- So I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Special Fiscal Committee of the Village and Common Council for Thursday, August 21st, 2025. We have committee members, Hobie Stossberg, Isabel Sarre, and myself, Isabel Smith present. And then from the Office of the City Clerk, we have City Clerk, Nicole Bolden,
- So Faye Mcdowell from the council office with Mr. Langer, attorney. And then we have deputy mayor, question, Matt. It's been a long week. And we have control of Justin. So thank you all for being here. Thank you to any members of the public. Oh, and council member Rollo is in the waiting room.
- We'll have to wait a minute here. All right, I'd like to start by maybe moving things around a little bit on the agenda because I believe Council Member Asari has to leave at 12. Is that still true? Yeah. So since he is kind of our liaison between
- the fiscal committee and the budget task force. I wanted to move up item number five in the agenda, which is plans to follow up on the 2026 budget process. Move that ahead of item number two, and then proceed down. Council member Asari? Yes. I will vote yes. Councilor Shuster? Yes. Okay. Thank you.
- So, because we had, we were maybe getting ahead of ourselves on Monday at the 1st budget hearing and asking, well, how do we do now? How do we follow up? How do we get feedback off the process? I wanted to kind of open that up. And I know Council Member Asari has some ideas on that. I don't know if you want to go first.
- Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I think it's maybe more useful to hear from Gretchen and the controller. I mean, what is, you know, the question that that I think a lot of us have is like, what is what is useful and needful feedback at this time? You know, and and and what's the sort of horizon of of impact there? And that's in terms of, I think, the sort of
- process questions, right? Because in every single presentation, we've asked these questions about, have we determined the outcomes correctly? How do we present this? Those type of questions. But then I think that there's also the question, as we're doing it this year, what do we want to do between now and the time that we actually submit the appropriation ordinance, or whatever the ordinance is called,
- in terms of discussions, because the way that we've done the budget hearings, we haven't given ourselves a lot of space, really, to sort of opine or to debate or discuss. And so I think those are the sort of two question marks for me.
- I'm very happy to write a white paper, for example, with attempts of answering all of the questions that are laid out in the packet. But yeah, so first, what's helpful, what's needed, and then thinking ahead of this year specifically. Well, from my standpoint, I'll go first, and then you can go. But thinking about our process, sorry, there's somebody in the white room. I just want to make sure they get it in. Sorry. No problem.
- You know, we don't need to answer each and every one of those questions in the budget book immediately because they're big long-term questions. But I think if we can all understand kind of the three stages of the process and the software, that will really help because if we do the first step right, the second step and the third step get much easier.
- And so the first step that we have to get right is the program inventory. And this is super tedious work. I just want to acknowledge this in advance. No one wants to talk about where certain dollars for really boring routine city functions go, but every single dollar has to be allocated to a program. That's the foundation. So there will be a lot of really boring there. So I think for me, what would be most helpful from you, and I think actually next Monday's,
- presentations will be a good kind of compare and contrast is how granular do you want the programs to be? So when we come in next week on Monday, you'll see two very different approaches from parks and from CFRD. Parks naturally has divisions like youth sports, adult sports, things like that in there, the way they do their work, the way they budget already, because they have such a unique budget structure with revenues, they approach it that way already.
- And so they didn't bother to go through and say youth soccer, adult soccer, youth, you know, pickleball or whatever. They just say youth sports, adult sports. CFRD doesn't have a bigger structure like that. So their programming is spread out literally program by program. So there's Wear Orange Day, there's
- Like Black History Month, is that one program or are all of the individual things that happen in Black History Month one program? Are all of the commission-driven events just commission-driven events or are they filed under some other category? So theirs is very, very granular. And I think it's really helpful at this stage so that we all know exactly what they do. I think it gives some insight on how much they do.
- But in terms of budgeting, it's probably too granular. I'm certain it's too granular. So that's where it would be helpful for you guys to know. What things do you want to see pulled out? And what things do you feel like could be coaxed? That would be step one. I think the next thing that would be valuable for me personally. And to clarify on that, you mean for this year's budget, it would be useful to have that answer? No.
- No, it doesn't matter for this year's budget. We will not be implementing, finalizing all of this by the time we have to submit this year's budget and we don't need to. I'm thinking as we complete outcomes based budgeting or even priorities based budgeting for next year. So that's why we made all this transparent this year so that you have
- something to look at because it's really hard abstractly to just say, well, I think they should be kind of granular. It's easier to see this is how one department did it. This is how another department did it. So for next year, that's, and for the continued implementation of this process, that's what we need to do. But everything that we need to do for submitting a budget this year, we've already done because that'll be just like last year. What the state gets from us is what it's always gotten. So what all this new stuff we're doing doesn't impact that regular work.
- If I could just interject before you continue with your class of us. These program inventories are obviously just a first step, I think, but even in these early steps, we need to think about what outcomes we want to see and how we measure them. I think that is getting a little bit lost this year as far as
- we're focusing on these categories and these buckets and these suburbs. They don't always connect back to outcomes. And we haven't really broken down the general buckets. Okay. One, you know, public safety. Sure. What does that mean? We want to have, you know, reduce crime. We want to have people living. Yeah. What?
- So it has to be an iterative process because, as I said, every single thing that we do has to have a dollar time to it. So if we were to only talk about what do we think and start there without looking at the list of programs and say, what outcomes only do we want? Nobody is ever going to think about, wow, I really hope that all of our regulatory compliance stuff for XYZ issue is filed on time. But that is the thing that is going to have to have dollars attached to it if it's work that someone does.
- it's an iterative back and forth process. So yes, you're totally right. And that's why I gave you all this detail because in the process of trying to create those clusters or even just trying to put programs into outcomes, all of those questions come up. So definitely you want to think about, and that should be the guiding light on how tightly we cluster, unpack things is what do we really want to measure? And if there's something that,
- is not as important to us to measure as an outcome or we feel like it has an outcome that's already measured like you're compliant or you're not, that probably doesn't need to be that granular because we're not looking that closely at it. But if you want to be really granular about something like alternative response or community support to agencies that deal with immigrants or whatever that issue is, that should be more granular. So it is back and forth.
- and those kind of clusters that we've created, it's temporary for the purposes of not having the list of programs be totally overwhelming and to show the tasks that's ahead. So yeah, you do have to think about what are the outcomes you wanna measure, but then in terms of saying what is the outcome we want, if we don't know what the program is and who's doing it and what its current process is and how long-term the goal is, it's pretty hard to just say, I think our outcome should be
- twice as many roads paved next year as this year. No one has asked how much that would cost, if the staff could do it, if it's possible from a weather standpoint, like there are a million things that feed into defining the outcome. So it's gonna have to go back and forth like that a little bit. To me, it seems like I understand what we're saying and I'm not, this is not a criticism of anybody.
- because I know we're trying to achieve a goal that is huge, huge change and requires us to rethink things. But when I look at goals of departments and programs, I feel like I got more last year than this. You did because we spent all of our time this year working on trying to get the new software going and putting information into it, hoping we would be further along than we were by this time.
- But by the time we got to the point where we realized, hey, this software requires a lot, you know, garbage in, garbage out. You have to be a lot more careful about what you put in. Too much time can pass, and we had to start building a budget book. We defined the priorities in May. You guys went on recess in July. Everybody has to start cranking this stuff out for the budget book. So there just wasn't enough time to do it. We can do it. We want to do it. But this is what we could do in the time we had. And so if I had known,
- back in May when we set our priority buckets that we wouldn't be able to make as much progress as we wanted with the software just takes longer. Sure, I would have said, let's go back and just do it exactly the old way. But that would be next year exactly where we are right now knowing what we're dealing with. Yeah. So I have, and this might also
- maybe be clarifying in terms of the, and also aware that you were in the middle of a list, Gretchen, so we should come back to us. I don't mean to digress, but I think one of the things that Isabel's pointing out, if we take a step back here and let's actually talk about what the residents of Bloomington have elected us to do and our
- our appointed job. We actually have a job that we're elected to do and a responsibility that we swear to do. And so a lot of what we think about, I think we've had a lot of our conversations from the perspective of city employees
- I think that's been fantastic. I think that's been productive. But we also need to think about what do we need to do in this process so that we as council members can do what we have to do as in our elected job. And that's actually hold accountable the finances of the city. And I think that in the way that we're at right now, I personally like it,
- like the level of my ability to do my job, like I can't honestly do that to a high level, right? And there's other structural limitations that are outside of our process, but I think that we've put some additional ones onto it this year. And so I just think we need to, as we're thinking about the next couple of months, also think about, you know, because I mean, you know, the antithesis to that
- is that the council would use tools that are available to the council to make those type of things happen. I don't think that that's the outcome that any of us want. I don't think, you know, we want to sort of process where council is like looking at, you know, line item questions, like, so we need to get to a place where we're able to actually do what we need to do as well. And I don't think that we've had, I think that's been a bit of a blind spot in our thinking about this transition.
- So one thing that may not be apparent to everyone is what New World tracks is line items and divisions. It does not track program costs. So if you want to know what a program costs to run, which is I think what you're saying, like if there's something that has an outcome that we're interested in, what does it cost to do that? New World is not super efficient for figuring that out. People track on spreadsheets.
- or Jessica has to pull from multiple different places. And none of that information includes staff costs. So some of the programs that we all care about the most are 100% staff costs. And it's staff who do multiple things, not just one thing. It's great when there's a person who only does one thing and then we can say all of their salary goes to this. But for most programs, it's multiple people, fractional time.
- If you want, so Councilmember Flaherty was asking the great question, which is the reason why we're doing this, which is how can we see a list of what do we do? What is it accomplished for the citizens? What does it cost? And how good is it at doing that compared to the cost? That's the point of all of this. But that data doesn't really exist for a lot of work that we do. So I think last year, Han did present more data on individual programs like here's
- and it's easier to say, here's what we spend or give out, here's what we award in grants than it is to say right now, what does it cost to actually administer that? So all of those things that you wanna know, I also want to know. And so again, with places like parks and public works where they already have divisions and they split things up in New World, we can get some great numbers. For other departments, it's really difficult to even get it for a focus area, much less the single program.
- But we'll get there. And it'll be. Yeah, exactly. And I think we all acknowledge that the direction that we're going in. And I think, you know, like, to be clear, it's sort of like when you start cleaning a house, that in between step, you're always like, ah, we've made all this progress. But then you look at your house and it's like, oh. You know what I'm saying? So that in between step is always frustrating. But I don't know. I don't know. You know, Isabel, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to put words in your mouth. But you know, what resonates to me from what Isabel's saying
- is there's a question here for the next several months. We have the long-term. I think we all agree on where we're trying to go, what we're trying to achieve, and the fact that this is a heavy lift. But I do think that as it relates to this year, there's this question about how do we meaningfully contribute to this budget process now
- Um, when, when those questions about, I mean, I'll, if I could pick on, I'll pick on ourselves. Okay. When we're when we were talking about council budget.
- I clearly said, I'm like, look, I think there's a problem with us putting money towards consultants because of the way that we organize ourselves as counsel. I can say that very clearly and people might disagree with me and I'm probably wrong because I'm wrong about most things, but that's a thing I can attach to. It's really difficult to have any of those discussions.
- with any of the other things. And it's not about just staff time. And I don't think that that's what's muddling it. I think that it's because we've made these large buckets, it is hard to say, what are we purchasing with taxpayer money? What are we even approving for that matter? I mean, I think if there's data you want to see,
- Ask for it and if we have it and can get it, we'll share it. If there's information you got last year that you felt like, well, that helped me make a decision and this year I don't have that, ask for it. I mean, we don't know what you think you're missing. So ask for it and we'll see if we have it for sure. We can put it together, but certainly it is what it is at this point. And so whatever you feel like you need to know,
- You know, ask. OK, so, yeah, so. But like in general, this isn't the right information that doesn't help me get you what you need. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell me what you want and know that it can't be the line item detail of every single budget program because that's where we're hoping to get. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Well, I'd love to hear from Dave and Hopi on
- their ideas for feedback and how we're doing with the incremental implementation. David, do you want to go first? Go ahead, Hopi. I'll go after you. Thanks so much. But you didn't want to go first. So I'm trying to process a little bit about what
- I can't hear suddenly. It sounds like you went into a tunnel. Is that you too, Dave, or is it only me? Yes, I can't hear either.
- could hear you really well, and then it suddenly just cut out. Well, is it still like that? No, perfect. Great, OK. So I was trying to sit here and think, am I also having that similar problem that Esau mentioned in terms of being able to ask those brand new questions and figure out some of those details? And I think that they're not necessarily presented super clearly.
- consistently, but I also think that, I mean, you don't know what you don't know. So like I'm sitting here going like, okay, what are the things I don't know? And I don't even realize that I don't know. But I do feel like I, if there are things that I want specific follow up on, I feel like I know enough to be able to follow up on those specific things. I don't know if that is,
- what you were looking for as well in terms of any feedback. I'm still trying to support the conversation, I guess, in terms of what we're trying to get at right now. I do think that there are, you know, like there's a lot of work to be done. I mean, Richard has said, you know, part of it and has talked about some of it during the budget hearings in terms of creating those categories and all of those descriptions and exactly how all of that like works together and then pull it like,
- Like that's kind of, I'm not even sure how to engage in that conversation in some ways because it's such a big conversation and there's so many of those categories. And so then like coming out from that perspective, I also like, I really see the really big staff left that has been done and then that still needs to be done. I guess I'm feeling like there's been a lot of progress and
- that it's, you know, and in some ways, yeah, it's probably like, like less specific than last year in some ways, but it's going towards some place more specific. And so, I mean, I think part of this is this like pain of transition and that we're feeling a pain of transition. And then like as newer council members who haven't gone through this as much, I mean, I don't know how they feel about it. So I'm kind of interested in their more veteran perspective because they've just been dealing with these budgets for way longer.
- Um, it, it's, it's definitely like harder in some ways to get a handle on some things, but because it's such a kind of overview, it also like adds simplicity. And so maybe that's what you're struggling with. It adds simplicity, but maybe our job is not to just do the simple thing. And so then it's harder from the seat to get into the, the part that is more complex and some of that stuff. So, I mean,
- I feel okay in terms of where we're at right now is, I suppose, the conclusion, understanding that we're not at the goal and that we can all acknowledge that we're not at the goal, but that we're all still committed to getting there. Go to Dave first. Okay. Well, my two sentences, Gretchen,
- When the budget was introduced this week, you and the mayor referred to, I can't remember the terms, but it was essentially prioritizing projects and that projects that were well underway would be, obviously there are some costs and you would continue those. But clearly,
- we're going to be in a period of austerity looking forward. And it seems to me that, and you probably are thinking the same thing, how to prioritize expenditures. And so when it comes to, let me just back up and say, when it comes to various programs that are done throughout the city and various city departments,
- I'm not so interested in the minutia. I think that those projects are probably relatively low expenditure, but pay off well in terms of common good, social welfare. I'm more interested in the capital projects that we will need to, well,
- that we anticipate doing and having some sort of ranking in terms of discretionary. So for instance, a new fire station to me is a very high priority. It's reconfiguring Walnut in college is a very expensive proposition, but is Walnut in college function? Well, I mean, I don't see
- In terms of priority, I rank that much lower than say basic maintenance and things that are absolutely needed like a fire station, for instance. So if there is, you know, if these ideas resonate and you and the mayor and others, your department heads are thinking about prioritizing these sorts of projects,
- It would be very helpful for me to know that because it looks like, you know, we're in a situation where we're dipping into reserves and this is something that presumably can't go on indefinitely. I like healthy reserves. You never know what we might be facing. So that sort of ranking of priorities would be very helpful
- Um, because I could see to sort of, you know, well, we don't have the money right now to do the side path on high street or whatever it is. Um, and we can debate it that too. I mean, other people have, you know, we all have different priorities, but we could at least, uh, know where we're at and map it out. So, um, and the other thing is in terms of like, it, it, it occurs to me that.
- We have basic maintenance, everything requires maintenance. We have basic infrastructure maintenance that, you know, for instance, streets, I brought it up before that we were on a 20-year road repaving schedule. That was clearly not the case. But I'd like to know what that schedule is or what sort of, how we prioritize that maintenance because
- I mean, clearly it's needed in some areas and people do react and complain about it. So that's the other, is the basic maintenance, I think, expenditures, prioritizing on some sort of continuum about what we can be cutting in the future and what we absolutely need to do looking forward.
- I'm sure Justin would speak to this too, but you're describing two different scales of capital projects. Something like a fire station is a years long bond-based project that would probably have some annual costs in terms of design or things like that, but it would be handled outside for the most part of this budget process that we're going through now. I think that's a really important conversation and one we're thinking about all the time, especially with changing
- how SEA1 has changed TIF and short-term bonding and everything else, has really found a monkey wrench into that. But those other short-term projects that you were describing, I think we tried this year in the transportation to give a better idea of here are the projects that are currently underway, what stage are they at, and what are the teams looking at for next year. So I think those are good questions, but I just remind everyone,
- We share your interests in keeping up with those on the administration side, but doing that with less money means you'd have to take money away from somewhere else. And so far, all I hear is, how are you going to extend ARCA funding? How are you going to keep funding BT? How are you going to give more money to social services? All the conversations I hear is, how can the money keep going out somewhere else? And we might want to do that.
- I think first we have to face the fact that paying for anything, whether it's we want to continue funding BT or we want to go all in on a really bold sidewalk maintenance plan, which I think a lot of residents would love, or road, let's get roads and sidewalks amazing. This is the administration, by the way. But if we wanted to go all in on those things, I think the community would love it. I think it would be
- really great, but you can't do that without saying, we're not going to give $2,000 in grants that are $5,000 each to 30 different agencies. We're not going to do exercise. And so we can make those suggestions, but you know, we don't, it is a collaborative process. The mayor is elected, people tell her what she wants. You guys are elected, they do what they want. At some point,
- we all have to make our list of if I was alone in a room by myself and no one was looking over my shoulder, what would I cross out? And those are conversations to have because everything you want to cross out matters to someone. But I would encourage all of you to make your top secret lists and compare notes at some point. When you guys talk about what does counsel agree, all of you agree,
- would be areas that could cut, right? Right, right. We're not, we're not allowed to have secret list is the difficulty with that. I mean, like a personal, I'm joking. I'm joking. Um, so one last thought though, to wrap this up, to wrap this, I mean, cause, cause per the agenda item, right? I think, I think there'd be two things, one, which is the, the,
- questions as relate to, you know, process, you know, these are sort of longer term questions. So we're not trying to answer those for this year, but that will be task force work going forward, right? Then the second thing that I think is relevant for us and maybe more so for us council scheduling is thinking about how we want to
- once we gather all of the questions periods, whether we want to make any adjustment to what we've done. I mean, traditionally, we've sent in the questions, we've got written responses, and that's sort of where it stopped. So whether we want to further, for example, a deliberation meeting afterwards to talk through
- Um, any, you know, anything that arises from, from the sort of questions, um, to Hopi's point of things that maybe we do, we know that we just want a little bit more detail on, um, and, um, so, so that, so that we don't have any sort of, when it, when is it that we actually vote on the final thing? Is it end of September? I forget the timeline again. The public hearing is the public hearing September 24th, and then your final vote is October 8th.
- Great. Because I mean, again, we have, you know, one of our mantras in this wonderful engagement that we've had all throughout the year. And again, you know, I have been on the record of saying that it's so wonderful that the Office of the Mayor has been so engaged with council and just, I mean, really
- you know, putting your actions where your mouth has been, right, like this. And so we're so, for the record, again, so grateful for all of this. But one of our mantras has been, let's avoid any surprises, you know, at the end of September that suddenly, you know, that suddenly council member Asari is all upset about, you know, X thing that none of you knew about. And, you know, so hopefully we can have maybe one other session of discussion once we get all those questions would be my only thought.
- And I really see the, I mean, I see the things you're struggling with with the numbers because we struggle with them internally too. And I, one thing when I look back on past budgets or information that we want is there can be a forest for the trees field when you're getting into the nuts and bolts of each department. And, you know, well, did they spend $2,000 more on supplies than last year and why that's taking you away from realizing.
- oh, we're giving away $9.4 million to our partner agencies, or we have a grant fund that we give out that we feel good about, but are we actually getting reports on, did it do what we wanted it to accomplish? We gave the money away, we gave it away to accomplish a goal, and did it do that? I think that comfort level, and the more we create other ways of
- slicing and dicing and looking at the numbers in terms of, you know, how much should we give away in spirit support? How much is grants? How many are grants to residents versus nonprofits? All that kind of stuff. We still, you know, you're adding more things to your play because you're also looking at what fund is this being paid out of? Do I like what fund it's being paid out of? Like, it's a lot of questions. So. Yeah. But I do think all of this, all of this is really confirmed. Exactly. And I.
- you just said is that there are nine of us and that, I mean, like council member Rallo just said, you know, one of the things that's really important to him are these big capital expenditures in that plan. And that's like each of us might have our own slightly different priority in terms of like how we're looking at budget. And so like I've been looking a lot personally at those like training and support dollars for staff as kind of like how are we supporting our staff kind of piece in terms of that like type of retention.
- and trying to dig into that as kind of this programmatic element of staff, recognizing that we spend a whole lot of money on staff and we want them to be really awesome and they can only do what they're able to do, what they're trying to do, what they have the resources to do. But each of us is gonna wanna dig into something a little different. And I think that that makes it really challenging for y'all. Because then it's stuck. Because then we're going, okay, like Esauk wants more of this and Dave wants more of this and Hopey wants more of this and this and all that's more of this.
- you know, maybe in a couple of years, by the time it's our last year at this term, we'll have totally figured it out. We'll get some new townspenders. Well, but I actually think, I think that's a point where- I think, yeah, I just think that that's a built-in challenge. But I also think, I also think it's a positive point that you're making, Hopi, is that all of this is, I think, very much confirming that we are heading in the right direction, right? Like, I mean, because all of the,
- What a lot of what we're saying is, man, I can't wait until we actually can have outcomes conversations, right? And I think all of us are saying that. So I think that's fantastic. We're heading in the right direction. And I think that it's a bonus. I mean, it's important, I think, that there are nine of us looking at things slightly differently because that helps with transparency because there's 85,000 residents also wanting to look at things slightly differently. So I think that's a piece. I just do think that it adds challenge to this kind of process conversation that we're having.
- I'm sorry. I know that Esau is going to be swept away in just a moment. And I saw Esau had her hand up 10 minutes ago. But I wanted to before Esau has to leave. So I think I heard him say that the budget task force will be the entity that continues in the work towards the outcome-based budgeting. Is that the understanding among everybody? OK. So that task force is going to continue.
- into next year or something. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that was my invitation when I made it. I don't remember. Okay. So then this committee needs to focus on working on the feedback on the budget process this year, both through the task force and both through this committee, because we also need to work on the salary.
- I think it goes to the task force. Hope these examples are really good example of how we can make this ship though. So what you were saying, Hopey was you've been looking at this line of basically the training line to evaluate how much are we investing in staff's professional development. And that's a great way to back out and say, if the outcome is that we're looking for is well-trained staff who have the resources they need, that's the outcome.
- And that line that you're looking at is not the full story of that. Oh, at all. It's not the full story. No, that's what I'm saying. But that's a great way. That's a great example of Isabelle's kind of like, we need to think of the outcome. That's the outcome. Yeah. Maybe that would be a long column. And then we can start sliding in what are the things that you've said. But it helps to know that's the line you went to first to examine the outcome. So yeah, help us. That's a great example. Like if we know what
- You're looking at a particular program or line big picture in front of all pieces that go with that or say, wow, there's no pieces that go with that. That actually does do what you want. Nothing does. We need to write. Right. So, Lisa, you had something to say and we didn't miss the moment. No, no, no. I'm.
- I have jotting down some notes to hopefully prompt me. My comments tie in really with a lot of what's been discussed here. I've been engaged in the priority-based budgeting and have gone through all the tasks just like anybody else, any other department head in the city. I found it to be quite valuable. And even though I don't think it was possible, I think we've done what
- we could do this year in the time given, I still think that it's been worthwhile. And I don't know that that would necessarily show up to council members at this point yet, because you're not in the city offices every day. You're not intimately involved in how even council's office really, really works.
- As an employee, I found it to be enlightening for council's office and showing just how many different programs we operate, how many different priority buckets we touch. The one part for me that's challenging is New World. And I know I'm not alone in that.
- as Gretchen chuckles, but the categories on the reports show up so broadly. It can be very misleading. It's difficult to understand. And using an example that Esau brought up for consultants. A lot of what I spoke to in my presentation was it has to fall under consultant, but it's really important
- I need $5,000 a year in case counsel gets sued. If I need to report somebody, I need to pay a court reporter. If I'm still sued and I need to file a counterplay, I need money to pay the clerk to file that counterplay. All this stuff shows up as a result, but it's more mundane than that. In fact, in my presentation, I used the term
- contractor or services because it seems to be more reflective. And then also, I think this discussion is really important between the two branches. And I think it would be helpful. I think we need to have, or the city would benefit from having a budget process
- more than what is imagined right now because there are ways, as Isak mentioned, where after these hearings or even before and during the hearings, there can be engagement and it varies from city or county as to how that's done. But you could flesh that out. One thing I had envisioned even under consultants or workshops,
- for next year was paying somebody to come in and help it lay out what that vision might be. I mean, that's a possibility as well. AIM has resources, Reedy has resources. So those are spots that popped up while you were talking. Can I respond to that really quickly?
- That kind of flushing out a larger budget process is exactly what this committee should be doing in terms of looking at that like long range. You know, I mean, that's, I mean, it's at the bottom of our agenda. Right. I created timeline and activity framework for the yearly budgeting calendar. Like, it's that exact sort of sort of thing, but this committee long term. I mean, it's a, it's a special committee right now with the vision of it being at some point a permanent committee that.
- manage those things like that, like to plan it and then keep it going. So. Okay. So we are already at 12 15. So we're halfway through our meeting and we have a lot of agenda items to go through. So if there are no objections, I'd like to go back to agenda item two, review of office of the major budget proposal and just to
- But to get the context here, the idea is that the office of the mayor, the deputy mayor goes through in detail the budget proposals from the departments that are built to the mayor. And we have gone in detail through the budget proposal that comes from the city council office. Nobody has really gone in detail through the office of the mayor budget or the sub clerk budget.
- As you know, an independent kind of check. So that's what we're doing today. I really see it more as educational for us and not as like. Why are there $10 more here and less there? Does anyone want to be a host to share? The worksheets.
- I have a question about the worksheets because I'm looking at these, I don't even see where the 2026 budget proposal is on this attachment. Like I see the adopted budget, which implies 2025 and then this year's current stuff. And the same thing is true with what you messaged out later. So I feel like I don't actually have the resources that I thought that I would have. And I'm thinking about like when we did this for council's office, like we had Lisa spreadsheet that she had made with the proposal for
- for 2026, we didn't have anything. Well, it did have comparison 2025 numbers, but not before that. And so I don't feel personally prepared to be able to do this right now, because I don't feel like I have the materials that I need. So somebody correct me if I'm wrong about. You have to kind of combine the different spreadsheets. So I'm going to join the meeting and share a separate spreadsheet that I made that combines some of the data.
- Cause the 26 budget is in the budget book. Yeah. And then I sent them, right. He just asked for 25 and 24. So that's what I sent. So the 26 budget is in the budget book and you should have reviewed it when you had your budget bearing with the mayor or not. So I'm trying to join the meeting, trying to make it more difficult, but I think the information is out there. Recording in progress.
- sweet by the machine. I'm not allowed to share. You should be able to. In the bookmarks for the budget book office of the mayor funding sheets takes you to the sheet that has the compares 2023 actual 24 actual 25 adopted and 26 proposed budget for the office of the mayor by category in line.
- And then I think Jessica shared the detail. The details. Where we are so hard. That's what we didn't have until this packet. Yes, that made it really confusing when I was trying to look at that between
- I was like, I don't even know what I'm supposed to look at right now because I was kind of hoping for something like had already been sent out at least on previous when we were like working through this. So maybe that she will help though it's all very tiny. Yeah. I have something similar. I mean, ask me anything you want to know about our budget. I know it was done in one hand, so I'm happy to answer any questions about where it goes.
- That's as big as I can. That's better. And the highlights are just things I wanted to ask about. Thank you for doing this. So I don't know if this is what you were looking for, Hopey, but this is something that I need. That is helpful. So it has
- 2023 actuals, then 24 budget and actuals, 25 budget, 25 actuals, but as of 2016, I didn't fill in the spots for therapy. So how about this? How about if we go through, I'm happy to look at the lines you've highlighted and start with those if you want, or go through line by line and talk about what is in each of those, whatever is helpful. I wanna say that as a person who
- has done a lot of little bits of accounting in my life. One of the things I've learned is that when you look at these lines of actuals, what it rests on is the person who put the invoice into New World's ability to correctly categorize what they actually spent it on. And then I have learned over time that people are very confused about, for example, views and subscriptions versus hardware maintenance. If you have a subscription,
- to your favorite tool, Airtable, it should live under dues and subscriptions. However, most departments, many departments do not, the person who's putting in the invoices may not be a person who understands all of these details. And so sometimes when you see changes, it doesn't necessarily mean that someone spent more or less on that actual item. It means you've correctly recategorized where it goes.
- And I can speak to that from my own budget, but maybe not for others. So yeah. I have a question probably more for anybody else. We used to have a massive spreadsheet that listed out every possible thing that you could buy at the city, including what line it should go into in New World. Do you have that still and or updated? I'm sure it's somewhere in my iDrive, but I don't want to look for it.
- I have not looked, I've never seen that list. So it probably hasn't been updated in a long time. Good to know. Yeah. We have run into that same issue that Deputy Mayor Knapp was referring to of people. Yeah. Inputting things in a slightly different category, but I think that people should have that for their own department. I think they should have it in a departmental level. Yeah.
- Because then they can go into much greater detail than I ever could for, you know, departments I know nothing about, like police and engineering. Like I don't know where all your tiny little invoices brought your tiny little things that I don't understand should go. Yeah, I recall correctly this for the entire city for every single little. It was a bit of a beast, but. It was. Okay. How about I just talk to you a little bit. Would that be helpful? If you have any specific questions you'd like me to start with, like the blue area. I think it would be really helpful for you to just kind of run down.
- Right now all of it. And, and I see that we've just got one, which I think is probably because we didn't talk about category one. Would you actually spend five minutes, three minutes.
- Okay, all right, I'll talk fast. Okay, office supplies is a fairly innocuous category. I will say that when the next administration comes in that is not us, I will try to prepare them to have enough to buy things like new letterhead and there are things that change. We have a shift administration and it's nice to have a little wiggle room on that. Other supplies is a weird category.
- that can include all kinds of things. And so, you know, we try not to put too much money in there because I feel like other is a way of hiding what you're spending it on. It can be strange things. Sometimes things like if you're giving away something that is branded with the city of Bloomington to officials who come to visit, maybe you run out of your branded Bloomington, I'm making this up, city Bloomington coffee mug that you give to dignitaries visiting from wherever. It could be,
- all kinds of stuff, but we try to keep that number relatively low so that we're putting things where they should go. Instruction, I don't know what has that has been used for in the past, but that is typically professional development. We used it for coaching when Josefa was here. She was chief of staff, but she had never been a chief of staff and she wanted chief of staff coaching. We got chief of staff coaching as a result of which she was like, wow, I don't want to be a chief of staff.
- And Margaret had some coaching and probably our new incoming special assistant to the mayor page will also get coaching it's about $3,000 and it's just specialized coaching on how to how to be a really great assistant so that's how we use that one.
- and we left a little extra in there in case anyone has another thing that they want to do. Continuing education, the city offers a great resource and benefit to employees for that. So that's not included there. So if I was like, wow, I really need to go get an MBA, the city would give you assistance with that, but that would not be reflected in this instruction line. Management fees, consultants, and workshops. Again, I don't know what other people used it for. I can tell you what we've used it for.
- We used it for that 162 is from 2025, 140, 155 of that is all for the Civic brand project and the annual community survey. The other portion of it we had saved while we were short staff for some comms consulting,
- that we cut for the budget for next year, which is why it's so small. We've socked a little way in there because we need some consulting, but in general, a lot of the consulting that we need and want is like financial consulting or leading consulting that other departments pay for comes out of their budget. So if we had a special project, we would put it back in there, but that's not where it is. Telephone, those are obviously phones. I think we have four people in the office of the mayor who have
- City phones, the mayor and I do not, we tried, we did not like it, we went back to having one phone, but there are people who are communications folks around the field, and certainly the mayor's assistant does not want to begin with a phone call from strangers on their phone. We are a little bit stingy about phones in our office, more people would like them than we allow to have. Postage.
- pretty self-explanatory. It doesn't look like we ever mail anything, but on the off chance that we want to, we're going to keep 200 bucks in there, travel. It looks like I went back and looked at the previous administration and they averaged around, they always budgeted 12,500 and spent sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, sometimes a lot less, sometimes more. So,
- We, uh, sorry, I lost the line. We're looking at it. I had upped it because now that we have more people in the office, sometimes the mayor will want someone else to go with her to an event for various reasons. So for example, she's going to a conference on homelessness. She might want Brian to go with her. Um, the mayor's innovation project stuff that she does, her travel is all completely paid and everything is paid by Harvard, but not anyone that she breaks with her.
- So David and Anna went, their travel was not included or covered by that project. And in her first year, she did more traveling to see what's good. And we've narrowed the focus to what she thinks is valuable. And I think $15,000 is plenty adequate since there's some things that she knows now she's not planning on turning to anymore. We also do as much traveling for,
- Uh, this, the Palo Alto sister sibling cities project. I know big contingents went in that in the past. Um, we've gone to that once. We probably won't be going again and we certainly won't be sending a big contingent. It's just a lot of staff time, a lot of taxpayer dollars. It's a cool partnership, but not something we're going to spend $20,000 on or even $10,000. So, uh, and this year, just today I'll have you know, she's in Washington, DC for something and staying with her parents to save the city some. So.
- Let's see, printing, most of that is for handouts for things like door knocking or printing signage for state of the city or mayors, mayor of the market. Advertising, and we had extra in there for public engagement now that we have someone in that role.
- Advertising, lots of advertising in bloom in the past. Some of that I think is meant as community support. We've cut back on that a little bit, but we've boosted more for next year because we'll have a new website and we'll want to get some of that word out there and also some new branding from Civic brand new storytelling to promote. So we bumped it up a little bit for next year, but that would be a one time increase probably.
- and we're compensating right now for our website with advertising sometimes. I think there's information we could be getting out in other ways that are free. Motor repairs, pretty self-explanatory. We just put in an amount and I think we rely on others to help us with what that should be. Motor repairs come from the fleet department and they
- give every department that number based on how many cars are assigned to that. I'll come back to using subscriptions, but I want to point out that line 22, that $13,000 got moved to line 20 for sponsorships. There's been a weird mechanism where the mayor's office sponsors internal events and we want to stop that practice. Like if it's a city event,
- That CFRD is putting on, we do not need 12 different departments giving them money and having their logos on the side. It is a city event and the money that it costs to run out of that should live in the CFRD budget instead of this kind of shop board. Other services and charges. That's again, one of those catch-alls.
- Mayor's promotion of business is for things like, and I think that the controller wanted to move into that category of the system, your business and the right work to me with what we've talked about. So may see some changes in that things like if.
- We have a big meeting with IU and we need to pass out flyers or have snacks on hand or we convene all of the mayors of Indiana that we can get to come for homelessness that happened and we need to book space at the mill. It's part of Indiana code that you can only like if you're buying small gifts to get away like somebody comes and visits you it's Indiana code has it
- that you can have the mayor's promotion of business line for those kinds of things if you pass that ordinance and the city has passed the mayor's promotion of business ordinance and so certain things like that that aren't really like city business. I guess mayor's promotion of Bloomington in some way go into that line. Do some subscriptions. Most of that is software and there are some city-wide
- subscriptions or dues, membership dues to, I believe, the Chamber of Commerce, which gives all city employees access to all Chamber of Commerce events. That lives in the Mayor's office. There's also the International Town and Gown lives in the Mayor's office, I believe. Is that under other services and charges? No, that's under dues and subscriptions. So dues could be membership dues or subscriptions. So there's lots of software costs in there, too.
- Sometimes those numbers are weird because, again, things have been put in the wrong categories. And now that we're full of staff, we have more people who need more access to more seats for some of the software that we use. And there's a little buffer in there of, I think, $2,000 that I call the productivity allowance. And that is if someone finds a subscription to something that will make them be more productive during the year, I want us to have the local room to get that.
- I believe we really need to encourage our staff to be current with the kinds of tools that are out there now. They can be saving us a boatload of time and as an organization, we are not very good at that yet. We've got big enterprise software and we have Google Sheets and not as much use of all the stuff in between that can be gigantic time savers, can replace sometimes proprietary tools that are a lot more expensive.
- Happy to answer anything else? Questions for Gretchen. Why has the telephone line gone up so much? Because, let's see, I don't know how many. I guess it was just lower in 2025 and going back up to 2024. Because two people had phones in 2025 and we added two other people to have phones in 2026 because we're fully staffed and won't be for walk phones.
- So the telephone line is basically for cell phones. Yes. The voiceover IP like desktop system doesn't cost you anything. And so typically you would want a cell phone if you were in the field a lot, or if you are getting a lot of, if you're going to be getting a lot of calls in the field from people who are not other city employees or your friends, you might want a different phone so that
- You're not Adam Weissen on vacation getting a thousand phone calls and texts. Any other questions about the mayor's office budget? Yes. So in terms of the motor repairs, that was zero for a really long time. So that's actual. I know it was zero actual.
- I mean, so there were like no repairs for a while. I guess I'm just wondering if the mayor's office has always had a fleet of parts. As far as I know, the mayor is the only one who drives the city vehicle. It was offered to me and declined. I'm a control freak. I like to drive my own car. Traditionally, the mayor is the only one who had a car. Mayor Hamilton, I believe, declined to have a car, but they encouraged the
- Works director of actually TV sort of because they are doing a lot of kind of running around when I have no idea. But I know Mayor Cruz and kind of city. Thanks. But the mayor is the only one in the city. Okay. Any other questions? All right.
- go on to the office of the city clerk. In terms of the interest of consistency, do you mind if I share the same thing I prepared? That was very helpful, by the way. I can shoot back while I was finding
- Right. A sheet to share. That's how I imagine all budget hearings to go. For that to be what happens in council chambers is that the department gets up, we look at this sheet, they explain every line, we ask questions, and we can have some other big picture conversations, and that can be in the budget book, but really we focus on those actual lines. And they explain variances. That's how I picture it going to be most productive.
- Just my two cents. Yeah, and I guess that is in that version of this. Yes, city-wide version of this, every night, every department. Yeah, but then also connected to purpose and that funding program, which these sheets don't necessarily do. Right. Still, there's value in having these discussions, too. Yeah. Or else you don't know how those purposes and programs get accomplished without listening to you.
- Okay. So do you want me to go through in line by line as everything you're enacted or would you prefer just to answer the questions in the interest of time? That is both a good thing and a bad thing. So starting with office supplies, their office supplies books are generally a reference to the ordinance books. So,
- We try to keep enough money in the budget to replace all of our books at once. The books run, they've actually been going up in price significantly over the last few years. So the last time we priced them out, I think with the cost of book, the papers, which you guys have specialized books, specialized papers, even the whole punch itself for the paper, if we chose to add pages into our books, the whole punch was 70 something plus dollars. I had a lot of people say,
- from the controller's office. Nicole, you know, you can go to Michael's and get like a full punch and like, trust me, I tried, because that was the time when I was like, this is the world's most expensive full punch. But that is what we have for ordinance books, minutes books, and resolutions. And you all know those are kept in the fire states in our suite. And yes, I would love to move away from the paper, but because the way it's written in code, we still have books. Other supplies are for
- It's our passion for all circuits. Sorry, so you mean the state code requires the paper? Yes. You actually asked me that. I think it was in 2016 or 2017. And we were talking about that experience. Even then, it's the same kind of absurd. You actually kind of look like, why do we have to have paper? So we talked about it then. Special legal services is in part because state code allows us to
- contract with an attorney on terms that we see that the administration has attorneys available to them at all times. The council has an attorney, but the clerk does not have dedicated legal staff. It's actually slightly off because last year we hired an attorney and they have still not gotten their approved vendor forms submitted. So it's probably supposed to have been higher in 2024 than it was. And it looks like it's going to be
- definitely used in 2025 as well, but we tried to keep it pretty steady. Instruction is what we use for additional instruction for work staff. So we've talked about certifications, that's where you go for all of our classes and everything else. Management fees, consultants and workshops, if we hire somebody to do consulting for our office, that's where we do it. Our phone costs are for the cell phones,
- which actually will go down, although I'm not sure yet. That's on my notes of things to ask about, because I don't know how much the phones are supposed to actually cost, but we still have two phones in our office for staff members. Postage, we only have budgeted at 25. There have been some years where we've spent over $400 in postage, because whenever you do something where you have to notify
- property adjacent property owners for alley vacations. If for some reason we end up not doing the mailing through the city hall office downstairs, we have to go to the post office. We end up going directly. What would that be about planning the transportation? The notice is supposed to come from the clerk's office and ultimately that, no, it hasn't. And I don't think we have ever tried to say here, maybe so. I don't mind.
- But for the most part, it's there. Travel is the cost that it is related to getting those certifications and everything else. So for example, we had our annual conference last week for the clerk's leave. The hotel costs for one person were running at $1.79 per night. I'm trying to remember. I'm looking at you. And the funny thing is, I was the host of it.
- So for four nights, plus cost of any additional food, plus cost of travel. So it can actually add up fairly quickly for that. So for what amounts to five people for doing the travel, that's where we've kept it. I will say it's not just annual, firstly, it is for Institute Academy, annual conference, and additional training. Our costs have been a little bit
- easier to keep down over the last couple of years because the clerk has actually paid for the bulk of the travel. Because I actually was an officer. So that was one of the things that I said, yeah, they'll pay for it. Let's say nice that we have money. Let's do it. Yeah. Or resulting in workload. Lots of late nights. Printing is related to the code. That's the bulk of the money on the way to print some other materials. But if we are
- That's where we have kept money for productation. So for example, when you overhauled the UDO, that one chapter that was changed cost us, I think it was about $13,000. And is that also for paper printing? Printing, we're talking about paper, right? We're not talking about PDF. Yeah. I didn't understand your question.
- Sorry, it was part of the head process. So that's where we put it. We were looking at the budget over the last 12 years, actually, in the office. And somebody said, why did you have that big jump in that line? And that was because for some reason, at one point, that money was in the Public Works Department, even though they had nothing to do with productifying legislation. Maybe I'll pass.
- Um, one of my predecessors didn't like to actually do all the invoicing for that stuff. And there's somebody in public works who did. And so they moved that money in there. Um, and the previous administration said we should have the money in the department but dispense it. So we moved it back to the clerk's office. Um, I think it was actually higher when it was in public works. And then we brought it down to 21 in the clerk's office and then took it down further to 18 as
- That seems a safe amount to have for any patient will be entitled to changes and quite a bit of them imagine that's going to be expensive, but I won't know until I have been sent to the cops. I'm advertising. Wow.
- We didn't remember blanking out on these moments, so I'm going to skip over and help my brain fix them in a moment. Subtle notices, newspaper certifications, those things as well. Dues and subscriptions are just that. Dues, subscriptions, Deputy Mayor Matt talked about additional tools that can be used. We have tried some other tools to make staff more efficient and more effective in their workload. Some of them have worked, some of them have not.
- Usually, if we're doing a subscription, we try to find a free version first, because as to us, but you should try it. Yeah, or try it. And then other certs and charges, we have kept at 100. And I genuinely would have to go back and actually look at why we spent $18.29. Questions?
- My question is really important. What is the other supplies? I think you skipped over the category two other supplies, and I noticed in 2025 that is significantly over, and that makes the entire category two kind of over. Not part of it, but actually, other supplies generally refer to things that are not directly office supplies. So that is
- Not fences and paper postage for the office. What we did last year when we added an additional staff we budgeted for a few things that they would need computer, but we did not budget for a desk. Or anything else. So we do that thing for that. This year's.
- questions? How often do we need to replace Hortman's books? It depends on how much you all are doing on the new book a year. Yeah, I guess I'm looking at the books line and going like, okay, we keep on budgeting as though we're gonna have to replace all of them. And in the last several years, we've had to, so like, well, that's the last time we had to spend $2,000 out of that line.
- Actually, so. Or like what is like the highest one and whatever. I want to make sure I'm looking at the back of the line, so forgive me some. Not doing this on this human time.
- So in 2024, when we had budgeted for books at $1,200 and we spent just under $1,000, we only got two books that year. In 2023, we spent about $1,100. That's not what it says up there. So Isabel, where did you get your numbers? I got them from the expense budget report that I pulled this morning. Isabel, where did she get her?
- From the documents that. Yes, I said, happy to share these with you as well. So, well, I think that it's problematic if what we hold on what Jessica hold have two different others because that's the same.
- If you guys can figure out why not so that then we actually get accurate information. Because otherwise just seems like, why do we need to budget from foreign folks when there's, you know, less than 1000 beats then. And that might be getting a tiny degree to tell but I know Dave does care about but I think this does fall a little bit into the.
- I think if you want to have the budget for books, or if you want to have a budget for any given item, that is absolutely your right. I understand that as a whole. I do think that it does open the door to us coming to you and saying, hey, before you pass this ordinance, we're going to need your money so that we can actually pay the codifier for this. And that will take significantly longer because the process overall for appropriating funds
- It's more than just coming in and saying, hey, we need more money in the bank account. It's not a transfer like we would do at home. It's a city process. Well, I know, but that's why I want to see the accurate numbers and kind of, I mean, I feel like if we are going into this period of austerity, then one of the things that we should seek to do is align our actual spending with our projected spending. And so if, when those, when those two things aren't mapping, that's another one of the things I'm kind of being on this year is going like,
- Like why is our act, why is our projected so much more than what our actual has been? So like last night I asked police the fire. Well, I asked the police about that, but I asked fire about that in terms of their training and their answer made a lot of sense. It's like, Oh, of course we're going to spend less on training because when we have less officers, so we can't send them. And so with fully staffed, then we anticipate we'll send them more. So it makes a whole lot of sense.
- to have that line be more. And so that's what I'm trying to align right now is that difference. And so that's a piece of this. It's like, okay, there's huge difference for going into this period where we might have to start looking in, you know, like, I don't know if that's what Gretchen did when she looked through all the department budgets or not, but that is the kind of process that I would go through and look me through that has line and department budget is looking at the actual, you know, over the last few years versus the projected
- in the next year and if those two things are not in alignment, like why aren't they in alignment? And also the opposite, like if we're budgeting way less than has been budgeted, which there was a police line related to that, that like it had been being spent, being spent, being spent, and then it's like budgeted for half as much next year. And I asked about that as a follow-up too. So that's my donation right now with that question. That was a lot. I want to clarify that I got the 2023 actuals from the budget seats in the budget book.
- And these numbers match those numbers. Like the, it said 2024 national on books. 311.64, and it says 312. And then- I thought the budget says 1200. Yeah, it's the actual order. Yeah, I think the question is about the versus news. And coming back to your original question, how many books are actually spent or how many books do you actually buy? Still comes back to my original answer, which is,
- It depends on the council and how much legislation you pass. So we budget based on the assumption that you're going to actually pass a lot of legislation and we'll have to pull sort of place everything. From what I say, the comfort of knowing also that that money gets reverted back to the general fund. So it's not money that gets lost forever, at least as far as I understand, it is money that we may actually need
- but we'll ultimately go back. So it's maybe a different view on how that money gets spent. I understand your perspective. I wasn't really questioning your motive. I was questioning the utility. We have only about eight minutes left in this meeting and we still want to do public comment. So are there any other pressing questions for, I mean, I recognize that
- I might follow up with some things on the on the record comments related to budget questions and the actual things that you said here. Let me just say those briefly that question of when you are used to over budgeting for something for the worst case scenario but in practice you don't spend that much. That's something we looked at and Jessica really cut back on a lot of the lines to what do we actually spend and with the knowledge that if something if the worst case scenario happened we could just go back to you and say
- This was that time when we had the extreme situation, we needed another appropriation to cover the 4,000 pieces of legislation that we passed and need to print and read books for. But it is the way of getting money that is likely not to be used to offer books. Right. Whenever and where we did that, we always left, depending on what it was, like $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000 in cushion, just depending on what thing it was.
- We are, yeah, we're all like, honestly, I think the clerk's office is really good at getting their expenses down as close to the actual performance budget as possible. And I didn't have any cuts to make for the clerk's budget because it was really close to actual, from what I see in the budget overall from every single department. So I didn't change anything in that budget. All right, let's go to public comments. Is there anybody in public who would like to comment on
- matters before a special fiscal committee. Yes, Mr. M.G. Hey, good afternoon. I almost said good morning. This is Chris Ramsey from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. I just want to reiterate a couple things. First off, to go to the sentiment of you're moving in the right direction. This is my chamber stamp approval that you are moving in the right
- direction and that we're going to, when you build upon this next year is going to have, I think a lot more freeway as far as having the conversations necessary to make, I think the cuts moving forward, especially in personnel costs and who does what as we move forward. The other one is piggybacking on council member Rallo's statement, which I haven't gone through the budget with a fine tooth comb, but one thing I'm always curious on is deferred maintenance
- and something we shouldn't be cutting back on. That's something that's very short term and politically feasible, especially when you're talking about elect officials in for a short time, but they paint, you know, those cause issues later on. And I just want to make sure that we are not cutting corners on that maintenance on some of the wonderful assets that the city of Bloomington possesses. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Anybody else want to give any public comment?
- All right, seeing that, I did, in the interest of getting the public comments, I skipped number four, which is preparation of elected official salary ordinance. I would like to get some feedback from other committee members on how we should proceed with this. Normally, we would have the, well, we need to have a salary ordinance approved
- By what? Yeah. The end of the year. So we do have some time and this is for the city clerk, the mayor, house of members. Okay. Um, so I don't know, uh, if this should just be our discussion topic for our next meeting or what, what people think. Dave. Um,
- Well, we don't have very much time, but I would just say, put a plug in that I think that we should keep up with cost of living for everyone's salary because I hate making adjustments in the future, particularly for elected officials. If we fall behind and we have to bump up and then, you know, there are complications that arise. So I would just put a plug in that if at all possible, we should keep up with the
- estimated 2.7% the estimate for 2026. That's all. All right. Any other comments? Should we just put this on a discussion agenda for next time? I have another meeting that I have to go to at one. So notably, I think we have the time that we could kind of delay it.
- I agree with Councilor Noralo, but if civil city only gets a 2% increase, I think that it's not great to then give electives a 2.7% increase. I mean, it's not much of a difference. And I also don't want to throw out all of the work that was done last year around this issue. Yeah, I think that,
- Parking back to what he said recommended if we can have some kind of discussion on budget. Before September 24th. Or before. Before that, because before the final. This question of 2% versus the 2.7% actual cost of living is something that I have an issue with.
- Should we plan a special session around that between administration and council? It might be helpful. I know I find the questions process really helpful to see what people are asking about and if there are, you know, we sort of suggested, hey, if there are things you want to have, make a suggestion about a place to cut. And I know that's hard when we don't have exact numbers, but even just to say in general, this,
- kind of place seems like maybe if it was minus where there are credit there, I think would be helpful because I know Justin and I would be, you know, delighted to sit down and look through and see what else, what else would we like to cut that you also indicated you'd be willing to cut in order to achieve some of these other things like possibly looking for employees or other investments. Cause that difference was I'm knowing it was like 500,000 left, a little less than that.
- I mean, we can probably find it, but when we start saying we can probably find it for a number of things, then suddenly it's a bigger number. What week would be a good week to try to schedule some kind of special session like that, like a special work session? Like I feel like last year, I remember us having a couple of those special work sessions. So I guess I'm picturing something maybe potentially during the day as opposed to an evening meeting. I'm not sure about customer availability, but what would be a good week in terms of the elsewhere for that?
- I'm not the week of the first recovery, as I'm sure some of others will be as well. So not that week, but. Well, so what is the deadline? It is September 12th. I have to have the advertising done. Well, we always advertise time. And the normally the
- 15th would be the deadline for the legislation. Yeah. So like the eighth or the ninth or the 10th of September, is that all doable in terms of administrative and before I start investigating the council now? We also are replies to your questions are due on the ninth. So it would be great if we could have time to read and answer all their questions. I think we would come more informed to that meeting.
- Okay, I'm just sensitive to that deadline that just mentioned about the 12th. But that's just the rates, right? It's not specific. Department of Budget Services. What exactly does due off 12th? Fund total at that specific point.
- I really have to go. All right. Well, if we can put that in, I think that will be very helpful. Yeah. Maybe you guys can email me this afternoon and then I can send out a poll. If you just give a couple of days, then I could see it. I can't do this afternoon. I have to go make the budget slides so I'm booked for the rest of the day.
- Well, just in terms of like a couple days of window that I can send out a scheduling poll to council members to gauge availability. You could just add them to the scheduling poll.
- Oh yeah. Well, I just mean like what week though, that we would like, it doesn't have to be a specific time. Just like what? There's next week. What week or like what? It seems like the eighth through the twelfth is just too close to us trying to finalize the writing to get advertising. So I feel like the only week is the week of August 25th. So, so next week. Yeah, next week. To do that because we would want to get it done before correction goes on vacation. Yeah. All right. We'll work on that.
- Thank you very much.