I'm going to start talking.
 Yeah. Okay. What are we going to talk about?
 Our goal today is to map
 the outcome areas that council outlined as priorities
 onto the outcome areas that the mayor has identified as priorities
 and come up with a compromised version that we all can agree on,
 or we think we can all agree on to bring to council for discussion
 on Wednesday so that our time there can be
 spent so that we're not starting from scratch when we get there in terms of what the buckets are.
 And just to review for everyone, the council's areas were government transparency,
 high-performing government, neighborhood livability and social health, public safety,
 housing and homelessness, health and human services, equity and transportation and mobility.
 The mayor had, so that's eight buckets, the mayor had four buckets, affordable housing and
 homelessness,
 economic development, sorry I'm typing as I right here, economic development, core services
 and I can't remember how we framed it, but essentially high-functioning, efficient government.
 And you could you could add some other adjectives onto that, transparent, all the things that we
 want and so just to kind of give an overview of I think that as we create these buckets from what
 I understand from Kelsey's conversations, the conversation about well what exactly is included,
 where is their overlap, I know Jessica took some time to try to look at these eight categories and
 see how they might work with last year's budget and found it a little too difficult, too many
 things that overlap or could be there. So I'll give my little statement on how I think we should
 proceed and we can just have a conversation. So one thing is I understand from the council
 conversation there's a lot of conversation around well this could be this or it could be that and I
 think it's important to stay really focused on what it means to the public. So yes of course
 transportation issues are part of safety and is that part of public safety? Maybe, but I think when
 the public hears public safety they think they don't think transportation and so as we're thinking
 about transparency it would be good to make sure our buckets are really common sense buckets and
 very let's return each other as we can be knowing that there will be great areas when we put things
 into them. The other thing I would say is that from the mayor's standpoint a lot of things are
 packed into core services and we that's an area where I think we can break out some other
 categories
 but when we start getting up to you know multiple categories then we're essentially it looks like
 our departmental budgets just with different titles. I think it's we have to be careful that
 we don't slice this so thinly that we just end up with our departmental budgets in disguise.
 And then the last thing I'll say is that there are a lot of notes in the document that council sent
 on
 you know particular line items or ways to execute online items and none of that is what I think we
 should discuss today because the function is the big buckets in the month and those are great
 examples
 to help us understand did we cover everything is there a place for everything but I don't
 I don't think now is the time to debate whether or not our website should have a
 user function like how we do that. So I have thoughts on where I would put these but
 can so what the one I think slightly different viewpoint that I have is that you know going back
 to our first conversations here is at the task force and thinking about meaningful steps we take
 towards the I know I'm trying to fix the blur so y'all are gonna have to bear with my giant head
 in the corner. You know we we settled on on on this year making a big push toward outcome areas
 as to help us make meaningful steps towards solid outcome.
 And so my thinking about this all along was that there was always going to be overlap there's you
 know the how to distinguish between outcome areas I think is it's mostly a question of where is the
 key like why do we what is the key reason why we do a thing and and so um so you know in the long
 run we'd be talking about how do we know that this has been successful but it's helping us
 understand like we are doing this investment or not or reduction or whatever for a key purpose
 and so um I think having having some like core services doesn't really help us move towards that
 right um so so that would be my my my distinction there is that we don't I yeah I don't I don't I
 don't know if it's too um even if there's overlap I don't think that it creates too many
 difficulties
 just helping us really say like is this an investment about connectivity or is this an
 investment about public safety and I think it changes the way that you evaluate them.
 I think that's true and I think we're going to find that there is a lot more
 baked into core services and some other areas that are on here so for example I noticed council
 didn't have economic development as a bucket at all we try and that is a that is a bucket for
 the mayor 100 percent exactly she will um that I don't think that's enough I think that's not
 eligible for her right um and I think there are things like when you think about um core services
 like that when what we had bundled in there would have included public safety and other things that
 we can easily break out but also sanitation yeah um other things that yeah exactly that's what I
 mean if you pull too many things out of the bucket then what you're left with is well now what's
 left
 is such a hodgepodge that what is the what's the rationale for that so maybe we could start by just
 with a few I should say too we started so so the I mean to properly interpret um the letter right
 um
 we started with all of the areas that we had originally sent in our in our sort of first um
 in that first letter that we put together right um we started with all of those outcome areas
 and then what ended up in the letter was some multiple stages of ranking amongst council members
 and so I've been I've been struggling myself to interpret this question of um
 by the way is the audio working on the thing because it says join audio there
 I don't know if um if it's yeah I don't know um but so so the um you know we started with all
 those I think you established a little pull it up here so I know what you mean yeah right yeah and
 so so when we um I don't know how to interpret the fact that that economic development is on there
 beyond the fact that that nobody has any ideas pertaining to economic development
 I think that was the only one who said anything economic development related at least you were
 saying so so I don't so so I don't think I don't think you view the letter from council as these
 are the buckets we want I think you view it more as here are the ideas that are really resonating
 with us at the moment right and and the things that there's support for but but I think we also
 have had a lot of conversation both in the budget committee and at the various meetings council
 that
 it's like this is the beginning of negotiation they're not thinking about it despite the fact
 that there's things like 200k for whatever like just despite the fact that there's some with that
 high level specificity like nobody's thinking about this from the perspective of that last year you
 see what I'm saying I do and I think an important distinction is are we thinking about outcomes or
 we're thinking about programs because the mayor didn't approach this as we didn't approach it as
 let's come up with a list of programs we think are interesting in that list of our buckets we
 approach it from what are the most important outcomes for the residents of Bloomington that
 we need to achieve right and and so that's why our buckets are very limited because they were the
 most important outcomes not a comprehensive list of you know every program much less every new idea
 and I think that'll be as we get into the actual budgeting process the question of how do we cover
 with less money all the things that we currently currently believe are good all of the things that
 the administration and that individual departments believe are important to do that are new and
 then
 when council has new ideas too like there's less money to do all of it right so yeah so but
 remember
 it's it's outcome areas right comes within those areas and then and then specific programs that
 also should have outcomes attached to them we we agreed in talking at that three level at those
 three levels that that we don't have the technology or the sort of institutional strength right now
 to
 do outcomes of the at the program level yes moving towards that but so so to your point
 I think that it's you know it's it's I don't think it's I don't think it's it's particularly
 helpful for us to say you know let's just have one big bucket where we throw everything that
 doesn't fit within within the larger ones I think that we say no let's let's let's come up because
 because the the conversation that we still haven't had is but I think what you what what
 you're getting closer to is saying here are here are the three things I'll take or services away
 because that like we've talked about from the beginning here like it doesn't like it doesn't
 help us to say oh there's a bucket of things just these are just things we have to do right we need
 to be even clear about what it is we're trying to achieve with the things we're trying to that we
 just have to do but you said here essentially are three top things right this is these are our
 priorities is how is how I read the letter that you sent rather than rather not saying
 transportation is not in our budget it's saying in so far as transportation goes we're thinking
 about it from the lens of of continuing essential services for you know something like that right
 and so so that that's that's more I think the the space that we're saying you know where what are
 our areas what are the what are the priorities within those areas and how do these different
 areas relate in terms of priorities to each other so if we rank these priorities where are they
 so maybe we could start with some easy overlaps we had affordable housing and homelessness you
 guys had housing with homelessness so whether we call it affordable housing housing homelessness I
 think we need all kinds of housing you know affordable housing is if we were to develop
 lots of housing and none of it was affordable there's a whole philosophical argument there
 create more housing when this anyway I'm not going to go into that but so that's one so we've got
 one
 down regram I would say whatever we call the there does need to be a category where we put
 everything related to the lack of a better phrase overhead accounting HR IT legal clerk there's a
 category of services that are although you have in the clerk's office that has direct services to
 the people and you could make the argument that everything the controller does is of course
 obviously
 for the people but things like processing payroll and ensuring that people get their benefits on
 time
 for the way that the city government operates are they have to live somewhere yeah and I would say
 that trans so whether we call that high performing government can we assume that a high performing
 government is transparent that transparency is part of the high performing government yeah whether
 so yeah so two questions there I think I think high performing I'm speaking for myself obviously
 not for the entire and we should know whatever we bring this is this committee and we're just
 trying to help it's just a way to facilitate I think I think you just identified a nice way of
 having the discussion which is um which is trying to figure out whether some of the things that we
 might have identified as so remember three levels so I'll call them one two and three just to make
 conversation easier here um whether things that we identified as one level are actually two levels
 right um and that I think that that that is potentially reasonable um I think the um the
 idea of saying high performing government sort of fits lots of things can fit in within a high
 performing government um and I think that's better than something like continuing service
 because it does push us to say okay like what is it that we want out of out of it or out of
 right I mean it's not you know the you know or HR that matter and you know and I would say for
 those
 of us who actually work in the city the amount of work that needs to be done to make our government
 high performing is a lot a lot and it is part of what would I think be very visible improvements
 to the public as well well right so I don't by calling I don't mean by calling it overhead to be
 like oh blah blah blah let's not talk about that I mean there's some really critical work that
 needs
 to be done there I would also put equity under that I know that there are a couple council members
 who
 have particular been lobbying for several years to make a whole department or to a a c-level
 position for equity and I see that those line items are back in this proposal I don't think that
 I mean help think through this with me like why is it a why is it a problem for us to have
 um for sake of argument 20 areas of of areas of um that's a good question
 well I think the more areas we make the more choices we have to make about does this go here
 or here I think I but so so counter to that is sure it might be administratively more difficult
 for us to figure out where things go which I think is a fruitful conversation regardless
 I don't mean it as an administrative difficulty although it is an administrative difficulty I mean
 that it creates it's kind of like uh creates more if you're a resident and you want to find
 something
 and you have to check more categories and you're like well I don't know if it's here or here
 I don't think I don't think it creates the transparency where after is my point I think
 it works how into that but go ahead but but so so the the reason I the reason I said this is
 because
 two two things one is that there are as we've talked about lots of elements in our budget
 that are ascending for lack of better telling hidden currently staff time programs that don't
 actually have a cost outside of the fact that we do them right similarly there are things and
 equity being a good example that I think it is important for us to to have to discuss directly
 and not just assume that it appears somewhere and so that we're purposeful with the way that
 we're planning around investing in where relevant and etc around something like equity so the the
 but it may be as for example in the list that council gave a lot of the things around like
 transparency around equity not necessarily that be like big budgetary investments as opposed to
 them being areas where where where there are clear discernible outcomes to our activities and so
 I think that there's a lot of benefit to having a to having actually a longer than shorter list
 because because otherwise I think I think it's actually I think actually we'll see the opposite
 to what to what you to what you said I think that that you get closer to the just departmental but
 just like oh yeah and then there's then there's you know a million dollars here that's just in
 that department's account and that's under high performing government and so you know it doesn't
 lead us to the conversation that we actually want to have around I mean I think if we keep in mind
 that we're not just creating these buckets that we're also talking about having a very different
 kind of line item approach where the programs are actually listed so let's let's talk about where
 we
 are now to where we're going so where we are now you see category one two three four you see it by
 department total you see by fund total and if the department in the presentation singles out some
 programs and is ready to say here are of the 45 programs my my department ministers here are three
 that I think are important that we have time to discuss in this budget session that I'm going to
 single out and talk about there's no way currently to see what are the other 42 programs you find
 it
 yeah necessarily because you have a program the expenses would be across three different
 three or four different categories sure so when we make the switch we're not just saying here's
 the buckets and now we're going to do category one two three four under the buckets we're saying
 here are the buckets and then let's line out the actual programs under those buckets and I think
 one of the things that may be surprising to folks is how many of those programs there are and so
 the
 desire to review program by program by program is a bigger task than it may appear and also an
 education task and if our website were revised today that would be a lot easier for everyone to
 see and setting up on in advance but it's not so so so I guess what I'm saying is the choice
 between
 you know two buckets and 20 buckets depends to some degree what's the line how clear is that
 line detail and and we make clusters of programs in there and and that just depends on how much you
 want to break things out so let's say let's say public safety is its own category yeah when we
 say that and then we run through programs on there and that would include obviously police and fire
 but it would also include some programming programming costs from cfrd yeah and maybe
 some other places as well those are free to come on top of them yeah um you know what do you call
 the general police program like police have some positions that are meant to achieve they're not
 they're not programs per se in a way that other departments might have programs that businesses
 are no problem with supply too and so but i think that the slicing is gets trickier as we go so
 that's important now this this is what but this is where the second level is so important because
 how we define how we define the goals within buckets helps delineate what buckets you need
 yes so let's go can we go back and just talk a little bit about the actual priorities that you
 guys said versus the level one level one areas of priorities because because because to be clear
 high functioning government is not a priority it doesn't it's a it's a bucket in which to make
 priorities and if we confuse those we'll get into trouble and i think speaking as my own self as a
 human commenter that is the mistake that we have been making continually at council is that we're
 getting confused between outcome areas outcomes programs like we're interchanging them too much
 and and so so i do think high performing government is an outcome that we need
 no no i agree but that is that itself is that doesn't mean anything high performing government
 means nothing by itself we have to define what that means okay you see what i'm saying i do um
 so so so so so just be super clear even so so what i what i'm what i also have clarity for myself
 about is that even for us to agree on the outcome areas on wednesday that's fine but what we really
 should be doing is starting to agree on on the on that second level set of things and that answers
 are all about the question that we that we spent 20 minutes trying to wrestle with here it's that
 you say if we say high performing government means a government that is transparent okay fine but
 even
 then further that we're able to respond to foyer requests within 24 hours okay so so here's here's
 where i think it gets challenging to talk about the second level stuff here is that those that
 second level stuff of the line items or what are we doing that is the switch that the budget
 process
 is making so i don't think that anyone has a clear enough window on what those items are to be able
 to say you know what you should do is xyz because you don't know what we already are doing or
 already
 planning to do necessarily program i don't know necessarily each and every program of every
 department um by name so but but that's that's where i mean so so i'll use the foyer request
 as an example because i think it's a it's a particularly good one that um that if a thing
 we want to see happen and again is we want to be able to respond to foyer requests in x amount of
 time now where we put that on your priority list okay not the question right now but it's like
 you want to be able to respond to foyer request let's just say within 24 hours that's something
 we all agree that would be a good thing yes no okay we all agree this is a relatively good thing
 what would it cost or make what would we have to do to be able to do that starts to open the
 question to well are we already are we already doing that is nothing needs to be done is is this
 just a matter of well in the next six months or the next year because of things we've already done
 that's going to happen already you know what and that's a super small thing but it is a thing that
 that that we might care about no and it's a great example because it touches on so many other
 things
 besides the requests any amount of time it takes and the person who answers it exactly where does
 the data lid how easy is it to get to how clean is it exactly and so so then but but but so so
 having
 set you know a and then so so that that's why the the critical work is saying is being able to get
 to
 two statements like and again we're not going to be perfect on this this is like you know we don't
 have the technology yet we don't have we've done this the first time i get it like so many caveats
 here but if we can get to a statement like you know responding to FOIA requests within 24 hours
 now where we want to put that is that high performing government is that transparency
 and at that level it no longer matters what what area that's under right so can we go back to
 the big buckets yeah and do a little because we have you have to be somewhere at 10 30 we have
 10 30 so let's we talk a little bit more because our goal remember is to go to council on the 14th
 with a list and say here's one way here's a possibility to discuss that lives somewhere
 between the administration and council's list so housing and homeless so you have eight items
 housing homelessness check government transparency and high performing government i would argue
 that
 one and we already have that on our list so check there are a couple here that i think
 transportation and mobility is a good one to pull out because there is so much interest in those
 and
 confusion about what what those projects are they get a lot of scrutiny there are a lot of
 projects that go into that also lots of capital projects so that leads to interesting funding
 conversations because they are capital projects so i think pulling that we would agree to pull that
 out economic development is one that we pulled out that you didn't that the mayor will not want to
 talk about anything we did pull it out it's just that what's reflected in the letter is is nobody
 has any ideas on this right right right so so there will be no pushback to having economic
 development as an area it's interesting that it got perceived as an exercise and let's come up
 with new ideas because that's not really the function we're after i'm not sure if i'm not
 sure if any of these were new ideas i think they were ideas that were like you know how do you
 operationalize broader themes that are already in other represented plans right and that was the
 list at the beginning of the letter you know just like here's some you know here are places to pull
 from right i mean like and yeah like it's not i don't think there was a thing mentioned that's
 like you know oh my gosh no one's ever thought of this or talked about this before
 so let's go back to so that leaves
 that brings us to five still leaving core services to unpack and talk about that on our list
 because
 we have fewer and then that leaves four items on on your list to talk about
 so public safety i think if you want to pull that out that's a pretty classic one to pull out
 you could do that i think there are some interesting questions that will come up and some of this
 we
 just need to define or explain as we put the numbers together what we put where so the example
 i will use is parks has a whole bunch of expenses related to picking up needles responding to
 encampments those are not they are impacts of homelessness but they are not those expenses do
 not address the root cause of homelessness so we were addressing they're addressing public safety
 so we would put those costs under public safety but it needs but if someone were to say
 what is all of the money that the city is spending on homelessness that's a bigger pool than
 solving the problem homelessness homelessness and impacts of homelessness which is a much bigger
 number true so um so let's let's add public safety and even though we're not thinking of
 departments i do think it helps as we go through to think about um each department where would it
 live generally or are there areas just to make sure that i don't know i think it's a core um i
 think it's the core justification for moving to outcome-based budgeting is exactly that is
 that you want you want people to say to say okay we're doing this thing that is that is for public
 safety and now you have this conversation of like hey why isn't so and so helping with or is is
 this
 is this appropriate to be siloed here how are you contributing to the overall but right like
 those are the very useful conversations to have it is okay that parks is doing a public safety
 thing
 oh no totally i just mean we don't want to have a situation where um uh let's say uh
 where we don't know where the bulk of one department's expenses go now maybe that's
 a valuable conversation to have and it certainly could be but um it would tell us if if that's the
 case if we cannot if i mean we have to it's i don't i don't want to say this in in fear of
 being taken out of context but but i think it's necessary to be said we can't operate with the
 assumption that every single human every single program every single dollar that we spend currently
 is you know the right way to spend sure to organize and and and so we should not build
 our outcomes areas our goals to the way that we currently operate if we're to be in a situation
 we're like we don't know where to put this part of this this whole department's budget like maybe
 we have a problem with that department right for sure for sure but i guess a better example
 might be sanitation once sanitation in mind is like sanitation is a essential service that everyone
 expects it's not a public safety service it's not affordable housing it's not economic development
 it's not transportation mobility i mean you could make the case maybe that it was high performing
 government but i don't think if i'm a resident and i'm thinking where's how do i know how much
 clean water and getting my trash picked up where that lives you wouldn't necessarily assume high
 performing government yeah agreed we we did have a couple of headers that didn't again didn't make
 it into the way that just the way that this one of this one we went about this and so it was a
 flawed process for many reasons but again we're trying our best so like yeah and that's great
 but neighborhood and community vitality as an example of something something okay we could
 talk about safe community is something you could talk about and that might be where sanitation goes
 in like you don't want everybody getting the plague like feels like uh it's like a wonderful
 outcome you know what i'm saying so let's look at so you have three categories left um i i don't
 think
 um we're not going to want to break out equity because it's our own category for a whole host
 of reasons be happy to have a conversation about it but um for right now we would and are thinking
 that is part of like performing government and there are costs and programs associated with that
 that we are doing that we've been pulling out there um so that leaves you've got two left here
 and we still have core services to figure out what to do i think the gap we're trying to bridge is
 between um unpack that into something that makes sense um neighborhood livability and social health
 health and human services to me those are both kind of mushy um but i do think sanitation falls
 in health and human services yeah it's when i go back to the flag comment that's an essential part
 of us providing it but i think work community is important because there's a lot of work you could
 say we could say the parks are you could say that black history month is community agree say there's
 all kinds of things that that we want to do arts investments one percent for the arts is the
 economic
 development yes you could also say that it's part of developing um what is it primarily and right
 like like how are you well because because because this is this is the this is the um the pit the
 pitfall the the you know the danger spot here is that if if all things are all things then they're
 nothing and that's how we talk about a lot of things oh yeah this thing that we do is about this
 and it's about this and it's about this and it's like well what is that like what's the core reason
 that we do this does not exist what is the effect on the community what are we keeping in the
 budget
 and and you know and i think i think that i mean okay if we're starting to have conversations with
 departments that are like we're going to see a 20 reduction and so we all need to think about where
 you can cut again we're falling back into the problem which you know it's it's like it's the
 question is what is it that we're doing to move forward what is it that we're doing to achieve
 our goals so the way i would frame that category that might bridge the gap between neighborhood
 livability and social health and health and human services is community health and vitality yeah
 that works well i think what we had written the first time reflecting on fort collins was
 neighborhood community vitality is how fort collins has it um and i just would cut neighborhood out
 because sometimes there is the heart for saying they are part of the community and and sometimes
 the things that we're talking about for the community don't happen in neighborhoods they
 happen across the community as well so okay so that we take out core services which i understand
 you hate the mayor loves it but i think yeah but i think what she what she likes about it is when
 when we're strapped for money and when people think about when we think about what are residents
 most value and most complain about to us and things they would like to be improved it is
 for services they expect as taxpayers right but let's we don't we don't often get requests for
 you know random pool fund well right things that people want it's why is it why doesn't this happen
 about 100 but do you remember where we start like when we first met the the four of us first met
 i actually was confused it's sitting wasn't there that first conversation either um that this that's
 what we spent most of our conversation about it's like how do you who what do you do in an outcome
 based budget around things that that you know we what do we what do we we had a whole discussion
 about even what to call it um do you remember because because i because i kept talking about
 oh well what we're really talking about is the discretionary funds we're like no no it's not
 about discrete nothing's discretionary person right like and and what's not core i think was was
 part
 of the conversation we came to and this was a huge realization for this group for me is to is to
 say
 that that we need to be more specific around around core services how somebody would say and
 i still today almost on a daily basis have people coming up to me saying that that we need to
 collect
 leaves that that's a core service please just not yeah and so yeah but so that's that's right but
 so so that's that's where it's free still yeah but that's that's where you know just if we just
 have
 a big bucket that's called club services it doesn't help with that with what what it is that you're
 saying that we're trying to achieve so right so we all we're all on the same page of the sense that
 there are certain things that that are baseline um for um you know which is which is where you know
 maybe you know hopefully next year we get into these conversations about different offer types
 and all that type of stuff right but there's certain things that just need to be maintained
 but we should still get to what it what the goal is there because if we say core services then it
 would sound like our outcome would be something like maintain core services well we still haven't
 defined what core services are right so you see so so so we need to help ourselves in defining that
 so so here's where um um sorry let me save this file
 um so here's where this conversation has landed portable housing and homelessness
 public safety community health and vitality economic development transportation and mobility
 and high-performance government i think those are good buckets and i think that the conversation
 about what we mean by those and what goes in them is important and i think will get easier you know
 when this kind of thing you you set up your outline and then when you actually go to do the work of
 different departments having their programs and um trying to put them into line item form that's
 when you start to really understand oh okay this one yeah and you know so we're not going to be
 able to perfectly define a system here right because we don't yet have the list of everything
 goes into it so sure yeah and and again like like we've said i think it's good for us all
 to remind ourselves and and to remind council again on wednesday that this isn't a derivative
 process i think that um you know we might realize that we actually have some priorities that we
 haven't quite been able to put in you know like we're not particularly yeah exactly like well it's
 so oh yeah of course i'm thinking about um about environment i don't know where you know
 sustainability
 and those i just in my little notes here to myself put that under community health and vitality
 right um you know it it lives in economic development as a department and you can make
 the case for why it's economic development to provide free air conditioners to folks who
 need them right um for five reasons and because then they stay cool and healthier and you know
 presumably it has but um but i think what we're really talking about there is community health
 yeah but then recycling um is recycling
 yeah well i mean that's a that's a goal that clearly no one's going to say that
 we shouldn't recycle and we don't just we don't just do it for sustainability reasons it's not
 quite economic development i mean i i think it's still community health and vitality that's where
 you're putting sanitation yeah you know that's um to separate out one piece of you know part of why
 we want people to recycle is because it takes things out of the landfill and makes trash
 more sustainable yeah yeah good but um so that's six up from r4 and down from your original seven
 or eight or probably many of them yeah but i mean and putting putting clearly a handful of them
 together and i think that's fine would you run through those six again yes affordable housing
 and homelessness public safety community health and vitality economic development
 transportation and mobility and high-performing government thank you um so then in terms of how
 we spend the spend of the time um i'm assuming is this is is wednesday account like where we're
 meeting in city council where are we meeting we're meeting in council chambers however
 binary stranger enthusiasm i'm communicating with cats and um are we going to sit in a round table
 or something they're going to configure desk in a rectangular shape okay so we're not going to be
 sitting up on the dais yeah okay good um so i i think one another thing that would be really
 helpful i mean it'd be um fruitful for the conversation is to start to get start to again
 start to get some agreement around or at least some initial discussions around you know if we're
 happy with these buckets what what are what are again not programs don't don't say what
 two hundred thousand dollars for council spending like what's the what are the things that we want
 to see that second tier is really the place that we have not spent hardly any time talking about.
 Well, I think from my perspective, we hear about it all the time, which is start 12 new programs in
 these areas relating to my special interests. That's the wrong level of thinking.
 Because we want to achieve what? Exactly. It's the what do we want to achieve part of the
 conversation, that outcome part of the conversation under the outcome areas that we are not having.
 Right. But I feel, I guess here's where I come from that I feel like there's an education process
 in this on what we're currently doing and that piece is missing. We haven't done that piece yet.
 And so when we start with what else would we like to do that's new and different without knowing
 what we're actually doing. Forget about the new and different. I worry about that. Forget about the
 new
 and different. It's the it's the it's just it's just start starting from the perspective of
 of okay but I'll pick on something to illustrate this. Why do we do a black and brown market?
 You do it. So why do we do it? Right. Well okay so so like and you know
 you'd say right basically exactly we shouldn't be doing black and brown but but but but but the
 point is that we've been doing it for a very long time right and and we would say oh well it's this
 it's a little bit of this of some reason here this year what is the goal of doing that is that
 something that gets kept in the budget is that moving is that moving the needle toward the goals
 that we are setting and I think you inherently want we all know it's a good thing and we want to
 do it and we're just asking us to articulate the but do do we I mean and just I mean again pick on
 it I mean not not I'm just like is is it a good thing to do well I have my reasons for saying it
 is but but it's just like I don't think we've had that conversation and that's not a that's not a
 you know uh uh education for council thing I think that everybody has not had that conversation
 well
 and so there's a conversation related to that that probably only people in administration know
 which
 is CFRD parks and ESD getting together and looking at the list of all of the events they put on and
 seeing where is their duplication where is their overlap what should say where should go that
 conversation is happening now before the budget season even starts which will feed into that
 conversation but so I guess but how are they even making that decision if we haven't if we're not
 setting if we're not and if we if we have a again I'm not I'm not you know do I trust that
 everybody
 can make this that they have some internal reason for doing it yes but if we have a moving scale
 for now again like I'll be self-referential about about the way that we are on council
 if we have this moving scale of how how the things that we want to achieve you know today it's
 about
 equity tomorrow it's about you know whatever connectivity the next day it's about our
 institute concerns whatever we're just constantly moving it might be the same program but we
 constantly move what we even mean somebody's trying to enter from the waiting room we're
 constantly moving how we're evaluating ourselves then we're not one we don't we're not good
 partners
 but two is that we like we're we don't hold ourselves accountable to decisions that are
 being made and so so the big push here is to get us to a place where you start with what it is
 you're trying to achieve not what it is that we're already doing and then we append some things
 that
 we want to achieve right two things i'm already doing i think i assume the way this system is
 going to work is that our buckets have inherent big goals of what we want to achieve so in public
 safety just in general that bucket wants to achieve the things reduction in crime a you know
 perceived
 safety so then the exactly unique all the unique specific programs that go into that bucket we can
 assume that they that we can we can like use our system to make those big assumptions we don't have
 to identify we don't have to discuss every single program um individually we want to because we
 assume that if it's in neighborhood health and vitality it's trying to achieve all these big
 social goals we have and we can continue our work with using that bucket as the big assumption big
 assumptions that these are the big picture goals outcomes that we want to achieve so here's my
 nightmare i'll try to make our work easier put this out on the table so this is the the place
 of fear that i'm operating from is that this turns into here's the christmas list of everything i
 want
 the city to be doing and that those those wish lists don't match up with either the funding that
 we have available or the work that people are already doing for staff capacity and maybe this
 just all goes in Kara's budget statement about you know when we have less money people are already
 spread pretty thin and we'll have to work harder and so um that's my anxiety factor is that we will
 my experience is that organizations are really good at having things to the list but that
 actually drawing the line and saying we're not going to do this anymore this is not a priority
 but that is the piece that everybody says we're going to do and then when it comes right down to
 it we never want to kill our darlings no but the thing that yeah i agree i mean steven king but the
 but the um the the um the question is not whether whether it may still be a priority but it might
 be
 that this isn't moving the needle towards towards the outcomes that we say we're trying to achieve
 we you know if if um we can use a clear example from last year we say um if we um raise police
 salaries that's going to lead to um to more police officers um being you know signing and you know
 coming with recruitment of police officers more police officers leads to lower crime okay so
 that's we have a clear theory here right do this this happens okay so so so this year if crime had
 gone up it has not but if crime had gone up and we didn't have more police officers the
 conversation
 that we'd be having is okay well wait a minute we did this and this and and we're still seeing the
 exact same problem this is not the case here we actually there's a good example last year of a
 conversation we had i think hopi led that part of the conversation she's like but wait like at what
 point do we do we say that this wasn't working or that this didn't achieve the things that we want
 so that's the way that we should be thinking about about all of this not not the assumption that it's
 like okay well it's in you know if we throw it in that bucket then in generally trying to achieve
 you know something some big goal that we have under that but it's actually specifically tied
 this this investment this thing ties that now the concern about uh you know unlimited wish list it's
 like it's fine everybody can have an unlimited wish list because there's not unlimited resources
 so it's like at the end of the day the way that you distinguish between wish lists is by how do
 they attach to these outcomes what's the most effective thing in achieving the outcome and the
 reason you want people to have a wish list especially the elected people is that we we all
 were elected by the city like you know i like i was voted on by everybody in the city right and so
 so i should bring forth my wish list to to to this to this conversation but part of it is so we can
 have a discussion i think that the way you achieve this is x now if i'm wrong great like i'll be
 accountable to that too and vice versa so like you know so i'm not concerned about there being
 wish lists i think that we have now a structure to discuss that wish list which is actually bring
 to
 bear like what is why do we think that that's the best way to move this forward and then furthermore
 there's this this up and down so that's the horizontal measure there's an up and down measure
 that goes but wait where does this fit within all of the other things that that we're we're trying
 to
 invest in you want this more than this is a conversation that has to be had and we should
 be having those conversations publicly as we are doing today so i think that we will be
 in a much better position next year to have a lot of conversations that we're
 100 have this year i'm not saying we can't have this year i'm just saying that the first pass on
 this the first pass on figuring out does every cost associated with hope well governance but that
 but
 we talked about that you know but that's but that's level three right we've already we've already
 in
 this group said that like there's no way we've moved that this year to the right right but i'm
 just saying from the standpoint of from a practical standpoint for the staff in each department who
 put together the budget and you do it in category one two three now we're saying do it in category
 one two three four and we're saying sortify bucket and we're saying sortify program and we're
 saying
 present all of these by program so this is a huge shift it's a huge shift in just preparing to have
 this discussion yeah so there is not and i think maybe the world might have an idea that somebody
 can just go into new world and press a button and it will spit out here is everything related to
 trades district that's not how our accounting system works it's not that good and so the work
 to prepare the numbers to have these conversations is very deep and time consuming why would we
 have
 that conversation in the context that we've just discussed because we don't know yet all of the
 things that we're spending money on even have discussed which is why i'm saying why would we
 say here's all the money that went into trades district that wouldn't that wouldn't be a discussion
 we'd be having why not if if let's say i'm just making this up like trades district is not a
 i don't think we would be like economic development tracers but maybe we would you know okay so let's
 say let's say that that's a bucket there the work to find out how much money is and and even that
 discussion is so mushy because like do we there's tiff money that goes in there that would be right
 yeah where yeah i get the fact that there's like lots of that there's lots of overlap and lots of
 you know it's being very clear about you know this percentage of staff time was spent on
 but we already agree without doing that exactly well that's why i said that's why the second ago
 but this is but but my point is that we wouldn't be having how much money was spent on trading
 district unless you had an outcome that was spend 20 million dollars on trades district that doesn't
 like that isn't how you would frame the outcome but i absolutely would put it under if the if the
 as as an outcome like the outcome is to spend 20 million dollars the outcome the outcome is
 to grow bloomington's economy in ways that grow wages yes which means attracting more advanced
 services yeah which is our weakest sector and the one with the fastest growing wages and therefore
 everything that happens in the trades district and what we spend in there is critical to that
 because that's the only game in town agreed for that so why wouldn't that be but what but what
 like like that that so within that frame the outcome isn't to spend 20 million dollars
 exactly but within that frame that would be that would be continued like what's the what's the
 the within the way that we just framed it that is continuing we're doing things that we continue
 to do we have an esd department we give money to the trades district we like wait two minutes
 before you know yeah don't worry they can they can wait for me you know priorities but
 all i'm saying then to to be to be brief or concise is that is that that question
 is is going to is is servant to the setting of our targets when we set when we set outcomes
 we say these are things that we want to achieve then we're having discussions about these are the
 ways that we're trying to do that some of it we may not be able to you know quantify at this stage
 be again we know the technological the hindrances perhaps we may not be able to say you know
 to the scent of how much money we're spending in trades but we do know like if this year if we want
 to you know increase the investment in trades district or in the mill or in helping to move
 the mill into a different sort of you know the leadership position within the economic development
 because like like there that may involve increased spending in that stage it wouldn't be able to
 have
 that discussion so so i'm like i don't know it just doesn't i'm not particular i'm not
 particularly concerned with with uh with that interfacing with the like people have lots of
 desires here i think that so i think my son would be if you and i are having two people are having
 enough struggles to wrap our minds around what's the philosophy they are and we have to have these
 with council and then the public also has these without there's a lot there's a lot to go on here
 so once again i refer us to baby steps limited tools new times i think these are good buckets
 i like these buckets i can get behind these buckets i think that um these capture
 do what what what we care about in the administration and any outcomes that we care about
 but i think they capture the things that the council's but i think there's more to say and
 and you know some of this will come down to we're not going to be able to meet with council and
 have
 a discussion about now before we create this bucket do you agree that these and these and
 these things are going to go into it we're going to have to do our best while you're out and during
 july to put together what we think is the best representation of doing this and then we'll learn
 from and grow from it and we may look at it and be like well gretchen you guys really missed the
 mark on it okay sure but we're gonna have to take a running a running leap and and just do our best
 with it and i think we can and then just keeping in mind also that we have plenty of um you know
 the reason why we have all these plans and studies and all those type of things is to
 help generate that second level outcome, right? I mean, we already have these listed in a bunch
 of city things. So, you know, sort of highlighting that this is where we're focusing our attentions
 this year, you know, instead of sort of picking and choosing as we go throughout the year of how
 we're doing it. This gives us a clear theory like this, you know, we're pulling from the
 economic development plan, we're pulling from the climate action plan, we're pulling from the
 transport plan, and this is sort of how we're directing our resources as a consequence.
 I made a note, I just made a note, this is level one, level two, level three. I'm just going to,
 for transparency, I think that we should, if we're going to talk about those levels, you should
 have
 some kind of definite, like, we can be able to simply explain what those levels are or else we're
 going to, it's going to be a very confusing conversation with more people. I mean, and I'm
 not exactly sure what I would even put. I would be theoretical, so I think that's not, we've read
 it,
 we've read it super clearly. Again, we're not like the first city in the world to do outcome-based
 planning, right? It's like, we said very clearly there's outcome areas, then there's outcome,
 there's outcomes, then there's programs. So that's, and we said it clearly in our, in the-
 That goes back to your letter? Okay. Okay, so if you have to scoot, I think that we lose our
 quorum there, so that brings our meeting to a close. See you all on Wednesday.
 See you all on Wednesday. And what is the format for sending these, I guess we bring them,
 Jessica will bring them to the meeting. I think it might just be good to sort of start the
 conversation by saying, "Hey, like we've had the chance to talk and maybe-" We've got a spot on
 the agenda, okay. Like I don't, I can't imagine that ideally we just talked about that first,
 because I feel like we could get that out of the way pretty quickly. I think the agenda,
 I don't need to think about the agenda here. That's a specific, oh, now it is budget statement.
 That
 wasn't what it was initially. Oh, there it is. One, two, okay, yeah. So I think we are item C,
 budget task force report is where we're scheduled to do that. So there's the re-financial.
 The mayor is going to make a statement about her priorities and the approach that she's given to
 administration. Then we can report out on these categories we've just identified and then we
 chit chat. See how far we get. All right, thanks. Sorry, sorry, I have to leave. Just got half an
 hour. [Music]