WEBVTT 00:00:00.322 --> 00:00:03.343 - I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll 00:00:03.343 --> 00:00:06.425 - be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal committee to order 00:00:06.425 --> 00:00:09.719 - on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal 00:00:09.719 --> 00:00:12.740 - committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the 00:00:12.740 --> 00:00:15.792 - committee and the principal committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3. 00:00:15.792 --> 00:00:18.813 - I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll 00:00:18.813 --> 00:00:21.895 - be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal committee to order 00:00:21.895 --> 00:00:25.188 - on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal 00:00:25.188 --> 00:00:28.210 - committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the 00:00:28.210 --> 00:00:29.630 - committee and the principal committee to order 00:00:30.242 --> 00:00:36.961 - Joe, we're going to give you an overview of the report today. Great. Thank you. Thank you guys for being 00:00:36.961 --> 00:00:43.424 - here today. Special guests of the day. First of all, I want to make a note that the full packet only 00:00:43.424 --> 00:00:49.823 - got posted last night. I'm really sorry about that. There was some communication slides that's been 00:00:49.823 --> 00:00:56.351 - in the council office, but it is all up there now. The proposed agenda that I have, unless there's no 00:00:56.351 --> 00:01:00.190 - objection, is we're going to hear a short report from Jeff. 00:01:00.482 --> 00:01:07.888 - and then short report, we're going to be here now about our two dates, I think, mostly for the fall. 00:01:07.888 --> 00:01:15.368 - Then we're going to turn it over to sanitation and talk about sanitation, just the status of physical 00:01:15.368 --> 00:01:22.774 - assault, let's say right now, it's the Sanitation Department. Have a conversation about that, have a 00:01:22.774 --> 00:01:29.374 - couple of comments about that, some notes about schedule updates, and then we'll adjourn. 00:01:30.018 --> 00:01:40.024 - So unless anybody has any concerns or occupations, great. So, Jeff, you want to take it away. Thank 00:01:40.024 --> 00:01:49.630 - you very much. I have a couple of updates for you first on the local income tax or lit process. 00:01:50.050 --> 00:01:56.183 - You'll remember in March 13th meeting, we have presentation from we are municipal advisor and one of 00:01:56.183 --> 00:02:01.406 - the topics was the changes in local income tax structure created by one and the 1210. 00:02:01.890 --> 00:02:07.505 - This discussion happened immediately after the passage of HEA 1210, which featured three changes of 00:02:07.505 --> 00:02:13.288 - major importance to cities and towns. So first, it moved the implementation of the new LIT system from 00:02:13.288 --> 00:02:19.352 - 2028 to 2029. Second, it made larger cities less eligible for the shared municipal services rate. Formerly, 00:02:19.352 --> 00:02:24.574 - that rate was meant only for small towns that were not eligible to adopt their own LIT rate. 00:02:24.738 --> 00:02:30.391 - And then third, it created at the last minute, a new process called MUST, Municipal Unit Strategic Task 00:02:30.391 --> 00:02:35.935 - Force, in which a representative from each city and town was to meet, along with the president of the 00:02:35.935 --> 00:02:41.751 - county council. And if they could come to unanimous agreement, send the agreement to the state by October. 00:02:41.751 --> 00:02:47.729 - At the time of our meeting, Weedy took a much more aggressive interpretation of that requirement, interpreted 00:02:47.729 --> 00:02:51.806 - as being binding with that MUST Task Force, came to a unanimous agreement. 00:02:52.354 --> 00:02:57.563 - And this was right after the law passed. So everybody's kind of struggling to figure out what it all 00:02:57.563 --> 00:03:02.771 - meant. And since then, the general consensus among municipal advisors, municipal law firms, and AIM, 00:03:02.771 --> 00:03:08.186 - our municipalities association, has evolved. And the must process is seen more clearly as just a report. 00:03:08.186 --> 00:03:13.394 - The General Assembly, some portion there, wants to see counties and their municipalities can come to 00:03:13.394 --> 00:03:16.798 - an agreement on income tax rates and the new system on their own. 00:03:17.058 --> 00:03:23.042 - or if more legislation is needed. At this point, it is seen as having no binding factor law. And that 00:03:23.042 --> 00:03:29.086 - would be a change from the way that it was described at the meeting in March. The other consensus that 00:03:29.086 --> 00:03:34.718 - has emerged is while the statute specifies that the task force consists of the fiscal officers, 00:03:34.818 --> 00:03:40.285 - of the cities and towns and president of county council. The process can and should be open to broader 00:03:40.285 --> 00:03:45.700 - state court groups, in particular city and town council members, the mayor and county councilors. And 00:03:45.700 --> 00:03:51.061 - ultimately, it's council members from counties and potentially cities, they'll have to vote to adopt 00:03:51.061 --> 00:03:56.582 - the new literates. So AIM, our municipal association is taking leadership on providing support and data 00:03:56.582 --> 00:04:02.686 - for the MUST process. And they're also volunteering for their analysts to participate in MUST discussions as well. 00:04:02.946 --> 00:04:08.087 - We received some data from AIM on suggestions for lit rates that would balance the need for lit revenue 00:04:08.087 --> 00:04:13.377 - replacement by cities and towns, with tax rates for county taxpayers. Reedy has provided us some estimates 00:04:13.377 --> 00:04:18.321 - as well. And in fact, I had a meeting with Reedy later today to walk through their analysis. One of 00:04:18.321 --> 00:04:23.265 - my jobs in the next couple of weeks would be to reconcile two sets of numbers so that we can have a 00:04:23.265 --> 00:04:28.208 - coherent strategy. And I would expect that when you come back from the break, we'll have more of an 00:04:28.208 --> 00:04:30.334 - argument for these task force discussions. 00:04:31.714 --> 00:04:37.408 - Um, another, uh, comment on lit tax rates. We had a meeting scheduled of the joint city council public 00:04:37.408 --> 00:04:42.936 - safety lit committee this Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, we did not have an in-person quorum, so 00:04:42.936 --> 00:04:48.630 - could not proceed with the meeting. Um, I know county, uh, council attorney, uh, city council attorney 00:04:48.630 --> 00:04:54.159 - Allen is working on rescheduling the meeting and I don't want to get too far ahead of the committee 00:04:54.159 --> 00:04:59.134 - meeting itself, but the materials provided in the packet do present an option to increase 00:04:59.266 --> 00:05:05.012 - The public safety answering point or peace app lit rate a bit to fully find a dispatch budget, which 00:05:05.012 --> 00:05:10.757 - the rate is not done. If that process goes forward, it will come back to the entire city council for 00:05:10.757 --> 00:05:16.787 - a public hearing. There are more materials available in the package for that meeting if you're interested 00:05:16.787 --> 00:05:20.030 - in your council attorney is, it's kind of managing that. 00:05:20.418 --> 00:05:26.557 - On the audit, I wanted to give you an update on the 2024 ACFR external audit process. Though it feels 00:05:26.557 --> 00:05:32.576 - like we just did this, we're now, as of a couple of weeks ago, in the full swing of the 2025 audit. 00:05:32.576 --> 00:05:38.895 - We, along with CBU, have received 100 requests for data and artifacts from our CRO auditors and provided 00:05:38.895 --> 00:05:44.974 - well over 50% of the requests so far. There will be undoubtedly a lot more, but we look forward to a 00:05:44.974 --> 00:05:46.238 - one-time completion. 00:05:47.554 --> 00:05:53.714 - On supplemental lit, sorry, last two are for short. Supplemental lit, every year the local units of 00:05:53.714 --> 00:05:59.997 - government receive a supplemental distribution of local income tax. When too much income tax is built 00:05:59.997 --> 00:06:06.403 - up in the state's trust fund from collections, we recently received the 2026 supplemental distribution, 00:06:06.403 --> 00:06:12.562 - which came out to be about $3.9 million in revenue. This is unbudgeted revenue, so it helps to make 00:06:12.562 --> 00:06:17.182 - up some of the budgetary deficit. That's, we consider that very good news. 00:06:17.474 --> 00:06:23.933 - and that lit is split between the general fund, the ED lit fund, and the public safety. And then finally, 00:06:23.933 --> 00:06:30.087 - I just wanted to let everybody know that our friends from Reedy will be back at our fiscal committee 00:06:30.087 --> 00:06:36.424 - meeting on July 24th, and we're gonna give an update on our financial plan, as well as talk again about 00:06:36.424 --> 00:06:42.639 - local income tax issues and issues, and you'll wanna listen. Great, thanks, Judy. Thank you, that was 00:06:42.639 --> 00:06:46.782 - very concise. Nice job, any questions, Council Member Pinoff? Yeah. 00:06:47.138 --> 00:06:54.762 - I'm sorry if I missed it, but there was a packet for PS lit. I didn't see the packet. Was that on the 00:06:54.762 --> 00:07:02.311 - city website or the county website or? No, it was sent out by the city. I don't know. It came out of 00:07:02.311 --> 00:07:10.084 - city council office. I don't know whether Mr. Allen sent it or Mr. Wagoner. Okay. I'll have to, I guess 00:07:10.084 --> 00:07:14.718 - I missed that in the emails. So you said there's a chance to, 00:07:15.330 --> 00:07:22.914 - increase the PSAP rate to cover the full expanse of central dispatch? Correct. OK. I would really love 00:07:22.914 --> 00:07:30.498 - a conversation with you and I. I think we texted about that. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm happy to brief you 00:07:30.498 --> 00:07:38.008 - in more detail. Like I said, I didn't want to get too far ahead of the meeting. This should have been 00:07:38.008 --> 00:07:45.150 - a detailed conversation at the committee meeting. OK, I'll get in touch. Thank you. Thanks, Sam. 00:07:45.474 --> 00:07:53.253 - Thank you. Just briefly, you mentioned that we're going to reconcile numbers. Were you referring to 00:07:53.253 --> 00:08:01.265 - the AEM recommendations around revenue replacement strategy? Any questions? Are the AEM numbers public 00:08:01.265 --> 00:08:09.044 - or does it mean they're working directly with the state? Yeah, I don't think that's public yet. Any 00:08:09.044 --> 00:08:10.366 - other questions? 00:08:14.786 --> 00:08:22.968 - Thank you. Congrats. Hey, so as usual, you know, the board. No, are you going to talk about the dates 00:08:22.968 --> 00:08:31.070 - first? I'll share those on the screen if you are. Yeah, we can do that. So I wanted to talk a little 00:08:31.070 --> 00:08:39.091 - bit about our budget process because we will be the numbers part of building the budget has already 00:08:39.091 --> 00:08:43.102 - been long ago and the part where we actually make 00:08:43.586 --> 00:08:50.501 - memos and write things that go together to make that accessible is sort of the end phase, but that also 00:08:50.501 --> 00:08:57.216 - happens largely, starts happening while you all are out. So I thought it would be good to talk about 00:08:57.216 --> 00:09:03.865 - some ideas about process here. These draft budget dates, which I think lots and lots of our surveys 00:09:03.865 --> 00:09:10.846 - are also in the packet. A lot of these are internal that are more for me reminders when we get things to 00:09:11.234 --> 00:09:17.484 - council offices, our presentation nights, and then every year we do attempts to set a deadline for a 00:09:17.484 --> 00:09:23.795 - cutoff date or a time for council questions, and that just helps our staff dig in. I'm happy that Mr. 00:09:23.795 --> 00:09:30.292 - Allen is back on staff. Maybe he can revert us back to the questions that we used in 2024, which I think 00:09:30.292 --> 00:09:36.975 - was really effective, and last year we had lots of center sheets, and I think that was a little frustrating 00:09:36.975 --> 00:09:39.326 - for everybody, so excited about that. 00:09:39.874 --> 00:09:47.728 - So in terms of, I want to talk a little bit about the order of presentations and the philosophy I used 00:09:47.728 --> 00:09:55.430 - for that, and take any questions, comments, feedback, nothing set in stone here. And then talk about 00:09:55.430 --> 00:10:03.208 - priorities from your memo and the numbers that control the amount of evidence that we take within the 00:10:03.208 --> 00:10:07.326 - data. So now we're in the dates. We are in the dates. 00:10:07.490 --> 00:10:13.113 - scroll back up there, yes, we're going to look at these nights here on Wednesday, so be subscribed to 00:10:13.113 --> 00:10:18.736 - the top of our links. So, you know, thinking about what order do people present, and here are some of 00:10:18.736 --> 00:10:24.414 - the considerations I put into it. One is to cluster like things as much as possible. Another is to put 00:10:24.414 --> 00:10:30.036 - the easiest material at the end, because we're all tired at the end, and so I think it behooves us to 00:10:30.036 --> 00:10:32.958 - put the least controversial items on our last night. 00:10:33.442 --> 00:10:39.153 - And then third, to try to distribute the time evenly or fairly evenly so that we don't have America 00:10:39.153 --> 00:10:45.092 - all night in a really short time. And there's always, we're the world of how you can move things around 00:10:45.092 --> 00:10:50.403 - in here, but here's where my opening stab at this. We usually have a little front matter and 00:10:50.403 --> 00:10:56.285 - front introductions. That's the office of the mayor introduction, the controller introduction. I don't 00:10:56.285 --> 00:10:59.198 - know why my computer is being so like manic today. 00:10:59.618 --> 00:11:05.586 - Fire, police, and city party often present on the same night together, and I think that's worked out 00:11:05.586 --> 00:11:11.553 - in the past. I think since housing is the top priority for everyone, that would be great to put that 00:11:11.553 --> 00:11:17.639 - on night one as well. And if we don't, it will make some of the other nights much longer, since that's 00:11:17.639 --> 00:11:23.134 - a longer presentation. And then flustered on the Wednesday of week one are a lot of the kind 00:11:23.134 --> 00:11:24.670 - of infrastructure related 00:11:24.802 --> 00:11:31.359 - um divisions and I always want to apologize to public works you have so many divisions you end up getting 00:11:31.359 --> 00:11:37.607 - spread out over multiple months I tried to contain the damage so you only have to be there twice but 00:11:37.607 --> 00:11:44.349 - still uh I think street and parking uh probably would make sense to talk about in the context of engineering 00:11:44.349 --> 00:11:50.597 - uh some of the other kind of concerns we have we too parks ESD the parks always has a big budget and 00:11:50.597 --> 00:11:54.494 - then all of the rest of uh public works and then saving our um 00:11:55.842 --> 00:12:01.365 - internal offices and a CID for the last night. Now, one change I'm suggesting here, last year, so in 00:12:01.365 --> 00:12:06.834 - our first year, I understand it's been tradition for the Housing Authority and Living in Transit to 00:12:06.834 --> 00:12:12.521 - present during our budget season, and I really think that creates confusion for the public because when 00:12:12.521 --> 00:12:18.317 - you vote, you are not actually voting to approve their budgets. Their budgets, they're separate entities, 00:12:18.317 --> 00:12:20.286 - their budgets are already approved. 00:12:20.834 --> 00:12:27.035 - It's just awkward. And it's not that those organizations would love to come and do a whole report to 00:12:27.035 --> 00:12:33.297 - you and take questions about what they're doing. But I don't know that it belongs in the city budget. 00:12:33.297 --> 00:12:39.681 - Last year, we left in Bloomington Transit because they do have received $3.8 million in money from ESD. 00:12:39.681 --> 00:12:46.312 - But another framework for looking at this is what are the numbers that we actually vote on that we actually 00:12:46.312 --> 00:12:47.294 - have to upload? 00:12:47.554 --> 00:12:53.825 - to the state and BT's numbers, their own internal logic is not part of that. And ESD of course does 00:12:53.825 --> 00:13:00.160 - have the last year of that BT matter is in for our 2027 budget. So if everyone is agreeable to that, 00:13:00.160 --> 00:13:06.556 - John Collin will be at Wilmington Transit would be delighted to have him do a presentation for you at 00:13:06.556 --> 00:13:12.828 - another time. And that might be more satisfying in fact, to get a little bit more into other things 00:13:12.828 --> 00:13:17.406 - than just the numbers that have already been approved by another entity. 00:13:18.242 --> 00:13:25.145 - So if we want to talk about that, that order, and if anyone has any thoughts, ideas, concerns, 00:13:25.145 --> 00:13:32.703 - we can do that, or we can talk about priorities and then come back and talk about it all. What are your 00:13:32.703 --> 00:13:40.115 - concerns? Do we have any comments on each order? All looks fine to me, and I have no problems hearing 00:13:40.115 --> 00:13:47.454 - from Transit and VHA at another time. I'm just trying to believe in a manual report process after it 00:13:47.682 --> 00:13:57.459 - The money piece is helpful, like maybe on the day for their going through their practices. Yeah. Is 00:13:57.459 --> 00:14:07.529 - about any comments on order. So, all right. Thank you. That will help everybody plan their PTO to know 00:14:07.529 --> 00:14:10.462 - what next day are presenting. 00:14:10.626 --> 00:14:17.870 - Great. I'll go ahead and stop the screen share since I think that there's nothing else in the packet 00:14:17.870 --> 00:14:25.114 - about what you're talking about, Max, is that correct? There's just that list that was at the bottom 00:14:25.114 --> 00:14:32.358 - of the schedule. Sorry. Oh, that's okay. So what Controller McKim and I did was look through, we did 00:14:32.358 --> 00:14:36.446 - it separately in our notes, look through the list of the 00:14:36.546 --> 00:14:45.852 - budget priorities memo that council sent on April 1st, and look for the items that number one are actually 00:14:45.852 --> 00:14:54.811 - reflected in the annual budget. And two, then to look at what areas are possible knowing limits of our 00:14:54.811 --> 00:15:00.638 - county system that we're looking downgrade to present numbers. So, 00:15:01.346 --> 00:15:07.091 - Uh, for example, maintenance and enhancement of city assets, which is one of our top concerns as well 00:15:07.091 --> 00:15:13.062 - as councils and I believe also the public. So really excited to see that on that. There's lots of numbers 00:15:13.062 --> 00:15:18.638 - on that. Sometimes they are hard in our current format to understand. Uh, and just as one example, 00:15:18.638 --> 00:15:24.383 - you know, if you're working on a road, asphalt is a cost, but there's also labor and other costs. And 00:15:24.383 --> 00:15:29.790 - those things are, uh, hard to separate out from our budget into the program. So we're going to. 00:15:30.338 --> 00:15:36.951 - do our best to present some numbers on all of those things that relate to maintenance and enhancement 00:15:36.951 --> 00:15:43.824 - of city assets, which on the other side is called assets. Homelessness, that was your number two request, 00:15:43.824 --> 00:15:50.437 - and that's also, of course, everyone's concern. And it's important to understand that we have kind of 00:15:50.437 --> 00:15:57.374 - two different kinds of spending over ways that funds the inside of the city, and there's some overlap over 00:15:57.474 --> 00:16:04.934 - housing and homelessness programs that are difficult to track. So is eviction prevention, it's homelessness, 00:16:04.934 --> 00:16:11.983 - but there are also other housing issues, things we do for housing to try to prevent people from losing 00:16:11.983 --> 00:16:19.170 - their homes in the first place. So there's a little gray area between preventative housing type actions, 00:16:19.170 --> 00:16:23.550 - funds to other organizations that do the hands-on work or often 00:16:23.970 --> 00:16:30.106 - very often non-budgetary work, such as the mayor's work with other organizations to write grants that 00:16:30.106 --> 00:16:36.122 - then secure extra case manager grants. That money doesn't come to us, but the city is very involved 00:16:36.122 --> 00:16:42.559 - in making that happen. So that's not a budget issue, but it's still something we might like to understand. 00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:48.936 - And then finally, there are a lot of expenses at the city for mitigating just the impacts of homelessness 00:16:48.936 --> 00:16:51.102 - on the community, whether those are 00:16:51.298 --> 00:17:00.655 - our plumbliness grants to businesses that are experiencing some waste issues, or the Port-au-Lat, which 00:17:00.655 --> 00:17:10.373 - is also part of that effort, other things like that, that are not root cause, not standing on root objects, 00:17:10.373 --> 00:17:19.550 - that need to help our community, regarding this national crisis. So next on our list, transportation. 00:17:19.650 --> 00:17:26.122 - uh, and implementation of state safe streets for all. Uh, one of the things we're going to expand this 00:17:26.122 --> 00:17:32.720 - year, last year on the transportation memo, we had sort of created a little grid showing, uh, the stages 00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:38.627 - of transportation projects from study, design, build, and maintain. And those span different, 00:17:38.627 --> 00:17:45.036 - uh, departments. You have planning, doing study, engineering, doing design, engineering, supervising, 00:17:45.036 --> 00:17:47.550 - build, and then of course public works. 00:17:47.746 --> 00:17:55.005 - does main mixes, so we're going to try to flesh that out more this year and tie it to, as we can, how 00:17:55.005 --> 00:18:02.122 - are the lists of projects that are in those phases determined? Which plans are they committed to so 00:18:02.122 --> 00:18:09.310 - that there's a source you can see a base to save streets for all, you know, item one from the table. 00:18:09.826 --> 00:18:16.610 - And there will be, I think the main piece of it is the fuzziest part. There are lots of different qualities 00:18:16.610 --> 00:18:23.016 - for that, lots of different ways of approaching that. And I think some of that is very close to time, 00:18:23.016 --> 00:18:29.423 - of course, to assets maintenance and enhancement. So as we get through that, it's going to be a mess. 00:18:29.423 --> 00:18:33.694 - So bear with us as we sort that out. Housing, economic development. 00:18:34.306 --> 00:18:41.538 - And so let's see. So going back to your priorities list, your number three item was zero traffic fatalities 00:18:41.538 --> 00:18:48.101 - or serious injuries. That's where we get identification as an item on here. And snowball removal, 00:18:48.101 --> 00:18:54.797 - particularly the outsource snowball removal that we piloted this year, those types of expenses with 00:18:54.797 --> 00:18:57.342 - Elmer housing issue number four item. 00:18:57.730 --> 00:19:05.104 - address and reduce systemic inequities. So this is a broad category, but we do have, last year we gave 00:19:05.104 --> 00:19:12.334 - you some data on the money that the city gives out for grant programs and for organizational support 00:19:12.334 --> 00:19:19.493 - and sponsorships. And we find that a little bit this year to include some more of the scholarships, 00:19:19.493 --> 00:19:22.142 - assistance, other kinds of programs. 00:19:22.722 --> 00:19:29.706 - that we do to make sure that folks have equal access to services and what they need. So there's some 00:19:29.706 --> 00:19:36.829 - good numbers we've already collected on that. Economic, strong inclusivity on local economy, which are 00:19:36.829 --> 00:19:43.952 - number six priority. Those are, of course, very long term projects. It's hard to put numbers on those, 00:19:43.952 --> 00:19:48.862 - but we do have those numbers from ESC and what we'd be spending there. 00:19:50.114 --> 00:19:55.753 - Food safety, security networks, we do have a couple items there that we do have programs that some of 00:19:55.753 --> 00:20:01.448 - our departments on, folks, see if they're getting the CMA physical experience, so we'll pull those out 00:20:01.448 --> 00:20:07.088 - for you. Air quality is maintained at a high level. That's not a budgetary thing we track, but we did 00:20:07.088 --> 00:20:12.672 - add climate as a note there because last year, controlling the flow and separating DSC's target in a 00:20:12.672 --> 00:20:15.934 - nice way. And I think just as a side note, a really useful 00:20:16.322 --> 00:20:21.468 - exercise for the administration that would be very helpful would be, I mean, perhaps we'd see it later 00:20:21.468 --> 00:20:26.463 - in the day. So look at the detail of the climate budget because it's a very large budget and it has 00:20:26.463 --> 00:20:31.509 - a lot of programs. And as I look through them, they're very different kinds of programs. And some of 00:20:31.509 --> 00:20:36.605 - them are going to be highlighted and said, it doesn't work so well, we're going to stop that. Others, 00:20:36.605 --> 00:20:41.651 - Shania has really found great ways to implement those in their own straw. But I would really love to 00:20:41.651 --> 00:20:44.798 - get some feedback, especially from the council members who are 00:20:45.154 --> 00:20:51.716 - who have cited this as an important answer on which of those programs do you value the most? Should 00:20:51.716 --> 00:20:58.606 - we be thinking about, especially if all of those programs are funded by ULIT, when that money goes away, 00:20:58.606 --> 00:21:05.758 - it will be really important to understand what is the most crucial piece, pieces of this mix of programming. 00:21:06.914 --> 00:21:12.964 - green and vibrant third places, neighborhood hubs. Obviously we've just had our urban legislations passed, 00:21:12.964 --> 00:21:18.731 - so we've got a lot of number crunching to do on that, and we'll see how far we can get and talk about 00:21:18.731 --> 00:21:24.499 - that. And then waste reduction, of course, we've got sanitation right here, but that is likely not to 00:21:24.499 --> 00:21:30.379 - be a separate pulled out, other than the sanitation data that we talked about today in our thesis. That 00:21:30.379 --> 00:21:36.542 - was your last response. So that's how we boiled, kind of went through your list and said, what can we track? 00:21:36.770 --> 00:21:42.327 - what has budgetary numbers that are in there. Again, these are not things that are tagged separately 00:21:42.327 --> 00:21:48.049 - in our accounting system. So it's not like a controller thing. You can just press a button and it spits 00:21:48.049 --> 00:21:53.551 - out, oh, here's what we're setting on all of this. It is a manual process and it will be manual and 00:21:53.551 --> 00:21:58.557 - involve also our department heads and division leaders having to go back and pull out some 00:21:58.557 --> 00:22:04.169 - of the spreadsheets that used to manage programs and help us find what we can find. So we're gonna do 00:22:04.169 --> 00:22:06.590 - our share of the best. So that's the final. 00:22:08.226 --> 00:22:18.405 - Great. Questions from cast members about that? Yeah, so one of our priorities was creating vibrant third 00:22:18.405 --> 00:22:28.196 - spaces. I wonder if we could get a rundown of how much was spent and how much is planned to be spent 00:22:28.196 --> 00:22:37.502 - on activating Kirkwood. I think you already have that in the original packet that ESD submitted 00:22:38.658 --> 00:22:44.232 - earlier this year about Kirkwood. I think there's quite a lot of data in there about what has been spent 00:22:44.232 --> 00:22:49.911 - in the past. If you, we can certainly dig that up and add to it, but of course things will have to change. 00:22:49.911 --> 00:22:55.485 - So, and we'll need to find, you know, you know, as we, as we look, we all know last year we, which said, 00:22:55.485 --> 00:23:01.005 - you know, no new requests unless we say where we're going to cut it. And it will certainly be true this 00:23:01.005 --> 00:23:06.526 - year as our controller has passed us to keep the budget as flat as possible in line with what's coming. 00:23:06.914 --> 00:23:14.074 - So anything we add at this point, it is cutting for something else. So those are some of the other things 00:23:14.074 --> 00:23:21.031 - we'll need to discuss is when there are things we want to do that are new or increase funding, where's 00:23:21.031 --> 00:23:27.921 - the best place to cut that from? And so we'll have to present some options on that. That's what I was 00:23:27.921 --> 00:23:34.946 - saying. Okay, yeah, I mean, I guess I was hoping to see how much was spent this year and in other years 00:23:34.946 --> 00:23:36.702 - when Kirkwood was closed. 00:23:36.962 --> 00:23:42.425 - so that we get a sense of the minimum that would need to be spent next year. Well, as I said, I think 00:23:42.425 --> 00:23:47.941 - you can look in the packet that was provided to council once when the legislation originally came, not 00:23:47.941 --> 00:23:53.404 - this current legislation, but the previous one, and ESD had provided a lot of numbers about that, and 00:23:53.404 --> 00:23:59.135 - I'm sure they have more. But again, there is not in the accounting system a button that says what expenses 00:23:59.135 --> 00:24:04.491 - that we can just press to set that out. So we've got a lot of work to do before we get to that part 00:24:04.491 --> 00:24:06.526 - of the presentation at budget season. 00:24:06.786 --> 00:24:14.465 - to look at next year. So we'll bring as much data as we can. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I have a few 00:24:14.465 --> 00:24:22.295 - questions. We don't need to dwell here too long. I know this, but you say, I agree to what are probably 00:24:22.295 --> 00:24:29.899 - requests or increases of what else is coming down. Does that also apply to the administration in our 00:24:29.899 --> 00:24:30.878 - role we see? 00:24:31.042 --> 00:24:36.812 - where you all have added new things or increased things, if that's the case, will we understand or see 00:24:36.812 --> 00:24:42.527 - what you all have cut? We can work on that. Every, when we submit, when each department and of course 00:24:42.527 --> 00:24:48.185 - council also submits budgets, so you can look at that process, but when you submit your budget, when 00:24:48.185 --> 00:24:53.787 - there's an increase in the line or a decrease, you do have to explain why. And I think for a lot of 00:24:53.787 --> 00:25:00.062 - us, it comes down to some of the decreases we make are what's in a trend in spending and trying to cut back to, 00:25:00.674 --> 00:25:06.671 - actual trend instead of what you hope you might send. And that counts for not just things like office 00:25:06.671 --> 00:25:12.669 - supplies, but also grants. If you have a grant program and you just don't get enough applications for 00:25:12.669 --> 00:25:18.960 - it historically, then maybe you don't really put as much money in it because it's not getting the traction 00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:24.957 - it needs. Or maybe it's a really not equal program that you need to advertise for. So there is a list 00:25:24.957 --> 00:25:30.014 - by that, but it is quite granular. Sometimes it's easy to see when it's, for example, 00:25:30.178 --> 00:25:37.312 - make up. Let's say we had a program called Gretchen's Fashion Grants and we wanted to cut it $500,000. 00:25:37.312 --> 00:25:44.515 - That's easy to track because it's probably one line, but for something like building maintenance, those 00:25:44.515 --> 00:25:51.717 - costs are spread out over many store lines and it's a little harder to see. But yes, short answer, yes. 00:25:51.717 --> 00:25:53.726 - Finish with the best burger. 00:25:53.858 --> 00:26:00.693 - And just to add on to that, we will be, one thing that we definitely are seeing throughout the budgets 00:26:00.693 --> 00:26:07.330 - is an increase in utilities of all kinds, including preparing for CMU increases as the similar rate 00:26:07.330 --> 00:26:14.032 - cases pass, and then also liability insurance. So there is sort of a base of a new system that don't 00:26:14.032 --> 00:26:19.806 - represent a change in priorities that just kind of reflect the cost of doing business. 00:26:19.970 --> 00:26:26.264 - And in the climate and the structures that we have to get in the department heads, some departments 00:26:26.264 --> 00:26:32.557 - are more impacted by that than others. And when we ask them to keep a flat budget, but for example, 00:26:32.557 --> 00:26:39.040 - asphalt is a petroleum product, and so when gas goes up, so it's asphalt, it makes it into a challenge 00:26:39.040 --> 00:26:45.522 - for them to keep a flat budget. One other thing, which is, we haven't wheeled around as much recently, 00:26:45.522 --> 00:26:48.606 - but the notion of outcome-based budgeting, which 00:26:48.962 --> 00:26:54.746 - we have committed to, but not yet achieved. And I know there's some various barriers to that. And I'll 00:26:54.746 --> 00:27:00.642 - say from my perspective, measuring what we spend on things is largely measuring the front end of a logic 00:27:00.642 --> 00:27:06.033 - model of inputs or the resources. And then it's what we, you know, so inputs are the resources, 00:27:06.033 --> 00:27:12.042 - the funding, staff time, what we do with those things, the activities, the outputs, the things we produce, 00:27:12.042 --> 00:27:16.478 - and then the outcomes, what we actually achieved. And, you know, that's where, 00:27:16.834 --> 00:27:22.694 - where it gets to our plans and things like reduced deaths and serious injuries on our streets or reduced 00:27:22.694 --> 00:27:28.331 - emissions and pollution and things like that. Lots of other outcomes too. And we've talked about how 00:27:28.331 --> 00:27:34.303 - we have plans for some of these things with goals, but they are kind of all over the board and how they're 00:27:34.303 --> 00:27:39.884 - structured. Some of them are smart goals, some of them aren't, et cetera. Other areas where we just 00:27:39.884 --> 00:27:43.902 - don't have at least shared legislative, administrative plans and goals. 00:27:44.482 --> 00:27:50.592 - And I'm just curious for you all, you're all, like, I'm less interested in how much we're spending on 00:27:50.592 --> 00:27:56.942 - a priority area versus what the impact we're achieving is, what the outcomes we're achieving are relative 00:27:56.942 --> 00:28:02.993 - to our expectations and goals. And I know that's not an easy fix, and that would be a bit of work to 00:28:02.993 --> 00:28:09.223 - do still to think about what that could look like, but how are you all thinking about that beyond just, 00:28:09.223 --> 00:28:12.158 - again, kind of measuring the reporting on inputs 00:28:12.258 --> 00:28:17.279 - or resources around priority areas can actually be cut out of them in that necklace. Well, 00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:22.852 - I think characterization is a great area to kind of look at an example of that. So my feeling is for 00:28:22.852 --> 00:28:28.424 - us to understand the outcomes, in order to understand the outcomes, you first have to currently have 00:28:28.424 --> 00:28:34.328 - what we want, the gap between what we think we want versus what we have. We have to understand our current 00:28:34.328 --> 00:28:40.177 - state. And so the first step would be understanding how much are we actually spending on sidewalk repair, 00:28:40.177 --> 00:28:40.894 - for example. 00:28:41.410 --> 00:28:47.149 - And how much does that get us versus what is the need that we have? And so when we talk about tracking 00:28:47.149 --> 00:28:52.944 - some of these numbers from priorities, tying it to our plans, I think the hidden step in there is where 00:28:52.944 --> 00:28:58.628 - we have things that oftentimes divisions are already tracking, the effectiveness of those programs to 00:28:58.628 --> 00:29:04.200 - share that information and make that transparent. So we understand that if we were to, for example, 00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:09.772 - add $100,000 to sidewalk repair, what does that get us? And would that be transformative or is that 00:29:09.772 --> 00:29:10.942 - sitting in the ocean 00:29:11.394 --> 00:29:18.058 - and not work together to make something else. So I think we're on the same page. I just think that we 00:29:18.058 --> 00:29:24.721 - have a lot more education at the starting point that included life. And so I think it's premature to, 00:29:24.721 --> 00:29:31.385 - we have finance, we have the numbers, we all don't have quite enough transparency on those numbers to 00:29:31.385 --> 00:29:37.983 - really understand what is our money currently getting us. And I think once we understand that, we'll 00:29:37.983 --> 00:29:41.054 - have a better sense of if we added more money, 00:29:41.346 --> 00:29:47.683 - what would that do? And of course, because our public works team is sitting here, I feel obligated to 00:29:47.683 --> 00:29:53.959 - say, there are things like weather and temperature and resource availability and staff time, even if 00:29:53.959 --> 00:30:00.358 - you contracted out that, put limitations on things. So for example, we wanted to say, if we had enough 00:30:00.358 --> 00:30:07.006 - money, we would take every single one of these in this year, money is not going to solve that problem, so. 00:30:07.714 --> 00:30:14.377 - And the problem would be bigger than the rotating. So there are constraints as well. But I think that 00:30:14.377 --> 00:30:21.105 - would be a good starting point for if this is what we're currently achieving with what we've spent all 00:30:21.105 --> 00:30:27.833 - these part of the areas, where do we feel like we need to make more progress faster? Is that possible? 00:30:27.833 --> 00:30:34.430 - How can we do it? Is money a solution? That's my perspective. I think that's fair. I mean, we are... 00:30:34.626 --> 00:30:41.528 - You know, just speaking from the financial system perspective, we are definitely limited in what, how 00:30:41.528 --> 00:30:48.701 - easy it is to pull out the kinds of data that I think, in particular, the outcomes that you're interested 00:30:48.701 --> 00:30:55.671 - in. And so there really isn't pretty much a kind of manual exercise that involves getting outcomes and 00:30:55.671 --> 00:31:02.506 - outputs from our departments and matching that up with the end-to-end summary of the retrieve. Yeah. 00:31:02.506 --> 00:31:04.062 - Do you all think that, 00:31:04.706 --> 00:31:11.609 - a, sorry, last question here. Like a uniform framework for outcomes and outputs, I guess, would be helpful, 00:31:11.609 --> 00:31:18.192 - but across, I mentioned our plans are quite disparate, some areas they don't exist. Would it be useful 00:31:18.192 --> 00:31:24.584 - to have a future date that we're trying to achieve maybe? Like, yeah, a uniform approach across the 00:31:24.584 --> 00:31:31.104 - city and across departments for like how we think about outcomes and how we track the report and then 00:31:31.104 --> 00:31:32.446 - be city to touch it. 00:31:34.146 --> 00:31:40.206 - Yes, but it would take an incredible amount of work to get there. And then, you know, you have to wrangle 00:31:40.206 --> 00:31:46.038 - the timeframes of various outcomes. Right, well, that's the department. Yeah, yeah. I would just say, 00:31:46.038 --> 00:31:52.098 - you know, we've been trying to use standardization for a lot of things. And NPHR would be a great example 00:31:52.098 --> 00:31:57.930 - of standardized OHR practices across three Hickley and several city, 15 different departments. And as 00:31:57.930 --> 00:32:02.046 - you try to do that, there are, there's a tremendous need to make things 00:32:02.146 --> 00:32:08.820 - more streamlined, more aligned, more consistent, and as you do it every time, you find something that 00:32:08.820 --> 00:32:15.428 - is just so unique that it can't fit into that box. So I think that's a worthwhile effort though, and 00:32:15.428 --> 00:32:22.102 - kind of goes to a better place too. Yeah, thanks. That's great. I would really like to try and get to 00:32:22.102 --> 00:32:28.644 - sanitation. I see Udall's hand up. I'm waiting to see if we have any questions at all. Isabelle, is 00:32:28.644 --> 00:32:29.822 - yours quick? Yes. 00:32:30.082 --> 00:32:38.056 - So I just wanna make sure we're all clear in order to have a budget that is not increased, we're gonna 00:32:38.056 --> 00:32:45.953 - have to cut things because of inflation and everything costing more and hopefully we can keep up with 00:32:45.953 --> 00:32:52.766 - our salaries and such. So do you expect every department is going to have to make cuts? 00:32:54.402 --> 00:33:01.152 - I will say that our instructions were to keep the supplies and services categories flat to the degree 00:33:01.152 --> 00:33:07.770 - we could. We understand that there may be personnel costs just as people advanced in the steps. And 00:33:07.770 --> 00:33:14.388 - if we decide that we're able to give a cost of living adjustments. So, I mean, at this point, we're 00:33:14.388 --> 00:33:21.271 - not asking for that kind of cut. I will say just from the way I think of things, because I am concerned 00:33:21.271 --> 00:33:22.462 - about the future, 00:33:22.626 --> 00:33:28.811 - I kind of feel like this is a trial run to see if we can sort of hold the line of increases so that 00:33:28.811 --> 00:33:35.119 - in the future we don't have to make more drastic cuts. But yeah, we're not asking departments at this 00:33:35.119 --> 00:33:41.427 - point. We are looking at the efficacy of individual expenditures. I mean, the deputy mayor and I went 00:33:41.427 --> 00:33:47.550 - through yesterday and she's gone through extensively on each budget line and we are looking at it. 00:33:47.650 --> 00:33:54.893 - areas that might represent opportunities for savings. But no, we're not asking departments to cut personnel 00:33:54.893 --> 00:34:01.733 - to make up for inflation for example. Great, thanks. I have a couple of questions. I might email them 00:34:01.733 --> 00:34:08.708 - for suggestions, I guess, because part of this conversation is about how budget presentations are going 00:34:08.708 --> 00:34:14.878 - to go in the fall. But I do need to say out loud that one of the tasks of this committee is 00:34:14.978 --> 00:34:23.413 - to be responsible for supporting council staff with the 2026 council budget. And our council staff is 00:34:23.413 --> 00:34:32.013 - temporary right now. So as a committee, and I kind of realized that in the middle of last week, I went, 00:34:32.013 --> 00:34:40.282 - oh, wait a second. And so I will try to, as committee chair, making sure there's some assistance to 00:34:40.282 --> 00:34:42.846 - our council staff around that. 00:34:43.202 --> 00:34:48.642 - Definitely have deadlines and I know that Lisa was pretty good at meeting them. I wonder if that has 00:34:48.642 --> 00:34:54.136 - completely fallen off the radar. It hasn't. It hasn't. It's been great. So I'll talk to you about it. 00:34:54.136 --> 00:34:59.631 - We'll talk about it, yeah. Okay. We've been working on it. I know that, you know, just like the other 00:34:59.631 --> 00:35:05.179 - departments, you know, we'll have to draft a memo and things like that. Yeah. It'll be helpful for you 00:35:05.179 --> 00:35:10.942 - all. Okay. Yeah, the committee is tasked technically with helping you with that. Great. So that's perfect. 00:35:11.042 --> 00:35:18.848 - Okay, yeah. For the people online, after the meeting started, Council Attorney Allen walked into the 00:35:18.848 --> 00:35:26.885 - room. So, welcome. Feel free to send them the big tickles. So yeah, thank you Gretchen for that update. 00:35:26.885 --> 00:35:34.769 - There's a lot more that we can say about that clearly, but I do want to move on over to sanitation in 00:35:34.769 --> 00:35:38.942 - the department, because they said I started as a guy. 00:35:39.330 --> 00:35:46.978 - They're here for a reason. And so the origin of this ask kind of started because Jeff presented the 00:35:46.978 --> 00:35:54.702 - funds transfers and it was kind of like brought to light once again that this year the fund transfer 00:35:54.702 --> 00:36:02.349 - for the sanitation department. I mean, it's just been ever in recent. And I remember there was some 00:36:02.349 --> 00:36:08.926 - conversations last year about the potential need or thoughts of using sanitation fees 00:36:09.250 --> 00:36:15.718 - But then we hadn't really heard much about that. And one of the things that we've been exploring as 00:36:15.718 --> 00:36:22.315 - a committee is the concept that, you know, as the Facebook committee, this can be a place where there 00:36:22.315 --> 00:36:28.783 - are discussions of fee increases and things that people have to approve for different increases and 00:36:28.783 --> 00:36:33.246 - having those things kind of heard here in kind of exploratory cases. 00:36:33.634 --> 00:36:42.950 - We start with sanitation. So at this point in the packet, there is a memo from Gretchen about sanitation 00:36:42.950 --> 00:36:52.178 - prices, which is on the screen right now. And kind of asking some main questions like, is it acceptable 00:36:52.178 --> 00:37:01.317 - and would it have desirable outcomes to charge for recycling? At what pace should we increase pricing? 00:37:01.317 --> 00:37:03.358 - By how much each time? 00:37:04.098 --> 00:37:11.272 - Given residents are seen and will continue to see increases in many other fees taxes and cost of living 00:37:11.272 --> 00:37:18.654 - should be set a goal of diminishing or completely eliminating or diminishing rather completely eliminating 00:37:18.654 --> 00:37:25.552 - the subsidy or set a longer timeline for implementation or some other option. And other factors for 00:37:25.552 --> 00:37:27.070 - general fund support. 00:37:28.770 --> 00:37:34.379 - saying one thing just for any members of the public that have to be watching and looking at these numbers, 00:37:34.379 --> 00:37:39.832 - these are alarming numbers. And that's one of the reasons why we wanted to bring them to this committee 00:37:39.832 --> 00:37:45.179 - to discuss so that there's transparency on why this problem is so hard to solve. It has a deep impact 00:37:45.179 --> 00:37:50.683 - on our residents. This is a core city service. And so if you are, if you're a resident and you've looked 00:37:50.683 --> 00:37:55.454 - at the packet and you're alarmed by these numbers, so are we, nothing, this is not a plea. 00:37:55.746 --> 00:38:02.441 - This is an exploration and a reality check. And so part of why we're here talking with our colleagues 00:38:02.441 --> 00:38:09.071 - on council is to find out what path should we pursue that we will have agreement on to make progress 00:38:09.071 --> 00:38:16.029 - on the problem of the deepened gap of sanitation, while also providing a direct service to our residents. 00:38:16.029 --> 00:38:21.214 - Thank you. Thank you for that clarification because it should be really clear. 00:38:21.346 --> 00:38:28.570 - This is the deliberation. There's no plan here that's detailed. It's just kind of, I mean, I think that 00:38:28.570 --> 00:38:35.655 - probably if you scroll to the last page of the packet, our controller put in there the transfers from 00:38:35.655 --> 00:38:42.949 - sanitation over the last several years. And so the one this year is, you know, I mean, it's almost twice 00:38:42.949 --> 00:38:47.742 - as much as 2025. It's not quite information for what the context is. 00:38:47.938 --> 00:38:54.242 - Do we know roughly what percentage of households in the city receive this service? Is that the other 00:38:54.242 --> 00:39:00.671 - big factor here in informing the idea of a general? Because some people get the service, a whole bunch 00:39:00.671 --> 00:39:07.038 - of other people do not get the service. So no, there's never been a calculation done on the number of 00:39:07.038 --> 00:39:12.094 - apartment units. I've never myself as public works director gone to the level of 00:39:12.290 --> 00:39:18.710 - trying to do a detailed analysis of the number of apartment units or businesses or commercial properties, 00:39:18.710 --> 00:39:24.766 - industrial, like across the whole community. No, I really haven't taken the unprecedented. But it's 00:39:24.766 --> 00:39:30.580 - fair to understand, isn't it part of the rules of ordinances that if you live in a city limits, 00:39:30.580 --> 00:39:37.182 - you must. Yeah, so it's a trap. So what we. Yeah, so it's the way the city code reads is that we service all 00:39:37.346 --> 00:39:44.496 - units that are four or less. So single-family units of four or less. So if you have a smaller apartment 00:39:44.496 --> 00:39:51.576 - unit of four units, we'll service that. If you have one that is five, six, or a hundred or a thousand, 00:39:51.576 --> 00:39:58.657 - we don't service. I'll talk with Anna about that a little bit more to kind of compare on the apartment 00:39:58.657 --> 00:40:00.926 - numbers that they have and such. 00:40:01.538 --> 00:40:07.989 - And then there is that kind of commercial and industrial component too that we don't really take into 00:40:07.989 --> 00:40:14.377 - consideration. So, yeah, so just as a point of clarification, no, that doesn't exist currently. And, 00:40:14.377 --> 00:40:20.891 - you know, so I guess as we kind of came into the room this morning, Hopi, Council Member Stossberg had 00:40:20.891 --> 00:40:27.215 - said, well, you're going to lead this, right Adam? And I said, oh, okay, yeah, sure. So instead I'm 00:40:27.215 --> 00:40:31.326 - going to turn it over to Lazarus. No, I'm totally kidding. Yeah. 00:40:33.346 --> 00:40:38.651 - Well, so just general background here. We sent a spreadsheet with a lot of information and numbers in 00:40:38.651 --> 00:40:44.060 - it. And it was it was mentioned earlier that, you know, we talked about this as part of the 2026 budget 00:40:44.060 --> 00:40:49.313 - process and we haven't heard a lot since then. Last fall, we started doing a lot of work here to try 00:40:49.313 --> 00:40:52.382 - to understand what some of the numbers would look like. So 00:40:52.578 --> 00:40:58.112 - I want to, when it says staff proposed monthly rate, that is just the calculation we're doing. It's 00:40:58.112 --> 00:41:03.756 - not that we're actually proposing this right now as any formal legislation. It's more of this is what 00:41:03.756 --> 00:41:08.958 - it would need to be to start eliminating the general fund support of the sanitation division. 00:41:08.958 --> 00:41:13.662 - So we did this. We kept the 2026 information in here as a point of reference because 00:41:14.114 --> 00:41:23.042 - even as we've updated these numbers here in the last few months, we're still seeing volatility of sanitation, 00:41:23.042 --> 00:41:31.158 - fuel prices, tonnages, capital purchasing prices, et cetera. And so what these numbers kind of show 00:41:31.158 --> 00:41:39.437 - is over time, what would it look like with ever increasing costs to actually eliminate the subsidy or 00:41:39.437 --> 00:41:42.846 - support to the sanitation budget overall? 00:41:42.978 --> 00:41:55.896 - currently for 2026. Let me pull up some numbers here. We are at 43% on expenditures year to date based 00:41:55.896 --> 00:42:04.926 - on what we looked at this week on our current operational year. That is 00:42:06.114 --> 00:42:12.479 - a good indication of that we're on track, but I'm also still very concerned with fuel prices, and that 00:42:12.479 --> 00:42:19.030 - goes across the board for all city services right now. Just can I say, please jump in whenever. On track, 00:42:19.030 --> 00:42:25.210 - you're referring to budgeted expenditures, which include the fact that there was a transfer, a cash 00:42:25.210 --> 00:42:29.598 - transfer from right there. Yes. Yes. Yes. One other consideration that 00:42:29.730 --> 00:42:34.959 - Adam and I talked about that's not in here that we should think about is what is the cost of private 00:42:34.959 --> 00:42:40.448 - service? So keeping in mind, are we charging people more or less than private service? Because obviously, 00:42:40.448 --> 00:42:45.781 - if it can be done cheaper privately, that's a different, that tells us a little bit different. So, and 00:42:45.781 --> 00:42:51.114 - that is not the case for me, by the way. What's outstanding is that whatever we do, that many of these 00:42:51.114 --> 00:42:56.395 - proposals here, even though they look steep, are still cheaper than private service. So any answer to 00:42:56.395 --> 00:42:57.534 - what our attacks are? 00:42:57.666 --> 00:43:04.151 - dollar finance, cheaper service in the private sector? That's the answer. So just, yeah, so these, and 00:43:04.151 --> 00:43:10.698 - want to just kind of reiterate what Deputy Mayor Knapp said, it was, these numbers are pretty alarming. 00:43:10.698 --> 00:43:17.372 - So as we were starting to look at them in 2026, it became very clear that, you know, it is, it's a pretty 00:43:17.372 --> 00:43:23.856 - steep increase, even though it is still less than the private sector costs that a lot of residents or, 00:43:23.856 --> 00:43:26.878 - you know, county residents or others would pay. 00:43:27.138 --> 00:43:34.475 - What else? So in the end, the numbers kind of are what they are in terms of these calculations, their 00:43:34.475 --> 00:43:41.668 - projections. We also did look at our large item, our appliance, our yard waste charges as well. And 00:43:41.668 --> 00:43:48.933 - you'll see some figures in there on what some projected revenues and things could be to help, again, 00:43:48.933 --> 00:43:56.702 - increase revenues overall to lessen that general fund support. A couple other things to consider right now. 00:43:56.994 --> 00:44:05.796 - The big increase that we're seeing for this year's general fund support transfer includes all of our 00:44:05.796 --> 00:44:14.599 - capital. So if we were to purchase trucks this year, that is in that 1.6 million. So that was one of 00:44:14.599 --> 00:44:18.782 - the big things why that number went up so high. 00:44:19.394 --> 00:44:26.186 - To just put it simply, we cobbled together funds year after year to try to purchase the trucks that 00:44:26.186 --> 00:44:32.977 - are needed for replacement. We used the vehicle replacement fund. We used some of the capital lines 00:44:32.977 --> 00:44:39.837 - in our public works admin budget. And the cost of trucks are ever increasing. When we did sanitation 00:44:39.837 --> 00:44:46.629 - modernization, we were buying trucks for around $340,000 in 2017. Most trucks at this point in time 00:44:46.629 --> 00:44:48.734 - are $440,000 to $500,000 plus. 00:44:49.442 --> 00:44:56.893 - The other side of this is they are the most complex maintenance, it's the most complex sleep maintenance 00:44:56.893 --> 00:45:04.628 - division we have outside of probably street and utilities where these are, they're used every day, 4.30 a.m. 00:45:04.628 --> 00:45:11.724 - to 2 p.m. They get a lot of miles, they get a lot of wear and tear, so that also has a large impact 00:45:11.724 --> 00:45:16.478 - with our fleet set rates that sanitation pays into the fleet fund. 00:45:16.898 --> 00:45:24.982 - We also are required to keep minimum cash balances for the sanitation fund on a statewide level, just 00:45:24.982 --> 00:45:33.543 - to have adequate reserves. And then just a few other notes. We've been really diligent with our contracting 00:45:33.543 --> 00:45:41.310 - for waste disposal at the landfills and with our recycling processing. We locked into some rates. 00:45:41.442 --> 00:45:49.398 - in 2023 that I think a lot of communities would really, really like to have right now. We did a contract 00:45:49.398 --> 00:45:56.976 - then that can be renewed out through 2029 with increases simply based on CPI. So I believe we're at 00:45:56.976 --> 00:46:05.008 - this year, maybe like $12 a ton on recycling processing fees. We've got communities in the state, they're 00:46:05.008 --> 00:46:11.070 - paying $40 and $50 a ton. So we have really, we've made a really smart decision 00:46:11.394 --> 00:46:17.992 - couple of years ago to build in that renewal language. And we're really glad that that exists as well. 00:46:17.992 --> 00:46:24.398 - There's so much here. I'm almost- Why don't you call us and just let our council colleagues tell us 00:46:24.398 --> 00:46:30.869 - a little bit about, you know, things like, and it's both about her and that she's already been asked 00:46:30.869 --> 00:46:37.211 - questions and talked about some of these core questions of recycling and toxic, freeze and shower. 00:46:37.211 --> 00:46:40.798 - And sorry, the last thing I would also just really want 00:46:40.898 --> 00:46:46.806 - Part of what we've been looking at here also is taking into account all of the other economic factors 00:46:46.806 --> 00:46:52.772 - across the community, across the state, across the nation. So that's also probably why we haven't been 00:46:52.772 --> 00:46:58.680 - talking about it as much. No one expected fuel prices to start spiking in February like they have. So 00:46:58.680 --> 00:47:04.472 - when we look at these numbers, I always keep that in the back of my mind. Great. Is it all right if 00:47:04.472 --> 00:47:10.206 - we can go first? What was your question? And is it still helpful for me to share the screen there? 00:47:12.962 --> 00:47:24.568 - Go ahead, Isabelle. I'll just leave this for you. I'm surprised to hear Adam say that in 2023, you got 00:47:24.568 --> 00:47:35.837 - a great deal for the recycling rates, especially the recycling rates, because in December 2024, the 00:47:35.837 --> 00:47:38.654 - Waste Reduction District 00:47:39.042 --> 00:47:46.786 - got proposals from Rumpke where they actually pay for some of the recyclable materials. And that's the 00:47:46.786 --> 00:47:54.756 - contract the waste reduction district currently has. And we are still not getting paid for any recyclable 00:47:54.756 --> 00:48:02.350 - materials as far as I know. So I'm skeptical that we're actually getting the best contract we can as 00:48:02.350 --> 00:48:04.606 - far as the cost of recycling. 00:48:06.978 --> 00:48:14.640 - Rumpke put in at the bit at that time, we can revisit, but on the overall recycling commodities market 00:48:14.640 --> 00:48:22.302 - based on what you're paying for processing, is it a net positive at the district? Or is it that you're 00:48:22.302 --> 00:48:29.890 - just getting it for a certain material? This is for commingle. It's just for certain materials. Yeah, 00:48:29.890 --> 00:48:33.758 - ours is that the big difference is we're commingle. 00:48:33.890 --> 00:48:41.893 - it has to be processed, whereas the waste reduction district has self-sorted. So your most valuable 00:48:41.893 --> 00:48:50.057 - material there, probably your metals, your steel or cardboard are completely separated. And it's just 00:48:50.057 --> 00:48:58.300 - a completely different scenario with having separated versus co-mingled. The cost to us isn't actually 00:48:58.300 --> 00:49:02.782 - processing it to be put on the market for reuse. I see. 00:49:03.778 --> 00:49:11.521 - OK, well, it's something to keep in mind maybe for the future. Our policy of co-mingling. Because what 00:49:11.521 --> 00:49:19.264 - you did used to separate locally, at least to a greater degree. And we do now. Thank you. I would step 00:49:19.264 --> 00:49:26.857 - away in a minute or two. This is very helpful. And if you're here yourselves, I'd put away briefly a 00:49:26.857 --> 00:49:30.014 - few of the questions. I think in my mind, 00:49:30.914 --> 00:49:36.706 - Drawing on general fund or additional non-user fees for recycling as kind of a public good is okay up 00:49:36.706 --> 00:49:42.101 - to a point. I think there's some balance there and I think that's a good conversation to have. 00:49:42.101 --> 00:49:47.325 - More broadly, I still generally support the idea of user fees covering all costs, including 00:49:47.325 --> 00:49:53.402 - cattle replacement costs. We haven't talked much about what is essentially another form of cross-subsidies 00:49:53.402 --> 00:49:58.910 - that are drawing on admin funds or people replacement funds. And again, the reason for all that, 00:49:59.106 --> 00:50:05.023 - quick AI research, a little more than 50% of buildings and houses maybe get this service. And the other 00:50:05.023 --> 00:50:11.111 - 47% don't because they live in multi-family, including myself and many others, including owner, architect, 00:50:11.111 --> 00:50:17.142 - and director. And just from a fairness perspective, both of the multi-family are often disproportionately 00:50:17.142 --> 00:50:23.230 - lower income, more income constraints. We know that in our affordable housing context. And so it's hidden, 00:50:23.230 --> 00:50:24.254 - but the idea that 00:50:24.514 --> 00:50:30.852 - folks are paying taxes that are going to a service that is not something I generally support. There 00:50:30.852 --> 00:50:37.444 - are some things that are really well suited to user fees. This is one of them. But I think not so much. 00:50:37.444 --> 00:50:44.162 - I think the most important benchmark for me is trying to avoid major price shocks. So yes, getting things 00:50:44.162 --> 00:50:47.838 - is probably a good idea. And second... Oh, I think the... 00:50:48.002 --> 00:50:54.833 - Looking to what private service costs and what our other, you know, city residents and, you know, neighbors 00:50:54.833 --> 00:51:01.284 - in the county are paying is a relevant figure to be looking at. So not just like relative to what the 00:51:01.284 --> 00:51:07.989 - status quo is or what we're doing now, but actually relative to what it costs. So those are my two cents. 00:51:07.989 --> 00:51:14.440 - Sorry again, I have to follow up. We do have data points on some of the private haulers from at least 00:51:14.440 --> 00:51:17.982 - I think in January or February, so we can update those. 00:51:18.274 --> 00:51:24.647 - So I need to look up right now when I pay for this. So I really take that point to heart. It does feel 00:51:24.647 --> 00:51:30.897 - awkward when we ask people to pay a fee for something that they don't use. But I would just say that 00:51:30.897 --> 00:51:37.146 - in taxes, that is how it works. You know, if you don't have children, you're still paying for a PCS. 00:51:37.146 --> 00:51:43.396 - You don't need the library, but you're still paying with that. Those things are very, very different 00:51:43.396 --> 00:51:47.294 - than a parking garage or a... They are. In my mind, sanitation 00:51:47.426 --> 00:51:53.047 - having a clean city is a very high priority for most residents. And so they would consider like, 00:51:53.047 --> 00:51:59.247 - if we said, and to think about, you know, our sanitation team goes out, for example, cleans up the parkway 00:51:59.247 --> 00:52:05.158 - after it's closed. And when it's closed, they do that when they know. And so those are costs that our 00:52:05.158 --> 00:52:11.010 - sanitation costs that everyone pays into and everyone benefits from. So it's not just picking up the 00:52:11.010 --> 00:52:15.646 - trash and residents, our sanitation crews are picking up the trash and cleaning 00:52:15.938 --> 00:52:23.695 - We do all the parks, we do all the pedestrians. There's some other things. Yeah, yeah. Thanks Matt. 00:52:23.695 --> 00:52:32.151 - So on that point as a follow-up, thanks Matt, see ya. Ken, is there a way to kind of separate the sanitation 00:52:32.151 --> 00:52:40.141 - budget into like the cost for the curbside pickup versus the cost for those other communities? We have 00:52:40.141 --> 00:52:45.726 - some general, I mean, we could do some general numbers on there because 00:52:46.178 --> 00:52:54.383 - you know we can we can we can parse out some of that but they're um where we're not going to be able 00:52:54.383 --> 00:53:02.751 - to do we we would track the barrel truck differently than the other trucks in terms of the way we pull 00:53:02.751 --> 00:53:11.444 - tickets for the landfill so i was worried about that we wouldn't be able to actually pull out the tonnages 00:53:11.444 --> 00:53:15.262 - exactly on how much we're picking a lot of the 00:53:15.458 --> 00:53:22.438 - and sanitation is the disposal cost of the tonnages you're actually picking up. We use a separate truck 00:53:22.438 --> 00:53:29.284 - for that, but we also do sometimes use it for additional pickups or other things that would bleed in. 00:53:29.284 --> 00:53:36.667 - But we can get a close estimate would be possible. OK. And then kind of similarly in terms of just separating 00:53:36.667 --> 00:53:42.238 - costs out. And I'm sure I feel like this one at least should be easier to be like, 00:53:42.466 --> 00:53:48.909 - How much is the static cost of like staff for running the curbside routes? Because that is a number 00:53:48.909 --> 00:53:55.353 - that I'm interested in. And just kind of the question that I had attached to that is what would the 00:53:55.353 --> 00:54:01.861 - impact be if we shifted something with routing? So for example, right now we pick up recycling every 00:54:01.861 --> 00:54:05.598 - week. What if we only pick up recycling every other week? 00:54:06.178 --> 00:54:14.854 - what kind of impact would that have on the sanitation? Other than the heart palpitations I just had. 00:54:14.854 --> 00:54:23.530 - That's the kind of thing that I'm like, you know, shouldn't because I mean, now disposal cost is one 00:54:23.530 --> 00:54:32.378 - thing, but salaries and manpower cost is another thing. Absolutely. In terms of that. And so like, are 00:54:32.378 --> 00:54:36.158 - there ways to do something with the routes? 00:54:36.642 --> 00:54:42.444 - how do we recycle this gap? I find that when we get into these discussions, what often happens is we 00:54:42.444 --> 00:54:48.360 - leap over to philosophical questions of how much should we charge? Should it be completely subsidized? 00:54:48.360 --> 00:54:54.277 - Should we charge the result and go straight to, couldn't we do things better to prevent these problems 00:54:54.277 --> 00:55:00.079 - from ever arising? And I think those are great questions to explore, but they're very detailed. And, 00:55:00.079 --> 00:55:06.110 - you know, with somebody having negotiated the Aspen contract earlier this year, and some of those folks, 00:55:06.466 --> 00:55:12.074 - it's really important to understand that when you talk about staffing, like, yes, we can count up, these 00:55:12.074 --> 00:55:17.522 - are the hours spent on this system, that is the cost, but what you're not counting is, because we did 00:55:17.522 --> 00:55:23.236 - that, this other work that had to be done that takes however long it takes, now there's OT being approved. 00:55:23.236 --> 00:55:28.737 - And where does that OT live? Does the overtime live with the other stuff, or does it live, because the 00:55:28.737 --> 00:55:33.918 - overtime happens because of the totality of the work you're doing, not a particular job, per se. 00:55:34.146 --> 00:55:39.809 - So I just caution us to maybe we can find solutions by, you know, like, well, we'll just cut down on 00:55:39.809 --> 00:55:45.416 - staff time in this one area because it can have these unforeseen ripple effects. So the more we can 00:55:45.416 --> 00:55:51.191 - focus our conversation on, you know, if yes, we think it's okay to charge people for everything, solve 00:55:51.191 --> 00:55:57.246 - that problem how you will, or no, we don't think it's okay. I think the suggestion of subsidized recycling, 00:55:57.246 --> 00:56:03.582 - for example, is a really great, that's a really great point for a thoughtful tool to use in our number question. 00:56:04.066 --> 00:56:11.162 - personally have to actually have number crunching attached to philosophical stuff. And so especially 00:56:11.162 --> 00:56:18.328 - with that question of, you know, should we charge for recycling? Like what would the budgetary impact 00:56:18.328 --> 00:56:25.424 - be if we charge for recycling versus crop recycling services in some way, right? And then like, what 00:56:25.424 --> 00:56:28.094 - does that look like? Because, I mean, 00:56:28.642 --> 00:56:34.164 - I think philosophically, it would be great to pay for everything all the time. But that's not actually 00:56:34.164 --> 00:56:39.739 - practical, which means that for any of my philosophical answers, I have to have some mathematical stuff 00:56:39.739 --> 00:56:45.368 - to live with it. So that inquiry was related to that philosophical question, because part of it is like, 00:56:45.368 --> 00:56:50.728 - well, how much does the recycling piece of that take? Because it's not like you just send one truck 00:56:50.728 --> 00:56:56.250 - around that picks up the trash in the recycling. You have two trucks running that route. And the point 00:56:56.250 --> 00:56:57.054 - is, these guys 00:56:57.250 --> 00:57:02.983 - have looked at routing software. Routing is something they work on all the time. It's their area specialty. 00:57:02.983 --> 00:57:08.345 - So when we ask them, can you do routing better? I think that's maybe not the most productive line of 00:57:08.345 --> 00:57:14.184 - conversation. I'm not asking if they can be routing better though. I'm asking if there's something different. 00:57:14.184 --> 00:57:19.652 - And I'm kind of assuming that they already explored this because I feel like I remember a conversation 00:57:19.652 --> 00:57:25.438 - last year where you've already looked at some of those possibilities of different kind of scheduled pickups. 00:57:25.762 --> 00:57:31.852 - and what kind of impact that would be. And that was something that, I mean, I remember having 00:57:31.852 --> 00:57:38.784 - that conversation with somebody last year in terms of like, is there something that we can do differently? 00:57:38.784 --> 00:57:45.392 - And so that's, I guess. I don't recall ever being asked to analyze reducing the weeks of recycling to 00:57:45.392 --> 00:57:52.454 - go to a bi-weekly instead of a weekly. I don't know that we've ever really run those numbers. They shouldn't 00:57:52.454 --> 00:57:54.462 - be too hard to run, but again, 00:57:54.722 --> 00:58:06.821 - The hard palpitations I get with the idea of reducing recycling by 50% over the year is it won't meet 00:58:06.821 --> 00:58:17.022 - our customers' needs. We have a very heavy recycling community. Their carts are full. 00:58:17.506 --> 00:58:25.194 - the impact it would have on a customer base as much as anything that I think it's just such a heavily 00:58:25.194 --> 00:58:32.958 - used service that- People would put it in the trash. The cycle is in the trash as well. Yeah. So yeah, 00:58:32.958 --> 00:58:40.872 - that's kind of just generally how I think of it. But we can also explore. I can't remember that. I don't 00:58:40.872 --> 00:58:45.470 - think it was with you. It may have been with that, actually. 00:58:46.786 --> 00:58:55.022 - We'll be preparing one of our meetings last year. But it was just that exploration. I don't mean to 00:58:55.022 --> 00:59:03.423 - give you part computations, but that has to be, you know, a conversation in terms of like reducing it 00:59:03.423 --> 00:59:11.660 - also. Isabel? Yes, I wanted to go back to the spreadsheet because there's a part of it that I don't 00:59:11.660 --> 00:59:16.766 - understand. So at the bottom where you have the red headings, 00:59:16.994 --> 00:59:28.868 - um, expenses 2026 and 27. Um, and then you have the difference in revenue and expense. So, like, if 00:59:28.868 --> 00:59:40.149 - we look at 2027, um, you know, if with the theoretical rate increases, um, you would have, uh, 00:59:40.149 --> 00:59:45.374 - expenses of 6.2 million, um, revenues of 6. 00:59:45.986 --> 00:59:54.205 - seven million, so you'd actually be making half a million dollars or I guess. Also to keep maintaining 00:59:54.205 --> 01:00:02.184 - the cash fund that we need to for this. Help me understand. I'll say the wrong type of fund that it 01:00:02.184 --> 01:00:10.164 - is. Well, yeah. In particular, because the sanitation fund is a fund that has salaries, you need to 01:00:10.164 --> 01:00:12.318 - be able to maintain enough 01:00:12.418 --> 01:00:18.813 - operating balance so that January 1st, you can still pay the employees. If all you were buying was stuff, 01:00:18.813 --> 01:00:24.967 - you could hold off on purchases. Any fund that has salaries, any non-reverting fund that has salaries 01:00:24.967 --> 01:00:31.121 - is going to have to have a sufficient cash balance. Another big thing to note about these figures and 01:00:31.121 --> 01:00:35.646 - these numbers, and I alluded to it earlier about the capital expenditures, 01:00:35.842 --> 01:00:43.620 - These numbers fully fund our capital needs based on best management practices. The life cycle for a 01:00:43.620 --> 01:00:51.630 - sanitation truck should be seven years. We average 10 to 12. Sometimes our sanitation trucks have made 01:00:51.630 --> 01:00:59.564 - it 15 or 18 years. It's not ideal the longer you wait to replace capital, the more you're spending on 01:00:59.564 --> 01:01:05.630 - maintenance. This model does continue to try to fully fund the capital needs. 01:01:05.890 --> 01:01:14.971 - which is a huge part of what this budget needs as well. Okay. Is there a percentage that needs to be 01:01:14.971 --> 01:01:24.141 - maintained as cash balance or is it customized for this is what you have with your employees? I think 01:01:24.141 --> 01:01:33.581 - it's based on those salary figures that Jeff was referring to, but we can double check. 25 to 30 percent 01:01:33.581 --> 01:01:34.750 - is standard. 01:01:35.682 --> 01:01:46.588 - Okay, thank you. I have questions. No, I just say that, you know, I'm old enough to, you know, remember 01:01:46.588 --> 01:01:57.495 - and regret that we ever closed our wind field because we've always been old, you know, callers. I mean, 01:01:57.495 --> 01:02:05.150 - that's obviously related to, you know, field costs and things like that. 01:02:05.794 --> 01:02:13.343 - I think that probably, unless it's changed dramatically, we still have 40% of the weight occupied by 01:02:13.343 --> 01:02:21.190 - organic material. We haven't done enough. I don't think that's a solid waste mixture to some more recent 01:02:21.190 --> 01:02:29.113 - study than what we did back in 2017. So if we could reduce that use around, if we could have a composting 01:02:29.113 --> 01:02:34.718 - program where people could, that might reduce some of the weighting volume 01:02:35.394 --> 01:02:42.622 - There are other hazards of that, of course, rodents among them, if people don't do it correctly. But 01:02:42.622 --> 01:02:49.993 - I know other communities do it. They're trying to reduce the volume in there for the rodent. I saw the 01:02:49.993 --> 01:02:57.150 - stats that Indiana has produces more waste per capita than any other state in Michigan. We have the 01:02:57.150 --> 01:03:05.022 - best stats in Indiana. Now, it probably doesn't apply to Bloomington. It's probably gonna change in any case. 01:03:05.410 --> 01:03:13.020 - So I appreciate the data and I'm just mulling over. You're obviously caught in. It's a tough one to 01:03:13.020 --> 01:03:20.630 - unpack. One of my questions also is, you mentioned the system modernization and the chance of being 01:03:20.630 --> 01:03:28.317 - more expensive. Has that saved on health costs and injury costs and all that kind of stuff? And have 01:03:28.317 --> 01:03:35.166 - you looked at that like balance each other out? So I remember that being like part of the 01:03:35.330 --> 01:03:41.482 - debate at the time or the reasoning at the time. Yeah. Absolutely. Part of the reason we want to invest 01:03:41.482 --> 01:03:47.516 - in those sidearm trucks is because it reduces the physical labor that goes into actually dumping cans 01:03:47.516 --> 01:03:53.550 - and such. It's not an injury-free work zone by any means. It's still one of the most dangerous in the 01:03:53.550 --> 01:03:59.584 - city. But at the same time, yes, we've had less serious injuries. We can pull numbers on the workers' 01:03:59.584 --> 01:04:03.902 - comp comparisons over time, which do show that it's helping and working. 01:04:04.098 --> 01:04:11.886 - Again, we still do have a level of, I don't know that the expectation was ever that the increased cost 01:04:11.886 --> 01:04:20.052 - of the more efficient trucks would cover all of the costs that we would see for the workers' comp insurance 01:04:20.052 --> 01:04:28.218 - or claims or things like that, but it's been a significant help, yes. Do you also see an impact in employee 01:04:28.218 --> 01:04:32.830 - satisfaction or retention or anything like that because it's 01:04:33.250 --> 01:04:39.833 - Uh, not as like strenuous or like, I don't know that we have anything but anecdotal information there, 01:04:39.833 --> 01:04:46.224 - but, um, yeah. Uh, I mean, Bobby and Mikey have been there 36 years. Um, we've got, we've got staff 01:04:46.224 --> 01:04:52.999 - that we've got a lot of long time staff that are at sanitation that have been there for many, many years. 01:04:52.999 --> 01:04:59.262 - Um, we tend to retain employees, uh, really well there. Uh, we don't have excessive turnover. Um, 01:04:59.586 --> 01:05:08.621 - I think if you ask some of the team that were there before we went to this newer system, the strain 01:05:08.621 --> 01:05:17.927 - on their bodies is much less and that has to lead to better job satisfaction. Lazarus does a great job 01:05:17.927 --> 01:05:28.318 - leading the team and from a morale perspective, it's strong, so yeah. So we've got lots of revenue numbers but not 01:05:28.866 --> 01:05:36.234 - Well, there are some offenses. We have a breakdown of expenses. If not, we can get them to and they're 01:05:36.234 --> 01:05:43.387 - all in the data portal and. Another one of those things that can be easily pulled out. I'll talk to 01:05:43.387 --> 01:05:50.612 - my friend, the controller, and we can. I mean, they're going to be in the form of budget line. Yeah, 01:05:50.612 --> 01:05:57.694 - that item is not, you know, for example, the expenses of taking, you know, 35 pound toters versus. 01:05:57.826 --> 01:06:06.493 - in the standard budget. We can do some kind of expense categorization. What are our disposal costs? 01:06:06.493 --> 01:06:15.160 - What are our recycling costs? What are our fuel costs? What are we going to blame? I'm going to ask 01:06:15.160 --> 01:06:23.827 - you. I don't know. OK. Oh, I agree. All right. Let's look at the questions on desirable outcomes to 01:06:23.827 --> 01:06:27.294 - charge for recycling. Do any of us here 01:06:27.618 --> 01:06:37.804 - weren't really charged for recycling right now in terms of as well or favor. It's probably good then 01:06:37.804 --> 01:06:48.292 - we should subsidize. I would not like to. My preference is not to. I mean, maybe a small fee, but yeah, 01:06:48.292 --> 01:06:56.158 - I don't. I think we should continue to subsidize it. I would agree with that. 01:06:57.666 --> 01:07:07.720 - I would also agree with what Matt said about bathing could be important. And should we have, do the 01:07:07.720 --> 01:07:18.176 - folks here want to have the goal of completely eliminating the subsidy for sanitation in general versus 01:07:18.176 --> 01:07:25.214 - just diminishing the subsidy? Do we have a thought on that right now? 01:07:28.930 --> 01:07:38.444 - Yeah, I don't know. I mean, definitely, it would have to be a phase in of the higher rates. I don't 01:07:38.444 --> 01:07:48.338 - know if we want to go as far as totally eliminating the subsidy. I mean, I think I would need more time 01:07:48.338 --> 01:07:54.142 - and data to think about that. Great. I think either way, no. 01:07:54.242 --> 01:08:01.903 - brief phase and something is raised to help cut into that, that is a starting point no matter what happens 01:08:01.903 --> 01:08:09.277 - at the end. So, okay, let's go ahead and go to public comment then. So I'm gonna stop the screen share 01:08:09.277 --> 01:08:16.508 - so that, actually maybe I will keep it simply because sometimes those numbers are helpful to see for 01:08:16.508 --> 01:08:20.446 - everybody. So if there's a member of the public who is 01:08:20.706 --> 01:08:30.831 - online and interested, we still don't have public in the room. Though our council is currently certainly 01:08:30.831 --> 01:08:40.860 - welcome to comment here in public. Virginia, the member of the public would like to speak to sanitation 01:08:40.860 --> 01:08:48.574 - fees. If you could raise your hands. I'm not seeing any hands raised right now. 01:08:51.490 --> 01:09:01.041 - Any other last words from members. Oh, no, I'm late for it. Okay, very grateful for your time. Oh, my, 01:09:01.041 --> 01:09:10.684 - my comment would be sanitation, you know, we've got a lot of really hard working teams and public works 01:09:10.684 --> 01:09:12.446 - sanitation work is 01:09:12.578 --> 01:09:18.862 - It's some of the hardest work we do. It's in, you know, 100 degree heat indexes the other day and then 01:09:18.862 --> 01:09:25.085 - negative 10 in the winter and 4.30 in the morning out in traffic doing really good hard work. So just 01:09:25.085 --> 01:09:31.308 - want to just send all the praise to the team that does that work. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. And I'll echo 01:09:31.308 --> 01:09:37.593 - that. And I appreciate the conversation. I think that any, any time that we have that kind of subsidy, 01:09:37.593 --> 01:09:40.094 - I think it's important to talk about it. 01:09:40.386 --> 01:09:46.033 - Um, and in the same way that like, you know, parks, the variable master planning and, and then a whole 01:09:46.033 --> 01:09:51.625 - lot of budget stuff where they kind of looked at how much they're subsidizing different pieces of the 01:09:51.625 --> 01:09:57.217 - program and then like evaluating, you know, what should be subsidized in their programming. So I just 01:09:57.217 --> 01:10:02.754 - think it's a really important conversation. They'll always have to go like, what are we subsidizing? 01:10:02.754 --> 01:10:08.236 - How much are we subsidizing and making a conscious choice to as government subsidize things that do 01:10:08.236 --> 01:10:09.278 - so. Thank you all. 01:10:09.506 --> 01:10:17.435 - Anyway, thank you guys. They're not quite adjourned yet, so they don't quite leave yet. I will not stop 01:10:17.435 --> 01:10:25.212 - the screen share because I will just throw up the schedule on the screen right now to note the things 01:10:25.212 --> 01:10:32.837 - about the future. So our next meeting is after break on July 24th. That is the day that Refinancial 01:10:32.837 --> 01:10:38.174 - is going to come back, and we're going to talk more about that stuff. 01:10:38.498 --> 01:10:45.852 - August 7th, we're going to do council business. We're going to go back to those elect official salaries 01:10:45.852 --> 01:10:53.135 - and that study. And then those are the other meeting dates that are planned. For Crosley, if you could 01:10:53.135 --> 01:10:59.358 - take note of canceling the August 21st meeting, I think that that did not get done yet. 01:10:59.810 --> 01:11:06.620 - We have this every other week schedule, but I looked at that one. You'll see there's a couple of gaps 01:11:06.620 --> 01:11:13.297 - in there. One is around Thanksgiving, and one, of course, is around Christmas and the winter break. 01:11:13.297 --> 01:11:20.107 - But the 21st date is right in the middle of our project presentation, so I was like, maybe not. Maybe 01:11:20.107 --> 01:11:27.518 - you have a meeting that day. We'll have plenty of time to talk about fiscal matters and full council meetings. 01:11:27.618 --> 01:11:34.396 - I figured that so I'm not having any data for 21st was good. Isabel, Dave, does this look all right 01:11:34.396 --> 01:11:41.581 - to you, Ruth? Okay. Oh, and I also want to note that I added these 2027 dates up here to start discussing 01:11:41.581 --> 01:11:48.427 - finalizing 2028 budget priorities, and then make sure that we have an official meeting where we have 01:11:48.427 --> 01:11:55.070 - administrative response to those 2028 budget priorities because we kind of missed that this year. 01:11:56.290 --> 01:12:01.719 - Anything else for the bit of the order right now, I feel like this was a really packed meeting. It was. 01:12:01.719 --> 01:12:07.043 - Yeah, it really was. And I suspect the one on the 24th with Lee here is going to be similarly packed. 01:12:07.043 --> 01:12:12.576 - Yeah, so I don't know if there's a way that we can schedule that one for an hour and a half, just because 01:12:12.576 --> 01:12:16.126 - it will kind of be packed. I was going to suggest that, yeah. Okay. 01:12:16.354 --> 01:12:23.732 - First of all, I do think that you could make that adjustment as well in terms of the room reservation 01:12:23.732 --> 01:12:30.965 - and the meeting time. And what do you want me to do? Have the meeting on July 24th be an hour and a 01:12:30.965 --> 01:12:38.270 - half instead of just an hour. We're going to keep that an hour because of people's regular jobs. But 01:12:38.270 --> 01:12:45.214 - I think that that would be good. OK. So July 24th. July 24th is going to be an hour and a half. 01:12:45.602 --> 01:12:52.200 - Thank you. No, I don't think that we can start earlier. Larry, I'll be there at seven. Y'all can be 01:12:52.200 --> 01:12:59.128 - there whenever you want to be there. I'll be here before you're ready. All right, we're adjourned. Thank 01:12:59.128 --> 01:13:00.382 - you all very much.