- All right, I guess I'll go ahead and call to order this meeting of the Special Fiscal Committee of the
- County Council for Wednesday, November 19th, 2025. Committee members, you want to say your names? That
- would be our roll call. Hope you stay, Oscar. Isaka, sorry. Hey, Varela. Nice guy. Isabel P. Mosner.
- Okay, so all four committee members are here. We have Lisa Langer and Christine Chang from the council
- office, Jessica McFallon from the clerk's office here in the rear. So first, taking a look at the agenda,
- does any committee members have additions or the controller revisions to propose or does it look fine?
- I think it looks fine. All right, seeing no changes, we will go ahead and start with planning the December
- 10th deliberation session on budget priorities. So I've been thinking about this a lot and I included
- in the packet some information that I thought could kind of structure the conversation in two weeks,
- three weeks.
- something like that. So I'd love to just talk about this and get your feedback. I have to admit, I started
- actually, I switched part one and part two, because my first thoughts were, or two, were my, when I
- first started thinking about it, I was like, Okay, let's see, what did we say were our priorities this
- year? And how does that
- map onto the categories, the buckets that we agreed to. And some of the things that people said,
- you know, in the spring of this year for 2015-16 were more like projects getting to outcomes and not
- so many outcomes. So I was trying to kind of juggle that. And then I thought, well, we have outcomes
- in our comp plan. So let's go back and look at those.
- I don't know, I guess we'll start with part one then turn them. See what you all think. I think the
- little organization of thought, even though this is amazing, thank you. To map some of our comp plan
- things onto those. That's a really good start to conversation in a lot of ways.
- They go because of the mapping of part one, part two, all combined. That makes sense. I think building
- off of where we left the conversation last time, I think that just doing part one will give us a lot
- of substantive conversation. And maybe, I mean, what I suggest is that we
- We have other plans as well that have outcomes in them, transportation plan, sustainability plan,
- et cetera. And I would pull, I think that activity for one is enough for this group meeting, is that
- take all of the outcomes that we have listed last week, or Gesundheit, or both, and then have a,
- I think three, but two levels. One is prioritizing those, but two is some of these that are here are
- better, to your point, are better outcomes than others. Public safety is enhanced. It's not an outcome
- that's measurable. We have to operationalize that. Well, the comp plan does have indicators.
- Under each outcome, saying how to measure it. Exactly. So that's what we should have in. Exactly. Because
- we should be discussing very specifically the, you know, but I feel like the part one and two to me
- is actually, you know, part one is here are all the many things that we say that we're working towards
- and how do we want to prioritize
- You know, what, what is, what is our priorities group? And then part two to me is about theory of change.
- So do we still believe that, you know, that this approach listed in 2002 is, is, is still the way that
- you accomplish this, um, which gets very clearly to, well, what would you find to move this, this, you know? So.
- I understand you were saying, Isak, first we look at here's what they're working towards and then how
- do we prioritize. And then we look at the relevance of the 2018 conflict. We should have some discussion
- about theory of change. So if, I think that that's where you'll have more disagreement probably than
- about priorities among some others.
- I don't want to discuss necessary changes. So if we say, for example, that let me pick an outcome so
- we can use this off the top of our head. We want to increase the range of affordable housing options
- that are universally designed and environmentally sustainable at the top level, but then there's
- subcategories within the comprehensive plan.
- And, you know, to a lot of us that's a overhaul of certain provisions in the, you know, to others that
- we want to see substantial funding for, I don't know, tax it's like right like you know that we that that's a.
- The how does the money will the outcome for a business that part. And that's kind of why I feel like
- I want a combination of those two parts in terms of going okay so on that example that you gave recently
- range of affordable housing and then if we go down to the second part.
- We have under goals that we said last time it was to revise the UDO to form based and set up a small
- housing developers don't have short term rentals invest in land trust. So that's kind of what I mean,
- like all of those things we could say are like supporting plan under this thing. And so it's like, so
- that's why I would say they'll be interested in buying those things together because it's not just about.
- you know, to try to then incorporate the things last year. And then of course we can like build that
- tree a little bit more to recognize things that are being done already that we want to keep investing
- in. And I'm not sure that we necessarily have time in the whole meeting to do that whole tree building.
- I think part of that whole tree building is what Adam is trying to do now, right, in terms of fitting
- in their current programs into that. So I think if we focus on the top layer of the tree,
- that might actually like for this meeting, the most useful for like having next year is then go like,
- okay, here are our priorities for the top layer. And then how are you fitting current projects in? And
- then at some point next year, council members can go, okay, I see the current projects are fitting here.
- I also think this should be a current project. This thing should be, you know,
- categorized under there or something that like is important in us. Yes, yes. So we focused on the top
- layer. I agree with that. Which I think maybe is, yeah, what you said before is part one. And then let's
- help us address the limitation. Like the limitation of our discussion last year was that we, you know,
- there's a lot of things that
- we could have proliferated from the initial conversation, but we didn't have time to do that, right?
- So, and there's some things that came out of that conversation that aren't necessarily budgetary things
- as well, that we shouldn't be having, you know, it's like, you know, men in the DDO is not a budget
- consideration unless we want it to be, which is why I was able to say, you know, we would like to put
- more money into getting another planner or to, you know, whatever is necessary to speed up. So if,
- and again, I'm not advocating for any of this, I'm just using them as examples. Yeah, yeah. So, but
- I still think even in that plan,
- it could be useful in terms of documentation, preparation for the meeting to build a bigger tree with
- what's already in front of us not making anything do up. And then I specifically say, you know, what
- we're talking about in this effort to try to keep us at the high level as opposed to decaying at the
- program level. Does that make sense? So why don't you say keeping the focus on
- Do you say biggest branches of the tree or current tree? I'm not getting the tree now. Perhaps if we
- think about it in terms of what are the outputs of the conversation, and very early conversation we'll
- have more, but our first conversation, the outputs end up being, right now, council collectively seems
- to care most about in order. This is not in order of these priorities, and there are all types
- of comprehensive plan things.
- here are some ideas and some mappings, some initial mapping of where some programmatic level suggestions
- may fit in within that broader thing. But the output is essentially us saying, we think housing is most
- important, I'm just trying to actually groundless and things, environment is second, the safety is third,
- and this is where we'd really like to see you investing.
- Right. And then within each of those, I think it's also useful to then go, okay, so under housing, we
- think that this is most important. Yes. Yes. And so like a piece of that tree analogy for me is like
- thinking about this document. I'm looking at part one. And, you know, so continuing with the with the sub
- sub subjects here. So increase the range of affordable housing options and then underneath that, but
- from section two that we mentioned last year, even in the different colored font, I don't know how that
- like works out or documentation and then kind of being kind of deliberate. Like we're talking about
- the black font right now, right? That we're not talking about these smaller ideas. And I think that
- that's a way to
- communicate to council members as a whole that we're talking about the big ideas. So I think it's really
- hard when we think about something like that we want to spend money on or we want to invest in to especially
- in this like outcome-based budgeting to like if that was an outcome kind of question and I think that
- that's still really hard so we have those examples underneath
- what we consider outcomes, like those are paths to an outcome. So it's like, if you'll have this idea,
- that's a path to an outcome, but that's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about the
- path, we're talking about the outcome, so. Yeah, and I did, maybe I should have moved, not moved the
- second paragraph or part two down so far, but I do say outcomes answer the question, what would have
- been a better way to build housing? It's easier to build housing, it's more owner-occupied.
- Right. Um, so yeah, I could try to work that. But I think the big thing, I think that both of us are
- saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, what you're saying is that let's not view these two parts as like,
- it's like, okay, we've done part one, now let's switch to another activity. It's the same thing.
- Right. And so, so like from the list that you have now, you know, it's like, okay, here's all the stuff
- we talked about last year. And we know, I don't think we need to like force some mapping of this. I
- do think that we're, that the intuition is correct. Go to the conference and plan, even though I also
- argued that we need to update our conference plan, but like, like go to the conference plan, go to the
- plan. We already have a plan. We already have a transportation plan. We already have plans that we've
- agreed to accepted that give us clear outcomes. We're going to, that's going to be our, the, the reach
- that we're going to build all of this out.
- of yeah I don't I want to be clear yeah you're basically right in terms of interpretation of what I
- was saying I don't think it's necessary to put all of the things in part two map dogs those all the
- things apart one but just as examples yeah and that we can use last year's examples yes exactly as so
- then you don't have to recreate your own samples and then I also think that it would be valuable in
- terms of like
- you know, so it's not just the comprehensive plan. There's also the transportation plan, you know, and
- the like subset of that. Which is technically part of the plan. Right. If there's the climate action
- plan, like there's all these plans and you can't possibly, no individual can possibly like prepare this
- and go, okay, these are the only options, the possible budget priorities to remove these buckets. But
- getting us started as a group. And then, you know, as part of the,
- packet, like referring folks to these other plans and like, hey, if there's something in these other
- plans that I haven't put in here that you think is most important and that you also want to put in here
- in terms of budget priority, like come to the meeting with that kind of suggestion. So it really is.
- So in your draft here, I would encourage that by leaving some space underneath each of those categories
- for other council member additions.
- Dave, what do you think? Yeah, I think it's a good framework. I mean, for instance, I would include,
- other than comprehensive plan, the Novak study of 2022 under public safety, which is the recommendation
- that we have 105 sworn officers, police officers. I think that's a goal that we should aim for. And
- it's a very definite number.
- whether we'll achieve that or not, but in order to address understaffing, that's where we ought to be
- heading toward that number. And that's a part of whether we actually annex other areas of the county.
- That's what we need right now. So I agree. I think that we could develop specifics, more specifics,
- based upon maybe other consultant reports, studies, and so forth that we could add on to this. Are there
- others besides the NOVAC one that haven't been mentioned that would be good links to make for the packet?
- Especially because I didn't think about that one because that was before my council term started.
- Well, along with the Novak report regarding public safety, there was, uh, the Obama administration's
- 21st century policing report, which established, I think that there was, um, if you want interactivity,
- if you want to preach this, um, you know, the police interaction with public, you need, uh, you need
- police involved in the community.
- Therefore, you need a certain number, uh, in order to have the, um, you know, the flexibility of the
- police officer to be able to interact with people on a neighborhood basis. So, um, that, that kind of
- confirms that, um, you know, what, one specific aspect that I, and I appreciate Isabel going through
- and, and kind of developing this framework. So for instance, one,
- One category was, I have too many windows open, sorry. My concern about invasive plants in the community,
- the comprehensive plan basically states that under policy 3.4.2, eliminate
- to the greatest extent, feasible invasive plant and animal species. I don't think we're doing that.
- That's under the urban ecology. Dave, can I just jump in? Because I feel like you're getting to very
- specific points that we want to discuss on December 10th with everybody. Yep. So as far as this framework,
- do you think it makes sense what
- Isak and Hopi were talking about were in part one, you know, giving some examples from part two, which
- is things people actually brought up in the spring. Just for examples, because we are going into a new
- budget year. They have new ideas. Yeah. Overall, yes. But specific to, I mean, a specific goal oriented
- would be. I think would be desirable.
- Yeah. As it's like, I think was saying that, you know, if we have that target in mind to the extent
- that we can focus on that, um, you know, we're likely to get a better outcome. And just to, to figuring
- that is that it's, um, you know, I, I think we'll be much better suited at prioritizing when, because
- it wouldn't work the level when we aren't, uh, um,
- How do I say this correctly? It's really difficult to answer the question. What's more important, roads
- or parks? It's really hard to answer that question. But if the question is,
- What, what are we prioritizing in terms of action this year, and you have the type of detail that Dave
- was just talking about and we can look holistically at something that we agree all of these things on
- this table are things that we care about.
- That's the thing that we think we can really move forward that's going to have broader impacts on a
- lot of the other things that we're working on. And again, we can have different arguments about our
- theory about why we think that thing matters a lot. But I think that that would really help, because
- I think that there's some elements of priority that I think we all share as a city, but we don't have
- a lot of clarity on what
- very clear action that we can take, right? Versus there's some things where there's a lot of action
- that we can take. And then there's other things that I think that to the points that Dave just brought
- up that I think will be really fruitful not to get into them, but to now, but to have this conversation
- in a couple of weeks that where it's like, these are like what I call like chalk problems. Like they're
- like, these are like $10 problems in relevance to like the $150 billion things that we often
- You know, they get under prioritized because of the fact that they're like, oh, yeah, we'll get to that
- type of things. And so I think it would be really great to raise those to the level of like, no, we
- really want to see this happen this year. And there are things that were very doable. I'd also like
- to respond to Dave's suggestion to cite the Novak report and maybe the Obama policing report. Those
- are very different, especially, well, let me just take the Novak report.
- not the same as a comp plan. That report was done by a consultant. It was not done with a lot of public
- engagement or any public engagement. It's not like an agreed upon set of principles and goals that our
- community has adopted.
- So I would really hesitate to include that as a basis for funding. I mean, you personally, as a council
- member, any of us can say, hey, no vets of this. And I think that's valid. It's backed up by Obama's
- report. But I don't think it's appropriate to include in this kind of here, the objectives of the city
- type conversation. So no, no consultant report should be included.
- the meeting on December 10th where we're starting with the comp plan and any other adopted plans like
- planning action, transportation, those all had broad public input were adopted by the council. The report
- wasn't even like didn't have anything to do with city council. We didn't ask for it. We didn't adopt
- it. I just don't see that it is something to on par with. It's a professionally produced report that
- established that we're understaffed in terms of our public safety, which has been validated by the actual
- officers and the police union and, and the chief of police. I'm, I, I think it's a valid report. And
- I think that's. I was saying that it's not a valid report. I think she's trying to draw a difference between
- plans that have been like in terms of what we're talking right now with budget priorities and these
- like budget priorities based on our our adopted city plans and the the difference she's trying to draw
- here is like the Novak report could impact how like the pathway to
- So in her she cites in terms of the public safety part is public safety is enhanced and we could argue
- that that's like too general of a thing to say, right? But you could say using the Novak report as like
- a citation of evidence that part of the pathway to enhancing public safety is to fully staff the department
- so that we don't get the
- budget outcome from the NOVAC report, we get the path to the outcome from the NOVAC report. Is that
- a good way to explain that, Isabelle? Yeah, that's fine. I can agree with that, yep. I think that for
- this session where the packet information that we get is not the pathway to the outcome, it's just the
- plan that is the outcome.
- Okay. I mean, just to address public safety and the fact that we have one outcome, I think public safety
- should be its own plan. That's for another day. That could be a
- a pathway underneath that that we talk about at some point saying hey let's invest in actually figuring
- out a public safety plan in the same way that we have a comp plan and a climate action plan and all
- these other plans is how can we. I might magnify that more which is to say in a more meta way which
- is to say one of the benefits of this practice is going to help us recognize where we don't have outcomes
- and maybe one of the things that you want to see
- you know, we had to break the session this year, like less planning, more doing, but there are some
- places where like actually we brought a leave, what else? You know, and also it opens the conversation
- to like, you know, a climate action plan, it was a five-year plan then in 2018, we're way past that,
- right? So, you know what I'm saying? The climate action plan, wasn't that in 2018 adopted? No,
- it was 22. Oh, 22, okay.
- Okay, but you think so, but the plot plan is 2018, right? So. Which is like 10 years, it's supposed
- to be a year, is that right? Is it 10 or 5? It's 5. It's 5. Right? So, but anyways, but at my point,
- my point being regardless of that is just that it's, it gives us a nice, it'll help us really clear
- the math where we have outcomes and we're not. One other thing, oh.
- Well, I have one other thing. Maybe we have the same other thing. When you guys were talking about the
- prioritizing things, I, and maybe this is more of an especially for the 10th, but maybe this would be
- like the question, right? Whether we should think about prioritizing our big buckets, you know, labeled
- one through six on the sheet.
- or whether we should really focus on prioritizing the things underneath each of those.
- Cause like, are we really going to choose between housing and homelessness and a high performing government?
- Like, aren't those six buckets partly chosen? Cause like where are we going? All of these are really,
- really important things to keep the city as a whole going. So really, I almost feel like it's the stuff
- underneath that, that's more of a dismissal. Yeah, I do not think we would prioritize those six buckets.
- Yeah. Okay. Okay. They're interim. Yeah.
- you end up with six prioritized lists, essentially. And then from that six, you could come up with a
- top man or something, like a top in actions or something like that. Yeah, that's right. And maybe, but
- part of it too, I think that in terms of what you were talking about with the $10 problem, I think that
- to some degree, some of these priorities, I mean, it probably, if you look at averages, would cost a
- whole lot more to deal with transportation and mobility related stuff because
- it's just so expensive to deal with roads and things like that, then it would be to do high performing
- government. High performing government is a big part of our budget because everything falls into that.
- Public safety is the best option. Interesting. Maybe community health and vitality would be another
- good, because that's like staff time and work time, but it's not
- materials, make the materials aren't as expensive. So that's maybe the better on that. Compare those
- in terms of cost, how much they cost and it's, it makes them hard to compare. I have my one thing to
- add. The six buckets did not have environmental climate.
- Yeah, and yet a lot. We have a whole chapter not complaining on environment. I put them all in community
- health and vitality. I'm inclined to say that should be And I agree. I think also a very good conversation to have
- And again, I think two things I was going to add. One is that this conversation is proving that the
- conversation will be very fruitful to have this way. The plan that we haven't mentioned is they had
- an old plan that I think is something we also should consider. And then my third question was, even
- though I said two things, my third question was, what are you thinking about in terms of the actual
- like how the conversation goes, so like the runoff show, and are we gonna get, is it just gonna be council
- members, or are we gonna make it participatory with residents? I was thinking just council members.
- For now, yeah. To start, and then I was kind of waiting to think through runoff show to get your feedback
- on the framework.
- But I have talked to staff about maybe having whiteboards with sticky notes that we live around. But
- I have to think through it after I get the framework revised. So that's fine. I also, in terms of an
- idea of a seventh bucket being environment, I think that could be a really interesting conversation.
- But I would also wonder if
- that environmental piece that's actually something that should thread through all of the other six instead
- of being a something so that. That's true, but I think that that's a conversation to have in terms of
- like part of that and then similarly equity and justice are similarly things that.
- should maybe spread through. So it's almost like having a whole separate sort of. A lens. Yeah, a lens.
- That here we do high-performing government with a lens and with an equity lens. Right, exactly. And
- so that would just be an interesting piece of the conversation to have is how should those things. Yeah,
- some of those things spread through all of them. Yeah. And like what kinds of metrics should we use around
- Those items threading through the other. That's such an interesting thought. Yeah, like, yeah. But we
- have a whole plan for climate action. Right, right. So I'd have to look at those outcomes again and
- see if they could go in a different bucket. Well, I don't think that you necessarily need to work in
- terms of your preparation to change where it is right now, but I'm saying that we're going
- to have conversations about the environment that I want to know. That would be feasible if I thought.
- with the climate action plan. Right. Okay. Yeah, that's like, I just don't want to put more work on
- your, you know, I do that, but I just think that that's a piece of the conversation in terms of,
- you know, do these things deserve their own bucket? Do they need to thread through the other thing?
- That's like, how? How do we want that to work? Any other feedback on the basic framework for December 10?
- Great work. Thank you. Well, just to say that I guess I'm at odds because I think that environment should
- have its own category. Yeah. It has its own chapter in the comprehensive plan and that contains topics
- that are pretty far afield from one another themselves. So I would be struggling to just shoehorn it
- into or even establish
- threads that run through the different categories that are established here. Um, but that's my preference.
- Um, you know, I think that this is a good framework to begin. Um, I appreciate the work that you've
- done. This is a bone already establishing where council members fall in various topics. So that's the
- other thing. Um,
- Thanks, Dave, and I tend to agree with you about environment, but the other thing I forgot to mention,
- so in part two, I have the initials of the council members said these things, and I think it would,
- I would prefer to send this out to all council members and say, did I get this thing wrong before I
- put it in a packet, you know? But some of them I kind of categorized,
- had to make assumptions. So I think I would. Or I can just take those. What does it add? Well, if there's
- any confusion, what did you mean Courtney? I'm just thinking that, you know, the like the context in
- which you generated that list is quite specific. And I personally don't remember
- exactly, you know, like the epistemological, my thought process, you know what I'm saying, at that exact
- moment. But I think that a lot of it was very contextualized in the conversation we're having in the
- way that, you know what I'm saying? So, I don't know if it adds a whole lot to attach these to people.
- And actually, I think it almost
- might make it harder because of what we're trying to do with these is to provide examples, but we don't
- actually want to talk about these things. We want to provide examples of how it goes under the framework.
- So maybe it actually, like it might've made sense in how you were originally like considering your framework,
- but I think that we maybe even thought about that a little bit in terms of almost shrinking the conversation
- or being more specific about like,
- conversation. So I think it actually might take away from that the larger higher level conversation
- to get to interweaves about any of the specific things. So I think we need to ask the council members
- what they were thinking. I also think like, I mean one specifically that you attributed to me was
- I think said by multiple people, find repair maintenance of city infrastructure. I think a lot of people
- said that. Yeah. And then I'm dealing with one that got attributed to it. So I mean, well, I used that
- little PowerPoint chart that you and I made after the discussion. But yeah, a couple of people through
- the course of this grant intention. Right. Right. So I, yeah. Okay. So just
- I'm just going to take a few examples. I'm going to leave off the initials. Well, look, you know, again,
- I mean, I'm easy. That's fine. I appreciate what you did here as a bell. It gave me it reminded me of,
- you know, what people saw as priorities. I didn't feel as limiting. I felt that, you know, because I
- know that we all share a lot of common interests, but we
- prioritize things. I found it helpful, just historically speaking, doesn't have to be included with
- initials. But thanks for doing that. Okay. We move on to public comment then. Is there any member of
- the public who would like to comment? Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on the
- have the December 10th deliberation session. Thank you, Isabelle. This is Christopher from the chamber.
- I just want to give my words of encouragement to the committee. Great job today. Some discourse. It
- was worth me speeding from Ellisville to make it here and listen to it. So I just want to give give
- my encouragement here and continued good work here at the committee.
- Thank you. Appreciate that. Any other public comment? No. Okay. All right. Well, then let us move on
- to budget process and timeline for the 2027 budget.
- So I just jotted down some things to touch upon, matching current funding to programs and programs to
- categories. Jessica, do you have an update on how that's going? That is exactly what we are working
- on. Gretchen and I, one other department kind of has capacity and was very interested in it, has a big
- department. We're working right now to kind of
- reopen the case if you will like where we were when we stopped working on it. It's been a minute and
- we are working on organizing where we were when we stopped and getting all of those meetings and trainings
- started again where all the department heads go to training on how to proceed through the next step
- from the vendor and then they all do that work and then we all then me and the mayor's office and our
- other department head review that work
- So we don't have a specific timeline set up. Yeah, we're still reviewing. We're still sort of getting
- ready to start. We're just getting ready to restart that process. Yes, we are definitely still actively
- working on that. So I don't have like a specific time frame to give you on any of that. But yes, what
- you know, what you wrote in the agenda is exactly what our next steps are. Yeah, that's a great summary
- of what happened.
- And so do you... Same page. Okay. So there's no set timeline, but in general, do you think that that'll
- be done in time for... Yes. You know, starting again, reading in December, look at it again, and then
- really starting those trainings and finishing that work and changing it.
- March. And so that's the matching firm funding to programs, which is different than matching programs
- to outcomes. Correct. So it's the matching programs to outcomes. And that's that last one. That will
- be next. So that the plan to finish by March is part A matching firm funding programs. And outcomes.
- Oh, and outcomes.
- Yeah, all of it. Okay. Okay, so that first year, you make the matching funding to programs and then
- you're going to do the matching programs to outcomes to build those things should be done. Yes. So if
- we want to add an outcome category called environment, we need to
- talk to the administration. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe this committee can advise should be
- by Jessica direction. Anybody else? I mean,
- You're always invited. Yeah, we're always invited. Yeah, like, I mean, it just wasn't on our radar,
- honestly. I would be interested in hearing from you guys about, like, the, or just, or whatever, like,
- adding a sub bucket. So that's kind of, like, kind of why I asked that is that kind of feedback at that
- meeting might be interesting, like, in that kind of, you know, add another bucket versus
- trying to wind it through the other ones. You know, those are kind of like the two options. And I just
- like saying those are the two options, because maybe there are other options. But those are the two
- that have come up at this meeting. I think that I would be interested in hearing feedback on that. But
- we can also get feedback on that later. We could, if that doesn't give you a test. I'll have the feedback
- now. I think that less priorities at home is more effective to handle.
- It's hard to have a lot of those big puppets. The more condensed you make, the more you refine those,
- the easier it is to make this kind of style programming work. It's just my feedback from what we've
- learned in our trainings and what the trainer's saying, what our students do, the more un-wieldy and
- difficult it gets.
- even though, I mean, I. Let me just say, because then you end up having, I feel, a squirt and sort of
- things, right? So you end up having. Yeah, you have more things that split between. Right, so so you're
- thinking about something simple like, yes, I've had a time where it's like, is it vital for you to be,
- is it going to be safe for you, is it, you know, communication and happiness, is that you are sort of
- into becoming, like, and so. But how can we make sure that environmental concerns are being met by the
- city, you know, maybe in our outcomes?
- Like how do we ensure that the concerns are being met? But- Well, a lot of work that's done like that,
- um, Shawn Mia does, what category is that going to go in? Yeah. I mean, I think that's a good question.
- Like, I mean, this is definitely like the conversation. Yeah. This would be really interesting.
- All right. And that's the answer to that. Right. You know what I mean? Like, I agree with you. Like,
- yeah, there's that and like a bunch of other things, but where is it going?
- a good question and that's exactly where the fights work and trying to make it clear and maybe what
- we present to you and where those things are so. But I think though one of my things between finalist
- conversation on science and have a fruitful conversation but I think I think at the the
- point here is then trying to create categories that don't make it very difficult to split things. So
- if it is a distinct category that can exist on its own, great to have it. It's actually that benefits
- you. But if you have a category where it's like so, you know, where a single program will not be split
- between multiple categories, that's not helpful. But if it's a very distinct thing where we can say
- this is a thing and things that are not in this thing, then that's very helpful. And for sure, other
- cities have a category that isn't like until last night, like that can be a category.
- Um, so, you know, we can absolutely do it. Yeah. Uh, you know, lots of cities kind of have that as a
- bucket or a category or a band thing. So, but that is, yeah, you explained what I, from my perspective,
- whether it's that issue that comes, starts to develop. Exactly. And so here's like a question sort of
- related, I don't know if it's this agenda item or not at this point, but would it make sense? I mean,
- Isabelle, you just put all of those environmental things that are community health vitality, is it,
- easier or doesn't make sense instead of creating the seventh bucket to create subcategories underneath
- our top six like that that would be another I guess thing that that I would say like oh like let's consider
- this does that you know meet the concern say where do we push on the stuff and the you know fewer categories
- better in terms of splitting things and I don't know if it actually does but you know as you think about
- it we're okay we're going to figure out
- where to put you on this stuff, what we really need counsel to do. I'm going to try to redirect, reframe
- this conversation. I think we're getting a little off track. We're going to figure out what our departments
- do. You guys need to figure out what the community priorities are and the outcomes. Exactly. Don't worry
- about what our departments plan. We do so much stuff. Correct. Don't worry about that. Just worry about
- what your outcomes. Exactly. I just like to flag that we really shouldn't ask the question, where do
- we put things that we already do?
- Don't worry about that. What we already do should actually be asked, how does this fit into the priorities
- that we have? Well, kind of. I mean, I guess I was trying to meet that concern of going, ooh, is seven
- going to be too many categories? Does it make more sense to have some categories under other categories?
- That nesting thing. Both of your questions are a yes to both.
- The number is the problem. It's the distinction between them. So if you proliferate, if you proliferate
- categories and then they become so narrow that many of them have overlaps, that's a problem. But if
- we have plenty of categories, but they were very distinct, like that's quite difficult. So is the better
- question to ask to think about over the next, you know, however long, how overlapping the environmental
- thing should be with if we had another environmental category
- or if you have a specific environmental category, would you be challenged? You know, oh, I'm not sure
- where to put this because there's so much overlap now between the same category and the other categories.
- Is that a better question to ask them? I mean, I think what I'm hearing from ESOCC and maybe from Jessica
- is that let's not get that gawk out. Let's focus on how exactly. Exactly. And yes, that's exactly it.
- Because that's where your second question is also correct because
- what you said is that second level of those outcomes, right, is really what we're, you know.
- The top level is a comms exercise. It's how you talk to people, certainly, to organize and galvanize
- support and intellectual thought, so it doesn't become overly complex. That's the top level. But when
- you talk about outcomes specifically, at the end of the day, if you have a very good outcome, whether
- you put it here or there doesn't matter. The outcome's clear. You know what I'm saying? I guess we got
- bogged down on that a little bit.
- I was saying, hey, it would be interesting to have your feedback around this thing. Right. Right. But
- I think you're giving us enough where I would just I would vote for this first meeting. I think we'd
- get a lot out of just having the nine council members, just all of us really getting a chance to talk
- without just without any
- you know, let's do something else now. Like, let's just, like, let's talk this out so that when we now
- go to these committees or when we're speaking to the mayor and the administration, we have a clear,
- like, there's so much clarity from council. I agree. It is. I think that's the best thing we could do
- to help the administration is collectively having, and even with your dissent, have a clear understanding
- of that dissent. Right, right.
- Well, I think I'd like to formally invite your question over to me. Sure. Because having you there to
- not primarily to answer a question or to think back, but to hear, you know. It's much easier to be in
- the room to understand. Yeah. Understand what people. Yes, what people are thinking. Yes. I'm thinking
- on my calendar. Which now?
- And Dave, please feel free to jump in at any time. I will. Thank you. So then part C, I had ideas for
- public engagement. And we talked about this a little bit at our last meeting, where I think it was Dallas
- had an example of
- An outreach fair with the public, with each department having a table and kind of explaining how they
- use taxpayer money. So I don't know if, kind of gets my notes. Who was it that there was somebody on
- our staff? One of the attorneys. That was the city of Dallas. Oh, I believe that was Anna Halmson. Okay.
- So that's just one method of networking engagement. And we were talking that that may come relatively
- late in the process. And it is, I don't like to understand that. Yeah. What the city of Dallas intended for that.
- Was it, were they actually getting feedback from residents about what priorities should be funded or
- were they just like, meet your government? Right, yeah, I absolutely hear what you're saying.
- I don't know. As I recall, Anna described that it was an opportunity for city staff to describe
- various services and outcomes that people have attempted to make. The organic thing that happens with
- them, people do share their opinions, whether you ask them right or not, I'm saying. What I have written
- down on my notes were staff prepared program costs and then had a couple care tables about each of the
- program folks.
- So it was that lower level, instead of talking about the big five buckets, the lower level, like, this
- is what I'm doing with this money. So the SIPAN and what the SIPAN is giving to the community. From
- my perspective, and this is just reflective professionally on this,
- The benefit of that type of engagement is that it helps us to think outside. We get so bogged down in
- the box because we spend a whole year working on things, sustaining things, and it's really easy. It's
- just an intellectual bias that we all have, like where it's very easy for us to be like, yeah, how do
- we do this thing that we've been doing for 10 years or whatever? And then the rest of us, you know,
- sometimes we'll come and be like, why are you gonna do that at all? And that's actually what's really
- helpful. It's like, if, you know, they'll say, oh yeah, we want,
- of the economic development is a great space where we have some ideas about when we're doing arts or
- something and people come and say, and what you should be doing is this, right? And it just doesn't
- really help. It's like, oh, why did it open the thing? Or, oh my gosh, I hadn't even thought about it.
- Why don't we have chalk on Kirkwood? That's where that chalk problem came from. Everybody's like, why
- do you have chalk on Kirkwood? But not even a thing. I thought about we should have chalk on Kirkwood. Right.
- with that is, is you can, you know, all of a sudden a comedian member goes, oh my gosh, I get it. We
- do this program. Yeah, that's amazing. I want to participate. I want to do the thing, which also gives
- that kind of measure of not just criticism, but positive feedback. Yes. Yes.
- So think about this, I think the best way to use that engagement is around program design. It's what
- we think of as beneficiary discovery for program design, and that's really, really helpful. Yeah, and
- so what I have written down from my notes from the last session was that maybe a public engagement fair
- should be a 2027 goal instead of 2026, but it kind of depends.
- And then I also have using this bear as part of the budget presentations or maybe a September deliberation
- session. Maybe use that as a September deliberation session. The September is right after budget season.
- I think the last discussion of this, like if preparing the budget is more about department heads,
- Having to do a whole lot of work, but preparing for this fair would be more about other staff, because
- they're ones who are more active and they're specific. And by then we'll have our budget book done and
- we can use the budget book to sort of create the materials. So that's like part of it. So I think the
- way that we talked about it last time based on my notes or maybe it was based on my like thoughts about
- it that I didn't actually have time to say was like,
- because the budget presentations can be so challenging for the public to understand and comprehend that
- the spare could be an idea that's more digestible for people who aren't accountants or other financially
- savvy kind of folks to just understand how we're spending our money. And that then,
- that it would involve lower level staff, not just department heads. So it spreads out some
- of that communication work and pages. Go ahead. Just timing wise, I know that Gretchen has her finger
- on the pulse of the department heads workloads better than I do. And I hope I'm not speaking out of
- turn when I say it's kind of feels like there's never a good time to do something like this.
- And especially when it's a new thing to add to the federal schedule. So I will say that September sounds
- good, but I am not the voice of, you know, I'm definitely not the voice of the final, okay. Oh, yeah.
- I mean, I'm just saying, like that was in my notes from last night. I think that I thought a lot. And
- I'm thinking like, oh, maybe this could actually work out. Maybe. But I wrote it down literally so that
- I would mention it again someday. So thanks for that.
- I agree, I agree with all of that, and I am, so just to triangulate on some thoughts here, is that
- where you put it, but it just had implications for what you used it for. And so the one way, another
- way to think about it, in addition to the way that you just thought about it, if it can't be ignored,
- is that if we imagine that it went, okay, we come up with some priorities, and then we're doing this
- early, it's just so great. And then you all come up with sort of like this initial, we have the early
- draft of like, okay, like, this is where things are sort of tracking out. And then from that, we have
- a further conversation about, okay, like prioritizing within that ranking or something like that.
- Exactly. Exactly. It's all out in the world. Okay, this outcome is tied to these programs and you know,
- okay, now what I would do at that stage individually is I would go to constituents, I'd be holding listening
- sessions, I'd be doing door knocking and I'd be asking like, what you think? And so that's another place
- where you could
- The burden on, you know, Isabelle's heard me talk about this a lot that, you know, there's something
- very beneficial and easing the burden of individual information getting so that we don't have.
- different realities about the same elephant, right? And so when you can do that in the open,
- it's not about, you know, I'm still gonna do all those things, but it's just really helpful when you
- can have those in the public far. So it may be a space to do it in that maybe earlier stage too, like
- in that sort of like March area, right? And I think I suggested that or said that it was like March
- is way too soon. We can't manage that by March of 2026, which I think is where in my notes I was like,
- maybe we can do that in 2027.
- that maybe the march one isn't you bring all the department heads and they're there to explain and blah
- blah but maybe it's as simple as something that the council holds and we bring people in and maybe we
- all have a little bit of homework or we go to talk to our constituencies and you know what i'm saying
- and we could send out surveys to all of the neighborhood associations you know there's things that we
- could do and just get some good feedback on this is what we think the budget is going to take shape
- at and then and then to your and then you could add a little bit of element of that and the
- budget discussions you got a little bit of element in that in that time
- and what we think of the budget negotiation theory. So I don't think there's a wrong time to do public
- engagement. It's just that each of those is quite a different event. I think that the fair idea specifically
- was that would be way too much for trying to do in March. And that's why I was like, maybe it could
- be in September as part of the budget presentations. And then maybe in future years. I love that.
- Well, I think that we need to recognize this. Jessica indicated that this is the fair, the engagement
- fair, a little bit of a huge lift for staff and really the mayor would have to agree to do it. So that's
- a little bit out of our hands. I don't know if we can propose it. But then, so Eson, you were saying
- that once we get a list of priorities,
- for next year's budget that the council has raised at the time. Then we can do public outreach in order
- to tweak that list or? Well, I mean. Do you mean priorities for outcomes or action?
- I, so to be clear, and this is reflecting your own practice as well, right? I think that we, all of
- us always do the public engagement, right? And then give us some structure. But we do, like, I mean,
- we shouldn't undersell the hardest bit of our work. So then, but my thing is that there's this thing
- that happens in between there, where, you know, once we sort of set our initial, so us now having this
- meeting on the 10th is taking the space of the
- conversation that we've had earlier, we were sort of like, here's our wishlist of things we'd like to
- see in the budget, right? So, and we now have a real structure. The structure should at some point get
- an initial draft response.
- Right? So what that's been in the past was we've had like a work session with the mayor, right? We're
- just like, okay, okay, but we've been doing a work session essentially for two full years at this point
- on this budget, which is great. And so what I'm suspecting will happen is that at some point here after,
- you know, into the new year, but before March, there'll be a sort of like, and I think
- And I don't have a good enough word to describe this. All the words feel too strong, but like a draft
- response, you know, sort of like, this is where we think, like, this is the sort of flow that we see
- occurring at the moment prior to the March time when all of the department heads are really getting
- together and hammering the things out. Where it's like, this is, here's some initial thinking of the
- outcomes that were sort of, you know,
- That Council is generating that. No, that is the response to the administration. So we sort of come
- up with like here outcomes. We want to see that are mapped onto the programs and
- And then they're like, yeah, well, actually, there needs to be some negotiation of priorities, right?
- Because the administration might go, sorry, our number one priority is this. Your number one priority
- is that. Let's discuss. And there's going to be some dialogue there, right? This isn't a static thing.
- And so I was thinking that at that stage, once we've had the engagement by
- the administration or that's when you want to do a structured engagement with the public now. So we
- both had the time to think alone, now we should think publicly, is essentially my thinking. Yeah, that
- makes sense. But what kind of format does that other thing we should take? I think it would take a couple.
- You know, one, it could either be focused on like
- that finding defining outcomes better so which I would imagine like if I was doing that and it's off
- the top of my head but if we have we have a sort of housing almost might have other group of people
- you know think about
- stakeholders in housing, homeless, and people who are interested. They're like, it's April over there,
- and we're gonna think through, these are all the outcomes that are clearly pulled from all of our plans,
- and just getting feedback on those outcomes. And they're like, actually, that's not quite the right
- measurement, or that's not- So it's like discussion-based, so it's small- Yeah, everything's small-
- That's the format that I- Yeah, but focused on, but that would be assuming we're focused on defining
- outcomes. You could take it a step further, which maybe not as useful, but you could have people giving in
- put on program design towards those outcomes. So if you said, if we said, you know, we want to reduce
- the veteran homeless population by 50 people and you can have a conversation, what is the best way to
- do that? Like, it's the question mark. Can you see the outcome? This is what we're agreeing on. How
- do you think we should do that? We're getting, we're generating feedback to get these things we're doing
- all the time, right? So. How do you design it so that
- you guys can capture all of that. A small discussion here is that feedback might be lost. Well, I mean,
- that goes to that, but we set it up so that we'll just have everybody throw it out. We could send a
- virtual survey to all the neighborhood associations, to everybody on the mailing list. It can go out
- as a press release.
- There's ways that we can get the data. Make sure we won't break something. Yeah. Again, I'm not like,
- you know, I'm not advocating. I'm just, I'm just, we're at the brainstorming here. So like, you know,
- if that's what we wanted to do, that's all I'm, all I'm trying to be laying around is that I can see
- us doing these types of things at multiple times throughout the year and just know that they would be
- very different, right? There's a very different design to what you do in September versus what we might
- do in April.
- Well, and at the December 10th meeting, I want to have a period of accompaniment. Yeah, exactly. So,
- you know, we spent an hour and a half, two hours talking about things. Yeah. And we forgot a very important
- thing. Exactly. I want people to be able to say that or say, you know, I don't care about these things.
- Whatever. So every step of the way, we want to have some kind of public input because we also don't
- want to, you know, be in a silo making our lists and then
- all they have two months left to refine them. Right. You know, before we get in, after we left the public.
- So all the way along. Ideally, we would get some funding. Funding? Do they? That's amazing. So any other
- ideas for public engagement? I mean, we'll circle back to this. Oh, I have one more comment. Is that
- we usually have a special session
- At the end of April, with the council and the mayor and people in the department center, we kind of
- discuss, that's always been on the calendar when we just kind of discuss priorities for that. And we're
- not going to get a good time for the administration to kind of let you know we're working at it, how
- things are mapping out, give you like the first draft of just marketing on April. Yes, at the end of April.
- Well, this is not, this, this, uh, has not been adopted by council. Sometimes we try to add in an extra
- room. It's not on the schedule, but sometimes we just use the session. Right. That's not to you guys.
- I think that 2025 celebration sessions on the schedule.
- There'll be nothing Wednesday and April after. Yeah. Yeah. We can talk a bit closer to it and see if
- April 15th is too early for you. Yes, we will take. At least on April 15th, you'll know that we have
- a majority.
- But yeah, it's like for this for this. Yeah, these are the static dates that I know for my sake, I put
- them all in my calendar. Is there a proof that I schedule everything else around? Yes. Then I'll schedule
- something else on Wednesday. That's right. And so that's why it's really hard to add something in afterwards,
- especially if it's too late after. Yeah.
- We could change, move a deliberation session in April to a later date. That's right. Like we can swap
- a regular session and deliberation session. That does need something to happen to the schedule.
- Like in March, we could go like, hey, it would actually be really useful to swap these. Yeah. But as
- long as the date is on our calendar, it really in some ways doesn't matter from a council member perspective, whether
- I'm going to be there on the 15th for deliberation or regular session. I'm just going to be there on
- the 15th. It would just matter for people who want to submit stuff. Yeah. Also agenda to know what enough
- time do they get you materialized in sort of a. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Sooner than that. That could be feasible.
- Like you said, if we made that decision or council made that decision in February. Yes. Or in April.
- Definitely.
- It just, it also depends a little bit on how deadlines might shift because of IT recommendations. Yeah,
- we've got accessibility, which I'm hoping we can begin to implement. So that's why I said like March
- or maybe even February kind of depends on what those deadlines end up being in terms of recommendations.
- But just making sure that those changes happen with enough advance. And that's an advance for staff.
- the public comment on the budget process and timeline or date did you have anything to add no on this
- topic thank you okay all right is there any member of the public who would like to comment on items
- three budget process and timeline for 2027 budget
- Mister empty. Thank you. I had no comment on this, but I don't know how that ended up taking. But again,
- my words of encouragement. It sounds like a good process. Stick with it. Continue to meet and we'll
- see you tonight. I guess your hand was still raised from the first time. Anybody else?
- Thank you, Colleen. So number four, plans for tracking the city's fiscal position. So this is kind of
- in our charge for this committee that tracks on balance, it is, that's the only specific item there
- in the charge that's on our agenda, but this is something that members of the public are also, have
- also brought up,
- we should be more proactive in reviewing the finances of the city. So, Jessica, can you give us an update
- on the audits? The first item on there, I think, is review of annual audits. I think that when the audit
- is completed, we always have an exit interview, and then mayor, controller, president, and council is
- invited. Then we should also have that
- auditor, give a presentation to the fiscal committee too. I think that's the easiest way to handle it.
- Yeah, and I'm sure that's something that they regularly do. It would not be. Uh, that's also like it
- means the audits should also be like public record, right? They are, yeah. And so then anything on the
- committee, like,
- that as of the end of the day, this is part of the packet information, as well as for the main data.
- A powerful presentation, and that would be something to post reviews to the public. And I think that
- that adds to transparency, even if it's in other places. If it's not within our structure and normal
- public information, I think that it's hard for the public to navigate finding.
- When is the 2024 audit? And then the 2024 audit, and audits are always due September 30th of the ensuing
- year, but we're hoping to get it done by December 31st of 2025. So did you get an extension? You don't
- get an extension, it's just late. Is that so?
- When you say December 21st, that's when the city will submit everything or that's when they'll get a
- reward. That's when we'll get a report. That's when it will be audited. The audit of the financial statements
- will be complete.
- December 31st, 2020. And then we'll be caught up, right? We started. Yes, we'll be caught up. So then
- we'll be in a different time frame. And then our 2025 audit will be due September 30th of 2026. Right.
- OK, good. So yeah, fantastic. So we know that before we vote. Before we vote for next year
- budget, essentially. Right, right. We know that. Well, no. No, you won't, because it's due September
- 3rd. Well, yes. The voting is in October. You're right. Yes.
- Is there a way to get it done soon? No, no, no, it is absolutely huge. Yes, it is huge. It's creating
- this like 280 300 page financial document of financial statements. And then that is audited. But I think
- meeting the deadline for the first time in since 2019 would is
- the most that we can hope for. That will be a win. Yeah, so I'm happy you promised it earlier. No, sorry.
- Thank you. No, don't thank me. No, really. I think it's important because I think it's something you've
- got a lot of public comments on this question. The audit, the audit, the audit, it's like, well, the
- context that was always missed in that is that we were kept, that when you took this position, you had
- three years of audience to get that. And so it's like, yeah,
- Yeah, we all want it to be over there, but we are moving very fast. I'm just very appreciative of that
- work. Thank you. Any other questions on audits? I wanted to go to talk about updates throughout the year.
- Yes, I threw up quarterly. So I searched the whole state. I searched the whole state.
- South Bend and Evansville. I'm sure there's others that are just trying to find, you know, like people
- aren't pulling them out of the packets or whatever it is. Or in some cases, I know they're there, but
- like the city's document center is like, I can't find it. What is the there that we're talking about?
- So I pulled financial reports from Evansville and South Bend.
- There are monthly plans. Yeah, I didn't have any good ideas of examples. And then I got some from some
- other cities on our side. They all definitely have like a budget, you know, actual versus budget reports,
- you know, and then also like revenue, just so budget versus actual and then
- revenues and expenditures on budgets. We just need that report. And then fund balance. Why would it
- not have revenues? I mean, because we will definitely report to you on revenues. It's just when we run
- departmental budgets, revenues are tied to departmental budgets. It's tied to funds. And so you can't
- really see the revenues.
- when I run the departmental budget for moments reports. Yes, it can. Just forget that I even said anything.
- Yes, you will get revenues. I'm just wondering if we, so if the entirety of the budget will be time
- to ask, should we not report
- on spending for outcome or something like that. Once we get everything, the system all set up and all
- the departments, you know, aligned, they're spending a lot of programs. Yes, that is what we can do.
- And then I wonder if just the council, not legitimately, I'm sort of against
- the dashboardification of the world. So take this with a grain of salt, but I would probably disagree
- with it another time when you say, this is a great idea, I'm like, that's a terrible idea. It gives
- us a chance then you have like a, so imagine you do that monthly, you could also have a monthly report
- that mirrors that. It's like, here are the metrics that we're tracking, that we want,
- I've used this one or the other day or reduction in veteran homelessness or whatever. It would be great
- to get it monthly. The number of veterans who are homeless went from 14 last month to 13 this month.
- That's great.
- I don't disagree with that concept, but I wonder if that's in the controller report yet. That's what
- I'm saying. Controller can report money spent on it. Right. And then I'm talking about outside of budget.
- Oh, okay. So outside of fiscal. Yeah, correct. Oh, great. Yeah, I'm just saying, I'm just saying as
- a council member, as an interested in counseling thing. Yeah. But it is related to fiscal in the sense
- that, you know, we're tying budget to equity. Right. So it would be great to, like, that's a great way
- to use our report time. It's like, wow, stuff is happening. Right. So here's the question around that, which is,
- maybe a lot of product for this meeting, but you know, it's brought up now is how frequently that kind
- of stuff makes sense. And when, so it's that idea is, you know, like literally every once a year, I'm
- like reviewing the last year's answer. Are we talking about fiscal reports? I think fiscal reports should
- be monthly. Yeah. Or quarterly.
- I think that that makes sense. Um, but also an annual report. So that's right. Necessary. And that's
- why you should have to outcomes because then it really builds. So we're not creating a new process where,
- you know, making a complimentary process.
- But if you do, when you say, because you say, if you say quarterly and also annually, what's the difference
- between the, you would want a fourth quarter and then a summary of the year? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause
- the fourth quarter, like they're all the year to date. And then so then we can discuss how the annual
- will be different than the fourth quarter year to date.
- Yeah, I guess I was thinking that that annual report would be tied to the outcome part. Yeah, we could
- do it as opposed to just like the mic part. And that is also, we'll have a lot of elements out of, but
- we should know. We'll be tracking, we'll be tracking because we are budgeting based on line height and
- outcomes. That's like the, like now with our new software and all of that, every
- everything will be allocated to some, you know, line. I have Q3 or whatever. So you'll be able to say,
- so much money that we spent on Q was on line. Yeah. And I'm not sure, like honestly, I wonder if we're
- putting the card before the board steps in. Like until we figure out how that's gonna end up looking
- as they work through their process over the next few months, maybe then we should,
- Well, yeah, let's decide what we want as of today. You know, like, yeah, produce now and add things
- in after we start off with a couple. That's not what I was trying to get at. So I would love for this
- committee in January to have an annual report of revenues expenditures for 2025 for the year just now.
- That makes sense.
- Yeah, no, I want to do that. Yes. I started here and like, this is something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, this
- is probably your one. Yeah, you're done. Yes. This is what we did. Yes. Suck it. And then and then ongoing
- quarterly reports that kind of have that information. But then as we get closer to outcome, maybe have
- other ones, too. And I would add to that the not just the revenues versus expenses,
- But the actual revenues versus the projected revenues. Oh, yeah. I mean, that probably matter too. Maybe
- you were thinking about that, but I was going to say specifically, yes. Especially over the last few
- years, I feel like, wow, our revenues have been really, like, our actuals have been really far, far
- from our projected. That's the problem with that. Yeah, I do like that. Yes.
- Yeah, it'll be like actual or expected in percent of what we've gotten so far. Yeah, exactly. And it'll
- be great because then you can track things like tourism activity, like there'll be very easy coiling.
- It's like, oh, wow, we did see a huge bump in parking. It'll be great. Yes. More football. You know?
- That's not what I meant. I mean, I was referring to parking violations.
- I mean, it's a lot of violations, though, but that would be really kind of interesting. I don't know
- if you could split that in terms of, say, revenue from parking and to parking fees and parking violations.
- Because those are two different revenue sources that are all in your parking. And it would be kind of
- interesting to go, like, well, like, what time of year are we getting more parking violations? Yeah,
- I think I can get that. The public parks must shut off all property. Where are supervisors?
- I look at it, I think, to your part. I'd love to see it actually. Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah,
- because I mean, you would have qualitative evidence, but it would be best to just kind of like match
- up the numbers they give and then just like get a whole picture of all this here. Yeah, well,
- and it is, I mean, that has some reflection on staffing, too. Like, when might we need more staffing?
- Yeah, so obviously on the tickets for parking attendance for like all of these like pieces.
- So it's like we are not controlled. Those are statistical things, but I'm curious about them.
- I love it. Dave, do you have any input for the tracking of the city's fiscal position? Well,
- just to say, we appreciate the quarterly reports. I think I'm going to be interested in addressing the
- deficit trajectory and a strategy to stop drawing down reserves. Yes. I think just
- Going back to what I said before last time, in times of austerity, it's good to distinguish between
- needs and wants. Sometimes it would be important to add staff. I made a pitch for continuing to add
- public safety. But it was disheartening for me to learn during the previous administration,
- that because of their failure to address the staffing shortfall, they were instead relying on overtime
- pay. We were paying, as I recall, $800,000 or more on overtime. That was an enormous waste.
- Not entirely, but obviously it had to be covered, but it would have been better addressed had we made
- more hires. So, yeah, just to say, Jessica, I'll be looking at things like, you know, I guess it's going
- to be incumbent on me to focus on and be judicious about appropriations and whatever code changes you
- propose, the administration proposes to increase revenue.
- I think I'm going to be also hesitant at the same time about expanding debt. However, I'll remain to
- be convinced. It's not prohibitive, but I'll be open-minded about it, but my preference is not to expand
- it. Anyway, I'll be interested to see how we meet this challenge going forward.
- Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on plans for tracking the city's fiscal
- position? Thank you, Isabelle. Now, this is a new hand. So just, you know, one thing I'd be interested
- to not only in our fiscal report, but doing some FTE comparisons with other cities of similar sizes
- and their departments.
- and kind of getting a feel of where we're at, whether that's the clerk's office, the planning department.
- And because I think ultimately we're going to have to probably cut some personnel. And as we talked
- about the last meeting, this is not about the job that the staff are doing. It's more of the functions
- the city can do. It's what Dave mentioned in needs versus ones. I've used the leap pickup of that was
- a want, not a need.
- So as we look through this and that lens, we sort of need to sort of look out on the size of these things.
- Because I think we can always find great things to do. Like the chamber, I never catch up. There's always
- more things to do. But at a certain point, we've got to go within our time and money realm. And the
- city has to sort of look at this both financially and personnel related. Thank you. Thank you. Any other
- public comment?
- All right, 258. Any final comments for the good of the Oracle? When is our next meeting? Oh,
- that's important. We have not scheduled one for December and at our last meeting I was thinking that
- don't really need to since we're doing a lot of physical work at the December 10th session. I think
- I just- Would it be useful to you to have another brainstorm on the 10th session before that, or just
- to- Before the session? Yeah. I don't think the need is strong enough to have a moving. I agree. I mean, I-
- Lisa, you can chime in here. Would I be allowed to, once I have a game plan for December 10th, to send
- it to the committee and ask for their feedback via email? Is that allowed legally? Or do we have to
- have a meeting? I think you would need to have a meeting. Okay, send it to one committee member and
- request feedback. I can send it to each individual? No, you could choose like one committee member.
- I thought the issue was just us being doing that at the same time.
- No, it's. Receiving information. Yeah. I'd have to look at the statute. But it could be a case theory.
- That's what we first heard about this. When we first took office, I think there was a different
- interpretation around it. And I think that that has been legally updated since then. Oh, I see. I'll
- volunteer to look that over for you. It's like, it's a precedent. Well, if you want. Isak, do you want?
- Are you involved in it? I'm happy to be if it's helpful to you. I know I don't want to. That's all I
- was. I was just offering help. I don't have to be the one to look it over. I'm also really happy to
- if if you'd like help extracting all of the outcomes, happy to do that. So, yes. So maybe, yes, maybe
- if we need more help, we should go this way to just not review it.
- Yeah, how about that? She gets me back. Okay, well, from the conversation today, it doesn't seem like
- I have to put a whole lot of work into this, right? Just put some examples into it. I think we need
- to pull all of the outcomes, like actual, all of them from the document. From all the other plans. That
- is smaller. Yeah, and that's where I don't think that it's really possible. I think it's a very easy
- task to do.
- with those tools available to do this quite quickly. So I can do it. I think I would probably end up
- doing it just for myself and myself. I think I think it's something we should do because because I think
- that we've in the last two years, multiple times we've we the council and we individuals have made this
- argument about that. And then like,
- Yeah, it's like, yeah, but we have to go down. So then we move it from the, yeah, they exist to like,
- let's talk about it. So I'm really happy to help with that. I mean, I can just do that. How about I'll
- just do it and send you, or send you here's what I think are all of the outcomes in the thing, and then
- you can add or subtract or whatever it is. Well, do you want to split it like? Yeah, we can. You could
- do transportation plan after the climate action.
- And if we think of another one. Yeah, exactly. Heading hump was here. Well, is the heading hump going
- back to where it made about what plans to use? Did council approve the heading hump plan? No. Approved
- the property as a plan? Not the same way, no. Not the same way. Just qualify then. I think I've been
- in here essentially on the heading hump plan. Qualified that council will go out and approve this plan.
- I think, I think. Yeah, I think it's a slippery slope. So I think the Muscassel approved the plan. I
- don't think that we should use those in the terms of this discussion, but I would suspect that some
- of those panning songs objectives were also based on housing and stuff in the comp plan. So that would
- be my educated guess that there's still a lot of overlap there. So we stick with the comp plan.
- We're done then. So we're not having a meeting.