WEBVTT 00:00:00.066 --> 00:00:06.787 - I'll go ahead and call this meeting on the special finance committee that was announced with the order 00:00:06.787 --> 00:00:13.508 - this morning. I'm going to motion 27. I'm going to move this to ask for district three. That's already 00:00:13.508 --> 00:00:20.490 - at large. Sophia McDowell, clerk's office. David Ronald, district four. Jeff McKim, city control. Gretchen 00:00:20.490 --> 00:00:27.211 - Hap, deputy mayor. Thank you. And we have a member of the public here this morning, which is exciting. 00:00:27.211 --> 00:00:29.886 - We're going to look at the agenda first. 00:00:30.402 --> 00:00:43.052 - First, we need to approve the agenda. Short update, Controller McKim following up on a couple of comments 00:00:43.052 --> 00:00:55.582 - from the public or requests from the public and audit reports, which hopefully won't take a few minutes. 00:00:55.746 --> 00:01:02.043 - I wanted to, as part of this committee, is kind of look at that that we looked at as a full council 00:01:02.043 --> 00:01:08.529 - on Wednesday. Just to, there's a couple of changes that I made though. Let's unpack it is the one from 00:01:08.529 --> 00:01:15.014 - Wednesday. So that's when we raised that string share just to go over those and make sure that there's 00:01:15.014 --> 00:01:19.422 - nothing else that anybody in this committee at least identifies. And. 00:01:19.618 --> 00:01:24.853 - Also talk if there's any other kind of budget presentation formatting stuff. So I feel like we talked 00:01:24.853 --> 00:01:29.985 - about that a little bit more than maybe how it was described in the, in the letter, but like, maybe 00:01:29.985 --> 00:01:35.476 - it covers it, but I just wanted to get feedback on that. Um, and then I figured that because there weren't 00:01:35.476 --> 00:01:40.608 - as many things on the agenda for this particular meeting that it might be at the time to talk about 00:01:40.608 --> 00:01:45.894 - the official salary stuff for the first time, because what I don't want to do is get to, you know, uh, 00:01:45.894 --> 00:01:47.742 - July or August and all of a sudden. 00:01:47.970 --> 00:01:54.197 - have to do that kind of for action. So I want to be able to kind of deliberately have a plan about that. 00:01:54.197 --> 00:02:00.365 - So just kind of talking about what it is that we want to do, making any changes to the budget calendar, 00:02:00.365 --> 00:02:06.474 - especially with regard to goal setting around election official salaries. And then we're done. So does 00:02:06.474 --> 00:02:12.702 - that look good, folks? Does anybody want to officially move for approval? Will it be Brittany and Jenna? 00:02:12.702 --> 00:02:14.718 - Sure. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? 00:02:15.298 --> 00:02:20.584 - Fantastic. So let's go ahead for the update. Great. Thank you very much. Jeff McKim. I wanted to give 00:02:20.584 --> 00:02:25.767 - you an update on several of our audit and reporting requirements. I know I provided some background 00:02:25.767 --> 00:02:31.054 - information in the past, but there are a couple of new pieces of information and several of you asked 00:02:31.054 --> 00:02:36.340 - me about these requirements recently. I thought I'd provide an update at the meeting. First, there is 00:02:36.340 --> 00:02:38.206 - the annual financial report or AFR. 00:02:38.530 --> 00:02:44.406 - The AFR is an unaudited financial filing that all local units of government are required to make each 00:02:44.406 --> 00:02:50.166 - year by March 1st for the preceding year. Accordingly, we submitted our AFR information on February 00:02:50.166 --> 00:02:55.927 - 27th. The AFR data is submitted via the state's Gateway local government portal, and the actual AFR 00:02:55.927 --> 00:03:01.745 - report is simply an output of that portal. There's no narrative or customization or even notes. It's 00:03:01.745 --> 00:03:07.102 - simply a data report that is generated by and available to the public on the Gateway System. 00:03:07.842 --> 00:03:13.743 - The AFR can be amended at any time, and it is frequently in the early days after submission, particularly 00:03:13.743 --> 00:03:19.477 - if additional information can be added or errors are discovered or adjustments related to an audit are 00:03:19.477 --> 00:03:25.378 - made. We've amended ours a couple of times and made well again, especially if there are any audit results 00:03:25.378 --> 00:03:28.830 - that would require adjustment or if we discover other errors. 00:03:29.346 --> 00:03:35.266 - In the past, we've exported a version of the AFR and PDF form from Gateway and posted it on the city's 00:03:35.266 --> 00:03:41.415 - website. Unfortunately, these exported PDF reports do not pass accessibility checkers, and so I'm honestly 00:03:41.415 --> 00:03:47.450 - still mulling over the best way to handle this. But regardless of whether it's available on our website, 00:03:47.450 --> 00:03:51.358 - it is available to you and the public in the state's Gateway world. 00:03:52.226 --> 00:03:57.829 - The AFR data is presented on what's called a cash or regulatory basis, which is the way that we like 00:03:57.829 --> 00:04:03.653 - every unit of government in Indiana conducts our business. And that means that the ending fund balances, 00:04:03.653 --> 00:04:09.367 - expenditures, revenues, et cetera, are the same numbers that are shown in our financial system and are 00:04:09.367 --> 00:04:15.080 - the same numbers that you see while reviewing budgets and considering appropriations. I think for that 00:04:15.080 --> 00:04:21.182 - reason, this report is of particular interest to you and other folks interested in city government budgeting. 00:04:22.210 --> 00:04:28.757 - The Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, or ACFR, is the audited financial statement that is required 00:04:28.757 --> 00:04:35.052 - of all units of government that issue debt. The ACFR is presented according to government generally 00:04:35.052 --> 00:04:41.788 - accepted accounting principles or GAAP standards, which among other things, presents financial information 00:04:41.788 --> 00:04:43.614 - on a modified accrual basis. 00:04:43.810 --> 00:04:49.681 - This provides a much broader view of the unit's overall fiscal health, but is also more challenging 00:04:49.681 --> 00:04:55.612 - to interpret sometimes because it doesn't match the numbers that we all use and see in budgeting and 00:04:55.612 --> 00:04:58.430 - operations. Those are those cash basis numbers. 00:04:58.658 --> 00:05:04.633 - The ACFR is due by the end of September for the previous year's business. As I think you're well aware, 00:05:04.633 --> 00:05:10.896 - the city has been behind on these required filings for a number of years. I gave City Council a presentation 00:05:10.896 --> 00:05:16.986 - on this issue back on March 14th, as you remember. The update, though, is that the auditors have actually 00:05:16.986 --> 00:05:22.904 - scheduled the exit conference with us for Thursday, April 2nd, which means that this very long process 00:05:22.904 --> 00:05:25.662 - is nearly coming to an end for the 2024 report. 00:05:25.890 --> 00:05:31.668 - and the audit. A city council member is required for this exit conference and council member Piedmont 00:05:31.668 --> 00:05:37.446 - Smith will be attending to fulfill this requirement. However, any of you are allowed to attend if you 00:05:37.446 --> 00:05:43.620 - would like. The exit conference is not a public meeting. And in fact, the information presented is embargoed 00:05:43.620 --> 00:05:49.852 - until the state board of accounts approves the audit, which is usually a few weeks after the exit conference. 00:05:49.852 --> 00:05:54.270 - At that point, the ACFR, which the audit is incorporated into becomes public. 00:05:55.138 --> 00:05:59.198 - for the 2025 Olympics, we are intending to be completely back on track. 00:05:59.490 --> 00:06:05.290 - We have already provided an extensive amount of required information for 2025 to our gap compiler. This 00:06:05.290 --> 00:06:11.258 - is the CPA firm that converts our regulatory basis financials to gap financials and have already completed 00:06:11.258 --> 00:06:17.058 - and turned over some of the most time-consuming inputs, including the actuarial analysis of our pension 00:06:17.058 --> 00:06:22.635 - and other post-employment benefits liabilities. We hope to beat the statutory deadline of September 00:06:22.635 --> 00:06:27.710 - 30th by a wide margin, but in any case, are confident that we will be fully back in track. 00:06:28.930 --> 00:06:38.312 - So that's my update. Thank you. Any questions for the controlling? So are there any penalties for lateness 00:06:38.312 --> 00:06:47.255 - or not having one? We have not been threatened. We have not been threatened. I mean, it's not good to 00:06:47.255 --> 00:06:56.024 - be late. We have not been threatened with any penalties yet. And like I said, we intend to be fully 00:06:56.024 --> 00:06:58.654 - back on track for 2025 audit. 00:06:58.946 --> 00:07:06.913 - Okay. By a fairly wide margin. And the explanation prior was that we had, that we hadn't done it, previous 00:07:06.913 --> 00:07:14.582 - administration had not completed it. And this was, as you said, on a perl basis. And so you're meaning 00:07:14.582 --> 00:07:22.176 - by that, that there's balanced funds and things like that. And that prevented the actual, I mean- No, 00:07:22.176 --> 00:07:26.718 - there were just the re-incapable of doing it today, I guess. 00:07:26.850 --> 00:07:33.834 - Well, I mean, I can really only answer what, you know, I've only been here since mid January, so I can't 00:07:33.834 --> 00:07:40.618 - really, for sure, provide much information from before that, other than the city was several years in 00:07:40.618 --> 00:07:47.535 - arrears and it just took a long time to dig them sand out. And then with the change in controllers also 00:07:47.535 --> 00:07:54.718 - some kind of momentum at the end of December, during December and early January was lost as well. And just, 00:07:55.458 --> 00:08:04.237 - It took me a few weeks to get revved up and, you know, get us back on track. Sure. Okay. That's all. 00:08:04.237 --> 00:08:12.928 - Thank you for the update. Do you anticipate reporting anything from the annual comprehensive answer 00:08:12.928 --> 00:08:22.141 - report? And then you mentioned that based on its core basis, it'll be tarred for like non-fact as opposed 00:08:22.141 --> 00:08:23.358 - to interpret. 00:08:23.650 --> 00:08:30.245 - additional takeaways or things we'll learn or have confidence in from that that we would not from the 00:08:30.245 --> 00:08:36.776 - AFR that we should synthesize in some way or report out on? What are your thoughts about that? Well, 00:08:36.776 --> 00:08:43.372 - I don't know that the numbers themselves may or may not be useful to you. I think what you get out of 00:08:43.372 --> 00:08:48.286 - the ACFR is that it has been audited by an independent auditor who can then 00:08:48.706 --> 00:08:55.509 - tell you essentially the degree of confidence that you should have in the numbers that are represented 00:08:55.509 --> 00:09:02.445 - by the city, and to the degree to which they accurately represent the actual state of financial affairs. 00:09:02.445 --> 00:09:09.050 - Got it. You mentioned the financial assessment of pension funds and other things, and you mentioned 00:09:09.050 --> 00:09:15.986 - the debt. This is not the issue for any debt-issuing city. Are there assessments of risk in debt-packing 00:09:15.986 --> 00:09:18.430 - and things like that, or not at all? 00:09:18.594 --> 00:09:27.902 - Well, only a direct report. I mean, there certainly is a listing of all of our outstanding debts and 00:09:27.902 --> 00:09:37.487 - the comparison to the constitutional debt limit, which I think we talked about at our last meeting when 00:09:37.487 --> 00:09:41.726 - the Reedy folks came in. Any other questions? 00:09:43.042 --> 00:09:50.976 - Great, great. Go ahead and go to public comment then on this topic. Is there any members of the public 00:09:50.976 --> 00:09:58.986 - who wish to comment on these updates from the controller? Please raise your hand online or I don't know 00:09:58.986 --> 00:10:06.997 - if the member in the room is interested. There's a chat and we want to hand raise. Okay. I can't quite. 00:10:06.997 --> 00:10:10.078 - Whichever one you want first, I can do. 00:10:10.626 --> 00:10:17.251 - Let's go ahead and read the chat message first. I want to control what I'm saying that the AF report 00:10:17.251 --> 00:10:23.877 - published on the state website does not meet section 508 standards in the same format of AFR file we 00:10:23.877 --> 00:10:30.568 - published on the city's website. Oh, kind of copy of really long range report reference that the last 00:10:30.568 --> 00:10:37.259 - fiscal committee needed to be published after the meeting today. Okay. Go ahead and think about those 00:10:37.259 --> 00:10:39.358 - and go ahead and let Mr. Keough 00:10:39.714 --> 00:10:47.462 - make his comment. I'm going to go ahead and set a three-minute timer on my watch, and I'll try to give 00:10:47.462 --> 00:10:55.286 - you a little bit of notice before that. I'll go ahead and re-read Easter Kehoe. All right. Kevin Kehoe. 00:10:55.286 --> 00:11:03.109 - Yeah, I was hoping there'd be some discussion about the table 12 from the 2023 ACFR and the 2022. There 00:11:03.109 --> 00:11:09.278 - seems to be some, I think, some obvious errors, especially in light of the really 00:11:09.378 --> 00:11:19.502 - the consultation you had at your last meeting. I was hoping to hear some more about that. And I wanted 00:11:19.502 --> 00:11:29.332 - to confirm that the best practice for the ACFR is to have it completed by June 30th. I just want to 00:11:29.332 --> 00:11:36.606 - make that... That's my research shows, and I know there's some recognized 00:11:37.058 --> 00:11:44.727 - associations that would back that up. So it's kind of like, sometimes I feel like I'm being gaslighted, 00:11:44.727 --> 00:11:52.469 - forgive me. But I would think that would be the best practice. And also it would add value that it would 00:11:52.469 --> 00:11:59.916 - be available to the council so they can review that before they enter into their budget discussions. 00:11:59.916 --> 00:12:06.110 - And it's just, again, with that table 12, the same thing is going on with the ACFR. 00:12:06.690 --> 00:12:14.407 - there's changes being made. And I would think that there, and there's a due date of March 1st, but there's 00:12:14.407 --> 00:12:21.763 - changes being made. And I would think that there would be an audit trail and there would be a process 00:12:21.763 --> 00:12:23.710 - to document those changes. 00:12:24.034 --> 00:12:30.665 - I mean, I come from an audit background, so I'm very aware of these type of processes and these required 00:12:30.665 --> 00:12:37.169 - standards. So again, sometimes I feel like I'm being gaslighted. And I'm doing this, hopefully, in the 00:12:37.169 --> 00:12:43.611 - goal of transparency. That's the goal, and to add value, because I truly think that there may be some 00:12:43.611 --> 00:12:45.758 - things that need to be looked at. 00:12:45.986 --> 00:12:52.139 - to be helped. I'm adding value to actually to help with the system so it can provide this information 00:12:52.139 --> 00:12:58.413 - that's accurate and timely. So I'm getting quite frustrated and I can't apologize for that. But anyway, 00:12:58.413 --> 00:13:04.626 - I'm sorry for it. This is off the cuff. I hate to do these off the cuff remarks too, especially within 00:13:04.626 --> 00:13:10.658 - three minutes because it's incredibly difficult to get these complex ideas out there and to express 00:13:10.658 --> 00:13:12.830 - them in a way in such a short time. 00:13:13.218 --> 00:13:19.688 - So hopefully you take these to heart and that's, and I'm sincere about this. I'm not complaining and 00:13:19.688 --> 00:13:26.159 - I want to make sure if I, I would be so disappointed if it's ever thought that I'm here this morning 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:32.565 - just to complain or to some for political type of purpose. This is in the best interest of the city 00:13:32.565 --> 00:13:39.163 - and all the citizens. So anyway, I'll stop now because I'll probably, my time is probably awful close. 00:13:39.163 --> 00:13:41.726 - Technically I'm on the 13th. Thank you. 00:13:42.210 --> 00:13:53.199 - Thank you for that comment. Is there another hand raised? It looks like there is. Eric, go ahead. Good 00:13:53.199 --> 00:14:04.508 - morning, everyone. Just in follow up to my question about the annual report, PDFs can be put into Section 00:14:04.508 --> 00:14:11.550 - 508 standard format, WCAG 2.1, level AA. And I would request that 00:14:11.778 --> 00:14:20.262 - Not only controller McKim but the entire city exam and the possibility of continuing to publish reports 00:14:20.262 --> 00:14:28.420 - in PDF format for a variety of reasons But my other question pertains to and I also asked about the 00:14:28.420 --> 00:14:36.414 - Reedy Long-range report it would be very helpful if that could be that could be published but the 00:14:37.794 --> 00:14:46.711 - Reports for 2021 and 2022 had, it looks like they're material misstatements of the long range debt. 00:14:46.711 --> 00:14:55.627 - And I'm just wondering if that could be verified and any necessary action taken to correct that. It 00:14:55.627 --> 00:15:04.722 - looks like they are misstated by not using the correct formula. So they're basically, at least that's 00:15:04.722 --> 00:15:06.238 - what it appears. 00:15:06.402 --> 00:15:16.499 - Those are my requests and comments this morning, at least on this matter. Thank you. Thank you. 00:15:16.499 --> 00:15:27.227 - What's that, Eric? Oh, Eric Hoes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I can't always remember by voice. Thank 00:15:27.227 --> 00:15:34.590 - you so much. Well, that's realistic. Any other members of the public? 00:15:35.010 --> 00:15:42.098 - I would like to weigh in on this. Okay, seeing none. I think, you know, in committee meetings, it's 00:15:42.098 --> 00:15:49.258 - a little bit of a CQC about whether or not we respond, but I do like to respond sometimes to members 00:15:49.258 --> 00:15:55.070 - of the public in this committee because the finance issues, as Mr. Keoh said, are 00:15:55.362 --> 00:16:03.333 - really complicated. So, Jeff, would you like to be in it all? Yeah, no, I did want to address the issue 00:16:03.333 --> 00:16:11.073 - that actually both members of the public mentioned having to do with the constitutional debt limits. 00:16:11.073 --> 00:16:18.967 - It is true that apparently, not apparently, it is true that there was an error in the statement of the 00:16:18.967 --> 00:16:25.022 - formula used to compute the constitutional debt limit in the 2022 ACFR report. 00:16:25.346 --> 00:16:34.263 - It was corrected in 2023 report, although there was still a phrase in there that I think was probably 00:16:34.263 --> 00:16:43.092 - ambiguous and confusing. But at no point has the city ever exceeded or even come close to the actual 00:16:43.092 --> 00:16:52.008 - constitutional debt limit. But it is true that in a 2022 report, the table that was used to calculate 00:16:52.008 --> 00:16:54.718 - the constitutional debt limit, 00:16:55.106 --> 00:17:01.984 - omitted dividing the assessed value by three, because the way that the constitutional debt limit is 00:17:01.984 --> 00:17:08.999 - calculated is the net assessed value, 2% of the net assessed value divided by three, and that divided 00:17:08.999 --> 00:17:16.015 - by three was not included in the 2022 report. Okay. But that was included in the 2023, or that it was 00:17:16.015 --> 00:17:18.078 - corrected in the 2023 report. 00:17:18.370 --> 00:17:25.872 - Because the table is correct in the 2020. Right. So basically, so it's not that we ever exceeded that. 00:17:25.872 --> 00:17:33.229 - It's that the table was wrong. And so if our maximum was really here for one year, we thought it was 00:17:33.229 --> 00:17:40.003 - here, and then it went back down to here again. Yes. OK. Exactly. That's good to know. Yeah. 00:17:40.003 --> 00:17:47.870 - Too many people. One is that, so would it be correct to interpret that the third party auditor missed that? 00:17:48.514 --> 00:17:54.473 - in the reporting? You know, I honestly don't know if that, the ACFR consists of audited and unaudited 00:17:54.473 --> 00:18:00.316 - parts. So there are narratives, there's discussion that is unaudited, and then there are financials 00:18:00.316 --> 00:18:06.275 - that are audited. And I honestly don't know if that is an audited, an audited portion or an unaudited 00:18:06.275 --> 00:18:11.591 - portion. I can find out. Okay. Yeah. So I don't know whether that was something, you know, 00:18:11.591 --> 00:18:17.726 - the city missed, the gap compiler missed, or the auditor missed, or the report. Got it. Okay, thank you. 00:18:18.274 --> 00:18:24.585 - And then maybe related, and I think Mr. Kehoe asked a question kind of related to this, like when corrections 00:18:24.585 --> 00:18:30.323 - do need to be made to the ACFR, like is there any type of like error log or like corrections log or 00:18:30.323 --> 00:18:36.175 - could that be a thing just for additional? Well, I think you were talking about the AFR in that case. 00:18:36.175 --> 00:18:42.027 - Yeah, either one. Because we do make changes there. Yeah, I think that would be a good idea. Okay, in 00:18:42.027 --> 00:18:45.470 - that case, it's not errors, per se, but yeah. I mean, yeah. 00:18:45.666 --> 00:18:51.591 - I think that's a good idea. It's the sort of thing that if you've been involved in coding, you use GitHub. 00:18:51.591 --> 00:18:57.127 - You know, for any change, you check the change in and put in a comment. That totally makes sense to 00:18:57.127 --> 00:19:02.775 - me. This is the gateway system. We don't have any control over it. And like I mentioned in my update, 00:19:02.775 --> 00:19:08.423 - there's not even a narrative that we can put in there, notes or anything. It's just the output of the 00:19:08.423 --> 00:19:13.406 - system. I think it would certainly make sense. There's a gateway email address to suggest 00:19:13.506 --> 00:19:19.829 - features can be added to the system. Yeah, I mean, it seems like we could even just, it sounds like 00:19:19.829 --> 00:19:26.405 - we're working through accessibility questions about publishing AFR outputs on our own website, but even 00:19:26.405 --> 00:19:32.791 - if we had a hub that just explained to folks how to access it, and we could track with an update log 00:19:32.791 --> 00:19:39.178 - there also, so we could just take it in our initiative. We wanted to, yeah, thank you. That's a good 00:19:39.178 --> 00:19:42.782 - suggestion. Great. Any other follow-ups from the public? 00:19:43.234 --> 00:19:49.811 - I think there was a request for the reading report. Oh yeah. Cause like everything that really showed 00:19:49.811 --> 00:19:56.453 - was already in that packet. But is there another like, cause they like reference some stuff. We do not 00:19:56.453 --> 00:20:03.095 - have the final long range report because they are still updating it from the December 31st financials. 00:20:03.095 --> 00:20:09.994 - Once the books were closed out, once we receive it, we'll have to remediate it and make it PDF accessible. 00:20:09.994 --> 00:20:12.638 - And we will certainly make it available. 00:20:13.474 --> 00:20:27.077 - Great, thank you. Okay, moving on then to the budget priorities and the refinements. So let me make 00:20:27.077 --> 00:20:34.014 - sure that I can screen share the right thing. And. 00:20:45.026 --> 00:20:54.797 - Wonderful. So this was the letter that the kind of draft memo that I wrote based on our last deliberation 00:20:54.797 --> 00:21:03.646 - session and based on the rankings that we did. So I realized that when I edited this, I didn't. 00:21:05.346 --> 00:21:12.234 - and I didn't put it involved and didn't factor it in, so I'm just going to have to go down and remember 00:21:12.234 --> 00:21:19.056 - all things from Wednesday that when I got feedback on Wednesday and I asked for feedback about certain 00:21:19.056 --> 00:21:25.878 - things, they changed. Councilmember Sarney mentioned guiding principles stuff and wanting to make sure 00:21:25.878 --> 00:21:32.568 - that the plans were referenced as guiding principles, and so I added in this sentence here about the 00:21:32.568 --> 00:21:33.694 - long-range plans 00:21:33.890 --> 00:21:43.041 - or the city plans serving as guiding principles to our discussions and our original list of outcomes 00:21:43.041 --> 00:21:53.008 - that came directly from these plans. And I think that that's the only thing that I changed in that paragraph. 00:21:53.008 --> 00:22:02.431 - I put in an extra note about how that is a ranked list based on the council member voting and that link 00:22:02.431 --> 00:22:03.518 - goes to the 00:22:04.290 --> 00:22:04.894 - Uh. 00:22:06.370 --> 00:22:12.191 - actual compiled spreadsheet of everybody's ranking of those. It's like that source documentation as 00:22:12.191 --> 00:22:18.013 - much as we have of it because that was shared for the sake of the public. I don't think I mentioned 00:22:18.013 --> 00:22:23.834 - how that was actually shared. I couldn't figure out quite how to do a Google Form so that everybody 00:22:23.834 --> 00:22:29.888 - could take their 100 points and assign them to places. I made an individual Excel spreadsheet for every 00:22:29.888 --> 00:22:36.350 - council member and shared it just with the single council member. Then I took all of those and I put them into 00:22:36.770 --> 00:22:45.892 - A compiled spreadsheet. So then everybody's results were on the same thing. And so that that was shared 00:22:45.892 --> 00:22:54.663 - as part of the packet of them to say Wednesday that have that source in it. So that is what that is 00:22:54.663 --> 00:22:59.838 - linked to. We referenced. I think all of that is the same. 00:23:00.930 --> 00:23:08.101 - And people seemed okay with number six being changed to inclusive and strong local economy. I changed 00:23:08.101 --> 00:23:15.132 - number seven to expansion of options other than uniformed police officers for non-violent offenses. 00:23:15.132 --> 00:23:22.304 - Council Member Peebe Smith wanted a little bit of word smithing on that to acknowledge that there are 00:23:22.304 --> 00:23:28.350 - some of those programs that already exist. And council members like agreed with that. 00:23:29.986 --> 00:23:39.121 - I think those are all of the changes in there. And then I added this last paragraph here. Thank you 00:23:39.121 --> 00:23:47.890 - for considering these priorities. And I was trying to remember when I was doing this yesterday, 00:23:47.890 --> 00:23:54.558 - I was like, are there, did we really just discuss this at four meetings? 00:23:55.202 --> 00:24:01.736 - in terms of the administration reviewing the full meetings and materials to go to more source data. 00:24:01.736 --> 00:24:08.793 - I wanted feedback on that too. There was the December deliberation session, the March deliberation session, 00:24:08.793 --> 00:24:15.326 - and then we discussed it a couple of times in here in February in preparation for that deliberation 00:24:15.326 --> 00:24:22.056 - session. What was that? All of the in-person discussions, because then there were also, there were all 00:24:22.056 --> 00:24:24.670 - those people forms and folks and all of 00:24:24.930 --> 00:24:33.152 - that data from those Google Forums is shared in one or more of those meetings listed. But am I forgetting? 00:24:33.152 --> 00:24:41.374 - Like, I felt like I was forgetting something, maybe because? I think that was it on the concept of version 00:24:41.374 --> 00:24:49.442 - sessions. It was just tattooed. OK. Yeah. And that's it. So any feedback from you guys? Any other things 00:24:49.442 --> 00:24:54.206 - that you've been noodling over? Any concerns? I don't recall. 00:24:54.370 --> 00:25:03.239 - Your last question. Meetings, but I just want it's just a small thing. I wondered if we could just hyperlink 00:25:03.239 --> 00:25:11.865 - the plans that are referenced. Oh, okay. Okay. Safe streets for all planning and financial plan. Perfect. 00:25:11.865 --> 00:25:20.246 - A note here to myself to hyperlink. I had a meeting with the comprehensive plan. I know you asked that 00:25:20.246 --> 00:25:23.582 - kind of Wednesday. I mean, some of these 00:25:24.098 --> 00:25:33.238 - This is the set of, we've talked about the inconsistency with respect to how outcomes are written, whether 00:25:33.238 --> 00:25:41.779 - they're smart or not in various plans, but those comprehensive plan, I think goals did make it into 00:25:41.779 --> 00:25:50.492 - our list for review. And so some of this is sourced from that. Okay, with the comprehensive plan. And 00:25:50.492 --> 00:25:52.542 - then it looks like the, 00:25:53.442 --> 00:26:03.496 - List is is a ranked order. So like this. Yes, which I think. Maybe that's clear to those. Should I put 00:26:03.496 --> 00:26:13.550 - the point values for the council member voting on or just even I wonder just like an additional clause 00:26:13.550 --> 00:26:22.238 - to clarify like. The level list is in order of priority based on this exercise. Yeah, I. 00:26:22.370 --> 00:26:30.610 - I know it says identified and ranked. Yeah, it says ranked a couple of times. So maybe I need to use 00:26:30.610 --> 00:26:39.340 - a synonym for ranked or describe this process a little bit more. Like you could say that priority outcomes 00:26:39.340 --> 00:26:47.744 - were identified and ranked with the highest priority items. OK. Or you know, something like that. I'll 00:26:47.744 --> 00:26:51.742 - keep working on this to find this slang process. 00:26:52.386 --> 00:26:59.628 - OK. And first step, you're not taking control of the camera in the room right now. So hopefully, you'll 00:26:59.628 --> 00:27:06.662 - realize that it is. It's clearly noted. Yeah. But it is. I guess then it's clear. I'm looking at the 00:27:06.662 --> 00:27:13.904 - version with the idea. OK. Yeah. Just something different. Yeah. I mean, I think that it's worth trying 00:27:13.904 --> 00:27:20.798 - to figure out a second word to use besides granting. Right. Or a description process or something. 00:27:21.410 --> 00:27:27.690 - and maybe just putting the points from the council member voting in there. If I describe the process 00:27:27.690 --> 00:27:34.032 - of how that happened, because you guys were kind of involved to some degree, at least in the planning 00:27:34.032 --> 00:27:40.312 - of that, or one or more of the meetings around when we discussed the process of how we were going to 00:27:40.312 --> 00:27:46.654 - do this, that does not mean that you're going to remember all of those details. And that's helpful to 00:27:46.654 --> 00:27:51.006 - throw them in here. So all right. Good. Any other comments, concerns? 00:27:51.842 --> 00:28:00.166 - Want any of those? OK, great. That is super helpful. So then, hopefully, the goal is to have this memo 00:28:00.166 --> 00:28:08.248 - approved by the full council next week at the Wednesday meeting. And that can be the official given 00:28:08.248 --> 00:28:16.734 - to you guys. And then in terms of, I guess that's the other big thing, in terms of budget presentations, 00:28:17.026 --> 00:28:22.250 - So what I said in here, interested in hearing how certain programs and expenses are supporting these 00:28:22.250 --> 00:28:27.732 - priorities and splitting those expenses out to the greatest extent possible, including considering direct 00:28:27.732 --> 00:28:33.059 - expenses, staff time, and if the expense falls into more than one priority area. So that was something 00:28:33.059 --> 00:28:38.231 - where I was trying to incorporate things that we've talked about in terms of y'all's goals in terms 00:28:38.231 --> 00:28:41.438 - of the shift to outcome-based budgeting with the reality that 00:28:41.730 --> 00:28:48.182 - You can't necessarily separate everything right now, but like starting with some things. So is, and 00:28:48.182 --> 00:28:54.764 - that we wanted to see as part of budget presentations, those details for how that was going, at least 00:28:54.764 --> 00:29:01.216 - with this list, even if you can't do it with everything else. So that was like the goal. And when I 00:29:01.216 --> 00:29:07.733 - was thinking with that sentence, is that clear? Whoever wants to answer that, that's a member is for 00:29:07.733 --> 00:29:08.830 - Jeff reflection. 00:29:11.362 --> 00:29:20.599 - I mean, it is clear. I will say that there, that is still a relatively large number of, uh, of priorities. 00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:29.232 - And, you know, pretty much any association specific budget items and costs is going to require some 00:29:29.232 --> 00:29:38.124 - kind of manual action on the part of both department heads and us. So, um, Yeah, there's, there's that 00:29:38.124 --> 00:29:39.678 - and, um, I think. 00:29:39.906 --> 00:29:45.108 - You know, I look at number four, which is a goal. I think we all have increasing housing diversity, 00:29:45.108 --> 00:29:50.414 - but the neighborhoods predictability decreasing. Those are not necessarily budgetary items. Those are 00:29:50.414 --> 00:29:55.616 - process items. So when I was looking at this, I was thinking that, you know, we're always trying to 00:29:55.616 --> 00:30:00.921 - balance the numbers part takes a lot of time and separating out the numbers that we're all interested 00:30:00.921 --> 00:30:02.430 - in seeing as time consuming. 00:30:02.594 --> 00:30:08.616 - So how can we use the narrative space wisely so that we're not creating 800 pages and people are only 00:30:08.616 --> 00:30:14.520 - reading the, you know, 100 pages that they're interested in? So it may be that what we could try to 00:30:14.520 --> 00:30:20.660 - do is create a memo for the budget book about each of these and address some of these issues that maybe 00:30:20.660 --> 00:30:26.801 - are not budgetary issues, but just say, you know, what are we doing on these? If it's not a, if there's 00:30:26.801 --> 00:30:28.926 - not a dollar amount attached to it, 00:30:29.314 --> 00:30:36.998 - What are we doing? And it may not be a formal named initiative, but what's the plan? For example, decreasing 00:30:36.998 --> 00:30:44.188 - permitting wait times is really important for every one thing. Probably doesn't have a lot of dollars 00:30:44.188 --> 00:30:51.308 - attached to it. Yeah, and I think on the piece here, if we can talk about dedicated staff time, that 00:30:51.308 --> 00:30:54.974 - makes it easy for some programs where, for example, 00:30:55.202 --> 00:31:01.377 - The City Homelessness Response Coordinator, we know everything he does is homelessness. It's easy to 00:31:01.377 --> 00:31:07.613 - allocate his entire salary to something. For folks who work on multiple projects, it's much harder to 00:31:07.613 --> 00:31:13.238 - separate out, you know, 20% of their staff time is spent on this, that, or the other thing. 00:31:13.238 --> 00:31:19.352 - So there may be, if we can think about, and maybe this is just a communication issue between us and 00:31:19.352 --> 00:31:23.998 - council, we can clarify in the packet that when we do put numbers together, 00:31:24.130 --> 00:31:30.852 - We're talking about 100% dedicated or something that's pretty easy to split 50-50, not 10%, 5%, 2%, 00:31:30.852 --> 00:31:37.574 - that kind of slicing and dicing. I don't think it's very helpful or easy to do. And the other thing 00:31:37.574 --> 00:31:44.632 - that I think I would like to acknowledge here, and we'll just have to keep, I think, educating ourselves 00:31:44.632 --> 00:31:51.623 - and the public on this over and over again, is that in particular, infrastructure projects have so many 00:31:51.623 --> 00:31:53.438 - different funding sources. 00:31:53.698 --> 00:32:00.891 - And the opportunities, it's a real juggling game of what are the funding sources? What can we afford? 00:32:00.891 --> 00:32:08.083 - What are the needs? And so it's very hard to say ahead of time, oh, we're going to do this particular 00:32:08.083 --> 00:32:15.135 - neighborhood project and it will cost exactly this amount. And because there are so many, you know, 00:32:15.135 --> 00:32:22.398 - if we make another repair at the same time, it saves costs on both, but you can't really split it out. 00:32:22.594 --> 00:32:29.140 - So there may be some stuff like that, but I think we can get to the top-level numbers on some of those 00:32:29.140 --> 00:32:35.559 - and start setting a baseline for folks in comparison, which is I think part of what we're interested 00:32:35.559 --> 00:32:41.978 - in seeing is year over year. To address some of what you just said to make sure that council members 00:32:41.978 --> 00:32:48.334 - are good with how it's phrased and that you're good with how it is in this letter, that you see it. 00:32:48.334 --> 00:32:50.558 - First of all, with the staff time, 00:32:50.754 --> 00:32:58.884 - intentionally out of the work dedicated before staff time. And so maybe that meets your requirement 00:32:58.884 --> 00:33:07.014 - and for council members, does that still kind of meet a grade that we are interested in, like a for 00:33:07.014 --> 00:33:15.388 - now kind of? Sure. Yeah. I expressed at our December, uh, deliberation session on this, um, skepticism 00:33:15.388 --> 00:33:20.510 - about the utility of labeling things based on these prioritize 00:33:20.674 --> 00:33:26.939 - Priorities and the, and the particularly that the effort required to do that. Uh, I know we did kind 00:33:26.939 --> 00:33:33.143 - of something like it in priority areas last year in the budget and I appreciate the effort on that, 00:33:33.143 --> 00:33:39.470 - but I, I just, just being honest, I didn't, didn't find it very useful. And, um, I mentioned, I'm not 00:33:39.470 --> 00:33:45.859 - saying this is the right system, but I mentioned it at the previous administration at the department's 00:33:45.859 --> 00:33:47.038 - head. Uh, I think. 00:33:47.682 --> 00:33:53.406 - I had to look at it to know the exact details. I always felt like we had a little bit better clarity. 00:33:53.406 --> 00:33:59.298 - They kind of listed by funds and category what was going on and kind of tried to tell you what the major 00:33:59.298 --> 00:34:04.966 - expenses were in those areas, which I found helpful. Another thing they did that I found helpful was 00:34:04.966 --> 00:34:10.577 - they had goals, departmental goals for the year, and they would report on the previous year's goals 00:34:10.577 --> 00:34:12.990 - and set some for the coming year, ideally, 00:34:13.634 --> 00:34:18.122 - those would be, you know, aligned with city planning and policy documents. And there was usually 00:34:18.122 --> 00:34:22.889 - a cross-cutting theme, too, of like a few buckets of like meta-priorities, say like climate action and 00:34:22.889 --> 00:34:27.516 - resilience, and then like, you know, departments could have particular goals on those fronts. And I 00:34:27.516 --> 00:34:32.282 - think that also addresses some of the questions around like, you know, the increased housing diversity 00:34:32.282 --> 00:34:37.002 - within neighborhoods, right? A lot of that, there's going to be costs entailed. There might be people 00:34:37.002 --> 00:34:41.907 - at the workshops, other things, but a lot, and you know, consultants costs, whatever, but a lot of that's 00:34:41.907 --> 00:34:42.462 - going to be 00:34:43.202 --> 00:34:50.358 - process, code change, you know, et cetera, and not easy to quantify in budgetary terms, but nevertheless, 00:34:50.358 --> 00:34:57.177 - a priority that I think is worthy of discussion in the budget context. It's like, cause staff can do 00:34:57.177 --> 00:35:03.928 - myriad things and we could be in a totally reactive posture or we can say, we're going to get these 00:35:03.928 --> 00:35:11.422 - things done. Or the number one priority for planning and transportation staff this year is to accomplish like, 00:35:11.810 --> 00:35:18.145 - this set of processing code changes and like that's their number one target and that's going to dictate 00:35:18.145 --> 00:35:24.358 - where the time's going and you know what I mean? So yeah. So to reflect that in terms of this letter, 00:35:24.358 --> 00:35:30.815 - what I just put in was a note for me, right, to add to the budget presentation something about department 00:35:30.815 --> 00:35:37.150 - goal setting and then... I'm not saying it's necessarily needed, I'm just I'm workshopping I think what 00:35:37.954 --> 00:35:43.972 - Yeah, but similarly and supporting these priority outcomes and so adding something into that idea to 00:35:43.972 --> 00:35:49.989 - leave that space for, you know, we're working toward this in this like multi-year kind of fashion or 00:35:49.989 --> 00:35:56.364 - would that meet some of the needs on both ends? I mean, personally, I feel like the letter, our discussion 00:35:56.364 --> 00:36:02.441 - about the letter is as helpful as the letter itself. So I mean, you know, the public may benefit from 00:36:02.441 --> 00:36:06.910 - seeing every single detail of our conversation work back into this letter. 00:36:07.042 --> 00:36:13.078 - But I feel like the purpose of this committee is to work on details. And so if we keep going back to 00:36:13.078 --> 00:36:18.517 - trying to make it appear everywhere, it sort of defeats the purpose of having a committee. 00:36:18.517 --> 00:36:24.553 - So I get the point. And I do think that listing out what are the specific programs that meet some of 00:36:24.553 --> 00:36:30.529 - these goals, because that may even be hidden from some of us, even if we can't break out the number 00:36:30.529 --> 00:36:36.446 - of what's attached to it because of how the program works. What's the program? What are the goals? 00:36:36.834 --> 00:36:42.854 - if we can keep that simple. So just, you know, for the benefit of the public and maybe Brian or council 00:36:42.854 --> 00:36:48.989 - members, you know, the, the kind of goal planning that was done in the past was extraordinarily intricate 00:36:48.989 --> 00:36:54.777 - and included down to the level of how many proclamations should be issued in a year, how many press 00:36:54.777 --> 00:37:00.681 - releases should be sent a year. Those were all considered goals. So I would like to focus our work on 00:37:00.681 --> 00:37:05.022 - meaningful goals instead of set a goal for every single thing that you do. 00:37:05.250 --> 00:37:14.134 - even if it's something that you fill by demand, that you do until the money runs out. There are a lot 00:37:14.134 --> 00:37:23.367 - of programs like that. X amount of funds, you use them to the best of your ability. Do you have something 00:37:23.367 --> 00:37:32.425 - more on this? Which is just thinking about getting toward what we would collectively find both feasible 00:37:32.425 --> 00:37:33.470 - and useful. 00:37:34.626 --> 00:37:40.408 - Would it make sense to use feature meeting kind of like workshop, something more like a template or 00:37:40.408 --> 00:37:46.306 - a proto, you know, design or, or, you know, the presentation. What I would love to do is to work with 00:37:46.306 --> 00:37:52.319 - our teams and create models that we think we can do and that we think address rooms and then bring that 00:37:52.319 --> 00:37:58.159 - to you rather than have this group go back and bring it to you. Yeah. I think that would be helpful. 00:37:58.159 --> 00:38:02.206 - Yeah. And through iteration, I think we can get to that. Yeah. Right. 00:38:02.306 --> 00:38:10.760 - We give a lot of information and you come up with something and we hope it's a lot of grades. And I 00:38:10.760 --> 00:38:19.806 - know you probably want me to tell you what is what you will bring that. I don't know. I am writing a note. 00:38:19.938 --> 00:38:27.280 - Let's make sure that I have that on my radar in her major agenda setting so that then I can check back 00:38:27.280 --> 00:38:34.407 - in with it at some point. I have another meeting that I have to- That's fine. I do just want to get 00:38:34.407 --> 00:38:41.678 - to the last couple of things that you mentioned in terms of the slayer. First off, I did make sure to 00:38:41.678 --> 00:38:45.598 - say to the greatest extent possible understanding that 00:38:45.698 --> 00:38:50.988 - you know, to the greatest extent possible to give you a little bit of space, but also the paragraph 00:38:50.988 --> 00:38:56.753 - above that, um, that we realized the priorities require different levels of investment approaches, including 00:38:56.753 --> 00:39:02.201 - that policy updates for community partners, programs, and legislative change, which I think that's one 00:39:02.201 --> 00:39:07.808 - of the other things that you were talking about in terms of that narrative, that it's not all like budget 00:39:07.808 --> 00:39:13.098 - numbers and hard numbers that are meeting some of these different things. Um, and I think there was 00:39:13.098 --> 00:39:14.526 - one more thing too that I, 00:39:15.458 --> 00:39:22.157 - You know, maybe I qualify and there would just be timelines of action. So, for example, increasing housing 00:39:22.157 --> 00:39:28.543 - deficit, well, I would not say we will come to that in one year. That is 80 years long. We won't know 00:39:28.543 --> 00:39:35.305 - necessarily the impact of some of the changes that you guys will make to legislation or that we'll propose, 00:39:35.305 --> 00:39:41.691 - plus process changes. We won't see that impact for a little bit longer. We'll see it in the front, at 00:39:41.691 --> 00:39:44.446 - least the leading educators, but not after. 00:39:44.642 --> 00:39:51.889 - Right. Okay. And I think that that was the last thing. Yeah. I think the challenge to the leader that 00:39:51.889 --> 00:39:59.208 - caters becomes the target, you know, like that's what we were trying to address. Yeah. Okay. Any other 00:39:59.208 --> 00:40:06.384 - comments on this or ways that you think that I should or could or need to make it better before next 00:40:06.384 --> 00:40:07.166 - Wednesday? 00:40:10.434 --> 00:40:16.078 - I would just say I appreciate hearing anything that would make the budget presentations more useful 00:40:16.078 --> 00:40:22.004 - and interesting to all of you. There's department heads put, and the administration puts a lot of effort 00:40:22.004 --> 00:40:27.761 - into those. And if it's not useful or boring or whatever, then we want to instead present information 00:40:27.761 --> 00:40:32.897 - that is useful. Could we spend a future meeting like maybe comparing a single department's 00:40:32.897 --> 00:40:38.654 - budget presentation over the course of a little bit of a past series and then just talking about what 00:40:38.914 --> 00:40:46.500 - because council members find useful or not, and you need to put some thought to that at a time. I would 00:40:46.500 --> 00:40:54.013 - love to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. One other thing I mentioned previously, Jeff, is getting better clarity 00:40:54.013 --> 00:41:01.308 - on the inputs, the revenue sources for each fund, including inter-fund transfers where that occurs, 00:41:01.308 --> 00:41:07.070 - because I just, I don't know, maybe it's the way my brain works, I find a fund 00:41:07.522 --> 00:41:12.570 - approach to budgeting just a little counterintuitive where it's like, here's the money. Uh, but like 00:41:12.570 --> 00:41:17.618 - when you want to think about like issues at the level, I think that we're supposed to be thinking of 00:41:17.618 --> 00:41:22.667 - is like, you know, kind of physical policy and like, what are we doing with the money we have? Where 00:41:22.667 --> 00:41:27.865 - can we make shifts and can we make changes that affect the amount of money we have and all that, right? 00:41:27.865 --> 00:41:32.863 - Like having a better control of revenue is really helpful. And I feel like we had, I never got to a 00:41:32.863 --> 00:41:36.062 - point where I was satisfied with, with, um, uh, controller, um, 00:41:37.858 --> 00:41:46.787 - Thank you for throwing wood like put together on that front. And that's something I'd love to like workshop 00:41:46.787 --> 00:41:48.606 - in advance to go just 00:41:49.090 --> 00:41:54.557 - Yeah, I'm always happy to give any kind of presentation on revenue that you'd like to see. And you're 00:41:54.557 --> 00:42:00.078 - right that the transfers between funds do just make things more difficult. I mean, you know, the money 00:42:00.078 --> 00:42:05.599 - is transferred from the general fund to Sophia Travis to the alternative transportation for sidewalks. 00:42:05.599 --> 00:42:09.566 - There are various transfers back and forth that kind of cloud rather than 00:42:09.762 --> 00:42:17.056 - Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, maybe he just went into this county for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. I was 00:42:17.056 --> 00:42:24.280 - thinking of the form of a table or something like that. I mean, that's already complex. I don't know. 00:42:24.280 --> 00:42:31.503 - But anyway, that's great. I actually already started making this sort of a box diagram that shows the 00:42:31.503 --> 00:42:33.982 - transfers between homes and stuff. 00:42:34.146 --> 00:42:40.910 - I haven't had time to finish it yet, but it's the sort of thing that might be actually useful to my 00:42:40.910 --> 00:42:47.945 - budget now. Not that I should ask, but could I just ask a question about funds transfers? Because there 00:42:47.945 --> 00:42:55.251 - was a housing fund that was utilized by the Hamilton administration that they were approved from developers 00:42:55.251 --> 00:43:01.406 - and then used it for that affordability purposes. They would subsidize other developers in 00:43:01.666 --> 00:43:08.808 - the quest for affordable housing, especially permanent. And is that still operational? Yeah, it is definitely 00:43:08.808 --> 00:43:15.626 - still in existence. I'm not aware of. The fund balance would be helpful to know as we go forward talking 00:43:15.626 --> 00:43:22.249 - about that. At some point. And HAND is using some of that money this year for some of their programs. 00:43:22.249 --> 00:43:29.131 - I figure it's still existed. I just need some references to it. I think under the current HAND leadership 00:43:29.131 --> 00:43:30.430 - and administration, 00:43:30.658 --> 00:43:38.003 - they're leaning more into payouts in lieu and I think it's over in project affordability. So it's actually 00:43:38.003 --> 00:43:44.936 - probably directing more money into that ostensibly, but yeah, knowing a little bit more on how we're 00:43:44.936 --> 00:43:51.869 - using that in the impact. That would be helpful. And specifically we had a decision about payment in 00:43:51.869 --> 00:43:57.086 - lieu of surrendering their commitment to the affordability of running auto. 00:43:57.666 --> 00:44:04.674 - Does that money, I think a million dollars, did that land in a fund? I can generate a report on that. 00:44:04.674 --> 00:44:11.545 - I think it did. It might also, like to those questions, it might be more useful to have, like Anna, 00:44:11.545 --> 00:44:18.691 - probably as a guest in this meeting, to give a little bit more details about how some of those programs 00:44:18.691 --> 00:44:23.294 - are working. And that, I think, you know, it veers into this other 00:44:23.522 --> 00:44:28.560 - And if they know we've already been talking about like how can we best use this meeting time like what 00:44:28.560 --> 00:44:33.452 - is this committee for like what can we do and I think one of the answers is there so many things to 00:44:33.452 --> 00:44:38.392 - do that sometimes it feels overwhelming about what to do. But one of one of our topics could be like 00:44:38.392 --> 00:44:42.110 - having specific department heads come in to give us a more specific sort of 00:44:42.786 --> 00:44:49.155 - report on a particular fund or how they're utilizing a specific sort of thing or I mean, bond projects 00:44:49.155 --> 00:44:55.525 - maybe and because Controller McKim can tell us about what the numbers look like, but can't necessarily 00:44:55.525 --> 00:45:01.709 - tell us about some of the like soft impacts related to how those numbers are being spent. And those 00:45:01.709 --> 00:45:07.954 - are also, I mean, I think that's also a topic that's relevant for us as a committee. So I wrote that 00:45:07.954 --> 00:45:10.366 - down as a note to you about, you know, 00:45:10.466 --> 00:45:17.114 - getting Anna in here. And that's something that I asked some would like through the budget session last 00:45:17.114 --> 00:45:23.762 - year about how some of those programs are going. Because I think that it was, because we put money into 00:45:23.762 --> 00:45:30.473 - that from the Housing Development Fund for budget year 2025 for her to start some more kind of programs. 00:45:30.473 --> 00:45:36.866 - And at budget time last year, they were still kind of in the early stages. And I'm pretty sure that 00:45:36.866 --> 00:45:39.742 - money got budgeted for that in 2006 as well. 00:45:40.066 --> 00:45:47.119 - And so she might have, you know, especially in a couple of months after the, the well stuff quiet down 00:45:47.119 --> 00:45:54.104 - a little bit and she's able to give, or maybe one of her other staff members may also be able to give 00:45:54.104 --> 00:46:01.088 - a good report. Well, I was thinking, you know, Matt's reference to broad buckets, like Plum in Action 00:46:01.088 --> 00:46:08.073 - Resilience, but we have a couple of departments here in ESD or women over here who focus on specifics 00:46:08.073 --> 00:46:09.374 - just to, you know, 00:46:09.538 --> 00:46:19.768 - Yeah. And just answer that the housing fund is about $5 million. But I can't answer how it's being spent. 00:46:19.768 --> 00:46:30.190 - Sure. All right, great. Anything else about the letter? I really appreciate you drafting it. It's something 00:46:30.190 --> 00:46:39.358 - I very well think it's wonderful. The pinky little thing for accessibility is the Roboto font. 00:46:40.354 --> 00:46:49.171 - Oh, okay. Is the best. Okay. Thank you. Sure. What is the best? Robotom. Like the song. Yeah. Okay. 00:46:49.171 --> 00:46:58.165 - Thank you. That's helpful. Why is that? Do you know? It's just like magic. There are recommendations, 00:46:58.165 --> 00:47:07.070 - but also screen readers. It's the best ones. Robots. Things can change. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Yeah. 00:47:07.362 --> 00:47:15.816 - Okay, let's go to members of public. If anybody has any comments about the priorities letter, the process 00:47:15.816 --> 00:47:23.792 - by which we've done about this. We have a member of public coming to the table right now. Go ahead, 00:47:23.792 --> 00:47:31.848 - Mr. Engy. Well, who can do first names here on this committee? Thank you, Hope. Of course, Mr. Engy, 00:47:31.848 --> 00:47:35.038 - great to be in the Chamber of Commerce. 00:47:35.170 --> 00:47:41.209 - the physical solvency of the city is one of the main topics, both the county and the city that we talk 00:47:41.209 --> 00:47:47.424 - about in our advocacy meetings monthly. So I want to just say how important this body is and the physical 00:47:47.424 --> 00:47:53.346 - health of the city or future economic growth of it. I mean, just a couple of things. I don't want to 00:47:53.346 --> 00:47:59.327 - get into the minutiae too much of the letter, but you're pretty far into it on those 2027 priorities. 00:47:59.327 --> 00:48:01.086 - But I'm just, when we look at 00:48:01.218 --> 00:48:08.167 - Last year, I remember around April, we talked about outcome-based budgeting, and I worried it was just 00:48:08.167 --> 00:48:15.116 - too all-encompassing to move forward with. And we still need to sort of look in that lens. I think the 00:48:15.116 --> 00:48:21.997 - administration and the council agreed on that. And what lends itself to that is specifically the John 00:48:21.997 --> 00:48:27.934 - Hopkins funds and that hand housing fund we talked about. Here is the money we spent on 00:48:28.354 --> 00:48:34.117 - these housing programs, this is what we got for it. And so I think that is where it's going to be really 00:48:34.117 --> 00:48:39.606 - helpful. You can start on those two entities and also explain to the public what we're getting from 00:48:39.606 --> 00:48:45.259 - that. I think you read about these payments and we don't know what's going into it. I think, you know, 00:48:45.259 --> 00:48:50.967 - the chamber has been in support of that means to sort of help on the edges with down payment assistance 00:48:50.967 --> 00:48:56.126 - in order to things can really have some impact other than sort of laborious compliance issues 00:48:56.354 --> 00:49:04.223 - with out-of-state developers. And then the other thing on the 2000 priorities is I always wanna make 00:49:04.223 --> 00:49:11.859 - sure we're not doing too many platitudes on that that can't really be, that aren't really doable. 00:49:11.859 --> 00:49:19.728 - I mean, no fatalities or homelessness. Some of that is just very broad. And I think having this body 00:49:19.728 --> 00:49:25.182 - or even the larger council look into, we have a homeless coordinator. 00:49:26.082 --> 00:49:32.667 - And we already have heading home, but we have a specific person within the mayor's office that should 00:49:32.667 --> 00:49:39.123 - be our expert on this coming in and going, well, where can budgetarily, we can kind of fill in some 00:49:39.123 --> 00:49:45.966 - cracks. Food security is the same way. This is not really an operation of the city. It's a bigger, larger 00:49:45.966 --> 00:49:51.518 - issue. So looking at on that lens a little bit where the city can kind of come in and 00:49:51.874 --> 00:49:57.633 - have specific funding measures to help those cracks and then have outcomes that they can show to what 00:49:57.633 --> 00:50:03.278 - that goes into that. I mean, I have a lot of notes about some other long-term fiscal issues that we 00:50:03.278 --> 00:50:09.150 - discussed. Was that last week or the week before that I missed? But I'll say that for another time that 00:50:09.150 --> 00:50:14.965 - I do appreciate this body and the work that they are doing. Thanks. Thank you. Is there anybody online 00:50:14.965 --> 00:50:18.014 - who wants to comment about the budget earnings slide? 00:50:19.234 --> 00:50:26.387 - I was going to ask how you wanted to handle the chats. They've been kind of continuously coming in. 00:50:26.387 --> 00:50:33.684 - Yeah, I would say maybe copy paste them and send them. Maybe if maybe I'll do that, actually, because 00:50:33.684 --> 00:50:40.766 - I'm technically in here and then I then you don't have to take that as a responsibility right now. 00:50:40.962 --> 00:50:46.940 - but if I can copy and paste them and get them into a Google Doc and then maybe publish them as a Nintendo. 00:50:46.940 --> 00:50:52.638 - We can get that also from the Zoom in stuff and I can show you later. Okay, yeah. I don't have access 00:50:52.638 --> 00:50:58.281 - to Perch Zoom, so. If you're a goal post, it automatically does to you. Nice, okay. It should, okay. 00:50:58.281 --> 00:51:03.979 - So you can share your focus. Yes, so I'll make sure that all of those chats get out because it's also 00:51:03.979 --> 00:51:09.566 - important that the whole public sees those chats, especially since there are several of them today. 00:51:09.730 --> 00:51:17.623 - So yeah, I will help me remember to do that before I leave, because we're supposed to adjourn in six 00:51:17.623 --> 00:51:25.437 - minutes. All right. Thank you guys so much for that. I'm going to stop my screen share, because I'm 00:51:25.437 --> 00:51:33.330 - going to move on to the next agenda item, which is talking about the elected official salary. And we 00:51:33.330 --> 00:51:38.878 - only have a couple of minutes to do this. So in the packet, there was, 00:51:39.042 --> 00:51:48.544 - Oh, dear. I'm not going to bother trying to do this right now. In the packet, there was the elected 00:51:48.544 --> 00:51:58.140 - salary framework that was developed a couple of years ago. And it had to get like our staff just did 00:51:58.140 --> 00:52:04.126 - a quick change to put it into a Google Doc as opposed to that. 00:52:06.370 --> 00:52:14.271 - a nicely laid out PDF that it was in. And I did email that to folks last night to remind you of how 00:52:14.271 --> 00:52:22.408 - that looked. And then I was going to try to do the screen share on it. Let me try again and see if now 00:52:22.408 --> 00:52:30.388 - it will. There it is. And the basic question that I wanted to answer today, I think, in terms of how 00:52:30.388 --> 00:52:32.126 - much time do we have, 00:52:32.226 --> 00:52:38.955 - Is kind of that overarching how do we want to handle elected official salaries this year, especially 00:52:38.955 --> 00:52:45.618 - because next year is a city election year. And 1 of the things that we talked about in the past was 00:52:45.618 --> 00:52:52.547 - this idea of trying to make these positions accessible enough, especially the council position, because 00:52:52.547 --> 00:52:57.278 - that's the 1 that really doesn't have. Like enough salary attached or. 00:52:58.114 --> 00:53:05.901 - slow survival on this, like it's not a full-time job kind of thing, and how we want to do that with 00:53:05.901 --> 00:53:13.843 - kind of a new crowd of folks who might be stepping up to hope. Okay. So we don't have time to go over 00:53:13.843 --> 00:53:21.708 - details, but I think the basic question is, do we want to do something like this as a committee this 00:53:21.708 --> 00:53:23.966 - year, maybe basing it off of 00:53:24.578 --> 00:53:30.678 - how this happened, you know, acknowledging that Matt and I were both part of this before, so we at least 00:53:30.678 --> 00:53:36.720 - kind of know like our sequence and like how we talked through some of that stuff. Yeah, how the program 00:53:36.720 --> 00:53:42.704 - was involved and what their guidance was and everything. Right. And then kind of bring us through kind 00:53:42.704 --> 00:53:48.746 - of a similar thing to, you know, think about guiding principles and basis of salary setting. And I know 00:53:48.746 --> 00:53:52.638 - Councilor Morello or Dave, going back and forth between formal and 00:53:52.738 --> 00:53:59.222 - Casual say, uh, you really advocated for more of a basis of salary setting being on comparisons with 00:53:59.222 --> 00:54:05.771 - pure cities. And so, like, going back and doing more of that research again, because, I mean, we kind 00:54:05.771 --> 00:54:12.255 - of did that research a couple of years ago, um, and like, updates management since then, in terms of 00:54:12.255 --> 00:54:18.739 - what, what other pure cities around and done. And so, like, do we want to, as a committee kind of do 00:54:18.739 --> 00:54:22.334 - this thing. Or do we want to do something else? So, um, 00:54:23.394 --> 00:54:32.192 - Yeah, we kind of discussed this over the last couple of years. Obviously, we have kind of a wide range 00:54:32.192 --> 00:54:40.734 - of opinions on it on the council. I wanted to know on our salary ordinance last year because to me, 00:54:40.734 --> 00:54:49.362 - to support it, I feel like it needs to have some basis other than this is what it was last year. And 00:54:49.362 --> 00:54:51.070 - I'm not saying that 00:54:51.394 --> 00:54:59.760 - what it was last year and what pure cities make can't be a factor in the amount we set. But if those 00:54:59.760 --> 00:55:08.375 - are the sole factors to me, that's not a sound enough policy basis. I recognize that nobody shares that 00:55:08.375 --> 00:55:16.658 - view, but that's just my view. I do think this process we went through in 2024 with the consultants 00:55:16.658 --> 00:55:21.214 - from Pro was following a logical framework in terms of 00:55:21.826 --> 00:55:29.083 - Uh, the same principles and trying to align to the maximum extent feasible for elected positions, which 00:55:29.083 --> 00:55:35.782 - are unique in some ways to the, um, the compensation framework of how, you know, um, like level 00:55:35.782 --> 00:55:42.900 - of responsibility, uh, you know, level of expertise required things like that from, from the overall, 00:55:42.900 --> 00:55:50.087 - you know, city salary compensation framework updates, uh, which I think is worthwhile. So I still feel 00:55:50.087 --> 00:55:51.134 - like the, the. 00:55:51.906 --> 00:55:58.607 - The core of this, the framework, the principles is sound. I think where we then ran into trouble is 00:55:58.607 --> 00:56:05.376 - that that led to a recommendation that had a sticker shop dimension of like, this is a lot different 00:56:05.376 --> 00:56:12.211 - than what it is now. And plus the dimension that all legislatures face everywhere, which is that it's 00:56:12.211 --> 00:56:19.382 - impossible to avoid the appearance of self-healing when you have, when you have a statute already required 00:56:19.382 --> 00:56:20.990 - to set your own salary. 00:56:21.186 --> 00:56:29.201 - Um, and, uh, you know, people gravel that in different ways. So, so that's, that all makes this difficult 00:56:29.201 --> 00:56:36.913 - for a number of reasons. I think I would find it worthwhile to try and, or I'm sorry, we're trying to 00:56:36.913 --> 00:56:44.549 - wrap up. I think I would find it worthwhile to engage in this and see if we could get closer to, um, 00:56:44.549 --> 00:56:49.086 - consensus or majority buy in for a basis of salary setting. 00:56:49.346 --> 00:56:56.055 - that maybe looked at a multi-factor approach, moving beyond what's in this PDF to like, okay, this is 00:56:56.055 --> 00:57:02.633 - a factor and like this framework is a factor, but so too is current sale, so too is a peer analysis 00:57:02.633 --> 00:57:09.342 - and like balancing those in some way. But yeah, I don't know, I'll leave it there. Okay, so basically 00:57:09.342 --> 00:57:14.078 - like the short answer is yes, you support us doing something like this. 00:57:14.178 --> 00:57:21.040 - I slowed down because the annual process that we discussed at the time was in April, we validate, we 00:57:21.040 --> 00:57:27.902 - update the framework, we figure it out, we gather information, and then we actually do the organs in 00:57:27.902 --> 00:57:34.696 - August. I'm actually on time for figuring out how to do this right now. Dave, do you agree that the 00:57:34.696 --> 00:57:41.150 - concept of having a framework, having something that you want to pursue in terms of this work? 00:57:41.826 --> 00:57:50.088 - I think it's, yes, I think it would be helpful. And as Matt alluded to, the timing was, I think, a real 00:57:50.088 --> 00:57:58.111 - problem. And for both the previous proposal, my amendment, which ended up being adopted, was kind of 00:57:58.111 --> 00:58:06.214 - reactionary to the timing and to the us being an outlier relative to other communities. I thought the 00:58:06.214 --> 00:58:09.630 - report was excellent in terms of reviewing 00:58:09.890 --> 00:58:19.152 - duties and everything that we did, but what was lacking was any reference to peer cities. So that to 00:58:19.152 --> 00:58:28.506 - me has to be included as well. But yeah, so I think it's a good idea to continue discussing this this 00:58:28.506 --> 00:58:34.558 - year with the effective date of the pay raise after the election. 00:58:34.946 --> 00:58:46.349 - I don't think that we can do that in the actual legislation. If we have a framework for that, we can 00:58:46.349 --> 00:58:58.430 - figure out a way maybe to. If we adopt the year of the, so the effective date would be the following year. 00:58:58.818 --> 00:59:04.174 - Yeah, part of the idea was that if people are making decisions about whether or be able to run for office 00:59:04.174 --> 00:59:09.379 - at all, they actually need that information this year, right? So, like, at the end of this year, we're 00:59:09.379 --> 00:59:14.483 - going to adopt for next year, which is a year, another year of our return. And that's the only thing 00:59:14.483 --> 00:59:19.789 - that we can for sure adopt. We could put a recommendation in for the next year, but there's no guarantee 00:59:19.789 --> 00:59:25.246 - that we would actually do it. But either way, I will write that up a little bit because it's 930 right now. 00:59:25.378 --> 00:59:33.852 - we can move forward on that. I think that it's really helpful actually on this committee this year to 00:59:33.852 --> 00:59:42.326 - have both of you on it, just because you represent opposite ends of some of this. I think that that's 00:59:42.326 --> 00:59:50.883 - a great way to figure out where there's a meeting point that people can live with and respect and feel 00:59:50.883 --> 00:59:54.622 - is useful. Great. Public comment then around 00:59:54.946 --> 01:00:04.555 - This framework, this process, really it's not necessarily about this framework. It's about the idea 01:00:04.555 --> 01:00:14.261 - of this body going forth and doing that task as part of our work. Any members of the public? There's 01:00:14.261 --> 01:00:23.870 - one person with their hand up. There's a meeting in this room. Yeah, Kevin Keough. Again, I had to. 01:00:24.770 --> 01:00:32.089 - Go ahead, Evan, kind of quickly because we're going to be chased out of this room in a minute. Okay. 01:00:32.089 --> 01:00:39.987 - I just wanted to add in the chat a comment about, you know, I hope the council views their elected positions 01:00:39.987 --> 01:00:46.654 - as more of a, not as a job, but as fiduciaries. And I make that point there that, you know, 01:00:46.754 --> 01:00:53.900 - I know there was comments last time, and it really concerned me. This is the key meeting, that December 01:00:53.900 --> 01:01:00.772 - meeting 2024, I believe, where you discussed this, and it really caught my attention. So yeah, this 01:01:00.772 --> 01:01:07.643 - has been the key thing that got me involved. So anyway, I just want to add that comment that I feel 01:01:07.643 --> 01:01:09.086 - strongly about that. 01:01:09.186 --> 01:01:17.479 - And I would hope you don't try to measure it. I've tried this task too in the past, using the median 01:01:17.479 --> 01:01:25.690 - income for the city as kind of a base and the due percentage of that. But that went by the wayside. 01:01:25.690 --> 01:01:33.983 - But anyway, I feel strongly about this. So thank you very much. Thank you. Any other public comments 01:01:33.983 --> 01:01:36.446 - around this, Papa? All right. 01:01:36.770 --> 01:01:43.748 - Thank you so much. The note, the last agenda item about the calendar. I will update the calendar with 01:01:43.748 --> 01:01:50.725 - some goals related to the elected salary stuff for the next meeting. And unless there's anything else 01:01:50.725 --> 01:01:57.566 - about the calendar or for the good of the order. Thank you. We are adjourned. Two weeks from now is 01:01:57.566 --> 01:01:59.550 - our next meeting. Thank you.