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.