We're on district four. Thank you. So our agenda today, Jeff is unable to join us today. He's
at a conference. So, and it was kind of like a council discussion day anyway, so we can catch up on
it another day, which is fine. So my agenda looks like looking at this draft legislation.
And I kind of realized preparing for this meeting, we have this meeting and we have one more schedule
for this committee for the end of this year. And so I wanted to make sure that we kind of looked at
this yearly calendar that I've kind of been updating all along, kind of feeling like, okay, let's,
you know, every year the committee probably has to do certain types of things like review quarterly
reports and budget cycle and that sort of thing. So wanting to look at that, thinking about 2027. And then,
ending with whatever kind of review and discussion we need to continue doing for the budget presentations,
which we last discussed on September 4th. And I put those questions in at the end that we had started
discussing at that time. So any additions, any comments, any concerns? Great. Draft legislation first. So
I kind of put this together. I think it was also September 4th that we talked about making this committee
a standing committee as opposed to special committee. And so this is, we could say the first draft.
I kind of, I mimicked a bunch of the clauses from when we did this with CCP last year and tried to add
some that were more specific to fiscal and
I did modify some of the charge, and I'm not sure if the way that I organized it in section one is good
for folks. On September 4th, you guys gave me some feedback about what you thought we maybe needed to
add mention of, but absolutely comments, questions, concerns. This is not run through our attorney yet
in terms of legal language and all of the pieces parts.
I just have two little nitpicky things. OK. I love nitpicky things. They're my favorite. I don't know
what I'm going to do if I ever don't work with you. I'm going to have to find one myself during the
challenge. So the third whereas clause, whereas the special fiscal committee was created by action of
the council president in 2025 and again in 2026. So it wasn't created again in 2026. It was renewed
in 2026. OK.
Which whereas clause was that, the third? Read it by accident and renewed in 25 seconds. Okay. Done.
What's next? And then the fifth one is just a comma. A comma. What do you want to talk about? In the
fifth whereas clause, fiscal oversight and understanding of the city's fiscal position is an ongoing
council responsibility that has been improved since the creation of the special fiscal committee, comma.
in the council. Perfect. Anything else? What about the, the section one, like the actual? The things
that actually matter. I think that it could be better. I appreciate that about you. Things matter. Always
need a good editor. And did I?
anything and I don't know at this point. I think it's the third whereas clause basically describes everything
of like the current charge. I did generalize the language a little bit because some of the actual charge
has specific years in it but I included everything that was listed in that whereas clause.
And so I guess I added the specific reports, quarterly year-end audit reports. And I added the debt
services. And then I included bond expenditures and bond project updates, because that was something
that we had kind of talked about last week, actually. And then added the long-term capital investment
project stuff.
because that was mentioned on September 4th. Modified the language about the elected salary framework,
added the outcome-based budgeting line in there, so when this was created, the task force was doing
outcome-based budgeting, and then added the potential fee and fine increases. Looks good. Looks good.
Would you like some hyphens? Where do you want hyphens? Do you want hyphens in section one? No, I was
looking at... No, it's in the list. Item B, long-term, should be hyphenated. Oh, okay.
Item F, budget-related, should be hyphenated, and outcome-based on item four should be hyphenated.
Outcome-based, and what was the last one?
the middle one, budget-related questions. And that's where, like, I'm not sure I love how the list is
formatted in section one, but maybe it doesn't matter that much. That's being it. In the editorial world,
there's a saying for people who are obsessed with pythons, like me, that's your heartbeat. Pythons are
readers' battle.
funny. The first argument David and I had ever was about M dash versus N dash. I can be the decider
on that. Okay. All right. Ridiculous. Well, I can define on that as well because sometimes it's three
and sometimes it's four. Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah. That is the first fight. Yeah.
Um, so so any anything else on the actual topic or discussion today? No, I I guess looking at e uh reviewing
progress of long-term capital investment projects. I mean there are I suppose short-term ones that might
be substantial as well. Okay, um that might suddenly be needed say right especially if there's some kind of
urgent thing. I don't think it's a problem, but I'm just thinking about, I would like to know about
any sizeable capital investment that's needed. I wonder, and this might be going like past the school
committee, but one of the things that occurred to me during the budget process this year was that,
you know, you guys put in that, was it an ordinance of
several years ago about expenditures over $100,000. Yeah. And I was kind of wondering, like, do we need
to review that first of all, because $100,000 isn't as much as it used to be. And then do we need to
expand that into other things, maybe like what you're talking about, just in terms of like a report
does need to be an approval, like a report and information like, but I'm not sure.
if the short-term stuff. So that sentence specifically, I added because on September 4th, and I don't
actually, I don't have written down who it was mentioned it, but I just have it in my notes, adding
something about long-term capital planning into the fiscal committee purview. And so totally open to
modifying that. I don't know if you were the one that mentioned that at that September 4th meeting or
if it was somebody else. It's a good idea, it was never an idea of us. I mean, it seems like we're all in,
on this that, you know, we just want to be made aware of this. There are expenses being made. You know,
of course, I mean, I want to speak for Isabel, but that one came, I think, you know, because it was
a controversial claim that I heard. Yeah. I'm not necessarily interested in inserting myself into,
you know, the process, but just being aware of it. Yeah. So. Well, I think
Ordinance 2018-10 was increased council oversight of expenditures over $100,000. I think we should put
it in the purview of the council fiscal committee to review
any such expenditures that were not in the annual budget proposal. Or the other part of that ordinance
was also transfers from one category to another between categories two, three, and four of $100,000
or more. I have my whole little PowerPoint on this that I can share with you from way back when, but
this seems the logical first place for those kind of things to be reported.
Although timing wise, we don't want to delay the full council knowing about these things. Um, if there's
not a fiscal committee meeting scheduled, you know, in a timely manner, whatever, whatever comes first,
that body should probably hear about it. So I don't know how to phrase that. Well, I mean, number five
is sort of the hearing committee for potential fee and fine increases. We could add in like,
or report expenditure approvals per ordinance 2018-10. Well, we don't want to approve anything. One
of the reasons why I said number five was serve as a hearing committee, I didn't necessarily envision
fiscal as needing to bring
advice or whatever, make a decision or a recommendation about any of those fee and fine increases, but
just be a place where staff can bring it first and hear some questions and get some feedback and have
a conversation about it before it goes before a full council, but not necessarily something that we
have to advise on or approve.
So that's what I meant by hearing committee. And I'm not sure if that is the best reason either, but
there's something that's better. And then we could add in any other like reports. I mean, we could put
that under the reports from, I'm not seeing,
it as its own item. I like the hearing committee concept, serve as a hearing committee for potential
application of ordinance 2018-10. Do we want to be that specific in the charge? Should we say something
more general like expenditures like
with large expenditures and like, categorize them differently than just the over a hundred thousand
dollars. That's twenty eighteen. And then that's just like, it's also limited to over a hundred thousand
dollars and like, specific capital. It is.
It's transfer funds. And yeah, new expenditures over $100,000. Oh, that are not already in the budget
that we approved for the whole year.
I guess I like to reference 1810 because people forget about it. Including myself, author of it. Or
we could say, or subsequent.
Legislation or something in case we do want to change that threshold number or change any details So
sort of the hearing committee for expenditures that subject to subject to thank you She said 1810 yeah
subsequent similar legislation. So that's a whole number six that I just added. Serve at the hearing
committee for expenditure subject to ordinance 1810 or subsequent similar legislation. Do I need a comma
after 1810, y'all? No, I don't think so.
there's a hyphen between 18 and 10. I'm good with that hyphen thing. All right, now realistically, do
we feel like this was like too much? Or are we good? Gretchen, how do you like? I think it's up to you
guys. It's your committee. Well, I know, but we've just been sort of going through and doing whatever
comes of interest. So if you're ready to codify that,
this is a good list and there's nothing out here that looks weird to me that we haven't already been
talking about so. Right. Well, it's like I'm asking you probably because it's, you know, city staff,
it's the controller who's doing a whole lot of it and then other departments who might need to come
in for fees and fines and other stuff.
I mean, I think when we come in and it's helpful, the sanitation was super helpful. Then it feels like,
okay, this is a time that's well spent and saves us time in the long run. Well, I certainly want it
to save us time. It feels more efficient for me, a good work session. Okay. Anything else? I think it's
very clear. All right. Yes, thank you. Sure. I will get with Jacob.
I think my goal in this is to get it, I don't know what the calendar looks like right now. I feel like
it's one of those times we're sweeping up real fast at the end of the year. But if we can, it can always
be brought as a resolution in the first meeting of January. I don't think that it'll come as a surprise.
I mentioned it a couple of times at full council meeting, but it was something that the committee had
been talking about.
All right, wonderful. Can I mention something tangentially? Yes. So, Section 1B receive quarterly year-end
and audit reports and report findings back to the whole council. Right. Have we done that? Have we reported
findings back to the whole council? I don't feel like we have. Just to put this out there, I think the
controller might actually be the better person to report those findings.
He would definitely just because he's going to be better able to answer questions. I was wondering if
I should say something like report findings as applicable or something like that. Because there might
be some things that might be so whatever of interest maybe that it should be reported. But about and
ensure the whole council is informed.
That's one of the challenges actually with reporting to council from committees right now is that officially
according to code, they have to be written reports. Like you can't just give a verbal report and call
it a committee report. It's supposed to be written according to code and that's something that's like,
yeah, kind of chopping block.
expanding how reports can happen. Because I think that it would be just as effective, honestly, with
things like this, especially because these meetings are recorded, to be able to be like, hey, on such
and such a date, we received the quarterly report from Controller McCann. Things will look great if
you're interested in hearing the details. You can look in the packet and view the reporting. And I think
that that should be sufficient for that kind of thing.
I don't want Jeff to have to, or a future controller, to have to basically give key reports, one for
the committee and then one in front of the full council. I feel like that's a little bit much. Yeah.
Well, I mean, if there are memos or reports that we prepare and it's just for staff, there's sometimes
an advantage to the written report in that you can get multiple lines on it at a time, but from anyone
who might know something you don't know, it's in pieces.
it's there and there's something to be prepared for and look at later. I don't know. I always struggle
when we were just discussing this in a meeting with one of the departments yesterday, the challenge
of rooting out what happened at a particular meeting that you're trying to track down. What was, where
was this, which packet was such and such a record included in is always a Google and clicking
So I guess that was a minor little tiny flag wave that was written before and that sometimes that's,
when it's an oral report, then it's easier to deliver, especially if you're not really saying anything
such as, this looks good, or here's one cool fact or two cool facts or whatever of interest. But if
you actually want to refer to something later in a written report, it's easier to find.
So I don't know, we could nix that entirely because generally speaking, one of our committee, our general
committee things is that we're supposed to as committees report things back to the full council, right?
So could I just like delete that and then there's like, well, I think we need to keep, so we have track
fund balances and number in C. I mean, that's, that's our quarterly reports pretty much.
sure and here in reports so that's that's good but i think we need a separate item for audit reports
and audit report findings um so receive audit reports and ensure and convey significant findings yeah
convey significant findings or ensure the whole council
But so you would consider tracking fund balances as the quarterly and year-end reports? Isn't that what
it is? I mean that's how we track fund balances with the quarterly reports. I mean I like some specificity
of receiving quarterly and year-end reports so then we know that there's those like four times a year
basically on our calendar which we're going to talk about next that this thing is happening.
So maybe we don't need both of those. Maybe we just need to receive quarterly and year-end reports and
then have C say receive audit reports. Well, I like the word track. It's a little more active than just
receive. That's true. Track implies you're reading them and questioning them. So I would say track fund
balances via quarterly and year-end reports.
And then we change B to just focus on the audits. Oh, wait. Does year end also need a hyphen, y'all?
Yes. Yes, it does. But we're just receiving audit reports, right? We're just receiving audit reports
versus tracking audit reports. So we're receiving. So B is. We're receiving and hopefully having explained
to us. So we're receiving audit reports
and receive our reports and convey significant findings back to the whole council is B and then track
fund balances by a quarterly and year end reports is C. Sounds good to me. Any other last little tidbits?
I guess that wasn't as tangential as I first claimed it was.
All right, I remembered that I have a couple of comments on all of these. So if anybody wants to comment
specifically on the establishment document and the kind of work of this committee, there is nobody in
the room. I see Kevin Keough's hand up. When you're able to unmute, you can go ahead and you'll have
up to three minutes. Yeah, Kevin Keough.
It seems like you're trying to invent the wheel. But I would throw out and suggest, and I have in the
past, establishing an audit committee. And there are best practices and a structure out there that you
can follow. There's the Governmental Financial Officers Association.
But specifically, the core roles and responsibilities would be financial oversight, audit management,
internal controls and fraud prevention, and public accountability. It gives you a structure, something
to look at. And I would encourage you to look at these best practices, these things that other cities
in the state of Indiana and throughout the country have established, just to give you an idea of what
the best practices are.
And specifically, I think one thing I wish the city would also entertain is to actually have an internal
auditor and to have resources where you can have more of an independent view when issues arise. So I
would continue to look, I think that would be value added and it would really present. And plus, actually
thinking about maybe having people from, independent people from the community to serve on the committee.
people who meet certain criteria. You always want to look at independence and expertise and just things
like that to look at. So I would encourage you to entertain looking at these type of best practices
and these other frameworks that are out there that would really help add value and really for long term
would put this together. Thank you so much. Great. Thank you.
It's like Eric also has to stand up when you're able to unmute. Go ahead. Good morning. Can you hear
me? Yeah. This is Eric Ost, and I want to echo Kevin's advocacy for an audit committee and for the general
understandability of
availability of the financial data from the city. I noticed yesterday and sent an email to the controller
who unfortunately is not here today that the expenditure data for the city that's published on the online
portal is now has zero rows.
This is, I sent this, there's several places data is published, but this is in the data portal. And
it used to have 32,219 rows, I believe, going back to 2014. So there's nothing as of yesterday. Don't
know what happened. The last update was November 12th, which was yesterday, but be great to restore
that. The other thing I would like to,
note is that our request is that when there's a report from a council committee this came up a little
while ago to and the report is to be delivered to the full council doing and writing is good and having
it available for the public as well but i think it's the committee's responsibility to write and represent
a report and not delegate the reporting of their business
to other city staff. I don't know if that's what was intended, but I think by the comment earlier, but
the city staff should be available to help answer questions, but it is not their responsibility to compose,
convey, or present the committee's business. And I would encourage you to facilitate participation of
the public in durable,
timely ways. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comments? I don't see any hands up. Yes, what do
you want to follow up with, Dave? Because I just saw things that I kind of want to follow up with to
move over. Well, just on the topic of audits, you know, this thing for the council is on sort of a regular
basis, right? And we have one.
The State Board of Account does audits, but we also hire a dependent auditor every single year to go
through the required auditing process because there is already an independent audit process. And an
audit is an extremely time-consuming, detailed process. Yeah, I know. So I shudder at the thought of
a perpetual state of audit. Well, we just want to make sure it's being done. And I think the problem
Mr. Ost is describing sounds like not a controller error, but an ITS or
systems error and perhaps could be even related to the Microsoft outage yesterday. Yeah, right. A lot
of that was just... So just to be clear, so we've got an independent audit every year. Yes. And then
we've got to save it over the course of like months or even four years or so. I have no idea. Or if
there are regularities, take a little bit of audit. I know that when we came into office, we did not
make compliance with the SBA for quite a long time. We are today. Yeah. Okay.
that we're very aware of their interests and needs and trying very hard to comply. I thought they were
involved with the annual audit, what we did. There are requirements for the annual audit, but they don't
perform the audit themselves. I don't know if they, Jeff and Patty answered that question, but I'd like
they actually do themselves versus what they require to be passed down through a third party and post.
Do you know if the independent auditor takes information from the public?
In other words, so they open to any concerns from the public saying. It's a very prescribed process,
and a lot of it is random sampling. So they look through and they ask for random samples of things to
test, not just do you have, did you spend money the right way, but did you document your processes,
every single process you use in order to spend money. So that's what a lot of the audit time is spent
on is how documentable is
the work that you've done. Okay. All right, great. And so, and just one other thing. So when they're
done performing the audit, they may find irregularities here and there, they may be denying, you know,
this is, you know, they release a report, a rating of any kind. Yes, there are terms that they use that
describe, and I couldn't tell you what all of those terms are, but you know,
Significant findings and other things, and they have very specific meanings. They're not random terms
that correspond to, you know, you should fix this to, this is really serious to, this is going on your
permanent record or whatever, those types of comments. But I would, Jeff, would you be able to tell
me what those are, but we're missing it.
Um, and then I also wanted to mention, um, what Mr. Rose had said about the reports from the committee
is, um, I think that we were kind of talking about two different things, um, during that conversation
and committee reports. So my understanding are always written by the council member. Uh, generally they've
been written by whoever's chair of that committee. And then, um, I know that I, I tend to reach out
to my committee members to make sure that they approve.
what I have written, and I've had that from my colleagues as well, just to reach out to me to make sure
that I'm on a committee, there's nothing that's been forgotten. So that is not something that is delegated
to city staff, but we are specifically talking about those quarterly reports. And if the full council
had specific questions about the quarterly reports, then Jeff would be the person to answer that, as
opposed to somebody from, to this committee, because Jeff is the, you know, I'll be all of,
financial everything, at least for the city. He's pretty good. Do you guys feel like you need to see
this ordinance again before it goes to the whole council? Next, physical committee timeline. As I said,
this is something that I've been working on throughout the year just wanting to
you know, make sure of dates. And there were some things that I took off of here. I'm not gonna remember
what they are anymore. I'm gonna have to go to my other page. It was like controller dates. It was like
when we learn about our specific funding, for example, or when we learn if there's like additional
allocations from state based on actual numbers. And those are things that I took off
of this fiscal committee timeline because those aren't actionable things maybe for this committee to
do anything with. I took them off of that timeline and tried to just put things on and then the need
to add the things that are actionable. It's actionable in the early part of the year that we need to
start discussing finalizing 2028 budget priorities. Maybe I should add with the full council on that.
I think that we need to start, we need to do more stuff with the elected official salary framework and
the whole administrative response, making sure that that happens in a timely way so that it's actually
actionable. When we need to start supporting council staff with 2028 budget stuff, departmental budget
hearings, of course, when we need to do budget legislation,
and adoption of that, and then reflection, and then that elected salary ordinance adoption, and then
needing to add, when do we need to do audit report-related stuff? Those quarterly reports, and so some
of this was like, oh, I think that I should ask Jeff to make sure, but you know, quarterly reports were
April, July, October, and then the year-end report in January.
When do we want to have reports on bonds? Is there a particular time of year that we want to kind of
say in terms of expectations? When do we want to hear updates on bonds or some of those long-term projects?
Do we want to try to add that into a calendar like this in terms of formatting? Is there anything else
that we want to add in
also understanding that there are going to be other things that pop up, like staff lines come in and
talk to us about fee increases or, yeah. Well, Gresham, when does administration, do you have some sort
of calendar where you and the state and their company will need for various projects, or is this sort
of like, I want to say ad hoc, but do they just- It's not ad hoc, but sometimes their car
precursor things that have happened, like if you're requesting a bond for a capital project, you have
to decide at what stage of the capital project are you requesting the bond, like at what stage of design
or how much is the bond going to cover? Is it covering everything from just starting to think about
the project to doing it to waiting for an estimate, a design that allows you to get an estimate so you
know how much to ask for. So I would say
You know, it's not going to be the same schedule every year, because it will depend on all use of the
correspondence as an example, because this state funding opportunity popped up at the last minute from
the federal early foundation that changed the schedule we had planned for the correspondent. And until
we know the outcome of what kind of funding we could get from that source, we wouldn't know how much
more we would need to buy a quarter of an
So it's variable for the theater. Yeah, it's very, very, yeah. I mean, we do have to think about passing
it. If it's a tax-based bomb, we have to pass it in time for the tax to be enacted. But if it's a state-based
bomb, it doesn't really equal the same thing. So it just depends. Well, what we could put on the calendar
is a report on our current bombs. Yeah, that's what I thought we were talking about. Prior to the budget
approval. Yeah, yeah.
I thought we were talking about. I thought that was included in the budget that you guys used. We have
most of that. Yes, that's later on our agenda. We're going to talk about what information the budget
book should have, and that should be in there. Are we talking about quarterly reports? Because I think
Jeff sometimes does that a little bit at quarterly reports, but
Our meetings are just so many. I guess one thing to think about is how actionable will the bond report
be? In other words, how much change is there from report to report to report that's worth discussing?
Let's say you made this offer to a mortgage on a house. Your amortization schedule stays the same. Your
AIMA stays the same. There's not a lot of change happening there unless you're having a bond or a bond
drops off.
It seems like once, I mean, once a year. Right. And you're right, that could just be part of the budget
package that all federal council and everybody does. I mean, I think the thing that I, the piece that
I always feel is would be helpful for this group and certainly for us is when we're talking about long-term
capital planning to know, okay, these are the existing bonds. This is the bond we're talking about today
and next year, this, this, and this might fall.
So there's a sense of what's the long-term scope that we're looking at. That's the hard part about signing
one-on-one. Maybe in late summer, early fall would be the time when we go through the current bonds
and what might
Right. Bonds might be proposed and have that discussion like you just described. Um, if I'm Jeff, it
would probably be helpful to, uh, like, this is the general list and then we have the legislation list
general list to just identify, and it doesn't have to be part of legislation or something official,
but just what exactly is in each order of the board. Um, and so that he can practice that time and get
help from his staff too on
and not to reinvent that we are in trouble. I think they're not doing that. They take a long time to
put together and it's great information we want to share. It's just, it's cool. Yeah, I think that he's
already figured that out. So because he and I, he and I had talked about that early in the year because
this year we've had those quarterly reports each year. And before the first one, Jeff and I got together
to talk about what information
I thought would be helpful. And I've been very happy with what he's provided us. And I mean,
I think in the, I think usually the quarterly reports, at least the first couple have gotten feedback
and it's like, what more do you want? What less do you want? So he would definitely be the person to
make sure that like, cause whatever he's been providing, I think it's been pretty consistent.
And I think that it's been fantastic. Okay. So he and I might never just need to make our own calendar
that's very specific about on this day, when we say quarterly, we need this particular meeting of the
district committee once they're all on calendar. Right. Right. Yeah. So we don't have time, not just
this quarterly, but it's that this particular meeting is the one that's best. Well, when I have times
to collaborate with him about the meeting topics,
few weeks before. Yeah, yeah. Okay, but in July, you were saying to maybe add in July, like a yearly
bond rate kind of summary. Is that what we were thinking? Well, a review of current bonds and possible
long-term planning of
future bonds. I would call it capital projects because really, you know, there are different kinds of
bonds and also different ways of finding capital projects that it might just be an interesting discussion
to just keep an eye on what are the projects these are tied to. But it's a lot. I don't know what the best time
I would say July is July's peak budget book for next season. Is it helpful to do that before budget?
For us, I think it is. I mean, maybe you guys have the window when you're gone. So May, maybe? I mean,
I hate to speak for Jeff, but sure.
So review of current bonds and upcoming large capital investment needs. Yeah. Let's make a tentative.
Yeah. To see if JFS will be better early or late.
Because really, I mean, in terms of Jeff, it's, I mean, I can't totally speak for him, but he's like
the money guy, right? Not the project guy. So, like, he would know maybe how much money is needed for
anything, but wouldn't be able to give us all the details about the next thing actually is true. And
so that's. But I, but I was just saying that, you know, you're anticipating a large capital project for so
comes out, and you're going to know, so Jeff, because you're going to have to finance this. So you would
be a repository of that. I mean, I think we already know the general areas of what would be attached
on. I had some thoughts on some of these things.
Absolutely. Discussing and finalizing 2028 budget priorities. This may be a whole separate meeting,
but we need to change how we do this. Yes. This year just felt like
We had little to no impact. It felt like a worthless exercise this year, all the work we did to say,
we prioritize this and that, and the other thing, and none of it was a surprise. Almost all of it was
things the mayor prioritizes, too, and none of it really focused on because we prioritize this, we want
to spend money on that. And of course, that connection is what outcome-based budgeting is all about.
Um, so I, I just jot down an idea, um, and we can talk about this later too if this is- Yeah, I think
that we should talk about it later. Okay. And that may be, um, because I want to just follow the comment
on this, like, general timeline, um, and then I do want to try, because I feel like this is also bordering
into the last but not the agenda, which is how to, uh, like, the reflection on the budget presentations.
And I feel like that some of what you're saying is kind of connected to, like, how,
the whole budget process went. And we have one more meeting on December 11th, and that was also, I was
kind of throwing it out there, but what do we want to do on December 11th? And so maybe on December
11th, we want to have a focused conversation about what you were just talking about. Like, how do we
want to deal with budget priority stuff for next year? How do we want to collaborate with the administration
around this? How do we want to collaborate with our
other council members around this. How do you want to center outcome-based budgeting and what you all
need for that in terms of, because during budget process, you need guidance and help from us. Well,
I have a few other comments on the timeline. I think a helpful thing for us to do in December is something
that we're working on with the department is thinking about if you were making a dashboard,
What would the dashboard measure? The dashboard, okay. So, and I have an example I can show that we
use for roads that track how many roads were paved in the past years versus how many we're paving now.
It has a little bit of information about the condition of the roads. And, you know, infrastructure is
an easier one to measure because you can do it in one year. And, you know, once you lay it down,
it's done. That's different than housing and homelessness, which are more mushy and we don't have as
much direct impact.
but I think if we could agree on what are we measuring in the areas we care about that we think that
can be measured, that reflects what the city spends money on, and that's a really important piece because
there's stuff that, if it's not tied to money, then it's something we're doing, but it's not really
part of the budget process. That would be a really helpful exercise, and we could probably just think
about the departments that have
Um, sidewalks would be a good example of one, um, that I had a similar idea and figure out what would
you want to, what would be proof that we were making products and it might not be outcomes in some cases
where things that are really vulnerable by your, it might be, you know, uh, leading indicators rather
than lighting in that case, but, um, you know, dollars invested or units created or,
I'm always worried if the unit's created because the people aren't actually living in the unit for whatever
reason. The unit is damaged and reprehensible or, you know, it's empty because for the leasing agent,
the unit's created can give you a false sense of, we did it one. In fact, if no one's in there, you
didn't do it. Right. Yeah. Right. It looks good on paper. Looks great on paper.
Did you want to mention other things with the timeline? Yes. Specifically for 2028 budget, we should
discuss early on in the year in 2027, council office staffing and whether we want to reconfigure who's
doing what work in the city council because that'll influence salary needs for perhaps council office
and clerk's office as well.
So we really need to make some decisions early in the year so that we can budget for that. How do we
need to do that in the context of, so if this committee is talking about the financial piece, I don't
think this committee necessarily has a purview over decisions like that. I hate to say it, but I think
we need another committee to talk about staff reorganization. So we need a staff committee.
It would be a special committee just for us. A special committee for staff. For maximum staff efficiency
or so. I mean, I agree this committee is not the one that the decisions, but those decisions will impact
budgets. I saw Jay break that down. I'm not sure it belongs on my fiscal committee timeline, but I want
Let's make sure that the Austin pin up, because that would actually pay any two council members, any
three council members and form a special committee. Doesn't take a president to make a special committee
council member, enough council member. It takes the whole council to participate. Have buy-in to what
that committee comes up with. Somebody can understand this. It would have a very simple thread.
Mission, you need me probably more than a couple times, Steven. Wow. And of course, meet with the Clarks,
Clark and with Jake. Yeah. Yeah. And for any proposals, when I was counsel, I think the whole council
needs to accept what kind of staff you have. I mean, these committees tend to be like fractals,
you know, they just go on forever. Steve would love them, Steve Nolan.
I know that's why I said I hate to say this, but that's amazing. Well, Steve's at home going, yeah.
You know, an ad hoc community. An ad hoc community. We're going to have public comment in it. This is
in public. This is about the scheduling of a separate committee. True, yeah. It wouldn't start until
January, at least. Go for it. Well, you just actually answered my question. Oh, OK.
Yeah. That was the early part of that was in January. Yeah. I missed you saying that part. I was just
listening and thinking. Yeah. It would be a January, February thing probably amongst the figuring out
budget priorities and early budget stuff. Thank you. Yeah. Did you have something else too?
Not necessary now, we can wait, it's fine. Okay, okay. And then the other thing on the timeline, revisit,
revise, elected official salary framework. Yeah. That framework, once we have the additional data that
we're requesting staff to get, and we incorporate that into our framework, the framework. Wait,
what was that? The framework needs to be accepted by the whole council, I think.
Yes. Before we then apply it to get salaries for 28. Yes. So that should probably be written in this
timeline that now goes to the full council. Because this kind of implies that we just created in part
of the. I think when I wrote that, I was
kind of putting it on like an internal timeline that we need to have a meeting talking about this in
February. That was the purpose of not putting it there. As a phase two, we're going to make decisions
about it. But we can put in June, I'll say June, to elected official salary
framework approval by a full council. So final draft elected official salary framework approval by council.
So then, so what I was talking about this with a couple of people, if we don't figure that out early
enough in the year,
then if there are significant changes to any of those salaries, you can't really do them because the
budget is already set. This is my point. Yeah. We've got to figure it out early enough so that it can
actually be worked into the salary personnel piece. That's why I was like, okay, we've got to start
talking about it pretty early and then
Yes, we do need to have the framework approved. I mean, not necessarily the actual, that's the next
year group, just the framework concept. Yeah. So I added that into June, final draft approval by full
council at the latest in June. And will you please make sure that
Jake knows what additional information we were seeking. Before I get up, I will get in your calendar
and make an appointment with you and we can talk about that. That's great. Other things about the timeline.
Any public comment on the timeline?
Kevin Keoghan, you've been talking a lot about quite a few things, but the Controllers October 30th
debt presentation and the narrow five to two approval of the November 4th general obligation bond package
really illustrates a challenging reality. The capital assets management, along with that approval process,
is exceedingly difficult for the public to understand
and fails to advance transparency and strains the council's capacity to exercise informed oversight.
The October 30th debt slide deck presented isolated totals across separate categories to go bonds,
TIF debt, utility revenues and leases without a unified consolidated summary table of the total citywide
outstanding principal balances, along with the schedule of annual debt service that goes out to complete payout.
Transparency requires the taxpayer can readily see a long-term liabilities law. It's not just receiving
an inventory of debts along these titles funds. Also by shaving that borrowing amount down to 6,868,
it's just 664 below the state statutory control project threshold. The administration bypassed the petition
and remonstrant and potential referendum procedures established by
the General Assembly. Utilizing these technical ceilings to sidestep a public referendum and scrutiny
sends a message that maybe, you know, something else going on. Members were forced to this unintentional
all or nothing vote bundle package for the emergency $2.5 million fire truck, along with broadly scope
shifting transparent transportation designs. And Councilmember Flaherty noted
when opposing the final ordinance, that these commitments requiring the project scopes went unfulfilled
after the appropriation, leaving the council entirely out of the picture. Does this really build trust?
And to fix this, I think, again, I keep saying this, I'm like a broken record, aligning the GFOA's aligned
standards, like Fisher's is a good example. In Indiana, it's not that far away from here, and they do
publish there.
But it gives a clear picture about their reserve policies, their post-approval tracking dashboards.
There are best practices and frameworks available. I guess until this data is accessible and powers
both the public and the council to understand the full trade-offs of capital borrowing and our debt
approval process, it kind of remains an exercise in its compliance rather than a genuine fiscal democracy.
Anyway, that's my thoughts today. Thank you.
Thank you. To alert you all, it's 928. I don't think there's another meeting, but it looks like you
all might have another topic of discussion. Yeah. Let's go ahead and have Eric go, and we're probably
going to have to... Good morning. This is Eric again. I just want to... Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay.
I just want to echo Kevin's advocacy for... Hang on, just a second. I need a... We just lost forum.
Okay, thank you The city of Fishers publishes a capital improvement Prospectus that has clearly defined
expenditures for all I think it's all but
maybe it's not all, but it's certainly a substantive number of the capital improvement projects. I would
encourage you to advocate for and to endeavor to create such a reporting vehicle for the city of Bloomington
and have that updated. Deputy Mayor Knapp mentioned a dashboard. Dashboards are great, but the actual
data behind the dashboard is important as well, and to that effect,
The city publishes, I mentioned this at the council meeting, city publishes expenditure data at the
fund level, but it combines transactions so that if two funds contribute to the same expenditure, the
total amount of the expenditure is attributed to both funds, which is not
So I would encourage you to publish the apportioned expenditure for each fund so that you and the public,
we the public can track the fund balances throughout the year. I also wanna say that sometimes public
comment may seem like a burden, but in fact, you know, the government exists to serve the people. And
I think that this council is rather blessed to have
folks like Mr. Keough to contribute his expertise to these matters. Thank you. Thank you. All right.
I agree around 31. We try to make this, these meetings an hour. Dave. Could I just add one thing? It
was over a set of mine. Essentially the duties of the committee, section one, the last number,
five service hearing committee for potential fee and fine increases. I meant to say, I think we should
be thinking and hearing about revenue increases or any taxation revenues, something like that. So not
only fee and fine, but anything that we could do with revenue. Since we may not be able to do this committee
to know about. Like the DSS. So not just those associated with.
tax increases that the city council prefer? Well, we could, we can, you know, we could, we could serve
as a sounding board for those. It seems to me that we don't have taxes or any sort of revenue increases
that this committee would want to know about it. Um, beforehand, we could through the public here to-
Or decreases. A? Yeah, decreases as well.
Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. You bring it up before. That's okay. I'm just because of the time. I'm just going
to end as a suggestion on the on my original doc with this. I'm calling it. I'm adding to number five
and potential changes to taxation because I'm right. Well, yeah, think about that a little bit more.
Okay. Um, as usual in this committee, we are, uh,
running short on time because we have more to talk about than we ever have time to talk. So in terms
of the continued budget presentations, review and discussion, I think especially at this point, that's
a two-fold discussion of how it went last year and what our overall impressions are in terms of these
thought questions that I put at the end.
Did you feel it was particularly useful? What wasn't provided? What could improve next year? I'm going
to suggest on December 11th that we dedicate the whole time to kind of talking about that review, but
also talking about that budget planning for next year piece is how do we want to do it next year? How
do we want to deal with priorities? How do we want to elicit feedback from our colleagues?
how do we want to engage the public differently? We've talked in this meeting a lot about some kind
of a separate budget fair piece, and I know that Jeff is enthusiastic about that, but it's a big piece
of work to figure out how to do that. It's going to be a lot of work. Yes. Let me talk about that a
little bit.
just Jeff and I in terms of how that we formatted and somebody, I don't know, I forget who it is right
now. It's somebody who, I think he works for planning department that came from another city that does
some kind of a public budget fair. Isn't it Denver? No, I think it's in Texas. I mean, smaller town,
like not necessarily somewhere that we like recognize as a, you know,
but that it's, I think Jeff and I talked about this idea of having the different department heads at
the different table. It's kind of like, what are we spending money on and looking more at their particular
budgets, but that that's a heavy lift for departments and figuring out, like last time we talked about
it, it was kind of like, when would be a good time to do that in terms of departments? You know, anytime
you add something, it's a challenge.
I think that that would be maybe the thing talked about on December 11th, and instead of so much of
a review on what happened last year, more about what do we want to see after next year, which is kind
of the same thing and actually different. Yeah, well, it informs us as to what's going to happen. And
I'm particularly curious about what Mr. Keough said about there's such a thing as following policy and
practice, and then it's very
And if expenditures are just falling, if things are being engineered so that it goes out of reporting
or review, right, or depends on how many part package things going forward, you know, are we really
living up to what you mentioned about being transparent and having a proper review, right? So, you know,
if you're going to fall just below or require a note or something,
that, you know, and what did you mention here of expenditures or like potentially falling just below
the amount. We've seen this before in various purchases of property. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Because I think
that that is something I want to be aware of, you know, certainly, you know, and I'm not casting aspersions,
but this is right, you know,
So there's been further incentives for outcomes. Yeah. All right. So I think that we didn't really have
an institution of a 10 to 4, the item 4, we just went right into scheduling. So anything else for the
good of the border? And we will hopefully have a really nice, you guys are going to be here in December,
December 11th? Yes.
Great. Hopefully, Councilmember Flaherty is also able to join us. We're good. We're good. We're good.