did you have time remaining. Okay. Go for it. I'll make this brief just to say I just for the record
- I was part of the decision for the building of the forestry garage and I just wanted to say it costs
- over a million dollars a year to patch the thing and there was no guarantee it might not just start
- dropping pieces of concrete on the cars. And so it was my decision at the time to bring it back to rebuild one.
- Mostly because a lot of merchants downtown said if we don't have parking then we're going to leave.
- And it seemed pretty obvious that we needed that investment. Anyway another view. I don't I don't dispute
- it was controversial. Thank you. All right. Are we done with council comments for this. All right. Thank
- you very much.
- We will move on to the Adam Wayson show. Welcome. We start with. So we have lots of public works divisions
- tonight. The administration portion of public works is first. Take it away. All righty.
- All right. Good evening Adam Wason public works director for the city of Bloomington. Always an honor
- to be here presenting our annual budgets as the famous saying goes there ain't no party like a public
- works party and we're going to start that one right now. There we go. Thank you. All right. And this
- is where the party starts. It's with the admin team. So
- The administrative division of the public works department is a small but a small team that did grow
- over the last year We added Joe van Deventer to the division as our deputy director and then through
- some Approvals that the council hopefully will make as part of this budget cycle We will also be moving
- some staff from the facilities division that focus on the downtown into the administrative division I
- our Overall budget request this year again nine full-time staff members with the moving the two positions
- There is a slight reduction in our budget overall, but I'll get to that later Some of the big things
- we're focusing on in the next slides Will be all of our efforts that we began to talk about with the
- Street Division budget last week in terms of investing in our transportation network
- For all users I'm going to spend a good amount of time talking tonight about the need for an operation
- center for public works And then what we're working on with strategic planning and workforce development
- again 3.6 million dollar budget request is just about $100,000 less than last year and we'll talk about
- where some of those savings are coming from and then where we've got some additional costs this year as well
- Some things in twenty twenty six that we've been really proud of and working on one term you'll hear
- me talk about tonight is public works plus this means I kind of refer to public works plus as all of
- the extra things we're doing in and throughout the downtown.
- Such as you know, no one expected to clean up after a national championship game and three bowl winning
- games of our football team But all the other things were doing supporting special events festivals the
- downtown outdoor dining program, etc Also talk a little bit of our climate action plan program results
- with trying to move some of our vehicles to electric and
- As well as our efforts with the high priority pedestrian network and the snow removal that we've talked
- about in the past and the infrastructure condition assessment reports that we've been doing all part
- all administered mainly through the administrative division with support from other public works divisions.
- Last week I when I when I began my presentations last week I said it was kind of awkward not to start
- with the admin division because admin is where we do a lot of our centralized work for the whole department
- and be remiss just not to Talk about the accreditation process again
- That was something that we'd been working on for several years. You'd heard that in several of my budget
- presentations about the resources needed to get to the point where we actually did our full accreditation.
- And that'll happen again. We'll do a two year update in twenty twenty eight and then we'll do a full
- reaccreditation in twenty thirty for twenty twenty seven.
- One of the big things that I've been championing since my first year as public works director was the
- need to look at the facilities in which public works operates out of. I think several of you have gone
- on tours of public works facilities with me at some point in time or another. And the key point here
- is we need a modern facility for in particular our street and fleet divisions. Those are old buildings
- that were hand me downs from other city departments.
- And they just don't meet a modern work environment that that provides the resource the the types of
- resources necessary in a building to serve not only the staff that are in there but what we do out in
- the community as well for Street in particular. We'll go to a couple.
- Snapshot pictures, but on the right here. That's the break room for the street division So in the middle
- of a snowstorm at midnight when you need to catch a little break and eat some food You're in a small
- break room. The roofs probably leaking And I won't even really get started about the locker room facilities,
- but I compare them I think about the worst YMCA bathroom or locker room you might have been in and Street
- department is going to compete with that
- On the left the break room for the fleet maintenance garage if you've ever been in our fleet maintenance
- garage There's a little metal set of stairs that go up to the second level and this is I'm not a tall
- person I I almost hit my head when I'm in their break room. It just doesn't meet the standards at which
- we want to have our employees occupy buildings and so
- The big thing that we're focused on and have been for the last couple years is the conceptual design.
- What would a facility look like. What does it need to have. So we've done that with your prior budget
- approvals for those services and we continue working on that today. One big point to make here. You
- know I would love to say.
- That we haven't been slightly jealous when we go visit other peer communities and see the facilities
- they've operated out of I'd love to take some of you up to fishers. Oh boy. Do they have it nice up
- there? But you know our goal here is really to provide a facility that meets the needs of the department
- street and fleet in particular
- And we'll serve the department into the future. So lots of discussion forthcoming on that lots of work
- with the council and Others that would need to take place as we would look at an operation center. I
- mentioned we've done some preliminary design You know looking at something that would be a 50-year building
- We've been really trying to find some out outside funding sources public work centers aren't a real
- They're not something that we found outside funding for but on top of all the other regulations and
- limitations of SEA one this is going to be a continue to be a priority of mine and the department's
- and look forward to working with the council on that.
- We talked about street maintenance and sidewalk repairs a lot in the street division budget I won't
- go over a ton of that but really trying to continue to work with the transportation plan and Transportation
- Commission and others on how we're making those investments Again, we've done both in-house. So this
- is our in-house crew doing sidewalk work But a lot of the work we do here is also contracted work as
- well Strategic planning efforts one of the things with accreditation that we've really needed that we
- recognize we need to focus on is
- is how we plan for the future. So succession planning, making sure we're doing the right levels
- of professional development with our current workforce so that they can move up into higher level positions
- throughout their career, things like that. I'd be remiss not to note that there's a person in a red
- shirt in this picture that may be retiring on October 6th of this year. And I do want to say thanks
- to Christina Smith for her 35 plus years of service and wishing her many, many years of happiness and
- retirement.
- But that's the critical need we have so Chris has 35 years of institutional knowledge. How do we continue
- to develop our staff to not only do a bit of a knowledge download but also continue moving the department
- forward and that's something we've been focused on with with all of our staff and that APWA
- Portion downtown maintenance and stewardship. So when we talked with the salary ordinance a couple weeks
- ago and doing some modifications there This is really about how public works has made a big focus and
- priority in the downtown we've always had a major role in making sure the downtown is successful but
- Really, with Cassie Warney's position as special projects and operations manager, moving the downtown
- specialists into the public works admin team, and then also the work in coordinating the Brighton Bloomington
- partnership with Centerstone. So with our budget request from last year and in our 2027 budget request,
- this will allow for seven days of coverage throughout the downtown in the work that Brighton Bloomington
- does. If you're questioning what does Brighton Bloomington do, they are part of our team that helps
- maintain and clean the downtown
- So I had a really busy weekend again celebrating pride Down on Kirkwood Saturday Sunday morning those
- crews ran bright and early making sure Kirkwood was getting back to Being that iconic Street that we
- all love to visit
- I will also note the 20 downtown special events and The big community gatherings. We just had taste
- of Bloomington at the beginning of August huge another great successful taste of Bloomington But we're
- doing more and more on a regular basis with special event management and coordination And we're getting
- a lot more applications of folks wanting to use the downtown through right away and special event permitting
- So a lot of work being done there
- Again some of the big things we're looking at operation center is going to be my biggest focus for the
- next several years Continuing to work on investing in our important infrastructure Continuing that kind
- of public works plus model of working on the downtown and just this new kind of landscape with budgets
- and such always trying to be as efficient and Sustainable with what we do as possible and at that time
- I will take your questions. I
- Who has questions councilmember all of Could you venture a guess on a price tag for a new facility?
- I'm sorry. Can you repeat that? I didn't hear at all. How much will it cost? A million plus dollar that's
- a 20 some million dollar plus question. We you know, it all depends. So we have different the environment with what
- Was put into place with legislation at the Statehouse and the spending thresholds and things are going
- to impact the different opportunities we may have there for If we were to build the best facility that
- would you know be a 50 year and meet all of our needs on day one We're looking at a 30 or 40 million
- dollar project That's not what we're going to be able to do in this environment What we really need
- to do is focus on street and fleet and that's probably in a 15 to 20 million dollar range is my guess
- That includes site, you know, so There's all kinds of things that go into numbers like that whether
- it's this the site improvements any roads any Fueling stations, you know, there's a lot to be discussed
- here and a lot that we would look for the input of the council on Minimum needs and so thank you for
- addressing Thank you director Wason I
- that the street and fleet new facility would be consolidated into one. Do you anticipate any savings
- in not having to maintain two different facilities?
- In my mileage alone or yes you know so one of the big goals with an operation center is that we would
- look at efficiencies across the different in a perfect world we'd be co locating our admin staff our
- street staff our facility staff look for a small boardroom for Board of Public Works meetings. I don't
- think that's the project we're going to be able to do in this current climate.
- But we could certainly find efficiencies if we had two customer service people in two different divisions
- that were answering phones things like that We would look to just at the overall operations with a better
- facility and how we could maximize it. Thank you I was just wondering in your line item budget under
- other services and charges in the other services and charges You have a one million dollar increase
- and I am just wondering what that's for. I kind of hate
- anything that says other by the way, and that's Especially when it's like 1.2 million dollars This is
- the municipal election cost the 650 plus. Sorry Yeah, so we've got 650,000 earmarked in this year's
- budget for the municipal election cost both for the primary and the General election in November those
- come out of the public works budget
- And what about the other 450 when I just did a quick look it was 350. It's not quite a million. It's
- one point eight or two point four. So wait you said category three correct. Yeah I mean it's it's under
- supplies other services and charges all the way down to fifty three nine nine zero other services and
- charges that went from two hundred and eighteen thousand to one point two million.
- All right. I will get a full breakdown on everything in that line item and what it includes beyond the
- municipal or the municipal election cycles. We'll get a full breakdown.
- Okay I'll follow that up in writing then. And then the second question that I had about line item budgets
- was in the in the lit budget you have one hundred and thirty five thousand for other capital outlays.
- And so that was in the twenty twenty six budget and the twenty twenty seven budget. And so first of
- all that doesn't seem like very much for anything related to capital expenses. And secondly as of the
- quarter two reports for twenty twenty six none of those funds have been spend it spent. And so I'm just wondering
- Whether they're going to be spent this year, like what are the plans for those? Yeah, so We we are currently
- processing purchases that will be using those lines for the 2026 budget And this could range from anything
- from replacing a pool vehicle for all of the city's use What else were we using on that one this year?
- Oh Yeah, so also investing in some different types of equipment for our downtown team whether
- Power washers cleaning equipment possible UTV type vehicle so But happy to provide some more information
- on that as well Okay, so it's so it so it will be used yet this year and it's generally for small equipment
- for downtown that generally what I'll also tell you about big capital or capital purchases and such
- sometimes we're monitoring throughout the year on all of our expenditures and it's whether or not we
- can fit it in but yes this year we're looking for we're
- I think we're moving those POs through the system right now. Okay, thank you About the operation center
- at one point the mayor came to the utility service board It's probably a year ago and mentioned in the
- content. Maybe it's even longer ago in the context of Cable routine utilities potentially getting a
- new home that their facility was one of the avenues for exploration Is that still on the table at all?
- Can you tell us about that?
- Everything is still on the table right now as far as location. You know there's if I could say what
- I have as a general preference right now it would be co-locating with CBU down at Winston Thomas into
- the future. But there's so many moving parts there and figuring all that out. You know it's possible
- that if utilities were to move we could take advantage of the increased space at Miller Drive. Those
- are all parts of the decision that we need to figure out over the coming months and year. OK.
- Additional questions from council members. I have one. As you know I'm a fan of the Brighton V town
- program is that through category three other services and charges or where do we see that in the budget
- sheets. It's in. Oh that's probably also part. There we go. All right. That's also part of the answer to.
- Sorry that's probably also part of the question answer to councilmember Stossberg's question We are
- moving those from the facilities budget into the public works admin budget. So I'm guessing that contract
- is the remaining amount that I Couldn't identify earlier. So yes, that's in the category three How much
- is that 385 350 350 and is that amount staying the same? Actually, it's a slight reduction. We've taken on we've
- Modified that contract a little bit to do some more of the administrative work on our end instead of
- their end And so it's down a little bit But we are hoping to get the same number of hours from the staff
- that participate in that Okay, so you you expect the program numbers to be the same as far as individuals
- number served and things like that hours work. Yes Sounds good
- Um, if there are no other council members who want to ask, we can go to the public. Is there any member
- of the public who would like to ask questions about the public works administration budget? Not questions,
- comments. I see one person coming to the microphone. Do we have anybody online raising a hand? Nope.
- Okay. Hey, good evening again, council. Krista imagery from the greater.
- Livingston Chamber of Commerce. I want to give Adam Wason and the fine folks at Public Works team a
- well-earned credit I think they do a great job. I know they recently earned some national accreditation
- from the American Public Works Associated Association only the second agency in Indiana, which I think
- is pretty impressive and I think from the chamber perspective Adam this team are been extremely responsible
- from business issues we we brought to them the community survey and
- Provides some additional validation of that as well when the department is performing well in response
- of To people it serves we think it's worth recognizing for sure And I think I want to highlight one
- other thing on the budget public works administration is down a hundred and two thousand dollars or
- three percent while street maintenance goes up a hundred and thirty eight thousand and sidewalks another
- fifty three thousand dollars and
- That's good prioritization in a difficult budget year administrative spending down while investment
- is up is Worth noting and I think this with the national accreditation Responsiveness to business and
- increased investment in core infrastructure while reducing administration budget. That's a good story
- and one worth recognizing here tonight Thank you Thank you, yes, if you have comments, please step up
- you'll have up to three minutes awesome Matthew Joseph
- I'm actually a therapist at Centerstone, and I think the Brighton Bloomington program is incredible.
- I've heard amazing stories from clients that are a part of it. Well, I guess one thing in particular,
- I've also heard that there's a very long wait list of people that are wanting to get into the program.
- So I guess, obviously, if the need is there on the public work side, it would be nice to see an increase
- of funding for more clients to be able to access that
- as a form of either transitional employment or something even longer term. That's just something I would
- love to see as a representative for some of the clients that I have in the organization. Thank you.
- Thank you. Is there anybody who has raised a hand online. No. All right. We'll come back to council
- members. Any council members want to comment on the public works admin budget.
- I actually want to use this time for another question because the comment from mr. MG got me thinking
- that one of the Changes to this budget is removing the liability premiums from the administration and
- putting that into the actual departments
- That are using that insurance. Is that correct? Yeah, we're budgeting that differently across the city.
- Now you're seeing the liability premiums For each department reflected in their departmental budgets
- instead of just the public works admin budget So as much as I'd love to take credit for Chris's full
- comment There is it is it is due to some of those liability insurance premiums going not being reflected
- in our budget for other city departments
- Okay, I just wanted to make sure that I understood that correctly not we are being not to take anything
- away Yeah, not to take anything away from that But I think generally when I've when I've looked at some
- of our administrative overhead It doesn't necessarily seem like we have a lot of administrative overhead
- anyway so Yeah, I think that That is the only like comment piece that I want to have so thank you and
- Oh actually no I am going to say one more thing. I do think that it's really important to get a more
- appropriate public works building for our staff. And I think that that is something that should be generally
- prioritized across the city. I think that I have heard about that all of the budget years I have been
- here and I've heard about it as a thing that keeps on getting pushed off.
- and it would be great to not push it off anymore, even though we are and in this like tight budget kind
- of space and One of the things I think that we've tried to do as a city and that and that I will continue
- to support doing is prioritizing the people that make the city work and some part of that is prioritizing
- the space that they have to work in and the space that they get breaks in and How they collaborate so
- thanks Any other council comments
- Councilmember Rosenberger. Thank you. Hi, this is a quick question. Don't you think I think in the beginning
- you said who could predict but don't you think we kind of could have predicted a national championship
- win? Councilmember all I had a quick question. Well, first of all Director ways and I I really appreciate
- all the work that you do and it's
- Amazing. I don't know how you sleep at night. Frankly, there's so many moving parts to think about but
- like Bloomington Transit do we Anticipating potential diesel shock that might happen in the future Are
- we well prepared for in terms of storage or locked in fuel prices that sort of thing right now? We are
- The market is as volatile for us as most users You know, we do have our storage
- our tank you know our storage tanks and everything and we top those regularly but whether it's the cost
- or the available we haven't had any availability issues but obviously have seen the increased costs
- we appreciate Corey and Lisa and the whole team at Fleet they're monitoring at all times they try to
- Purchase when it makes the most sense hold off when we need to to see if prices go down a little bit.
- But we're tracking every month right now and projecting out through the rest of the year trying to understand
- where we stand with fuel costs. But part of what keeps me up at night. OK. Well I'm glad you're on top
- of that. Thank you. Council member Zoellick.
- Yes, I just want to thank Chris Smith for all of the hard work that she's done over the past 35 years.
- I haven't gotten to work with her a lot, but we did walk Indiana Ave and get some new streetlights in
- through 10th to 14th Street, which was a pretty big deal. So thank you, Chris. You will be cherished.
- And thank you to all of the staff who made the accreditation possible. I think that's a great achievement
- and it speaks to the quality of our public works department despite the lagging improvements to their
- facilities which I agree with council member Stossberg do need to be improved and needed to be improved
- probably 10 years ago. So if there's anything we can do to support outside funding or anything please
- let us know.
- I will certainly hold you to that. All right. Well thank you very much. We can go on to animal care
- and control all right animal care and control 20 27 budget request on behalf of Virgil Souter and Robin
- Feffinger want to just
- First thank all the staff the leadership team down there for all that they do day in and day out I will
- not lie I'm going to make this presentation as much of a sales pitch as I am a full budget presentation
- The animal shelter needs our help We are at capacity in every
- Way, shape, and form right now, we have animals living in offices, our kennels are full, our staff is
- tired, our staff is stressed, and anything that we can do to encourage adoptions, encourage more folks
- to foster animals while they're waiting for adoption, anything we can do to keep an animal in a home,
- we are trying to do all of that, and the team down there does a tremendous job in everything they do.
- Onto the actual budget, we have 20 full-time staff members
- that do this work day in and day out 24 7 365 the animals need to be fed on every city holiday federal
- holiday. We respond 24 7 for animal emergencies throughout the community. And so just big shout out
- to all the work that they do. We have a small increase in our personnel cost for 20 27 and then we're
- continuing with some capital investments down at the facility as well.
- You'll see that small percentage increase reflected in about $130,000 with a total budget request of
- 2.673 million. Some highlights. So we've cared for 1,736 animals so far through June of this year.
- That is 1,736 unique individual animals. We have responded to 964 calls for animal control assistance
- through the first half of the year.
- And we have nearly 5,000 volunteer hours. When you see things like 964 calls for animal control assistance,
- that is everything from an animal welfare check from a concerned neighbor to responding to the dog park
- after a big dog fight to responding in every hour of the evening to a bat in a home in Bloomington.
- These folks do tremendous work. And I do want to call out we have an animal control position open right
- Right now it is we had one of our long time staff members find a new opportunity want to wish Mike the
- best. But if you're looking for that new career and you want to help with an animal control and welfare
- we've got a spot for you. So the most important number that we see every year is in bold here. That's
- our live release rate. That's 93 percent which is just a tremendous number to achieve in these trying
- times of animal welfare 90 93 percent live release.
- Means any animal that came into our care that left through either an adoption a rescue or a return to
- their owner Another thing we are really proud about Nationally for the return to owner rates. It's usually
- about roughly 20% for dogs and about 3% for cats and so we're more than double on both of those which
- again is a lot of credit to the staff that work on all that to make sure we reunite animals with their
- proper owners and
- We're going to again for next year we're always going to try to be at that 93 percent or higher. And
- if you find me a shelter anywhere nearby that's at that high of a rate we would truly do tremendous
- work to make that happen. You know we're always responding to the animal welfare calls that come in
- for injured sick or aggressive animals.
- And those calls come in quite regularly and frequently. We're always trying to increase our volunteer
- hours. We're coming more on the upturn since the COVID years. And we do have a really great relationship
- with all of our social service providers out in the community for those individuals that are experiencing
- homelessness and have animals. And so we're in direct outreach on that on a regular basis.
- We're always going to try to do this with care in mind and with a human approach. And between Kat, Mike,
- and Nick, they do just a tremendous job of that.
- going to be working to manage the shelter in a healthy way for all animals. Some of you may have seen
- that we had to do some quarantine and closure of the shelter. Last week, we had one dog that had Parvo.
- Those are things you have to control very quickly. And again, a big shout out to the staff for getting
- that contained and making sure that didn't have a bigger spread.
- We are, the fostering program is definitely something that we've been growing and with Jenny and her
- work and the volunteers, the number of dogs that we can get into foster care instead of simply being
- at the shelter, that environment at the shelter is stressful for those animals. So if you can get them
- into a home while they're waiting in adoption and their cute pictures are still on the posters in the
- website, they're getting that care in a home and getting socialized to be a better,
- for a better opportunity for adoption. So really increasing that some challenges and opportunities.
- We continue to work with our friends in Monroe County government with our inner local agreement for
- sheltering services. We work hand in hand with them a lot on cases that may go you know in and out of
- city limits and just appreciate that partnership with all that we do with our our the animal control
- officers with the county.
- We you know the increased amount of animals in our care on a regular basis is having more maintenance
- impacts on the facility on the grounds you know receding making sure those grounds are kept useful and.
- trying to reduce the amount of wear or respond to the amount of wear is something the staff's doing
- on a regular basis. And then, you know, one big thing we talk a lot about is the partnerships that we
- have with our other animal welfare organizations. So I'd be remiss not to talk about our good relationship
- with the Monroe County Humane Association. We always had a great relationship with Pets Alive in the
- past, but all the work that all of the agencies do together is just helping animal welfare across the
- community.
- So with that I'd be happy to take any questions you have and we'll probably kick most of them back to
- Virgil as our subject matter expert All right. Thank you director Wason. Are there any questions on
- the animal care and control budget? Councilmember Stossberg I'll just quickly ask you just mentioned
- you'd always had a good relationship with pets alive in the past and I was wondering if that relationship
- was still ongoing or if there's something that's changed about it
- Yes, and I actually while Virgil is getting up I forgot to mention some of the other agencies that were
- in my notes Pers and paws feral cat friends wild care Bloomington paws a veterinary hospital and our
- BPD officers too. So But first So yeah first outer director of animal care control our Relationship
- with pets life is ongoing. They've had some changes And what they've been able to take from the shelter.
- So we've we've expanded elsewhere for a lot of our spade newer services as well
- So we've added some others as well continue that relationship Okay, thank you This is the perennial
- question director Saturday you probably anticipate that I always ask but and I realize you have a lot
- on your plate and your team does outstanding work I can't imagine
- how difficult it must be sometimes. But this perennial topic, of course, is deer. And because it's an
- animal, it happens to land in maybe in your domain. And I've gotten a lot of contact lately. In fact,
- just today I was talking to a constituent who not only has an alpha-gal infection, therefore can't eat
- meat because of a tick bite, but also his sister has Lyme disease that she
- apparently derived, he said, in his yard. So there's a very strong correlation between deer number and
- ticks. And I spoke to DNR recently. I spoke to Tim Carter at Ball State. And I think one question I
- have is there was a recent DNR count in Bloomington of deer, albeit very limited, in a green space area.
- And so I just wanted to ask about that. I've asked the DNR for a report. And then the second thing is
- Professor Carter at Ball State recommended that just at bare minimum we expand that analysis.
- In other words, do a larger scale count just to see in terms of its impact, understanding impact and
- context and that sort of thing. And Joe Caudel at DNR said the time is ripe
- to do that turns out the season potentially. So my question is, what do you think about doing a count
- just for a baseline to understand the extent of the deer population in Bloomington, perhaps where it
- is most prevalent? Yeah, so as far as doing a count, I think it's worthwhile as far as our
- Organization the our division having the time to organize that that's where it gets little tricky with
- all that we do We did partner with and and work with DNR this this spring to do kind of some of that
- general counts and I'm Getting some of the final stuff Still from them, but I believe the rough figure
- that they had was about 90 deer per square mile somewhere around there So that's kind of a beginning idea
- And if I get more I will definitely pass it on. I think this could happen without really much of a cost
- at all. In fact maybe just our corporation if we were to do this kind of scale scaling effort. So I'd
- like to talk to you more about that in your administration because I think it's an opportunity that
- is present for us. Thanks for questions. Council member Ruff.
- There's a local news and information publication they have online it's called the B square bulletin
- or something and they often Mention pets up for adoption and is that been a productive relationship?
- We appreciate everything mr. That that media outlet puts out there and supportive adoptions and appreciate
- it I think it's a competition between the officers at the fire department police department and The
- work of mr. Askins on who has had the most impact though You're welcome Other questions from council members
- All right seeing none we'll go to the public. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment
- on the animal care and control budget proposal. I do not see anybody in council chambers Mr. Allen.
- Nobody online. OK. We'll come back to council members for any final comments. Council member Rallo again
- say how much I appreciate this department and their good work.
- Unfortunately, you know it is an ever-present problem what I refer to It's got an impact on human health.
- It's got an impact on food gardens. It's you know, we have deer card deer collisions that occur and
- Now but it's not an easy it's there's no easy remedy for it and so I'm
- I think that this could be useful information if we were to pursue this relationship with the DNR to
- deploy their drones with thermal imaging to get an accurate count that would at least give us the context
- of what we have on the ground. In terms of addressing the problem, that's much more difficult. Apparently, I've
- I found there haven't been any major advances in sterilization or birth control and so forth. The most
- effective means of sterilization that is probably cost prohibitive in the current fiscal climate. So
- it's left to us I think to think about mitigation strategies and it was brought up by somebody else
- who has trouble growing a food garden that perhaps we need to revisit fence heights.
- in the community and and that has pluses and minuses. But it's something that maybe we should consider
- at least so that people can grow food. And then the question comes in terms of equity. You know if you're
- a low income person you can hardly afford to build a fence. And so maybe we ought to try to find funds
- for people who want to grow food in their backyards but are unable to because of the high deer abundance.
- Lots to talk about. Anyway I just wanted to put that in the context why I'm concerned. Certainly human
- health is one but there are others. Thank you. Any other council members want to make a comment. Council
- member Stossberg.
- Thank you. I just also I guess want to spend three minutes giving a plug to animal shelter our Bloomington
- animal shelter but also all of the animal shelters in our general area because it's not just the Bloomington
- shelter that is overcrowded and having some challenges you can say finding space for all of the pets
- that they need to find space for.
- They're all overcrowded in this whole area. And I am quite an animal lover. I've got four cats and one
- dog. Two of my cats came from the Bloomington shelter. One of the cats and the dog came from a different
- neighboring shelter. And one of our cats I kept out of the shelter by keeping a stray. And I have been
- very tempted by more pets because there have been
- It is a real challenge in this whole region because there are so many to that end. I actually signed
- up to be a pet foster last week, and I'm very much looking forward to having my first foster. The Parvo
- outbreak has kind of delayed that a little bit because before I can bring another dog home, we've got
- to make sure the dog is cat tested.
- And so there's been some, yeah, so I am looking forward to that. And all that to say that if I already
- have four cats and a dog, then you can also be a foster, even if you already have pets, because it is
- thoroughly possible. And they will work with everybody. And I chatted with somebody this week, and it
- was a very wonderful, positive encounter around trying to make sure that a temporary dog coming into our house
- not upset the apple cart of.
- the pets that we have currently. So that is on everybody's mind. And I wish that I could babble on here
- for another minute. But adopt. Don't shop. Spay and neuter your pets. Take good care of them. And similarly,
- there are other resources that the animal shelter has. They recently installed a chip scanner outside
- of their facility so that if you find a lost pet, you can go to the facility and scan it yourself, even
- if it's after hours.
- and there are instructions and all of the things, and that will help reunify pets sooner. Speaking of
- chips, if you have a pet that is not chipped, maybe you should chip it, because it's actually pretty
- inexpensive to chip your pet, and lots of places do it. And I don't think I can babble for another 30
- seconds, but thank you very much. Thank you. Any other comments? Just a reminder to everybody that
- Just because we have three minutes doesn't mean we have to take three minutes. But those were all good
- points. Not to not to take anything away from those wise councils. We now go on to what are we on. Facilities
- maintenance. Mr. Wason presentations flipped around. Sorry. All righty.
- Facilities maintenance division. So on behalf of JD borough our facilities director Nick Spagnola our
- asset and operations manager and Russell flake and Barry Wallach we Have a small but mighty crew that
- is responsible for maintaining 28 city buildings
- So small staff, but lots of responsibility across all the city There is a big reduction in their budget
- budget this year from transferring over funds to the admin division as well as a couple other reductions
- making up a budget total budget request of 1.5 million, which is 526,000 less than last year some of
- the big things that we've been working on
- We've JD and his team are partners to all city departments that are not parks and rec. So we work with
- the police department we work with the fire department on all of their facilities. JD's been spending
- a lot of time working with the fire department on their new training and logistics center.
- And that started last year and so in addition to working with all those other city departments on their
- facilities needs JD and his team are also helping manage our DC on properties like West showers the
- college square property on second or third in college and
- And such so a growing inventory of facilities. They're responsible for Most importantly possibly tonight
- the repairs to the City Hall Plaza Fountain are being Are underway we are waiting for a part that has
- been lost in transit to get the City Hall Plaza Fountain running again There is nothing more than I
- want to do than make happy those young children on Saturday mornings that want to play in the fountain
- This is a big deal guys. I don't know how you know how much you know but we get a lot of calls about
- that fountain so we're really working to get that old fountain repaired. We're also working with several
- city departments on all things West showers looking at that space in that.
- in that part of the building for future possibilities what needs to happen to it from a systems perspective
- what investments need to be made and how what could that possibly look like in the future. There are
- no set concrete plans. It's all just trying to understand needs and investments that need to happen
- there as well.
- Our number one goal is always to have safe functioning facilities for all of our staff to operate out
- of as we talked about with the operation center having a modern work environment for staff is a high
- priority for us across the board at all of our city departments.
- We are also, you know, working on all things to improve our buildings, whether it's structural and mechanical
- integrity, but also working on energy efficiency and sustainability projects. So all of the lighting
- upgrades that we partnered with ESD on in city hall last year to do the dimming lights and the new energy
- efficiency lighting. We're always making that a goal in anything we do with the facilities division.
- This year and in 2026 we've been you've seen a lot of changes to City Hall. The old wallpaper is down
- We've got new fresh paint. We've been doing carpet replacements furniture replacements you know, you
- got to freshen up every 20 years or so and big kudos to JD and his team for managing those contracts
- to really improve the appearance here of City Hall and to
- For for you know the next 20 40 50 years of use of this as a city building one of the big things that
- JD and his team do help with to though is We they help manage some of our contracts for snow removal
- primarily around city facilities or city-owned properties and that is something that You know last year
- showed to be much needed and we're going to continue with that again this year we had 60 we
- Roughly sixty nine thousand dollars spent last year on snow control out of this budget alone. And so
- that will also continue into twenty twenty seven with the facilities teams effort on that as well.
- So you know what is our big focus for next year. You know we're really in the mode of maintenance trying
- to focus on maintaining what we have making improvement at the improvements at the locations
- we're responsible for and not having major capital investments at this time. Additionally you know some
- of the things that we're really working to.
- Is to replace the aging systems for many years several of you've probably heard me talk about the heat
- pumps in City Hall and the Software systems that we use to manage all of our different HVAC Control
- throughout the building so continuing to invest in that modernization and then you know
- One of the big reasons that we've done the reorganization in the way we have where we're moving the
- downtown specialists and the Brighton Bloomington program out of facilities and into the admin division
- is just because of trying to be as efficient as we can with our resources knowing that the facilities
- division has gotten busier and busier. So from Russell Barry JD and Nick we thank you for your consideration
- and happy to answer any questions. Five minutes goes by fast. It sure does.
- Any questions for mr. Wason or his colleagues about the facilities budget councilmember Rallo No, I
- don't Council member Stossburg Thank you. I was just wondering I noticed that the electrical services
- line for the general fund was reduced and the electrical services line in the ED lit
- Fund was completely eliminated. So I guess I'm wondering whether Electrical charges are really down
- that much or like what? I'm kind of hoping you're gonna say yeah, they're really down that much because
- of all this I'm gonna rely on my friend controller McKim and then I'm gonna check with JD and Nate Jeff
- McKim and I
- Don't have the details in front of me and and JD may have some other ideas also But I know that we did
- discover that there was some double budgeting in for electrical services between the Redevelopment Commission
- who owns the building right now and the and facilities and so we'd rather have it paid out
- of the Redevelopment Commission's revenue rather than the the general fund So I don't know if that's
- is that the correct? Okay
- Great. Thank you. Any other questions. Council members look. Thank you. Director race and I remember
- we've had a couple of conversations about potential options for clearing snow from sidewalks in the
- future. Do you have any updates on that. Specifically what.
- Well, I know that that was a big pain point in previous snow storms. And I know that Public Works was
- just evaluating alternatives to getting especially major arteries cleared.
- Yeah, so in our Street Division budget that we presented last week, it does include funding for Private
- contracting of public rights of way that are not adjacent to city facilities, but that's in the Street
- Division budget The main thing in the facilities budget for snow control is adjacent to city properties
- that we own or maintain so we're going to continue doing that and then with the Street Division's budgets for
- Focusing on what we call the high priority pedestrian network I think we're going to continue to focus
- on the South walnut corridor as well as We focus on the overpasses over I 69 at 2nd Street and 3rd Street
- that are in dot rights of way But they don't do any pedestrian snow removal on
- Trying to keep those east-west corridors open as best as possible It's a challenge just like South Walnut's
- a challenge. Those are monolithic So if the snow continues over multiple days, this plows are going
- to continue to push it up I think last year during our snow our big snow event We went out to those
- locations on three different occasions trying to do snow removal so we're gonna keep after it but as
- you all know the
- bulk of that responsibility is on private property owners to clear their pedestrian rights of way adjacent
- to their properties. So that that that's got to be our focus is to help or to continue encouraging that
- and then we'll do what we can with the high priority network. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you for
- the explanation. That was very easy to follow. Any additional questions. Well of course I have one.
- So, Mr. Wason, you and I had spoken on the phone about the resolution passed by the Bloomington Commission
- on Sustainability and Resilience against the use of rodenticides that are, you know, the rats eat the
- poison and they struggle around for a few days and can infect the environment and any raptors who might
- eat them or any other interactions with nature.
- that have ripple effects negative effects on the community and on our environment. Have you had a chance
- to investigate any alternatives to using rodenticides. You have reached out to economy pest control.
- They are researching some opportunities that we might be able to consider. Just to clarify we've.
- used the rodent aside for rodent control and only two facilities. That's the sanitation garage and the
- fleet maintenance garage where sanitation trucks are often being worked on. So it's not a widespread
- use of it across the city or anything like that. It's really too specific to two locations. We do understand.
- You know we've been able to read or understand the information that the Commission on Sustainability
- and Resilience has provided and the effects that it can have the secondary or other effects that it
- can have. And so we're still researching what opportunities we may have to control the populations in
- those locations and not and meeting that resolution. But we don't have final answers yet. OK. Well I
- appreciate the effort in looking at the you know and I don't want to
- be too graphic or, you know, the option is, you know, so what the Commission on Sustainability and Resilience
- does not want used are sticky traps, those are very inhumane or, you know, those are really not great,
- or the rodenticides. The manual traps and things aren't exactly practical for a location like sanitation
- or fleet where the amount of service those might need would be great.
- Understood. Any other questions. All right. Seeing none we will go to the public. Is there any member
- of the public who would like to comment on the budget proposal from facilities maintenance. I don't
- see anybody in chambers. What about online. OK. All right. We'll come back to council members. Are there
- any final comments on this budget proposal.
- Seeing none we shall move on to fleet maintenance maintenance already continuing the Public Works Party
- Corey Snyder fleet director and the team at fleet maintenance is doing tremendous work keeping the city
- operating 24 7 and all the things we do across all service delivery departments fleet maintenance is
- as challenging as it's probably ever been.
- from the perspective of costs and parts availability. But one thing that has been great is we are fully
- staffed down there right now with what is for all of the budgeted positions and do want to say thank
- you to the mayor's office and to the council. The new contract for AFSCME has made it much easier to
- try to retain and bring in new fleet technicians. So thank you to all the folks that worked on that.
- The fleet division has eight dedicated bays and two large equipment drive-through bays This is the picture
- looking from east to west of our main entrance to the fleet garage In a perfect world we would have
- probably double that number of bays We would have better equipment to service in those bays and that
- is also a big reason why an operation center is so desperately needed
- So at Fleet we have 12 full time employees that's for you or for non union a union.
- We do have an increase in their budget that we'll talk about in more detail as we go on but some of
- the biggest challenges we're having fuel prices volatile fuel markets, so it's one thing to have the
- increased fuel prices for the petroleum for the gas that we're gas and diesel we're putting in our vehicles
- But the increased petroleum prices gas prices have that ripple effect of every delivery everything that every
- All costs are up because fuel costs are up. So that's both for parts and supplies on top of you know,
- just the increased fuel costs
- And I've already talked a lot about the operation center. So I won't harp on that anymore overall total
- requests four point eight eight five million And that's about an eight percent increase mostly on the
- category one side of things So our 2026 highlights thanks to the City Council this year. We added the
- service and capital coordinator position You might say what does that position do that is a position
- that's been really key to? Coordinate with all the departments on not only their capital purchasing
- but their capital disposal
- one of the best things we can do for our insurance rates is get rid of outdated unused equipment and
- And do that through auction and bring some revenues back into the city. So thank you to Keith sharp.
- He's been doing a tremendous job in that position and Keith was one of our longtime technicians so knows
- the operation knows what it takes and has done a really great job I think we're over a hundred and thirty
- thousand that we've brought in so far this year just on our auctions alone and
- We've been upgrading our systems both for fuel tracking and for asset management. Asset management at
- Fleet's a little different. Not only do we want to manage the asset as in the vehicle number and understand
- its age, how much service it's had, but also tracking how much time we're spending on it from a labor
- perspective and really tracking those dollars. So big kudos to the team down there for trying to modernize
- those efforts.
- I mentioned we're full staffed which is fantastic. And then we've also gone to a 24 7 on call for fleet
- technicians which has been super helpful. Previously we didn't have anyone on call. We'd have to do
- a call out which is much different than having somebody on call and ready to respond as needed. And
- then we are continuing to invest in those fully electric vehicles across the city's fleet.
- I mentioned we've done one hundred and thirty thousand in sales on old pieces of equipment. Sometimes
- they even tow them away after buying them. So there is value in an outdated trash truck. But when they
- don't meet our needs there is a secondary market for all that.
- With the on-call technicians, this is reducing downtime for our vehicles. So the picture on the right
- shows you our staff out in the field responding to a snowplow that needed service during one of our
- snow events. Having someone on call ready is improving those response times.
- Not only for during snow events, but this could be the fire truck that's broken down in the middle of
- night This could be any number of different a lot of responses out to the utilities. Those are 24 7
- operations. So big improvement on that
- Some of our goals so we're continuing to focus on our preventative maintenance program. We've always
- tried to focus on that the more you put into preventative maintenance the lower the cost to maintain
- the vehicle over time is and less likelihood for larger scale repairs that can get caught through
- preventative maintenance.
- Really sending out a lot of messaging, working with city departments on reducing idling time. Any minute
- that's not spent idling is a minute that's not using fuel or creating unnecessary emissions. So we've
- been doing some piloting of some different programs to track that. And hopefully someday in the future
- when resources allow, we'd be able to do a more city-wide effort with that. So we've implemented the
- new cloud-based fuel tracking system.
- And that allows for all kinds of real time monitoring not only on fuel levels but any malfunctions.
- You know we have folks using our fueling sites 24 7 and so having this ability to do things remotely
- has been tremendously helpful. Some big things that we're trying to continue and improve in 20 27.
- Really again focused on preventative maintenance but in slightly different ways we're trying to make
- sure that no vehicle is more than 30 days past due at any time with the size of a fleet that we have
- that's that's tremendously challenging but something we're striving for and then really the big focus
- is replacement of aging or obsolete city assets.
- Point of reference here to try to put that into perspective We still have some vehicles in our city's
- inventory that can't use ethanol any fuel with any ethanol Additives so e 85 is out the window e 90
- because we still have some of those so really looking to get those out and give us better opportunities
- we could say 40 or 50 cents a gallon on fuel purchases just by moving to a E 85 or 90 so
- Things that we're looking at for the future as well This is the what I'm talking about with the preventive
- maintenance program So we want to make sure every asset that is in the inventory across the city is
- seen at least once every six months It may not need a full service at that time, but at least getting
- an eyeball on it and making sure we're able to pull appropriate data and so I was talking with Cory
- about this earlier from 25 so far in 2026 where
- Projecting out for the full year that will have a 46 percent reduction in the past due services. So
- From 25 to 26 We're nearly reducing in half the number of vehicles that haven't been seen in more than
- 30 days past when they should have so that's huge We're also again with the Trying to reduce fuel consumption
- talking about reducing any unnecessary trips and and really limiting the idling
- We talked earlier about the fuel market instability. It's been a challenge and big kudos to Corey and
- Lisa for really tracking those and projecting out. It's still possible we'll have to do some end of
- year moving of funds between categories or possible small additional appropriation, but we've been tracking
- that really closely. Otherwise, I just
- Would be remiss not to talk about how important the staff at fleet maintenance is for keeping all city
- services running for those that don't know or the public listening.
- Fleet maintenance services, every city department. So that's police, that's fire, that's utilities,
- that's parks, all the different departments. Public Works has a huge inventory of vehicles. The team
- down there can work on everything from an aerial truck to an ATV to a Zamboni, and they do a tremendous
- job. So big kudos to all the technicians down there, to Corey and his team. Happy to answer any questions.
- Thank you very much, Mr. Wason. Council Member Rollo.
- Thank you, Director Wason. Um, so looking at your, um, the expenses and supplies that's, as you mentioned,
- fuel is the, is the major component, right? Um, in fact, you, you've budgeted for a 30% increase in
- next year, about $400,000 for that. So looking back at the 2025 actual compared to the, um, current,
- The budgeted this year was about six hundred thousand dollar increase and I wondered so you you just
- sort of mentioned this I mean, this is a large component of that is Diesel diesel prices have gone up
- significantly Sorry, is there a actually fuels not included in that line that is fuel that is not in
- the supply line and
- This is all parts and supply increases. That's not actual fuel. That's interesting because when I look
- at the supply line I see below it thirteen point eight four increase and fuel and oil accounts for a
- four hundred thousand dollar increase. Thirty percent back up coming. Hang on one second.
- So I'm referring to page 189. Yes. No, you are correct that that that line does include the fuel. It
- also includes all parts and supplies as well. Okay. So parts and supplies is under the fuel and oil
- category. Is that correct parts? The entire 200 category includes all parts and supplies and fuel. Did
- I say that correct? Yes. Okay. So I guess what I'm my question was are we on track to spend everything we
- budgeted for in terms of fuel for this year, are we going to have another? Yes, that's what I was referred
- to. It's we're tracking right now that we're hoping to continue on some fuel savings, but it's possible
- we'll have to do some funds shifting of funds within the lines at the end of the year or possible small
- additional appropriation, but We're just finishing out our kind of third quarter projections right now.
- Okay Well, the giver take other supplies
- It looks like you're budgeting for less cost and fuel next year 2027 than you did in 2026. Is that correct.
- No that wouldn't be correct. We would be right about where we are this year and projecting out fuel
- about the same about the same. Okay. All right. That's that's good clarity. Well my time's almost up
- so that gives me an idea.
- We'll get you some more detail on those budget lines as well on the specific numbers on the line items.
- Yeah it's very unpredictable as you said because inventories are tight. Thank you. Other council member
- questions seeing none. We will go to the public. Is there any member of the public who would like to
- comment on the proposed budget for fleet maintenance. Don't see anybody here in chambers. Is there anybody online.
- OK. All right. We'll come back to council members. Does anybody want to give some final comments on
- fleet maintenance. Council member Stossberg I guess I'll just give a quick comment and say that I appreciate
- the the no idling that you're trying to implement because not only is the fuel saver but it also idling
- really adds up in terms of air pollutants. So just for everybody out there who generally idols idling as
- really not great for our air quality. And similarly, that's something that I first started noticing
- when I was in school pickup lines. So if you're hanging out in the school pickup line waiting to get
- your kid idling, maybe consider rolling down your windows and turning off your car. Thanks. Any other
- comments. Council member Rollo. Well, just by the nature of my questions, clearly I'm concerned about
- a supply shock if if we encounter one.
- And it sounds like your crew is very much aware of that in preparing to buffer costs where they could
- and budget a budget this a very unpredictable market and into your needs. Thank you. All right. I think
- we can move on then to sanitation which will be our last public works presentation tonight.
- We won't turn down the lights yet, but it is last call for public works budgets this evening We are
- on our 2027 budget request for the sanitation division
- Just again want to start with a big. Thank you to Lazarus Sears director of sanitation Bria Carter our
- office manager the entire team of operators and laborers that Do the daily work that is the city of
- Bloomington sanitation division. So this is also a seven day a week operation We're running our main
- routes Monday through Thursday and then doing our Wednesday through Sunday weekend routes as well So
- not only are we servicing single-family households
- of four units or less we're servicing all city properties so your police station your fire stations
- your parks facilities all of those are being serviced by sanitation staff and are included as part of
- this budget as well
- So 22 full time staff and one permanent part time staff member make up the staffing for the sanitation
- division. You're seeing about a sixty thousand dollar increase in their overall budget request mainly
- for category one. Some of the things that we've been really focused on in 26 and going into 27 is we've
- For some of you that have been on council for many years We have not had much luck finding a successful
- vendor in helping us with our route management and overall tracking of household participation rates
- for sanitation Something we're continuing to look at into the future You know, it's not I don't think
- a surprise to anyone in this room or anyone that's on the financial subcommittee
- Of the council we need to look at sanitation rates our amount of general fund support to sanitation
- is continuing to increase and so looking at Coming back to the council yet in 2026 here with discussion
- about sanitation rates and then always continuing to talk about how we want to increase our diversion
- rates from landfill to recycling, etc
- again, four point almost stable budget here one of our more stable budgets overall, but four point oh
- six six million in total requests, which is a one point five percent increase from 2026 So some of the
- highlights for 2026 we're in the process of completing a much-needed improvement for a break room for
- the staff down there and
- We did put one new truck into service so far this year. Our yard waste program has been super successful.
- We're at five hundred and seventeen tons of yard waste we've picked up so far this year and we're continuing
- to focus on the safe work environment with our our modernized collection system since 2017.
- We are doing community outreach. We do a couple different school visits every year We participate in
- the neighborhood cleanups that housing neighborhood development puts on each year and then a big focus
- and if you've been around town at all in the last few days is our coordinated effort with rental properties
- rental property owners and the residents that lease those that
- Need to be educated on our sanitation program and collection services So in terms of for next year and
- the priorities we have You know, we're at about a 28 percent diversion rate currently this year. We
- want to get that up back closer to 30 or 35 percent and continue working with all staff on the climate
- action plan in terms of how that impacts our sanitation division and
- So I talked about our software solutions We're currently our yard waste program is currently using an
- in-house software solution that we worked with our ITS department on so big shout out to them for their
- assistance and In getting that up and running. We're really focused on our account management and routing
- some doing regular audits of not only
- our billing and cart sizes per address, but also looking at how we can make efficiencies through improved
- routing and such. Every time we can shave off a mile or two from a route is less wear and tear on the
- vehicles, the tires, or the amount of fuel that they're using.
- You know, we talked about the sanitation rates. So, you know working with the council to determine an
- appropriate way to lower that amount of general fund support over time and Big effort that'll have to
- a big conversation. I'll have to involve the council the community and all of our stakeholders Right
- now we're servicing about 14,000 units on a daily basis throughout the week and Have we're doing four routes
- We do the four daily routes for both sanitation for both solid waste pickup and recycling. I talked
- about our city facilities. So we currently pick up from 33 city parks. So every parks facility across
- the community receives sanitation services and then we have 26 city facilities and we collect all of
- the downtown pedestrian size pedestrian scale.
- Trash and recycling so those that you see on Kirkwood throughout the trades district throughout the
- downtown Those are all being collected by sanitation So when you think about the overall amount of general
- fund support being about the 1.5 million number we're estimating three to four hundred thousand of that
- is servicing city facilities city parks and collection of
- from all of those that are outside of our folks that actually pay the rates at single family homes and
- units of four or less always focused on safety and reducing workplace injuries.
- 2025 we did have a bit of an uptick on our overall number of injuries doing much better this year and
- hopefully our workers compensation rates will reflect that as well even with the new modernized tipping
- system there is you know sanitation work is still a dangerous work you're out in traffic you're moving
- big heavy carts so the strain some of the muscle strains things like that are still going to occur at
- some level but trying to reduce those in any way we can
- And so thank you to Lazarus and his team. They've as part of our new AFSCME contract We did a workplace
- safety training that was specific to sanitation and so that's not only your defensive driving and traffic
- management, but all of blood-borne pathogen training hazmat training And all that for trying to create
- the most the safest work environment possible down at sanitation and
- So you know we'll talk obviously into the fall about how we would want to structure rates and then that'll
- be a big conversation going forward of course.
- So just wanted to show you some collection totals year to date. We are right on track to be at about
- a Comparable track tonnage for trash collection and it looks like we'll be right around the same amount
- on recycling
- tonnages as well so busy busy times at sanitation right now for anyone that has been driving around
- the community you're seeing those large piles of cardboard boxes and all of the move-in volume and big
- shout out to Lazarus and his team you know as we think about what we would want to do with sanitation
- in the future in terms of rates and things it's not about just the rate of collection of the trash and
- recycling it's looking at
- You know, how do we actually capture all costs with the move in move out volumes and increases? How
- do we want to look at yard waste and the programs generally so it won't just be a great structure for
- the cars but thinking about the whole program entirely from large item and extra collections as well.
- With that happy to answer any questions and appreciate your consideration for not only the sanitation
- budget But all five of the budgets presented tonight on behalf of public works Thank You director Wason
- Sorry, you said no questions, I know you're eager to to go home, but we might just have a few councilmember Ralu I
- I don't think these are tough questions. I'm really amazed at the color the Consistency of the collection
- totals year-by-year. That's amazing Are we still around about 30%? compostibles within the waste stream
- The solid waste district hasn't done an audit overall community-wide in some time, but we've never actually
- Um, commissioned an audit of our own. Uh, we relied on some of that data. So, um, maybe something to
- consider in the future, but I'm, I'm guessing that percentage hasn't changed much. Okay. Thank you.
- Other questions. Council member Stasberg. Thank you. Um, uh, when do you think you're going to be bringing
- forth that proposal to the fiscal committee about rate increases?
- We will work with the council scheduling committee, but in the next 30 to 60 days, hopefully. Okay.
- Okay. So very soon. Great. And do you happen to have any data you mentioned the goal of 30 30 percent
- recycling diversion? Do you know how we've been doing with that in terms of percentage? So if this year was like
- 28% We've been as high as I think 42 percent in years past and as low as 25 What we'll do is we'll put
- a full link a full response in the written comments With our historical data from the be clear portal,
- but it's ranged. It's gone up and down a bit over the years So there's not consistency around like it's I
- I would say pretty consistent between the high 20 percentage to the mid to high 30 percentages But I
- recall one year. I think we were up to almost 40 or 42, but we'll get those specific data points Yeah,
- I'll make us follow up with that and writing to you and then I guess the other thing that I noticed
- Was the sanitation fund transfer is actually out of the 80 lit this year and not out of the general
- fund and perhaps the controller can speak to
- that switch? Yeah, I mean, that is true. Overall, one of the things I mentioned last Monday was that
- we were trying to kind of balance out the large deficit in the general fund
- Versus the surplus in the ed lit fund and just kind of balance out the usage and so one of the things
- we did is we moved a lot of the transfer so the transferred alternative transportation to Jack Hopkins
- and to Sanitation we took them out of the ed lit fund rather than the general fund. They're they're
- essentially equivalent from the perspective of Statutory uses but yeah, the idea was just to kind of
- balance out the deficit versus surplus and
- I Have a question Who in sanitation does the community outreach to try to increase recycling rates?
- Do they have a specific staff person who does that or they partner with people mr. Lazarus here, so
- Lazarus and Ria will coordinate those events with the specific schools and
- Lazarus himself and a couple of staff members will go out just our regular staff but we don't have a
- position similar to what the solid waste district does that is specific to it. It's bare bones at sanitation.
- Is there any partnerships with the waste reduction district on community outreach to try to increase
- recycling or.
- We do our small part but they really do the bulk of the community wide and I know Lazarus is regularly
- in touch with Tom and the team at the district on different things but something we could probably improve
- our coordination on. OK. Yeah. It'd be great to make sure that you're not duplicating efforts or anything.
- And then I was trying to think of what this program was called but maybe it was pre pandemic. There
- used to be a program where in May
- like the students who were leaving, and they were, you know, they just. Hoosier to Hoosier. Hoosier
- to Hoosier. They didn't want to take their couches and their coffee makers, and so they left them. And
- then there was a sale in August for new students who needed stuff. Is that, whatever happened to that,
- is there any hope of resurrecting such a program? I can't recall. So that was all run through ESD. Oh,
- right. That started with Jackie Bauer, when Jackie Bauer was here, where we partnered with campus.
- I honestly don't know if that still exists and it's the same format or not but we can look into it.
- But yeah that was a partnership between the university and the city and I believe there was a nonprofit
- involved as well. I seem to remember Sherwood Oaks Christian Church was like at least they gave space
- for it or something. The last one I remember was at the warehouse with the warehouse. OK. Oh it's habitat.
- Yes habitat would partner.
- Well I will ask around about that because that's a lot of stuff that ends up in the landfill that doesn't
- need to. Any other questions. All right. Let's go to the public. Is there any member of the public who
- would like to comment on the sanitation budget proposal. Anybody online. All right. So we'll come back
- to council members any.
- Final comments on sanitation. Councilmember Zoellick. Just thank you to Lazarus and the team. I think
- we all probably take for granted that we roll our waste out to the curb and it gets dealt with from
- there. So thank you very much. I think I just have to say my normal with the rates.
- Maybe changing that pay as you throw is a really effective program for reducing waste Thanks Composables
- It's 30% right there I just wanted to say this has been a really fun public works party enjoyed it and
- I want to thank your whole team for
- Providing the services core core services for the community and maintaining the infrastructure that
- everybody relies on It's incredibly important really appreciate it. Thank you To wrap up that this is
- really when we talk about Making sure the basics of city government get done. This is public works is
- where it's at and we take for granted, you know, we can have a
- A road to drive on and our trash will be picked up and our bike lane will be available to us and that's
- all public work stuff. So thank you all for your day in and day out. Labor's on behalf of the residents
- of Bloomington. And I think that is it. Oh it's not it. Council member Stasberg up up to you.
- I just feel like I would be remiss if I didn't say something about the the subsidy that one point six
- million dollar subsidy that used to be eight hundred thousand or less and I'm a little concerned about
- that coming out of a deal it that well it is supposed that it can be used to maintain essential city
- services it also was originally kind of created as a fund to
- do different sorts of things with, not just take such a big chunk and subsidize sanitation. And it's
- totally probably not popular to say right now, but we really do need to increase sanitation rates. So
- it's closer to
- You know, so as somebody who pays for that service it is closer to what it actually costs for that service
- And I'm looking forward to hearing more about that in the fiscal committee meeting in the next couple
- of months and I also really appreciate that director Wason split out that rate of how much of
- How much of the sanitation budget goes toward? Picking up from those public spaces the parks and things
- like that that three to four hundred thousand dollars because that's a super useful number to think
- about in terms of you know What are what are we as a city gonna subsidize? around trash pick up for
- so That's my closing comment and thank I'll also thank everybody for all the things that they do in
- this whole public works department because Councilmember Piedmont Smith is absolutely right and council
- members who look as well that a lot of that stuff is You know
- The things that you do are things that we often take for granted, partly maybe because we don't see
- you doing them so much because you're out there so early in the morning. Thank you very much.
- And with that, we are adjourned.