- All right, we have a quorum right now. I don't know the status of Councilmember Rallo, but we have three
- this year, so we might go ahead and call to order this session with the Special Fiscal Committee here
- on February 27th. Hopi Stasberg, District 3. Senator, do you have an alert? I have one. This is about
- Pinkmon Smith. Councilmember District 1. Pressure map. Deputy Mayor. All in on the sand. Deputy Burke.
- Jeff McKim, City Controller.
- Lisa Langer, councilor. Wonderful, thank you all for coming here early this morning. So the agenda was
- distributed on Wednesday. So we need approval for that. As we discussed at our last meeting, we're kind
- of gonna try to have these two shorter meetings a month, one focused on council kind of budget related
- stuff, one focused on reports from administration and more controller's office kind of stuff. So this
- is a council related stuff with the main focus of dealing with our morning
- Mr. Rollo. I haven't drank any of mine yet this morning either. Anyway, so to look at this prioritization
- data, both from the December meeting and reflected from the Google Forms for some analysis and refinements,
- talking about the March deliberation session, and then taking public comments about that,
- and then just any notes about adding anything to the fiscal committee calendar, and then adjournment.
- And so the goal is to keep like to adjourn at that 30. So if somebody was willing to move to approve
- from the agenda. Move to approve, sorry. I don't know. This is the head. Gretchen's interested in running
- for office. I'm not.
- Great, so we move in second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Great. So if somebody was willing, maybe Colleen,
- could you time keep me a little bit and let me know when it's 9 15? OK. So we can make sure to go to
- public comment by 9 15 to still have a few minutes for public comment and then some time for the calendar.
- So my thought on this data and this analysis is kind of,
- and an overall goal of being able to have an effective deliberation session where we talk about this
- with all nine council members because if conversations like that can get kind of crazy. So I thought
- some of the things we could do was consider whether the suggested outcomes were actually outcomes. And
- if they're not, consider figuring out how we can rephrase that concept to encompass an actual outcome
- that meets the intent of that feedback.
- group-like outcomes together and how we should evaluate what bucket they might go in and how we should
- consider them in terms of that priority. And then should outcomes be from one bucket to another? So
- my example of that, for example, actually, this is an easy one, make homelessness brief, rare,
- and non-repeating was under housing and homelessness and was also under
- Public safety. Public safety. And they ranked very highly and it ranked very highly, both of them, obviously,
- like council as a body wants to prioritize that, but then like how we do that. And so like I highlighted
- like a few of those things that I thought were really similar. But I took about five minutes and pulled
- out the ones that were easy. So and I also kind of figured that since it's just four of us, like literally any
- What do people have to say about the data? And we can just have a more open in the feedback session
- as opposed to types of feedback, if that makes sense. So what observations people know? Well, just along
- the same lines as your example, under environment waste reduction and creating a composting program
- the same thing pretty much. So I think those should be, I wanted something more specific, but you reduce
- waste by composting. Yes. And so that brings up another kind of nesting of outcomes. And so my goal
- is to take notes on what you guys said or say, because I don't think that we should think decisions
- about that.
- in and of ourselves, but if we bring them up as ideas. Let's see then waste reduction, if you add the
- two points on composting, it brings it up to one of the top ones. Perfect. And that's like the kind
- of discussion that I think we should have at the council level. Like this is an observation that these
- go together and then it increases in priority lists. How do we look at all that in terms of the overall
- prioritization? You know what I mean?
- But that was the type of thing we could recommend. I mean, what are we doing? Well, to recommend that,
- right, to recommend that to the full council, but to not decide, like, let's combine these things like
- this. You know what I mean? I don't think that I'm... I understand what you're saying, but I think that
- we could be much more efficient if we think about and present a more
- a synthesized view of this survey. And I would argue that this is an example where we could just synthesize
- it. We can still give everybody the full survey if they want to, you know, if we want to, but I mean,
- I guess. I agree. I think as long as you're being transparent and with the opportunity for like, I'm
- just saying like, you just like take a different decision making mode where you're like, Hey, here's
- what we think made sense.
- then I'll go to something we're missing. Otherwise, let's move forward with this. I guess the question
- is then how do we wanna present that at this group meeting because I was expecting to kind of present
- it more like we thought these things went together, council member, you know, as well, council member
- Piedmont Smith, whichever in that meeting pointed out that combining these two things raises the priority
- level to top priority should we put
- waste reduction through conferencing on our like full letter. I don't want us to time you this meeting,
- but I would say, just put them together. Okay. And say, they see details. All right. You know, if you
- want to put a narrative with it. Okay. Else you're going to end up with nine of us. Yeah. Parsing these
- details, which I mean, unless, unless you three think they don't go together, of course,
- It's just my understanding of what is waste reduction. My goal is to figure out by the end of this meeting
- how I need to write the documents for the other things. That was my question is how should I write that
- document to prepare for that meeting? Chef, what do you want to talk about? May I make just a meta comment
- before we get too deep in this?
- I'm thinking to have a really effective, to make this useful in the context of budgeting, really need
- to kind of structure the outcomes in a way that is useful for budgeting. And so what I'm thinking is
- that you ought to think about each potential outcome from the perspective of these four criteria.
- One, that it is primarily a government activity or driven by government activity. Okay, hold on. So
- one is like the question, is this activity driven by government? Yeah, because there are a lot of priorities
- that are in that document that are great things, but are mainly driven by community action. So I think
- from, so is this a government activity or driven by government activity? Is the outcome measurable?
- Is the funding out, does it have a fund? The outcome measure.
- is the funding allocation to that outcome measurable? And then this one's probably obvious, and the
- outcome is important to both the council and the administrators. So I'm just suggesting that as kind
- of a lens to look at these priorities in a way that would maybe make them more useful and predictable
- in the context of marketing activity. Yes. So just to follow up on that,
- So is it a government activity? It doesn't necessarily include it being a priority, right? Government
- doesn't want that. It's still the case community in various ways. Social service, you know, I mean,
- it is part of, you know, government funding, but still we don't do social services so much as other
- non-profits. Yeah, I mean, you do, you do.
- on some social services. So I mean, that at least is something that is measurable. But for example,
- there was one that was in here, which is great. We were just talking about EVs and adoption of EVs in
- the community. And local government has only limited bearing on that outcome. So I would say that's
- a more challenging one from a budgeting standpoint.
- Thank you for that list. But I also mentioned that there's redundancy in the food topic. Yeah. It's
- under environment. It's also under community health. Local food culture has been promoted. Community
- health and vitality. So we should, I think it probably belongs more under community health. Okay. Strength in foods.
- So I have all this data in a different format too. So I'm trying to telecode those. Neighborhood having
- access to nearby grocery stores probably falls into that too, though that didn't actually even go stalled.
- Okay, thank you. Going back to what you said, Jeff, thank you for those things because if one of the
- products that we want to create in the end, this council is a priority list specifically for 2027,
- Those are really important things. I am interested in, not right now, but before that meeting, understanding
- more about how to assess the outcome being measurable and the funding allocation for that being measurable.
- Because I think the funding allocation being measurable is something that I
- I at my seat at the table, I'm not sure that I can assess that. And so figuring out a way for you to
- help us assess that at that meeting. Wow. I like the suggestions. Most of my comments throughout the
- entire process have been that what we're doing really probably isn't very useful to actually make decisions.
- And that's not to say that it's
- terrible or, you know, that it doesn't have some value and maybe it's the best we can do for right now,
- or let some iteration of it. But, right, even all our adaptive plans, which are sort of the best thing
- we have, and it's the actual reflection of our shared priorities, mostly don't, either don't have outcomes,
- or they're very inconsistent. They're certainly not like smart outcomes in a consistent way. Even when
- you have smart outcomes, like let's say reduce, you know, eliminate deaths and serious drug use by 2039,
- that is a smart outcome. It's, you know, the things and I think the acronym, but it's still not all
- that useful for 2027 budgeting because it doesn't have like interim outcomes or, um, you know, uh, metrics
- like there are like lead measures for how you achieve that. And so I feel, um, like we're just like
- totally hamstrung with respect to actually producing, uh, something actionable and like meaningful when
- it comes to outcome based budgeting until we have.
- a relatively consistent and comprehensive tool or approach to how we actually set short, medium, long-term
- outcomes for major categories of governmental priority and how we measure those things. That's one.
- I know that's just like a big problem and it's not like an easy fix, but I do think it's an important
- name. And then the second is,
- Just that, something I'm glad with, and I mentioned in our last deliberation session too, is that when
- there's a discrete funding allocation for a thing, inter-competitive services fund or setup fund, that
- is easy to measure, and it's very clear. But I think there are also lots of outcomes that we are trying
- to drive that are essentially policy that are appropriate to consider as budgetary priorities, even
- though the budget allocation is primarily staff time.
- Noting that, so we want to lose it by overly focusing on, can we point to the fund and the dollar amount
- going to this program, for instance, or this grant? I'm sorry, that's another thing I just don't want
- to lose if we make some use of the big area that the federal bank grows.
- I wonder if it might be helpful for you guys to think about. One of the things we've talked about for
- the new website that we're working on is different kinds of data dashboards that show, for example,
- other cities have places where you can see what are the current infrastructure projects, what stages
- are they at, that kind of thing. And so as you look at your list here and think about some of these,
- one of the challenges I see if I were on your side is how do you define the outcome if you don't know
- what the starting data already is? It's hard to say.
- I wish that our roads were 30% better if you don't know what are we currently spending, how far does
- that get us, and would that even be possible? And so you might think about for some of these items,
- what would a good number be to know that would inform that, even if it's exactly what we need right
- now or exactly the outcome, just what's some data that we could
- start to think about. And if you can't come up with a data point, that might be a good indication with
- the, you know, it's a broader goal, like world peace. And, you know, we just want like, you know, fewer
- wrestling matches in this particular room or whatever. Sorry. Can I make a quick comment also? I just
- wanted to respond to Council Member Flaherty's last comment. I totally agree.
- is one of the biggest resource, budgetary resources, obviously. So that, yeah, that absolutely counts
- as far as resource allocations go. I think that we don't want to really can't get into the business
- of kind of parsing that too thinly, like this person spends 29% of their time. But if you're thinking
- between 100% and 50% as allocations, that's certainly a very legitimate
- a way to look at resources expected to do that function. And to understand that the controller has already
- said we won't add new positions this year. So it is a zero sum game in terms of staff time. And so if
- we say we want to do X, and staff say, well, gee, this is how I actually spend my time, then we'll need
- to weigh, of those things, the things we'd like to do and the things they currently do, what are the
- priorities? That's good to know, Beth.
- But that is a statement of clarity. I have one other question I asked you, after the last meeting, that
- I think would have been in the half, was the budget, or outcome-based funding and passports last year.
- But I think Deputy Mayor Napier is the only one in the room who was on that. So my question, I keep
- bringing this feedback, but without kind of like a comprehensive and uniform system for like talking
- about outcomes.
- and how we measure them. I feel like we're going to struggle to take a holistic view. And my question
- was that often it's with city things that like there's thousands of other cities. Some of them surely
- are trying to do this. I assume y'all like looked around from like best practices. I think in the last
- meeting you mentioned, you know, best practices around priority-based budgeting or something like that.
- So is there anything to share? Can you tell us more about what those conversations were like last year
- with respect to like,
- I think the big takeaway was the cities that we looked at that had done it were all much bigger cities.
- So some more resources to do it, but also they took longer. So it was a multi-year process. And I think
- that's the unsatisfying part to all of us is we'd like to get somewhere faster, which is why I think
- it might be good for us to pick
- a small number of things that we're all really interested in that we know we can track data on better,
- and that we have some starting data where we can say, okay, we know we've spent X on sidewalks in the
- last few years, and here's what got us. X on roads, X on whatever, things we already know that we spend
- money on that we care about and that residents care about, and then engineer some smart goals from those.
- and start there, then we can pack pieces on the return. Thank you. I'm going to follow up with the covers
- and do like, and sorry, I'll have to ask more. Yeah. Other comments about the data or about like, like
- the process of the conversation or any kind of output that we ultimately need to develop in terms of
- also priorities for funding set up.
- Well, I think, um, given the, the high ranking, um, um, he developed city plans to not exist and, uh,
- kind of all over the place, um, variety of outcomes that council members recommended for public safety.
- I think it's clearly be a plan for public safety.
- And some of the yeah, so I there was nothing to base those on. So again, the we started with outcomes
- that were in our plans and then council members just added outcomes on the basis of what you know, what
- our personal
- Priorities are, I guess, as a public servant. So I just, I want to highlight that we need science and
- public security. I would also say that some of these things are very complicated to develop and to do.
- And we want to, I think my philosophy would be 10 really good data points that we all agree are important
- and that we want to track or 10, five reports or whatever it is.
- keeping the list narrow. This is a very ambitious, gigantic list of outcomes we would never believe
- to accomplish. Well, that's why we need to know when we were trying. So yeah, but I just want to reiterate
- that the number is often much fewer than we think. So it's possible. I feel like I learned that lesson
- in my first six months instead of all. But these are other things. We're going to mix them all immediately.
- And then Ty taught me some important lessons about how realistic that was.
- So to make the best use we can out of like this data set and where we are right now, I think, yeah,
- I think we should take the step of recommending like here are the priority areas that we'd like to focus
- in based on the first delivery session and this asynchronous data that we've produced. And maybe like
- a goal for that meeting and we could even come up with some suggestions, but that's what we've got to
- just share is sharpening
- these outcomes where they're not already sharp to like, what would that actually mean in 2027? So whatever
- it is, you know, it's, it's, it's the public safety plan. It's like, okay, allocate some money for that
- and begin working on it. And then you don't need to be complete. We need to assess like, what's the
- timeline? Something like that. It's done in a community involved way. Um,
- you know, and then similarly for, for whatever the other top three or four, whatever it is, each category
- that we try to actually get to something more discreet where they're not already discreet about like
- what the implication would be for the budget. Well, we don't know everything on that front, but I think
- it could be a start and especially for the administration to explain some of the meaning. Um, and yeah.
- Well, and that's where I kind of feel like in terms of what, what council needs to hand to the administration,
- need to hand them something like, this is important to us. And then what I want to expect at budget
- time is the administration saying, this is what you told us was important, and this is the specific
- action that we're going to spend money on that's going to work toward this outcome. And so it's that
- idea, especially the zero traffic fatalities by 2039, it's like, I'm sure there are lots of things already
- that are built in that are working toward that goal. So that goal is demonstratively important to council
- And so then it's like, I mean, I would argue that that should be one of those like top 10 things that
- we can start tracking, right? In this more definitive, like, we are working on this street transition.
- We are working on these curb cuts. We are working, like, these are all these things that go into this,
- like, making things safer, the traffic timing. I mean, we hired a traffic engineer. Like it's awesome.
- And all of those things like contribute to this larger goal. And so like some of this stuff like that,
- it's like,
- I'm not like, do we need more budget allocation to that? Or do we just need to bundle it and hear the
- things that we're doing? Just to back up a step, the way you frame that is, you know, you put together
- the priorities you give them to us and we tell you what we're going to send out upon your priorities.
- I just want to remind us also, those priorities need to be agreed upon. So, yes, you know, you're going
- to send us some, we're going to have some
- And I think the Venn diagram of how they overlap is going to be considerable. Yeah. But there are likely
- to be some things we're interested in or not of interest to you. And some things that you were interested
- to us that, you know, yeah. Yeah. I guess my main point was like, if we're doing a high level priority,
- I kind of want you guys to tell me programmatically, like how you can do that. Like you were talking
- about staff time. It's like council shouldn't dictate how
- you know, this staff person spends 50% of their time on this thing. That's something that somebody else
- needs to dictate. And you guys just need to say, like, this is how we're trying to make this priority,
- like, not micromanaging those pieces. So that was my, the point. I think what will likely happen, even
- just in looking at your list, but I realized thinking through, because I went through thinking, where's
- the low end? What are things that we can see? We do know how to measure that.
- that does have any budgetary impact. I know there's something there that is possible. Is to think of
- it a little bit as a multi-step or iterative process where if you have a priority that has to do with
- staff time, that might start an investigation on our end into how much time does that person spend on
- all things. If you ask me of the 800 people who work in a city, could so-and-so spend 30% of their time
- working on throwing the blank?
- that's a pretty, you gotta kind of pick apart that a little bit. So there might be some information
- gathering that informs some of that priority setting where there's a priority that feels like a priority,
- but then when you find out, oh, the person who would naturally do that spends 80% of their time on something
- else that I already think is a priority and that we're already doing, I don't wanna change that, that
- could shift things around. So we'll do some investigation and
- I think that's a really good, I think the staff time question was a really good one because it's sensitive.
- People feel very proud of the programs they work on. Every program has someone who's deeply invested
- in it and saying, as we've all learned to cut any program is very difficult. It's very hard to say we're
- going to stop doing something because someone will always say, but I value that. And so having your help and
- getting on the same page about, you know, here are some things that we really think are important. I
- think that could be a really good exercise for both of us as leaders of the city. You know, I just wanted
- to add that I think that there are things that we could breathe on and policy decisions, no costs whatsoever,
- are very low, very large in cost. And that is things like, Ray Alexander brought this up, when a sidewalk's
- a block for construction,
- Is there a sufficient notice that people could cross in that game without blocking the street? That
- would be something that would be no cost, but it sort of requires people to coordinate and have a plan.
- But pass legislation about that division. Well, is it being done?
- I mean, what is adequate, you know, the aggressive barriers, and then what happens if, you know, someone
- steals the size, which has been a recurring problem in the last 18 months, people steal the size. So,
- you know, there's lots of, lots of things baked into that. Or how do we hold people and, you know, partners
- accountable when they miss the deadlines that we need them to meet in order for us to do the final work?
- Yeah. Well, here's an example that wasn't addressed in the initial reception. That is,
- Well, maybe it is, but blocking sidewalks, scooters blocking sidewalks. It happens repeatedly. We have
- neighborhood enforcement officers going around picketing cars. Because they're not supposed to be parking
- on streets in certain neighborhoods, couldn't they just remove the bicycle or the moped or whatever
- and find out, are we doing that sort of thing?
- make sure sidewalks are accessible. You know, these things come at, I think, very low cost. And if we
- could agree on sort of a menu of these things, that it would improve. I think it's less of a cost issue
- than a, how do you, when you have X number of folks who are out ticketing, parking will be everywhere
- at all times. We don't know if people are going to take the scooters. They sort of, and you know, I
- will just say, I'm in scooter control. I don't ride scooters.
- have a dog and a scooter, but I do talk to people who say scooters are really important for people who
- don't have cars, so you need to get around. So when you weigh that against some of the alternative
- transportation stuff that people lobby for, is it more important that students don't have cars on campus
- and don't drive them back and forth around town, or that folks from Crestmont can get to the grocery
- store on a scooter, or is it more important that... And I know that it's... I'm just suggesting that
- they don't block that, sorry.
- Yeah, but it's kind of like the I'm getting part of property. Yeah, I don't like it. No, I don't get
- it. But I'm just out of. Yeah, it's things. I'll take more steps. Right. Yeah. Anyway, I don't want
- to have like 15 more minutes before going to a public comment. Are there members of the public online?
- OK, wonderful. So other observations about how things go together
- on the actual data, other suggestions for nesting things. Cause right now I have heard very few suggestions.
- And so if I'm kind of thinking like, I'm going to take some lion's share of the time to produce a document
- or a kind of recommendation for how things nest. Right now that document would be like 80% what I think.
- And I don't, I don't feel comfortable with that. You've got multiple zero traffic fatalities. There's
- like two or three times. I got those highlighted.
- I would take out all the things that don't fit any votes. Don't fit into any votes. Take them out. Butter.
- What did the council members feel about that? I think an appendix is like the raw data. Yeah. You know,
- for simplification, maybe only present the sort of top three or whatever for the meeting. Or if there's
- like three or four very close and some interpretation about whether things should be grouped, then yeah,
- put it down to, you know, four or five if you need to. It's like we need to kind of discuss how
- how to actually start a list out there, but yeah, drop the load with that. How should I navigate pieces
- like, like Gretchen mentioned, low hanging fruit. So what if there was something that's a low hanging
- fruit that got no votes? If it got no votes? Yeah. If it got a vote and it's low hanging fruit and that
- person sees their item, it's important to them to drop out, they can follow up on it. This is about
- council priorities. Okay. So drop that low hanging fruit with no votes.
- keep low hanging roots with anything even. I guess, I feel like you can still drop, put the whole data
- set in the appendix, everybody can see the whole thing. Well, I'm just writing that down as a joke.
- Oh, yeah, sure. Because I mean, I haven't looked at it and thought like, oh, I think that might be low
- hanging fruit. And that's something that like, I can think that something might be low hanging fruit.
- And Gretchen, my God, it's so not low hanging fruit. Well, those could be,
- And some of those could be encapsulated under another framework. So are there any of those that you
- see right now? Crimes reduced, not only is four a four. Now, I don't want the public to think that we
- don't want crime to be reduced. Or public safety is enhanced, which got zero votes. I think everyone
- agrees that she had an authority. But yeah, that's like, yes, it's too vague. And what does that really
- mean? And so I think that that's where, I think that we do
- I agree that we need a public safety plan, but I think that it would take too long to have a plan. It
- would maybe be more effective to have a conversation and agree collectively on some public safety outcomes
- that go toward this overall concept of public safety being enhanced. What does that mean for it to be
- enhanced? Can we as council and administration and police department and fire department,
- all of those like pieces of public safety, like what does that mean? And honestly, 2DPOC might have
- some ideas about some of that because they have to collect a tremendous amount of data. Well, I mean,
- if you're saying for the purposes of this year, can we make something slightly better here? Yes. A step
- in that would be what we talked about earlier is like, okay, let's take these public safety tokens and
- in the deliberation session, try to like workshops with a more distinctive degree on. Yeah.
- Yeah. And that's what I mean is not like never do it, but just like that might not be something we can
- do in 2027, but can we move in the direction of doing better in public safety in the past? I was just
- going to say from the administration standpoint, even if some of the things are actionable for the purpose
- of this exercise budgeting for next year, they're still interesting and valuable for us.
- You know, for example, a trap 24 to 44 workforce, that is an economic priority for the administration.
- It's very hard to unpack decades long goals like that into budgetary things, but that goes back to the
- question of staff time. So when we think about like that as a priority for our economy, that might mean
- that there's more staff time for that long-term investment than there might be for some other
- short-term things that seem easy, but if you do them all, then you've eaten up all that person's time
- with give this person a cookie and give this, you know, smaller, less effective efforts. So, it's all
- interesting to us. And I'm just sharing that in case anyone's item gets bumped off the lift. That doesn't
- mean that it's not getting attention and isn't informative, just not for this purpose, perhaps. Well,
- yeah. And I kind of feel that way too about some of these, because I mean,
- people have to pick the top three. And there are some of these categories that have a tremendous number
- where I'm going like, I'm having a hard time deciding between one and two here. I'm having, you know,
- I would really like to rank five or five, but I can only rank three. So definitely some kind of, and
- that's where I think nesting can be really valuable and drawing those pathways of relationships.
- So that, yeah, as well, what were you gonna? Oh, I was gonna say,
- I talked with the mayor last weekend about public safety and the need for a plan. And I think that a
- good first step might be a deliberation session of council on that topic. Like, what do we mean by public
- safety? What are our top goals? How can we improve? Just getting an understanding also with the public
- being involved in that conversation.
- style. So that could kind of get the ball rolling. And then maybe- We should produce an extensive public
- outreach informed report on this topic. And as you invited housing, people who work in housing at the
- city to the housing one, I would strongly suggest that you invite the people who work on public safety
- to your television session and involve them in the planning and the work. That would be informative,
- I think. Exactly. And they were all involved in that report too.
- more. So do you guys think in terms of a deliberation session about public safety, it would be most
- effective to have that deliberation session model more like the housing sessions with small
- group conversations with a population mix? That's what I was thinking. In terms of that deliberation
- session on public safety, it would be most effective in terms of type of sessions to have
- The like the housing months last year, the small group conversations around various topics as opposed
- to like council and guests sitting around having a conversation. Otherwise you get okay. Right. Right.
- Um, All right. Other feedback around, I just grouped downtown stuff together under economic development.
- Um, so there's several things that are all, you know, basically downtown is vibrant. Um, you could probably
- put, uh, some of the, um, that was under economic development, but then there's community health and
- vitality that I think also has some downtown stuff. Um,
- and I would put the Kirkwood conversion into that downtown stuff too. Now, what do you think about that?
- You're the one that- Sure. Okay. Yeah, I can agree with that. Okay. So there's a lot of downtown Vitality
- Park stuff. I'm going to spread out a couple of our public space. This is under economic development?
- Economic development has, yes, has downtown events are frequent and well attended. Downtown business
- environment is vibrant and sustainable.
- Downtown buildings and sites with light of disrepair have been identified and remedied. Okay. Only one
- of those bad influence. Right. And then community health and vitality has downtown facilities provide
- services and year-round programming, residential growth downtown that is inclusive of ages and abilities,
- urban conversion, that's all that are, um, community health and vitality. And so some of those got votes
- and some of them didn't, but I feel like they're all like downtown as a space.
- Um, as a, as a public space and it could even be, I think downtown spaces could probably be nested under
- public spaces are high quality, engaging and active because downtown is one of our huge public spaces
- that we want to be high quality, engaging and active. Can I make a suggestion as you think about that?
- To think about the difference between a public space like a park and a space like a, like Kirkwood,
- which also has
- economic outcomes, economically there are a hundred businesses along that road. So you can make it your
- part, but that may not have the economic vitality. And so, you know, as you think about what goes in
- community vitality, what goes in economic development should be aware that if you put everything downtown
- under economic development, you're saying economic development is the goal of that project, you know?
- And you might have different things that you want that are
- Some are economic development and some are not, but obviously like anything we do on for food is going
- to impact economic development and vice versa. The more vibrant it is, then we hope that has a positive
- effect, right? So I think what you're saying is don't necessarily lump all things under the bucket of
- economic vitality. And I was trying to put this priority list together. And so I guess that leads me
- to the question of is it feasible
- as council develops this priority document for us to list the outcomes underneath the buckets. I don't
- think so. Okay. What I mean, it does illustrate for the public, I think, how much energy is going into
- certain areas, but it's not ultimately, you know, your individual outcomes are the ones you're going
- to be looking at, right? And when voting will not pull categories of
- high-performing government or this or that, unless it's helpful to you guys. But it's not. At this point,
- I don't think it'll help us much. Yeah, I don't think it would help us much. I think for the public,
- it is useful. Let me just make sure I understood what Reggie just said. We don't need to keep things
- in one bucket or another, is that what you're saying? Yeah. Here's an outcome we want to see and it
- benefits both of us.
- So if we want to group, say, like vitality of downtown is really important and have these different
- pieces of like here's the ranking that it got, like we could group all of those things together as long
- as, it's the way you're saying, as long as we understand that like some of that is kind of subgrouped
- under community health and vitality and some of it is subgrouped under economic development, some sort
- of your budgeting. Some of that money is going to come from like CFRD maybe or public
- public safety officers and that kind of thing. And some of it's gonna come from economic development.
- Is that my understanding? Do council members have comments about that? Okay, what else? Under housing
- and homelessness, you probably already saw this. So we have two, I'm looking at the,
- the top five outcomes in that category. And the second and third ones are really, like making homelessness
- brief, rare and non-repeating, depends on increasing coordinated preventative wraparound services,
- in my view. So if we take those together, then that is our top priority in homelessness. Okay, that
- brings me to the,
- maybe metacomment that we don't have time for, if I want to go public comment at 9 15, is increasing
- coordinated prevention of wraparound services for the unhoused, actually an outcome. Whereas the outcome,
- almost as it's briefed for non-repeating, and a method of doing that is to increase coordinated preventative
- wraparound services. And it's also like, near term activity,
- short, medium, long-term outcomes. Outcome versus impact. So working on different scales, like things
- like zero deaths by 2039, homelessness is pretty fair, not repeating, public safety enhanced, or be
- formulated as that is. Those are kind of like impact measures that are long-range and large. That's
- not to say that you can't have outcomes that are leading for those, even if they're program and process oriented.
- This is a nice measure where it's different than that, right? Sometimes. So part of what I can do as
- a process of sorting this is to grab the things that might be programmatic elements of making homeless,
- brief, rare, and non-repeated like decreasing working-day services. So I could pull some things and
- categorize them together
- underneath this making homelessness brief repair and non-repeating because there's some other things
- that, I mean, I have those two highlighted because somewhere else in the document that I'm not going
- to remember right the second there's, well, there's another homelessness briefer and non-repeating.
- And then there's another one or two mentions about wraparound services or mental health services or
- addiction services. Like there, there, there are a few of those pieces, which also play into the unhoused
- struggles. So, um,
- But I would do my best to pull those things into a document. And so in closing, so that we can go to
- public comment, I will do my best to pull all these things together into a draft document for you guys
- to look at with enough time. Oh, that means this weekend.
- I will do my best to pull all that together in a draft document this weekend so that I can get a draft
- out on Monday or Tuesday of next week at the latest so that you guys can have some feedback on it or
- go like, hey, you forgot this one or you forgot this one or I think that this should be pulled over
- here so that I can receive that feedback and make any changes before a packet needs to go out for that
- meeting. Does that sound reasonable? And you can do that with individual emails to each of us individually or
- five individual weeks here, right? So we don't have a meeting. I will do that. Yes. Lisa, can I do that
- in one email as long as replies only go to BCC and so then replies are only going to leave with one
- email or should I do that with three separate? Really four separate emails. Jeff, I'll include you in that.
- I can talk to both of you at the same time. I'll miss our next meeting. So. You know, I would, I would
- be consistent with some of them separately. All right, take your time. It's not a serial meeting.
- I mean, these aren't part of serial meetings, so it's not a serial meeting that you put out. Okay, great.
- So is that something that everybody is struggling with the next steps of what I need to do?
- Fantastic. OK, so let's go ahead and go to public comments on this deliberation session on these outcomes.
- There are each one of the members of the public in the room. If there are members of the public online
- who want to comment about this data or this plan to talk about outcomes, I see Mr. Keough with his hand
- raised. I'm going to go ahead and time it on my watch for three minutes, and that will just be on my watch.
- Thank you. I'll go ahead and number if I'm needed. Yeah, Kevin Keough. Good morning, members of the
- fiscal committee. Thank you for your work on prioritizing outcomes for the 2027 budget and improving
- the Budget Team Pride Assess. Given your charge to track fund balances and examine fiscal trends, I'd
- like to raise the issue at the intersection of housing affordability, assessment mechanics, and levy policy.
- Indiana's Constitution requires a uniform and equal system of property assessment and taxation. Indiana
- Code requires assessments to reflect market value in use using objectively verifiable data, and our
- system relies on ratio studies to ensure there is no systematic bias across property classes. I'm not
- suggesting assessments be adjusted for policy reasons.
- But uniformity requires consistent applications of valuation methodology. If income-producing properties
- in one sector are adjusted downward based on income evidence or economic conditions, then income-producing
- properties in other sectors should be evaluated under the same analytical standards. Likewise, if trending
- factors or mass appraisal adjustments
- are producing materially higher assessed value growth in modest single-family or small-scale multifamily
- housing than the underlying market data supports, that becomes a racial equity issue and a question,
- not a policy preference. This matter because Indiana is levy-driven. When assessed values decline in
- one segment and levies remain constant or grow, the burden shifts
- it does not disappear. Bloomington has identified housing diversity, income inequality reduction, and
- enabling employees to live where they work as a priority outcomes. If assessment growth combined with
- levy growth is placing a disproportionate pressure on the very housing stock that functions as our missing middle,
- and naturally occurring affordable housing, that represents both an affordability concern and a fiscal
- resilience risk. So I respectfully suggest three actions within the committee scope. Request a five-year
- assessed value growth comparison by property class, commercial, large multifamily, student housing,
- and small-scale residential.
- Review the levy growth alongside general fund expenditure growth and fund balance trends. In 2027, in
- that calendar year, have a public presentation explaining this redistribution efforts within our levy-driven
- system. My request is not for preferential treatment.
- It is for confirmation that the assessment methodology is being applied consistently and that the fiscal
- policy decisions are aligned with the council's stated housing and equity goals. Transparency and data
- clarity will strengthen public trust and strengthen our budgeting process. Thank you for your time.
- Thank you. Thank you for sticking just about to three minutes. I appreciate that.
- Are there, is there anybody else with their hand raised? There should be one. You're doing good. Wonderful.
- Okay. Thank you. Thank you to the other folks who are joining us online. So with regard to the disability
- calendar, I added that in at the end. At the end of our last meeting, we
- Jeff added in a couple of things about distribution amounts. Please make sure that I actually added
- those correctly, that I've written them down and then interpreted them and put the right dates in.
- I propose, so our next meeting is already listed for March 13th, focused on reporting from the controller
- and other administrative type reports.
- And then, and we had talked about meeting every other week, and so the rest of those dates in there
- are every other week at 8.30, and then it would be alternating topics until summer recess. So how does
- that, first, how does that meet the schedule look for people's calendars? Hi, Hultin. Yeah, no comments
- on meeting.
- or possible office sure it doesn't work nuts and anything that I can check with the W parts of the adult.
- Okay, I'm Jeff and Gretchen. Gretchen, you mentioned you can't make the next one. I can't make the next
- one. I may miss others here and there, but in general, it's an okay slot. And in the same way, it's
- okay in general, there may be one that I'm not going to try to break. And we can also always, like,
- a swap, a council topic one with a controller topic one. And I think that maybe during the spring, since
- we're having budgeting kind of planning time, we might need all of them. But after summer recess, it
- could be that there's just less work with the committee. And so not having two a month might be okay.
- I kind of like the idea of making them shorter though. This feels like a less intense meeting right
- now. I don't know how other people feel about it,
- It also felt less intense to prepare for, because I didn't have to have two different pieces of brain
- thinking about two different things. So I appreciate that. If other people have different feelings about
- it, please speed it up. No, we just don't want to lose the string. I would have to go back and review
- my notes from
- Jeff's presentation in our last meeting before we have our next meeting with, you know, financial reports.
- That's the only thing that I'm so curious to remember what was happening. Well, hopefully, whatever
- packet release goes out will give us some of that, you know, example reminder, like we were doing this
- thing. Yeah. Or we planned to do this thing, which is how I tried to do the memo this time. And if I
- was unsuccessful with that, let me know.
- Lisa. What types of materials at this point, if any, are you contemplating for the deliberation session?
- Well, probably this exact document that was in here with those rankings and then probably a similar
- looking document that consolidates things.
- Yeah, so this would, I like the idea of this would be more like the appendix to read through and having
- almost like a memo, a memo type document intro of categorizing things together. Should we do whiteboards
- and post-it notes again or? No, no, no, we did that part, sorry. Yeah, we did that. The brain is getting
- in gear. We did that part with the survey. So now it's just gonna be more of a general
- discussion among council members. I think so, but so the way I submitted the request to um Corby who
- is I guess managing this was that uh I went to a roundtable discussion um with enough seats for nine
- council members, Gretchen, the controller, and a public commenter. I did not assume that Mayor Thompson
- is going to be there. Is that accurate?
- Yeah, I don't think that she was at most of the meetings like this last year. I think that you were
- at them and internal is going to be there because they're like the preliminary brainstorming kind of
- pieces. It's operational. Yeah, it's definitely operational. So that's why I figured that it would be
- you. Is there anybody else that anybody thinks that there should definitely be a seat included for?
- Will the clerk want to sit at the table? Sometimes I feel like she does, sometimes she's like quite happy.
- Um, I believe that it'll be definitely for, um, stole I think there. I can check if they're going to
- ask. Okay. I'll check. Okay. Yeah. All right. Let me know if you think there's another one. So yeah,
- I mean that like a memo style document that I will make sure has headaches and whatever it is that they're thinking.
- Maybe be clear about finding questions. Yes. Yeah, this is how we need to move through this. I will
- really try to get this done this weekend to be able to send it to you guys like as soon as possible.
- And I may share it actually Lisa with you and staff at the same time as I share council members so that
- then you guys can look it over for the accessibility sorts of things or you know those sorts of problems
- at the same time as committee members are looking at it for content related concerns. Okay. Thank you.
- Sure. And then the note that I have on here is that I think that we should probably try to calendar
- some of our elected official salary ordinance discussions in here somewhere. And so just in terms of
- our calendar, going by this date, we want to be able to have something accomplished around that, or
- we want to have our first discussion about elected official salary ordinance, something.
- Does anybody have a date in mind for that? And are there any other dates that we should knowingly add
- to this calendar right now? Well, at the top of your memo, we have kind of the official budget date.
- So if you add the date by which we have to adopt the elected officials. Thank you. I'll see you later.
- So add this as a deadline for adoption. Which year, right? And I'm here for a month and a half.
- That's right. Yes, you cannot change it the next year. Yeah, right. But we can do it as late as we want
- because the other one is, what, November 1st? Yeah. OK. And so actually you should add that deadline. Yeah.
- because we have it on here as a, this is when we want to do it. This is where our meeting is, but like
- a couple of years ago. Yeah. Yeah. This year. And so other are deadlines. So that the overall budget
- is November 1st. And wait, is that the whole budget or is that just the salaries? Cause a couple of
- years ago, we've separated. Yeah, we separated them.
- It could be either way. We could do the salary ordinances at the same time. But they both have a deadline
- of November 1st. The elected officer salary deadline is the end of the year. But the other salary is
- November 1st. But we can change that the next year. But the rest of the budget is harder to change for
- next year? Yes. OK. So Jeff, the budget itself,
- and all that is due November 1st. The final budget adoption? I gave you the dates. We don't have to
- do that right now. But there is a hard deadline for the final budget. So we could add some of those
- in. Yeah. So maybe, Jeff, if you could come to the meeting next week with making sure that we know those
- hard deadlines and maybe putting that in a memo, especially things related to your
- job and responsibility with those filings. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I know I gave them at the last fiscal
- committee meeting back and I can put that in. Yeah. You gave us the DLGA estimate, DLGF estimates stuff,
- but it's the submission deadlines. The submission deadlines. Thank you. So when you refer to the meeting
- last week, are you talking about the Wednesday, the council meeting? The gulp.
- The deliberation session on heat levels. Okay, all right. Anything else about the new order? I just
- realized that 8.4, that'll be out of town, but I can zoom. Okay. If you could just make sure to alert
- the parks office. As we approach that date, as a reminder, anything else about the new order?
- The official Department of Local Government Finance budget calendar did just come out. The last time
- when I gave you the dates, that was based on the previous year's guidance. That information is up on
- the DIGF website. Maybe you could include that in the packet for the next week. Yeah, and call it down
- because it has 100 deadlines, some of which are applicable to you. Selling that down. Thank you.
- Yeah, I think should go on here, you know, the long range plan of creating kind of a budget calendar
- that translates from year to year so we don't have to every year like figure out how to make it up is
- we just have to fill in the exact dates, but we know the concept of what it is that we're looking for
- the data. Yeah, and we can, we can at our next meeting we can add the, yeah, our internal deadlines.
- You're good. We're a government.