- Go ahead and call to order this meeting of the Special Fiscal Committee of the Bloomington Common Council
- for Thursday, October 23rd. We have with us committee members, Isa Casare. Hello. Hope it's Dotsburg.
- Myself, Isabelle Piedmont-Smith, and Dave Rollup. Hello. And from the council office, we have Ari Bennett
- and Lisa Lanner.
- From the clerk's office we have Sophia McDowell and hopefully soon we will have the Treasurer, I mean
- the Controller and Deputy Mayor join us. So looking at the agenda, are there any suggestions for revisions?
- On revision suggestion, I just want to appreciate that there's public comment under each of those subheadings
- because I think that'll be an easier way to include the public.
- Good improvement. Thank you, Chair, for having me. Well, and I think that we need to add public comment
- under number four. I think that might be helpful. I was wondering why it wasn't under number four, but.
- Eh, oversight. OK. Do we need a motion to do it, or are you just declaring that we're adding it unless
- anybody has objections? Does anybody have objections to adding public comment to item four? OK. Let's
- just do it.
- Now that Deputy Mayor Knapp and Comptroller McClellan are here, I actually would like to propose that
- we move number two to after number three. Because Deputy Mayor Knapp, you have to leave at 12,
- is that right? Yes. Comptroller McClellan, do you also have to leave early or? I have to leave early.
- No, I do not. OK.
- So I wanted to do item three while Deputy Mayor Knapp was still here. We might get to that anyway, but
- is that all right if we just move that up before number two? All right, so let's start with that. So
- improving the budget process, reflecting on what we just went through and next steps for outcome-based
- budgeting.
- I think we do need to talk about actually prioritizing our outcomes, increasing public engagement, and
- then looking at the calendar for the next budget season. There's somebody in the waiting room. So I
- will open it up. Do people have suggestions for?
- I don't think so. We've been kind of informal about these things. So I don't know if Gretchen or Jessica,
- speaking of being informal, all these first names, if you don't mind, if you have ideas already about
- next steps. And then I think Isak also, since he was part of the task force, might have some ideas.
- So let's just have a discussion.
- Okay, and I think Jessica has a very, she's been thinking through timelines and tasks and so I'll let
- her address that. But I think just from our standpoint, some things that would be helpful I think would
- be having gone through the exercise and you've seen kind of what the, what some of our struggles were
- in trying to figure out how to communicate information. What would be, there are two things that would
- be very helpful for us to have from council. And one is some feedback on how granular
- you would like the reporting to be in the examples. Whatever the outcomes are, we need to decide how
- granular to be in and how we use our new software tool. Because how we use that, that is the tool for
- assigning costs to programs.
- So as we're measuring outcomes against what we're spending, we need to make sure that we agree on some
- of these fundamental concepts. And so the two examples I would ask you to compare and think about, and
- we don't have to discuss in this meeting unless you have immediate thoughts, but give us some feedback
- on would be comparing, for example, Parks, who put all youth programs, was just youth programs. That
- was one number for them, one category. Versus CFRD, which has a lot of discreet programs that we could bundle,
- into, for example, I'm making up these categories, but it could be resident commission-led events or
- cultural events versus community trainings, things like that. How broad or how narrow would, for council's
- purposes, would be effective? That would be helpful to know. And then the second thing I would say is
- that we need to understand and agree on what an outcome is. So if you think about a logic model,
- A lot of things that were discussed as outcomes this year are actually inputs, not outcomes.
- So for example, hire a person is an input. Double the budget to fill in the blank is an input. The outcome,
- presumably, would be something like get all of our roads to 30% status or grade 99 or something like
- that by X year.
- double the budget of roads. That would be the way that you would achieve that outcome. So I think some
- certainly hearing from council with some of those outcomes, reframing things as outcomes would be helpful.
- And you might, I would understand naturally need some input from the departments in question about how
- does that work? And then the final thing I'll say is that we do have a person in our legal team who
- was in Dallas at the time that
- They implemented their outcomes-based budgeting, and she told me one thing they did there in terms of
- public engagement that I thought was really cool, which was they engaged all of the staff. Once we had
- the outcomes, they engaged the staff in preparing the information on, you know, here's what this program
- costs, here's how we'll get there, and then had like a public fair with tables so that people from the
- public could circulate and actually talk with the employees who do that work.
- to better understand what it is and how they had come up with these particular goals and subsets. So
- understanding how granular would be helpful for the information and maybe there are some areas where
- you would like us to be more granular than others, that's fine. Setting some actual outcomes and then
- working backwards from that to what would the inputs be to achieve those outcomes would be helpful.
- And then I just wanted to throw that kind of resource fair or involving all of city staff because it's
- such a heavy lift to make this transition. And having a bunch of presentations in depth on each outcome
- from each person, each program would be extraordinarily time consuming and probably not very effective.
- So it might be easier to start with something where folks can circulate and learn about the things that
- interest them the most and then have some more formal events around that.
- That's my speech. Great. And then as far as the timeline, we'd like to get started with staff again
- in sometime in November. But it will probably be due to January because of Thanksgiving and Christmas
- and end of year work. But get started in November on going back to every department doing their work on
- signing all their costs to all of their programs. And that's going to be a huge, huge lift. We did all
- the work to define all the programs, and that was all in the budget. And now we have to assign the cost
- that we are spending on each of those programs. And so that's the next part of the work. And then if
- you decide that you would like to roll some things up, it's easier to roll them up once we have the
- granular detail. Easier to do that than to say, we've put in all these numbers, and now we're going
- to go back and break them up and create
- So we'll keep going on our end while you ponder the granularity question. I have a bunch of questions
- and thoughts. First, a general question for counsel is, are we required by law to have presentations
- on the budget the way that we do it? So we can choose what gets presented. So for example,
- We could say, as one test case, we could say, you know what, we only want to talk about homelessness,
- just as an example. Could we choose to do that and not actually have, okay. So with that in mind, I
- think it's, and then also a question about the software. So the software that we have now allows what
- level of granularity and are we gonna be fully implementing in terms of the software, like we have it,
- We're making the full transition this year, so we'll be able to actually do exactly as Gretchen said.
- It allows you to go as granular as you want. But they have done this in hundreds of cities, and they
- don't recommend going too granular. Right, super granular. That it just doesn't work. Exactly. And also,
- it's impossible. I mean, the more granular you get, the more difficult it actually is to assess it.
- Exactly. That is the reason it doesn't work well. The software works fine. It will do it.
- reason you're doing it, then you can't achieve that goal if it's too granular. Our office has been going
- through this process too. Right, right. So my initial thoughts and maybe high level reactions I think
- to both of those things is that I think what
- could be a way to go about this is that, so thinking about stages, we need to much earlier have our
- set of outcomes, right? And so that we should really, I think that needs to be like quarter one discussions
- need to be outcome setting discussions where we've usually left for what, quarter two, right? Or even
- quarter three, right? And so I think we should,
- have that first round of this is what we think we're working towards the things we want to see in next
- year's budget so that we can have the discussions about I think there's a theory of change part maybe
- that was that that that that then helps with the and by fear changes mean like some type of concept
- that would have to be worked out with departments about okay if if if
- if this is the outcome we want, how do we think we can move that needle with our program spending,
- et cetera, with our inputs, I think, as you put it. So I think that if we started that, could we start
- that in January? Could we start that in, how early is, can we start that conversation? I think the earlier
- you start it, the better. And I think on the city side, we have a sense internally in departments and
- at the administrative level of what outcomes
- we're looking for, although translating that into a smart goal and really taking the thing you think
- you know and making it one sentence that's very clear is a challenge. But for you all, I think just
- thinking of your usual calendar where your first meeting isn't until a little later in January, we start
- working on the math and building out what we actually can do for the budget in May. So whenever you
- start it, having that information to us by
- April would be fantastic, because let's say that you're an outcome that you want is something that we're
- not currently doing. That requires the people who are doing the work to really think about, okay, what
- would I do that would achieve that goal? How would that impact? Where would I make cuts? So it's not
- just, oh, we got it and we plugged it in. There's a little work to do. And that would give us enough
- time to do the work, the conceptual work,
- enter it into the math work, enter it into the program, and then get us on track for having a budget
- that's on time. So I think with that in mind, I think that this committee continues to meet. I think
- that this committee, we should
- at our next meeting, start having conversations about potential outcomes, because it's gonna take,
- I think, a long time to get to some real agreement about that, but I think that this committee would
- be very useful to have a sort of wire frame, if you will, something to react to that we can give to
- the rest of council that we can then build upon. And I think we should start that work now. I agree,
- and especially if you think about if we want to do any kind of public engagement, like fitting that
- in as well,
- What we're saying is we're going to do all of the math, all the conceptual work, come to agreements,
- do all the public engagement, and essentially six months. Because we'll be building the budget book
- in July. Whatever it looks like, that's when the work has to be done. So that's a pretty fast timeline.
- In terms of that engagement there that you were talking about, what would be a good time of year in
- terms of staff figuring that stuff out for that kind of event to happen?
- have to be after we'd come to some agreement on some outcomes and created the work, right? So if people
- are going through, it's not very fun to go to the table and say, oh, we have this program, but I don't
- know how much it will cost or what it will achieve. So I'd have to think about that. I don't know the
- answer off the top of my head, but I think we have to plan for that. Is that like a three summer thing
- or like a budget season thing in terms of like August, September-y kind of time?
- That's a great question. I don't know. If we really want to embrace what feedback we get from the public,
- it would have to be earlier. Right. But then I guess I'm wondering whether then staff would be able
- to get that kind of stuff together. Well, Lisa and I already started talking a little bit about the
- schedule for next year and thinking about things like deliberation sessions and thinking like in June,
- should there be some kind of a budget
- Deliberation session type thing right before we go on summer recess and so depending on What the needs
- are that that could potentially be a really interesting fair type June is way too late for that Okay,
- and I think we have to shift our paradigm like don't I don't think based on what what Gretchen just
- said and what I was just saying
- I don't think, I think you need to totally disabuse yourself of the way that we've done it in the past.
- Like, it does not track. Like, we need to have made most of the decisions that we make in, like, April.
- We need to have made those decisions in, like, February. Well, I guess, like, what's the point of that
- fair then? Because I thought part of the point of that fair was to communicate to the public how we're
- spending our money, not to get the public's input on how they think we should be spending our money.
- So I was approaching it from that first assumption that we're communicating to the public how we're
- spending, not getting input from the public about how we should spend. Well, I guess here's what I say.
- Thinking about staff and thinking about having been at the city all of two whole years now, the pace
- is excruciating. And there is always a lot of work to do. And so I can't overestimate enough how big
- of a lift this is for staff. It is enormous.
- And so if we can be supportive of that and acknowledge that this is a big lift for our people. And what
- I mean by that is not everything that we might want to do for this process in the future may not be
- able to fit in the calendar for this year. So we should probably try to be realistic about what would
- be good progress to make in this year and how much of our ideal packet can we get done in one year and
- what could we do
- add in next year when we've crossed you know the first bridge of okay we agree on the granularity we
- know how the process works you know what else can we add in because I will say it's very discouraging
- when staff have worked very hard to make some progress and then we have public discussions where people
- criticize us for not being fast enough when you know we made a pretty big
- lift for the team including finding the software thank you Jessica that could interface with layover
- our our city software which is not very friendly you know that was work that basically got done in three
- or four months and I understand that we all want to see a lot more progress but I just want us to have
- a shared understanding what can we really get done and feel good about you know we got we got 50% done
- we got 75% done whatever it is instead of saying well you only did 99 where's the other 1% or the other 10%
- Yeah, for context, just as a staff person, responding to the prompts and questions from Tyler Technologies
- requires a lot of thought and analysis. It's important work. It has value, but it takes time. And the
- great thing is, once we make that initial investment, it'll get easier with each passing year. But the
- first lift is hard. Right. So going back to that public engagement fair type idea, is that a better
- 2027 goal, then?
- Like, because I guess I'm just trying to, because I like that idea. I mean, I think we need to have
- more public engagement around the budget. I think part of that is making the budget a more accessible
- thing for the public to understand. And that kind of presentation and fair would be, I think, very accessible
- in terms of, you know, any random sort of person, regardless of your education, coming off the street
- and going like, OK, what does all this mean?
- I think that that's just a really great concept to have. But is that too big of a lift for 2026? Is
- that a better lift for 2027? That's what I'm trying to get at right now. That's why I'm asking when
- in the year would that be good? Well, maybe if we think of it over two years, like in 2026, maybe we
- have this kind of fair informational, how do we spend your money sort of thing after the budget is already
- drafted. And then in subsequent years,
- people would be able to maybe come back and understand and give input earlier. I like that idea except
- for the part where you said after the budget is drafted. I think that we should do it. I think that
- there's not enough time in there. I think that's the point when we really get hot and heavy on the budget
- and do the budget book and start hearings and doing slides and submitting things to council. We can't
- add anything to that time period. But we could do something in like May or June where there
- departments sort of prepare what their programs are, which is work they've already done, and like a
- summary of how we spend your money. And they sort of get, they sort of start working that muscle of
- presenting how to present to the public the information of how we're spending your money. We have the
- 2025 budget that's been approved. I think May or June for next year would even be too soon. Here's my
- suggestion, and we can all throw out our ideas and think about this. But my suggestion would be for
- next year that we use the fair either in addition to or in place of or somehow
- think of it as the typical budget presentation, like instead of going and hearing someone. So if you
- think about what is the public normally encounter, they can read the budget book, they can go listen
- to the presentations, they can make comments there, and already we don't have time to address their
- responses. But of course, all of us elected officials and administration are getting feedback and using
- the tools that the city, the surveys and so on that city puts out there to gather input on what residents
- think is important. So it's not like we're starting coal, but
- I would think that like August presentation that's similar in timing to budget presentations might be
- a good baby step in year one. We've done all the work, we've got the numbers, we've figured out what
- the outcomes are that we want and the granularity and figured out how to make the software work and
- whatever adjustments we'll make to the formal approval and review process we have with council and then
- here's a chance to
- explore as a community what that looks like in a new format, and then maybe move it earlier the next
- year. Does that feel skeptical? Does that add too much to, I mean, Jessica was just talking about the
- staff challenge of getting all the things together for the August presentation anyway. Does this add
- to this? Well, I think one thing that might be different about it, and I would want to talk to our staff
- person who lived through this once before, is that it wasn't necessarily department heads sitting at
- those tables.
- It was the people who actually do the work. So that might be a way to engage staff and the people who
- really do the work, giving them a chance to meet the public and explain what they do and answer some
- questions. So I don't know that we can decide today. Maybe it's even September. But I agree that July,
- not possible. June, not possible. I think May would be too soon because I think we're going to be scrambling
- still to figure out to just do the math.
- And like Lisa, the Office of the Mayor also goes through this process. And our programs are nowhere
- near as complicated or long as what Public Works and other departments have to do. So it's a big lift.
- What about prioritizing outcomes? I mean, we all have visions of more drivable roads, more walkable
- sidewalks.
- better connectivity and helping people who are unhoused and all this. But I mean, we have a limited
- budget. So at some point, we have to put some outcome priorities over others. Can I tag on that? Yeah.
- So we're operating under a different fiscal climate. And when will there be estimates of budget limits
- that are being imposed on us?
- And what will that outlook be? So Gretchen, you were talking about outcomes. And so my priority, I'm
- one of nine, but my priority would be a budget that doesn't tip into resources and reserves, a budget
- that doesn't increase future debt obligation. That may be.
- a big lift. An outcome that avoids increasing burden on those residents who are already overtaxed. So
- if we're operating under austerity of some kind, then we should distinguish between needs and wants
- and basic services versus expendable projects. So for instance,
- where you were talking about level of service or the quality of roads versus large projects that might
- be expendable. And then if we are to avoid putting a burden, which might be, again, a very, very challenging
- thing with the state, with how taxes are structured in Indiana,
- How do we avoid putting a burden on low income people? There are creative ways maybe to do that. So
- tier pricing for parking meters, for instance. So if you have, we have a common rate right now. If we
- were to tier it based upon location, we still have the opportunity for people to park who are low income.
- They may have to walk further.
- But the point is that there are ways in which we could approach trying to limit that. Anyway, it's a
- lot to say. But my main concern is, what are we operating under? What kind of fiscal box are we in?
- I mean, I think those are really important questions. And I think the great thing about setting outcomes
- and then prioritizing them is that that tells us when you have less, however much money we have, we
- know that those are the priorities and the outcomes that we want.
- Let's say we had an outcome. I'm going to pick one that would obviously be expensive. Sidewalks everywhere
- repaired and built and fill every gap in however many years. That's an extremely expensive, hard to
- achieve goal. But if there was some sense of that is in our top three, I'm not saying it's one of my
- top three. I'm making this up just to be clear, just an example.
- then that would tell us, OK, if you only have $100 and you have these five priorities, maybe $100 isn't
- enough to get any single one of them done. But that tells us that that's where we should spend the $100
- we do have. So I think that conversations go hand in hand. But I think our priorities and our outcomes,
- our outcomes might have to shift in terms of timing or scale. But part of the outcome is, you know,
- make there be more sidewalks or maintain roads so that we don't slide back. If that's more important
- than some other infrastructure type of project, then we would know that going into it and that would
- help us move the dollars around. So my preference again is basic services and making sure they're at
- an optimum before we entertain other projects.
- So last night we had a presentation by the MPO. They have new projects that are recommended by engineering.
- Maybe we ought to be thinking first of putting those dollars toward repaving rather than a new project
- of some kind. But, you know, and this gets into, as they said at the MPO, sometimes those dollars aren't
- transferable. You know, unfortunately, you know,
- We don't get to pick the project. Someone else picks them. And if you say, I don't want to do that,
- we don't get the money back to spend on something else, which is, I think, a part of the budgeting
- conversation that could be really helpful with the public. And I know I learn from it all the time,
- because as a citizen, I used to always have these questions, too. Like, why don't you take that $2 million
- and spend it on fill in the blank? And sometimes, you can only spend it on that project. I think that's
- really a good point, the fungibility of the money that we have. So anyway, I've said enough, but that's
- I'm just wondering when, so do we have a time when we might have an idea of what limitations we're operating
- under for 2027? We all know from the state estimates in I think June or July, so very late. And we do
- have the parcel by parcel analysis where we can get another financial analysis estimate. But we will
- operate under that estimate
- And I think we're still operating under the assumption that next year is going to be kind of similar
- to this year, that we're going to grow a tiny little bit, but not as much as we normally would have.
- OK, so we should have a good benchmark. Yes. So this year is a good benchmark for what next year will
- be like. And SEA 1 was written.
- to try to use the lit rate to replace the lost revenue and property taxes. But that doesn't take effect
- until 2028 when the new lit rates would go into effect. So these first two years, 26 and 27, are going
- to be lost property taxes with no opportunity to replace it with lit. And so after that, after 2028,
- even though it wasn't written very well, they're supposed to fix it.
- so that we do have the ability to pass a lit rate that will fully replace our property tax loss. When
- you say in 2028, do you mean for fiscal year 2029 or fiscal year 2028? Fiscal year 2028. OK. So you
- said we do have a parcel by parcel analysis. So would that allow reading?
- in-house estimation of the SEA-1 impacts for 27? Yes. They did that parcel by parcel analysis. They
- did ours first before we even got the 2025 net AV net assessed value. So they actually need to run it
- again with our actual net assessed value. And I talked to them about that this week. So they're going
- to have to run it again. And then we'll get a more accurate estimate.
- How did our actual assessed value change? It went down. Our assessed value went down this year. Really?
- Mm-hmm. Yes. I'm not surprised by that. You're not? No. I am. Looking at our property tax bills, they
- keep going up. And then there's a lot for sale right now. What does that have to do with? Doesn't assessed
- value have something to do with? The market shift in that. Yeah.
- how much the neighboring properties are actually selling for. I mean, I'm kind of looking at Jessica
- because she has way more experience in this field than I do. But doesn't that have something to do with
- the market and how much the actual value is? Yeah, assessed values are supposed to be market-based.
- Not all of them are, especially multi-unit housing. There's other valuation methods.
- But cities and schools and counties get a levy. So no matter what the market is, we're going to collect,
- say, $5 million. It's way more than that. Every unit is going to collect what the state allows them
- to collect. And your tax bill is going to keep going up, mainly because our levies keep going up. The
- rate is going to be different. Your assessed value is different.
- but we're still trying to collect the same amount of money. And sometimes the market going up and down
- and your rate fluctuating doesn't really affect, doesn't really change the fact that we're still going
- to collect a little bit more money every year than we did the prior year. We get to collect $5 million
- no matter what your assessed value is. Assessed value doesn't control the levy. So our levy is $5 million
- no matter what your property value is.
- Sometimes there are shifts to, huh? Sometimes the share of the levy gets shifted based on exemptions
- and deductions with commercial properties. Residential owners bear more of the property tax burden as
- a whole than commercial does. And sometimes if the commercial properties get more exemptions, that shifts
- more of the property tax burden to the residential.
- that could make a resident's taxes go up and there's just a lot of different things in play with the
- whole property tax picture but yes our bills are definitely going up and it's really hard thing to explain
- to citizens as well you know that they want the city to change the way we budget and change the way
- we spend because our bills keep going up and it's kind of like well our levy is our levy and we're still
- going to collect it and your bill is
- is not going to really change much if we spend less. We don't have to collect the full levy, right?
- Right, unless we, yeah, we could decide... Then we'd be doing services. Yes, we could not collect the
- full levy. That would be really the only way for us to make your bill go down. But if we don't collect
- the full levy one year, then the next year... You don't get... If we save money this year and don't
- want to recoup it, you can't do that, so that sets us all. Yeah.
- if at our December deliberation session of the council, we should talk about budget outcome priorities.
- That's not too early. Can I make just two simple comments or questions or whatever? But the first is that.
- We shouldn't overcomplicate thinking about outcomes because we already have a lot of outcomes in all
- of our many, many plans. So the easiest way to go about this process, easy again in relative terms,
- is that you take our existing outcomes and that we rank them. We say these are the things that we think
- are most important for this year.
- And again that that may include just continuing services that the part of our continuing services like
- there isn't you know it's also it's like a misnomer like that that there's like just a stasis like right
- like certain us continuing services.
- Also, there's a certain progress that comes with us continuing services, like filling potholes is like
- a continued service to some extent. But so very much agree with the framework, those, that by setting
- an outcome-based budget, we have the opportunity to actually have that conversation of like, this is
- not something that you dip into reserves to fund, right? But then the second part, and I think that
- this is just a, I mean, take it as you will.
- When we're thinking about change management, you want to think about user journeys, and we're conflating
- everybody's user journeys. So we're talking about staff user journeys, our user journeys, resident user
- journeys. You actually think about each of them individually and go, OK.
- what how are they going to interface with what it is that we're putting out and then ask yourself an
- outcome question like what is it that you would like them to be interfacing with and and so then we
- should then we should map those three and so um if we're if we're going in between what does council
- need to get out of out of the conversations versus what is the city if we conflate those two things
- we're going to make a lot of
- bad choices or at least over complicated choices. And then what we're doing then is jumping to, yeah,
- but what should we schedule in July, isn't the question. The question is, what is it that residents
- should be experiencing in our budget experience? And then that will answer the when should we schedule
- these things questions. That's another outcome, isn't it? What do we want our constituents to experience? Exactly.
- And then the thing I was saying earlier before we went on that track is, you know, I think one way that
- we could think about, you know, this gets to, but this is thinking through the lens of council. Like,
- how do we as a council do our job in actually evaluating and being a contributing member to the budget
- process? What I would really like, or,
- I don't know if I'd like this, but I think what would be interesting is to have the actual budget hearings
- be actually things that we go, here are the things that we'd like to hear, that it's not, that we're
- not gonna, we don't need to talk about trash collection insofar as we all agree, okay, that's fine,
- like we're okay with that, like there's certain things that we're gonna focus in on. And so you could
- imagine, you know, just picking the contentious,
- the contentious outcomes and saying like, okay, we're going to actually work on discussing these publicly,
- because there's other things that maybe you don't need to have, we don't need to waste time talking
- about things that are just matter of fact things. So you may, again, we may want to think about a different
- venue to inform the public about things versus you have our budget hearings, which are actually about
- us working on the budget and approving it.
- I think are two different goals.
- I think that it gets really touchy to think about what we're wasting time talking about, because I think
- that every council member is going to think that a different thing is a waste of time. Yeah. And so
- I think that that's the, I mean, otherwise, like, I mean, who gets to judge them? What's the waste of
- time? What's not the waste of time? And I don't think that. I think that this year we were presented
- a bunch of things that we didn't ask questions on, because there was nothing to ask questions about.
- And that when I say we, I mean, the majority
- of people on council, and that is both empirically evidenced by the fact that we did not write questions,
- and empirically evidenced that we did not ask that many questions in the session, because we did not
- have time to ask those questions. We just go through, here's a presentation, here's a thing, okay, good,
- let's go to the next one. And then we still had to have a further deliberation session afterwards. You
- said in this meeting that the goal of those sessions is partially to inform the public that's
- operating in two different goals. Now, you can do, I mean, we can chew gum and walk at the same time,
- that's fine, but I just think we have to be clear about, you know, if you think that the main purpose
- of the budget hearings is to inform the public, they take a certain form. If the main purpose is for
- council to give input to it, they take a certain form. But if you're in between the two, they'll become
- a performative thing. Now, maybe that's not a waste of time. Maybe we should be doing more performance,
- but like, you have to think
- what it is that we want to want to accomplish. I think that I actually learned a lot from the budget
- presentations and I asked a lot of questions so I'm I guess and there were there were very few community
- members who really actively engaged in that but there were some and that's what I mean by it needs to
- be accessible.
- That's why I like the fair idea because I think the fair idea is more accessible for the ordinary person
- and not just for accountants and professionals in financial fields. Exactly. I think another purpose
- for the budget hearings is for the council to understand the budget, not just to give input. It's a
- little late at that point to give input, but we need to understand how things are budgeted, why things
- are budgeted in certain ways,
- so that maybe in the future we can have more input, but also just to understand what the heck we're
- doing. I think that's what I get the most out of the way we have been doing budgetary. I don't think
- we've served the public well. Because like Hopi said, we had three people who actually asked any questions.
- And they asked a lot of questions. The ones who asked questions really engaged. Which is great. Which
- may be one wanting to get in this meeting right now.
- He knew we were talking about him. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Oh, no, I just wanted to let him in. So go ahead.
- We actually, back in the day, had budget hearings that were extremely detailed. I mean, it was really
- granular. And the idea at the time was if people at home were wanting to, or people who would come to
- the meeting,
- wanted to know what the city was doing. They would know in really exquisite detail everything that the
- city was doing. It was an interesting concept. It was excruciating. I think the staff really, you know,
- it was a heavy lift and everything. I'm not saying we go back to that, but that did happen at one point.
- I was satisfied with the budget hearings and presentations and everything and I understand you're working
- under constraints that
- We're not in control of it over. So what I was wondering is, are we anticipating any fee increases in
- the coming year? Stormwater, sanitation, parking meters, things like that. We just had a water rate
- increase. Honestly, I barely digested this year's budget. You guys just voted thank you on the salary
- ordinances last night. I am woefully unprepared to answer questions about our spending for next year
- right now.
- We didn't work any fee increases into the budget. Anything that increased, we would come and do a full
- presentation and ask you to increase it at that time. Yeah? Yeah. A heads up, more than just say it
- landing in the packet would be great. Right. Yeah, definitely. I would like to preview those increases
- here before they even get to the full council. OK.
- Okay great. I learned a lot about what I learned more about what council was truly interested in from
- the conversations that I learned from the document you sent with your priorities. Yeah. So and seriously
- like it is really so I encourage you know when you were talking about the being super granular in the
- past one of my observations for myself about working in the city is that there is
- It is as deep and it is like an ocean of sand. And sometimes when you get in there, you miss the big
- picture. Like, oh, I've learned everything about this tiny program in one division of one department
- that serves 50 people. But what's the big picture for how we're serving 80,000 people? Can get really
- lost in that sand. So I really encourage you, going back to that what is an outcome, to really
- think about how you can communicate with us in human language. Here's what I think you should spend,
- but why do you think we should spend that? Why are you asking to create XYZ position? Why do you think
- doubling the budget of XYZ is important? When you say we value XYZ abstract quality, we might value
- that too, but we don't know what you think that looks like in practice. And so all those conversations
- about studies versus infrastructure projects,
- That was fascinating. I learned from that. But unpacking the why and the big picture of what is the
- actual outcome that we're striving for in human terms would be great. And then how to figure out the
- people and the money part of that is much easier once we really understand what we're trying to do.
- members of the committee think about using the December deliberation session for talking about outcomes
- and prioritizing outcomes. Sounds great. Yeah. Depends on who has to plan it. Well. I'm already very
- deep in the weeds of planning the November deliberation session, and I have only so many spoons to
- Right. Spoons. Yes. Yes. It's an internet thing, Google. Six, seven. Oh my god, Eric's six, seven last
- night during our meeting. I don't know if anybody else caught that, but six, seven. Eric Spirmore? No.
- No. Grulick. Oh, oh, oh. I can't remember what they were six, seven of anymore. He's too old to six,
- seven. But anyway. I'm sure it was an accident.
- He does have teenage children. There you go. Well, I could try to do it. So I would put my name down
- for that. I didn't know what six, seven months like Google. And if anyone is wondering, Google says
- the humor comes from its randomness and the fact that it annoys and confuses older generations.
- Right. It means nothing. There's like six, seven million kids out there doing it, though, constantly.
- You got to put the hand motion. That was a good one. That was a good one. Actually, while I'm really
- glad that this is being recorded right now, because I've been telling my kids for like three months
- I'm going to try really hard to slip six, seven, and somewhere on purpose, and I keep missing it.
- I mean, there were like six or seven opportunities last night. Think about them the next morning. No,
- you're trying to make it make sense. It doesn't make sense. OK. All right. So let's go to public comment
- on improving the budget process. Is there anybody in the public who would like to comment on this item?
- We have KRK, somebody. Can you hear me? It's Kevin. Kevin Tio. Oh, hi, Kevin. Can you hear me all right?
- Yes. Yeah, the first thing is, and our first one, I always want to say, you know, my intention is to
- add value and to improve transparency. Hopefully, that's the intention. But I'd say, number one, from
- a process base, to have the audit completed. I guess what I'm really getting to before you even start
- the project process, I would think.
- I'm really promoting that. I know you've been behind and there's been some issues with that. But I'm
- just saying from just having the best data available is good for everyone. So I would really, and I
- know the due date is 930, but I believe that's a top dead date. And you really can have an issue to
- the public 30 days after the audit completed.
- I've not seen your engagement letter with your auditor. But I would think it's in that. They agreed
- to get it done by a certain date. And I would hope you can move that to a June, May, June deadline to
- get it done. Because you think you have good data. So I'm really pushing that. And I've got my eyes
- on it, because you guys say you'll be completing this by the end of the year. So I'll be looking for
- that. The other issue is.
- I'm an accountant, so there's this concept of fixed cost and variable cost. And when you, I say that
- because if you know your fixed cost, this is your overhead. And this could be a significant amount of
- the budget. And this would be things that really you could do today, I would think. Because these are
- the things you have obligations for fixed costs. These things you could put aside. Yeah, this is gonna
- be part of the budget. We are obligated to do this. But then you look at your variable cost, and that's
- really focused on units.
- And how many of these things you need, these units, could be any, you know. And they're really looking
- at the activity and what's the cost of those activities. And also, I know you're looking at performance
- space. Is there a clock? I don't know. I'm usually up against the clock. Go for it. We'll have another
- minute. OK. Thank you. I didn't see the big clock, and I don't want to go over.
- But the other thing is, I know you're performance-based on the budgeting, but I would also look at key
- performance indicators. And you can include that with it. But it's really focused in on these units.
- How many of these things are you getting done that are very important? And how much do they cost? I
- hope that would help. So that's my intention, not to criticize, but to add value. So I want to make
- that sure. So thank you for that.
- Thank you. Any other public comment? Anybody here? Thank you, Isabelle. This is Christopher MG from
- the Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for your time. Fun, interesting meeting. I appreciate Jessica and
- her public finance, Kurt Zorn, Property Taxes 101, on how the pie works. And it's a little bit
- goes to the fact that I've talked about population increase. How do we get less taxes paid? You get
- more people moving into Bloomington. And that's going to be increasingly more important as we rely on
- Lytmore. So I can't stress that enough. And I want to echo Dave's point on sort of the fiscal environment
- we were in, because I was getting a little bit earlier
- or is it it was like I didn't want this sort of outcome based to be a staff validate me. I used to institute
- validate me Friday where we would validate all of the employees in our office. We want to get a sense
- of what are things costing and what are we getting from them. And that is ultimately that. And from
- the council point of view and I back that public engagement, your best bet for public engagement is
- to learn the budget yourselves and explain it to your constituents.
- during those constituent meetings or when people are at the grocery store. People don't look up things,
- they call me usually because I'm usually at these meetings. This is their best way to get it and you're
- the best sort of conduit of that information. So that's really important as well. From the council point
- of view as well, what is going to be success look like for this year? If we're in September, what is
- this priority-based budget going to look like as like we've succeeded?
- We're doing great. And that might be just a few things on what we're spending and what we're getting
- from. I use certain things like the lead pickup that we don't do anymore. Probably on a cost benefit
- basis didn't sort of work out. The numbers didn't. And as we get into where this fiscal crunch comes
- is we're going to have to make some tough decisions. We want to have the data in front of us to make
- those tough decisions. And the council, I think, is an important partner in that. So just keep because
- this can go in a lot of different directions and you can
- find yourself next September nowhere farther down the road. So that's where I'm hoping on and I want
- to be helpful. The chamber wants to be helpful in any way possible. Thanks for your time. Thank you.
- Any other public comments on improving the budget process? Okay. Any final comments? Looking at Gretchen
- because she has to leave.
- Yes. Mr. Keough has brought up our audit several times, and I just want to acknowledge that those are
- very important questions. And I'm not sure, it's been mentioned several times at various meetings, but
- I'm not sure the message is really getting through to the public that when we came into office in January
- 2023, the 2021 audit had just been completed. So I want to- It was office 24. 24, sorry. But the point
- is our controller here and her staff have been really,
- working very hard on getting us caught up. They inherited that delay, and we will be caught up by next
- year. So I share Mr. Keough's enthusiasm for having the audits done and published on time. That's why
- we're cleaning up our backlog here, and I really appreciate. I'm sure he knows in his professional capacity,
- and I've been through audits before too, they are incredibly time consuming. It's not a, oh, we just
- whipped it out in a month kind of thing.
- It takes a long time and many, a lot of work. So thank you, Jessica, to you and your team for getting
- us caught up and back in compliance and back in being transparent with the public. We appreciate that.
- And I also appreciated Mr. MG's comments about Validate Me Friday. And I think that's one of the really
- tough things about making priorities and outcomes based decisions is that individually you could pull
- lots of programs from the city and you could say well this is this program does something that's good
- and the person who's working on it is working really hard and so it doesn't feel good to have to go
- back to the person who's working hard and doing something that's good and say it is good you are working
- hard but we still have to cut it to accomplish things that are more urgent important
- expensive, and it's people we love and work with every day, and it doesn't feel good, but that is what
- that really means. And so I'm also not a fan of Validate Me Friday. I want to validate us for real.
- I don't want to just give us a participation certificate and say, you get a pass because I like you.
- And I do have to go. Thank you, everyone. Good conversation. I look forward to the next steps.
- Thank you. Thank you.
- Okay, is it all right if we go to the next agenda item? Which is actually the previous agenda item.
- Setting salaries for elected officials. So in your packet, we have the draft ordinance. Thank you, I
- think Kari drafted that, thank you. Where we have a 2.7% increase for the mayor, the city clerk and
- city council members. Is there any feedback on that or does that look okay?
- committee members for us to forward to the full council. Just a clarifying question. So when we do a
- COLA, does that change? It changes the base rate for everyone moving forward, right? So when people
- are elected in the next year, that happens. It's not just an adjustment to the current people. It's
- for the position. Right.
- I really, it bothered me last year, too, that the mayor's salary has some change there on the end of
- it. I don't know if that bothers anybody else, but. Seems weird. I mean, it was like that last year,
- too, and I don't know if we want to round that, but I find it kind of obnoxious to have
- I can't remember what the random change was last year, but there was random change associated with last
- year's, too. I think that our salary ordinance has change on everything, too. I think if that's what
- it came up with in the budget documents, we just try to be exact and put that same number in. So it
- just happened to be that clerk and council member salaries didn't have any change?
- That was the amount that I confirmed. And I think you're right that last year the mayor's salary had
- some change so it sort of continues on. Well, the grades don't have change. Like grades 1 through 14
- and those steps don't have change in what we approved last night.
- I mean, I'm looking at it right now. Yeah, yeah. It's trying to pull it up. There's no changes.
- And I think, because I did check those to make sure that that COLA, I mean, I didn't check all of them,
- but I checked enough of them, and there should have been change, but it was rounded. Yeah, I think we
- really have that. And I think that the COLA are rounded. It's totally fine to take off the change. I
- don't care either way. And I think we should send a message to Carrie.
- cut this $0.57. I think that I would have a similar sort of like, oh my gosh, if it ended with an 11.
- It's hard enough that it ends with a 10, but it's like a little $10.57. So shall we just cut the $0.57?
- Yeah, just take off the $0.57. I mean, that literally is like my
- like issues with numbers and evenness. But I would like to somehow have there not be change and just
- round in one way or the other. And whether we round $0.57 down or $0.43 up, I'm really not sure that
- I have a strong opinion about. Well, then we should round up, because that's the math rule. Over $0.50,
- you round up. Treasury's doing away with pennies.
- Yeah. It's consistent. Meltdown. I've heard that there's actually enough pennies still in circulation
- that it shouldn't affect us for a while, though. People just have to stop hoarding the three billion
- pennies that they have. All the copper is going to go out of circulation. Yeah. All right. So other
- than that change, do we have agreement? And I think we'll need a motion and a vote.
- to send this to the full council for consideration with the adjustment that the mayor's salary will
- be $146,011. I motion to approve or to what recommend to council ordinance to fix the salaries of all
- elected officials. Second.
- OK. Sorry, with an amendment of $0.43. All right, let's vote on that. Councilmember Stosberg?
- Yes. Councilmember Rallo? Yes. Councilmember Asari? Absolutely. I mean, yes. We also vote yes. What
- was the last part of that motion? As amended, I guess, is what I should have just said.
- So what the mayor's salary is, Isabelle said, of $146.11. These motions. These motions. OK. Does anybody
- have thoughts on the process and rationale for the future of setting these elected official salaries?
- for this meeting and look at the discussion that we had for the survey that got filled out.
- But my recollection is that there was a majority of council members who wanted some kind of process.
- And so I guess my suggestion is to have that information, to remind us all about that information going
- into our next meeting and kind of start working in some ways from
- what was done last year and assessing that. And I feel like this group might be a decent group to assess
- that with. There's only, I mean, I'm the only one that was on that committee. And I know council member
- Rallo at least has expressed, I'll say concern with the, like the result of that and like how those
- priorities are being. So like your perspective is just really different from what was presented.
- On that I think and so yes and no, I mean I I just want to again say the process really was Broken and
- it's not a fault of the committee because you were under a time constraint but Having it land in the
- packet without a discussion from the full council I think placed everybody in this weird position at
- the end of the year during You know a very
- not well attended meeting, increasing salaries of us, of ourselves. I think it was something that took
- a lot of people back. So I think under a more relaxed process where we have more time, I know the mayor
- has expressed that she wants to see some kind of metric going forward, some rationale.
- for setting council salaries, for instance. I guess what I mean by that is the rationale that we based
- our stuff on, that you disagreed with some of that rationale in terms of the conclusions. It was only
- lacking context of other elected officials. That was something that was missing. Otherwise, I thought
- it was the committee did good work. I think that ESOT had more
- issues, and correct me if I'm wrong, with the principles that the committee came up with last year.
- Yeah, and I think we did this process by collecting all of these responses, right? I think that each
- of the principles presents in my mind a sort of, in some cases, I think in some cases,
- what do you call these, you know, if we think it this way, then there's, there's, there's a follow on,
- there's follow on. Yeah, there's the, there's like a logical thing where we go, if we say, okay, if
- we're saying this, then, you know, we need to be consistent about this is sort of some of the issues.
- I think some of the other issues though, are that I think they presented those, some of those following
- through with this thought presents
- presented externalities that we haven't figured out how to address from my perspective. And I listed
- those in detail, I think, for each one. I think sort of regardless, there's going to be a couple of
- externalities. And I think I, namely,
- the question of whether or not the optics, as always, of setting our own salaries, I think, is always
- going to be something that has to be contended with. But I think we did have, I gave some suggestions
- for things like that. Like, for example, whether or not we could establish a commission, an external
- commission, and appoint residents to have these discussions and make the recommendation to us to draft
- an ordinance.
- We've tried to explore questions of whether there's ways to raise salaries without doing it permanently.
- So are there some type of structure that you can put in? And I'm not necessarily saying this is the
- best option, but like a longevity pay or something like that. Can you put in some type of structures
- that enable us to get around the fact that once salaries are high, they can't come down?
- And then a sort of separate thing is I think that maybe perhaps a more important critique, and maybe
- I should have started with this, is that if you actually follow through with all of those criteria,
- we end up I think where we were, which is where we are currently, which sort of gets at the sort of
- I think epistemological challenge, which is that
- if we're building a thing to justify giving ourselves larger salaries. My point is that you look at
- this at the standards and you'd go, yeah, you'd pay us about $25,000 by looking at all of those things,
- especially then if you add Dave's criteria as well. So yes, I don't know if that's particularly helpful
- in moving us forward in any conversation. Well, I think that when it came down,
- of some of the principles I agree with. I think that most of the principles that the ad hoc committee
- came up with last year I agreed with. I did read your extensive comments, thank you, on the survey.
- And I think you had some good points we need to incorporate. I think where the problem really arose
- is saying we are a percentage, we need to get a percentage of what the mayor makes. That somehow that did not.
- lead to a dollar amount that I thought was reasonable. And I think most of us, obviously, thought was
- reasonable, because it's not what we passed. Right, right. But it even came like that. That was a very
- hard to measure metric, because you say, OK, we make what the mayor makes. Is it all divided by 9, divided
- by 6, divided by a veto majority? How do you?
- How do we say that? And then is that the mayor doesn't work.
- work sort of hour-based and so we made other arguments about like how much time we spend doing it so
- so then how do you determine the percentage you know is it you know is it like again so is it just divided
- by us as individuals or is it divided by the percentage and I think the argument they made was like
- the percentage of hours worked and so okay well the mayor doesn't work 40 hours a week so you know so
- then it becomes again it's just like what are we pegging it to so I think we just have to be really
- consistent I agree with with Isabel that you know I think I think that it's the it's a step in
- in the right direction, if we want to set just a thing that then automates itself, I think that that's
- the ideal. So that it's not us saying, you know, we by some virtue have come together, we've come out,
- we've decided we must give ourselves raises. But it's saying, like, here's the standard, and this is
- the standard, and we're gonna put the standard to practice. But again, it's a question of consistency.
- We have to think through it all the way, and we can't,
- We cannot be inconsistent and say, well, the mayor makes 142 and she works 40 hours and we work 25 hours
- or 14 hours or 15 hours, so we should make that percentage of what she makes. Those are two different
- arguments. I want to be really clear about a couple of things. One is that the group last year did not
- We didn't start or envision or have any initial conversations that were like well we should be paid
- more so let's figure out a way to have us paid more. That was not ever part of any of those conversations,
- and we very deliberately had multiple conversations.
- very specifically said we need to start with like nothing and build something as opposed to starting
- with an assumption that we should get raises or that we deserve raises. So that's the first thing I
- wanted to mention. And secondly, in terms of that 40 hours, we also had several conversations around
- the idea of burnout and healthfulness.
- and looking at the 40-hour week not necessarily as, oh, the mayor works 40 hours, so that's what we
- should base it on, but that full-time jobs are pegged at 40 hours in this country. That is the standard
- kind of weekly thing, because that is what has been kind of considered a reasonable number of hours
- to work to avoid things like overwork and burnout, and that somebody working 40 hours philosophically
- should be able to
- make ends meet, which I think is a democratic ideal. And so that is what you're basing that 40 hours
- on. Not necessarily that the mayor works 40 hours, but that as a full-time position, which we counted
- the mayor's position as a full-time position, that's
- We shouldn't expect, oh, well, count the mayor's 60-hour position because we expect our mayor to work
- 60 hours a week. We thought that that was an unhelpful kind of lack of balance to expect a mayor to
- always work 60 hours a week. And so we based that 40 hours on the societally kind of accepted measure
- of 40-hour work weeks, which I want to recognize right now there's a whole lot of people who have to
- work more than 40 hours a week or more jobs than one.
- because they can't make ends meet, because there are larger issues related to pay in the country,
- and wages, and not just them, but also how much things cost. And so then people are stuck in unhealthful
- work cycles in terms of how much they have to work to make those ends meet. So that is where the 40
- hours came from. Not that we think the mayor works 40 hours, or only works 40 hours, or whatever, was
- pegging it on the fact that it was a full-time position.
- And I just want to make those things really clear, because I've heard those things a couple of times,
- and I've tried to say that kind of comment a couple of times. And people don't always seem to listen
- or hear when I make that comment. So making it really fixed again, those were the assumptions that we
- walked in on. Would you say the mayor has an exempt or a non-exempt position? So when calculating hours
- for a full-time pegging?
- Because you do build that into a salary expectation. So in my job, I am expected to just work whenever
- I have to work. So I get paid as though I'm expected to work whenever I have to work.
- Probably to some degree. But I also think then that our department heads also have that expectation.
- I was just actually meeting with the department head this morning about something that we're working
- on together. And they very much were like, yeah, I'm really going to need the weekends to work on this
- thing because my weeks are full of meetings and I can't actually get things done during the week. And
- that was about the moment where I was like, how healthy is that? So we also then.
- pegged the mayor's salary to our department head's salary in that kind of ideal way, recognizing,
- you know, we've got to recognize that our department heads also probably are putting in significantly
- more than 40 hours a week. And, you know, and probably a lot of people in positions, you know, high
- ranking positions like that end up putting in more than 40 hours a week. Now, is that actually healthy?
- But that's our society. That is our society. But that's why we base it off of 40 hours. And I think
- that's a really great point that, again, you noted. You said multiple times. I think, though, then there
- was a follow-on part to that, which is how much council members work. So the argument was based on the
- hours we work as a proportion of that 40-hour work week, right?
- That then the challenge that I've said multiple times is it's like, okay, wait, we have almost 100%
- control over the amount that we work. And so it becomes this, you know, it's like,
- So again, it's not the best measure of that. So I say, well, maybe a better measure is that you say,
- if we like that argument, that we're a portion of the mayor. And I think that's, again, don't get me
- wrong. The critique does not say that this was bad. I'm just pointing out, let's follow this all the
- way through. If it is that we say that we like that argument, that we're a portion of the mayor, then
- my argument would be that we as a council collectively are, so you either define
- you either divide her salary by nine and you just say that
- we make the equal part of a mayor. Or you say a majority of council members, because that's what it
- takes to pass anything, is what it is. But I think if we do that, we end up at 25. So that would be
- my approach to the metric if we're taking that approach of pegging it to the mayor. So my objection
- with pegging it like that is that that assumes that all of us,
- So if we say that the mayor knows all of the information and all of the things, then dividing it by
- nine assumes that each council member only needs to know a ninth of the things. And so if we take what
- Mr. MG said earlier about one of our tasks should be as council members to understand the budget so
- then we can communicate the budget to our constituents, we all then need to understand all of that thing
- so that we can communicate it effectively. So each of us need to understand all of the things
- so that we can communicate them effectively to our constituency, which doesn't mean dividing us all
- by nine. It means that we each have equal onus and responsibility to do that. And I know that we don't
- all do it. And that's where it gets into something that I said earlier that I think in one of the budget
- things, or maybe in that survey, that spitefully, I would rather everybody get paid less
- even though that means that some people are getting paid less than they deserve, then have one person
- getting paid for things that they don't do. And that's where it is on all of us individually to be a
- good representative. And it could be all across the board, and the only people that are at all possibly
- tracking that are voters every four years. In local elections, that doesn't always happen. In any elections,
- that doesn't always happen. We have tons of unqualified, underqualified people who don't do their jobs.
- at all levels of government in this country.
- And there's no guarantee for that. So spitefully, yeah, I would rather underpay people who are doing
- a great job than overpay people who are doing a crappy job. But how do we do that? There is an interesting
- point is that we do have a mechanism that if we really wanted to go in this direction, we have a mechanism
- where as a council, you can remove another council member. Only for non-ordinates, though. But the point
- is we could also change that ordinance in relation here.
- politically well right because because then it could be that I just don't like this person like right
- but but but I think but it but it does illustrate the the challenge to your point is that we don't have
- we don't have that accountability mechanism you know that
- We could be absentees, in essence, or just show up to a meeting having not read anything, say nothing
- at said meeting, and leave. But then there's a flip side of this, which I think is also, and I've raised
- this multiple times and in the response, is there are some natural inequities then that exist because
- what happens then for an at-large member,
- I have a larger amount of constituents that I need to talk to. How do you balance that out? This is
- what first got me thinking about the longevity idea is that I recognize
- the amount of people that reach out to Dave on things where he's not even their representative. It's
- just like he's been here long enough that people will include him in things, right? We actually talked
- about longevity and we decided that that was just not
- a good idea, partly because of how that could actually encourage people to stay in office and fresh
- eyes and fresh blood. Exactly. It's really important. Exactly. We talked about that. But all I'm saying
- here is that, and we've got to go to public comment, but all I'm saying here is just that, again, it
- was like that the tension is that if we go with that thinking, we're like, yeah. So then we actually
- think very differently about council president's salary, actually. We have to think very differently about
- if you're at large versus district, you have to think about committee assignments. But maybe that is
- actually part of the answer, is that you start structuring incentives for a particular thing.
- So it's like, I don't know, and maybe there's like a, it seems strange, but like a bonus pace structure
- for, so you have a baseline within you say,
- council member you get you know whatever $500 for being on a committee or something like that you know
- whatever it is and then it's like but but must attend 80% of said meeting you know like and we have
- just some very stringent so so that we're actually getting compensated for the additional things like
- I've raised this I mean I am on more committees than and I have been like as met every both two years
- I'm just like I will do it like you want to put me I think I'll be on that's actually not necessarily accurate
- Okay, that's fine.
- at the top of some, but it's also like every committee requires different amounts of work. Sure, and
- that's a fair point, right? That's a good point. So there's a lot of variables. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because
- planning, for example, is something that is a very intensive committee to be on, right? And so thinking
- about those assignments, maybe you just break it down. You're like, planning gets $600, and the other
- one gets $100, and the other one, we just have the structure.
- I do want to go to public comment. I do want to just before I'll get to Dave as well, but just briefly
- want to say that part of me thinks we should just not be spending time on this. Because there's no good
- solution. This is what I wrote on my sub stack. There's no good way to do this.
- Dave, and then we'll go to the public. Well, just to say that I hope you brought up something last night
- that I agree with very strongly, and we all agree that there's extreme wealth inequality in society
- and extreme pay inequality. I hate to have this baked in the cake in terms of inertia going forward.
- So Hopi's point is that the percent increases of COLA in salary yields much more in terms of dollar
- amount for higher paid individuals within the city. And that's apart from whether COLA is an insufficient
- measure of cost of living increase too. So I would like to bring up lower paid employees and
- One means of doing that would be to, in some way, cap the highest paid. Keeping in mind that there is
- a differential of responsibility. You know, if you've got a problem, department head, after hours, has
- to pick it up or go into late hour working or weekends and so forth. So I'm not talking about absolute
- equality here, I'm talking about just kind of
- narrowing that gap, which I think was your intention of bringing that up, and I think it's a good point.
- So it is related to the mayor's salary. It's related to the department, obviously, tangentially to the
- department heads. But it's something we should discuss, I think, with the administration next budget
- cycle. Whether it could be, how do we effectuate that? Okay, let's go to the public. Is there any member
- of the public who would like to comment on
- Setting salaries for elected officials, I think we have Kevin Keough. Yes. First of all, I was in on
- this conversation at the council meeting. You didn't have public comment, so I was ready then. So I
- was hopefully prepared for this. But if not, I'll probably need to send you an email. But first of all,
- the council service is not a full-time administrative or executive position.
- I think it's a fact that it's a civic responsibility rooted in representation and accountability to
- the people who live here. And that's why I've been throwing out this concept of the median household
- income as your basis. And this is something that the Redevelopment Committee or some economic committee
- out there has that data that would show what the median household income is for Bloomington, Indiana.
- And you can use that as your basis. And that goes up and down based on how well Bloomington is doing.
- So it's kind of a good measure. It's not political in any way. You don't have to talk about who else
- is making it or how much time you're putting into it. You're talking about the successful outcome of
- people who live in Bloomington. Their wages are increasing. So I really hope, sometimes I feel like
- an imposter syndrome.
- It's weird, but I hope you're listening that, you know, that might be, I know you've talked and talked
- and talked about this, but that might be a great basis to use or something very comparable to that.
- And I beg you to do that because this is excruciating listening to this. Anyway, that's my point and
- hopefully it's coming across. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comment?
- Seeing none, I think we can talk about median household income when we continue this conversation at
- our next meeting. And I think for the next meeting, we should reread the survey results and have those
- in mind and see if we can come to any kind of agreement or plan for elected official salaries.
- So talking about the next meeting, I think that item four will have to be postponed until then. I think
- it's very important. This is part of our duties as a fiscal committee is to track the city's fiscal
- position, have an understanding of how we're doing. And so let's definitely talk about that next time.
- Let's try to schedule our next meeting.
- And I propose we have a meeting in November, but not in December, because in December we will have a
- deliberation session. And that will be, that can count as our fiscal committee duties, if that's all
- right with everybody. So looking at, we used to do Wednesdays at 1.30, is that right? I thought it was
- 1.30. I thought it was 1.30.
- So we look at maybe the week before Thanksgiving. That be the 19th? Right open on the 19th. Does that
- give enough time to talk about any deliberation for certain stuff, or are you just going to do that
- kind of outside of meetings?
- I was just gonna do it. I can, you know, text you all for advice. I'm not saying I won't need advice,
- but I don't think we need to do that in a meeting. Say again the time on the 19th. At 1.30? 1.30. 1.30
- on the 19th. I think we should do an hour and a half. If that works.
- Does that work for Jessica? 130 to 3? Yep. It's November 19th, 130 to 3. And it looks like there is
- a room. OK. Does that work for our council staff? Is it this room? Too bad. This is the good room. Yeah,
- one of us can come in. All right, let's do that. And then we are adjourned. Yay.