- I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll
- be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal committee to order
- on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal
- committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the
- committee and the principal committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3.
- I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll
- be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal committee to order
- on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the committee and the principal
- committee to order on June 12th, 2026. He'll be staff served District 3. I'll go ahead and call the
- committee and the principal committee to order
- Joe, we're going to give you an overview of the report today. Great. Thank you. Thank you guys for being
- here today. Special guests of the day. First of all, I want to make a note that the full packet only
- got posted last night. I'm really sorry about that. There was some communication slides that's been
- in the council office, but it is all up there now. The proposed agenda that I have, unless there's no
- objection, is we're going to hear a short report from Jeff.
- and then short report, we're going to be here now about our two dates, I think, mostly for the fall.
- Then we're going to turn it over to sanitation and talk about sanitation, just the status of physical
- assault, let's say right now, it's the Sanitation Department. Have a conversation about that, have a
- couple of comments about that, some notes about schedule updates, and then we'll adjourn.
- So unless anybody has any concerns or occupations, great. So, Jeff, you want to take it away. Thank
- you very much. I have a couple of updates for you first on the local income tax or lit process.
- You'll remember in March 13th meeting, we have presentation from we are municipal advisor and one of
- the topics was the changes in local income tax structure created by one and the 1210.
- This discussion happened immediately after the passage of HEA 1210, which featured three changes of
- major importance to cities and towns. So first, it moved the implementation of the new LIT system from
- 2028 to 2029. Second, it made larger cities less eligible for the shared municipal services rate. Formerly,
- that rate was meant only for small towns that were not eligible to adopt their own LIT rate.
- And then third, it created at the last minute, a new process called MUST, Municipal Unit Strategic Task
- Force, in which a representative from each city and town was to meet, along with the president of the
- county council. And if they could come to unanimous agreement, send the agreement to the state by October.
- At the time of our meeting, Weedy took a much more aggressive interpretation of that requirement, interpreted
- as being binding with that MUST Task Force, came to a unanimous agreement.
- And this was right after the law passed. So everybody's kind of struggling to figure out what it all
- meant. And since then, the general consensus among municipal advisors, municipal law firms, and AIM,
- our municipalities association, has evolved. And the must process is seen more clearly as just a report.
- The General Assembly, some portion there, wants to see counties and their municipalities can come to
- an agreement on income tax rates and the new system on their own.
- or if more legislation is needed. At this point, it is seen as having no binding factor law. And that
- would be a change from the way that it was described at the meeting in March. The other consensus that
- has emerged is while the statute specifies that the task force consists of the fiscal officers,
- of the cities and towns and president of county council. The process can and should be open to broader
- state court groups, in particular city and town council members, the mayor and county councilors. And
- ultimately, it's council members from counties and potentially cities, they'll have to vote to adopt
- the new literates. So AIM, our municipal association is taking leadership on providing support and data
- for the MUST process. And they're also volunteering for their analysts to participate in MUST discussions as well.
- We received some data from AIM on suggestions for lit rates that would balance the need for lit revenue
- replacement by cities and towns, with tax rates for county taxpayers. Reedy has provided us some estimates
- as well. And in fact, I had a meeting with Reedy later today to walk through their analysis. One of
- my jobs in the next couple of weeks would be to reconcile two sets of numbers so that we can have a
- coherent strategy. And I would expect that when you come back from the break, we'll have more of an
- argument for these task force discussions.
- Um, another, uh, comment on lit tax rates. We had a meeting scheduled of the joint city council public
- safety lit committee this Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, we did not have an in-person quorum, so
- could not proceed with the meeting. Um, I know county, uh, council attorney, uh, city council attorney
- Allen is working on rescheduling the meeting and I don't want to get too far ahead of the committee
- meeting itself, but the materials provided in the packet do present an option to increase
- The public safety answering point or peace app lit rate a bit to fully find a dispatch budget, which
- the rate is not done. If that process goes forward, it will come back to the entire city council for
- a public hearing. There are more materials available in the package for that meeting if you're interested
- in your council attorney is, it's kind of managing that.
- On the audit, I wanted to give you an update on the 2024 ACFR external audit process. Though it feels
- like we just did this, we're now, as of a couple of weeks ago, in the full swing of the 2025 audit.
- We, along with CBU, have received 100 requests for data and artifacts from our CRO auditors and provided
- well over 50% of the requests so far. There will be undoubtedly a lot more, but we look forward to a
- one-time completion.
- On supplemental lit, sorry, last two are for short. Supplemental lit, every year the local units of
- government receive a supplemental distribution of local income tax. When too much income tax is built
- up in the state's trust fund from collections, we recently received the 2026 supplemental distribution,
- which came out to be about $3.9 million in revenue. This is unbudgeted revenue, so it helps to make
- up some of the budgetary deficit. That's, we consider that very good news.
- and that lit is split between the general fund, the ED lit fund, and the public safety. And then finally,
- I just wanted to let everybody know that our friends from Reedy will be back at our fiscal committee
- meeting on July 24th, and we're gonna give an update on our financial plan, as well as talk again about
- local income tax issues and issues, and you'll wanna listen. Great, thanks, Judy. Thank you, that was
- very concise. Nice job, any questions, Council Member Pinoff? Yeah.
- 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
- city website or the county website or? No, it was sent out by the city. I don't know. It came out of
- city council office. I don't know whether Mr. Allen sent it or Mr. Wagoner. Okay. I'll have to, I guess
- I missed that in the emails. So you said there's a chance to,
- increase the PSAP rate to cover the full expanse of central dispatch? Correct. OK. I would really love
- a conversation with you and I. I think we texted about that. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm happy to brief you
- in more detail. Like I said, I didn't want to get too far ahead of the meeting. This should have been
- a detailed conversation at the committee meeting. OK, I'll get in touch. Thank you. Thanks, Sam.
- Thank you. Just briefly, you mentioned that we're going to reconcile numbers. Were you referring to
- the AEM recommendations around revenue replacement strategy? Any questions? Are the AEM numbers public
- or does it mean they're working directly with the state? Yeah, I don't think that's public yet. Any
- other questions?
- Thank you. Congrats. Hey, so as usual, you know, the board. No, are you going to talk about the dates
- first? I'll share those on the screen if you are. Yeah, we can do that. So I wanted to talk a little
- bit about our budget process because we will be the numbers part of building the budget has already
- been long ago and the part where we actually make
- memos and write things that go together to make that accessible is sort of the end phase, but that also
- happens largely, starts happening while you all are out. So I thought it would be good to talk about
- some ideas about process here. These draft budget dates, which I think lots and lots of our surveys
- are also in the packet. A lot of these are internal that are more for me reminders when we get things to
- council offices, our presentation nights, and then every year we do attempts to set a deadline for a
- cutoff date or a time for council questions, and that just helps our staff dig in. I'm happy that Mr.
- Allen is back on staff. Maybe he can revert us back to the questions that we used in 2024, which I think
- was really effective, and last year we had lots of center sheets, and I think that was a little frustrating
- for everybody, so excited about that.
- So in terms of, I want to talk a little bit about the order of presentations and the philosophy I used
- for that, and take any questions, comments, feedback, nothing set in stone here. And then talk about
- priorities from your memo and the numbers that control the amount of evidence that we take within the
- data. So now we're in the dates. We are in the dates.
- scroll back up there, yes, we're going to look at these nights here on Wednesday, so be subscribed to
- the top of our links. So, you know, thinking about what order do people present, and here are some of
- the considerations I put into it. One is to cluster like things as much as possible. Another is to put
- the easiest material at the end, because we're all tired at the end, and so I think it behooves us to
- put the least controversial items on our last night.
- And then third, to try to distribute the time evenly or fairly evenly so that we don't have America
- all night in a really short time. And there's always, we're the world of how you can move things around
- in here, but here's where my opening stab at this. We usually have a little front matter and
- front introductions. That's the office of the mayor introduction, the controller introduction. I don't
- know why my computer is being so like manic today.
- Fire, police, and city party often present on the same night together, and I think that's worked out
- in the past. I think since housing is the top priority for everyone, that would be great to put that
- on night one as well. And if we don't, it will make some of the other nights much longer, since that's
- a longer presentation. And then flustered on the Wednesday of week one are a lot of the kind
- of infrastructure related
- um divisions and I always want to apologize to public works you have so many divisions you end up getting
- spread out over multiple months I tried to contain the damage so you only have to be there twice but
- still uh I think street and parking uh probably would make sense to talk about in the context of engineering
- uh some of the other kind of concerns we have we too parks ESD the parks always has a big budget and
- then all of the rest of uh public works and then saving our um
- internal offices and a CID for the last night. Now, one change I'm suggesting here, last year, so in
- our first year, I understand it's been tradition for the Housing Authority and Living in Transit to
- present during our budget season, and I really think that creates confusion for the public because when
- you vote, you are not actually voting to approve their budgets. Their budgets, they're separate entities,
- their budgets are already approved.
- It's just awkward. And it's not that those organizations would love to come and do a whole report to
- you and take questions about what they're doing. But I don't know that it belongs in the city budget.
- Last year, we left in Bloomington Transit because they do have received $3.8 million in money from ESD.
- But another framework for looking at this is what are the numbers that we actually vote on that we actually
- have to upload?
- to the state and BT's numbers, their own internal logic is not part of that. And ESD of course does
- have the last year of that BT matter is in for our 2027 budget. So if everyone is agreeable to that,
- John Collin will be at Wilmington Transit would be delighted to have him do a presentation for you at
- another time. And that might be more satisfying in fact, to get a little bit more into other things
- than just the numbers that have already been approved by another entity.
- So if we want to talk about that, that order, and if anyone has any thoughts, ideas, concerns,
- we can do that, or we can talk about priorities and then come back and talk about it all. What are your
- concerns? Do we have any comments on each order? All looks fine to me, and I have no problems hearing
- from Transit and VHA at another time. I'm just trying to believe in a manual report process after it
- The money piece is helpful, like maybe on the day for their going through their practices. Yeah. Is
- about any comments on order. So, all right. Thank you. That will help everybody plan their PTO to know
- what next day are presenting.
- Great. I'll go ahead and stop the screen share since I think that there's nothing else in the packet
- about what you're talking about, Max, is that correct? There's just that list that was at the bottom
- of the schedule. Sorry. Oh, that's okay. So what Controller McKim and I did was look through, we did
- it separately in our notes, look through the list of the
- budget priorities memo that council sent on April 1st, and look for the items that number one are actually
- reflected in the annual budget. And two, then to look at what areas are possible knowing limits of our
- county system that we're looking downgrade to present numbers. So,
- Uh, for example, maintenance and enhancement of city assets, which is one of our top concerns as well
- as councils and I believe also the public. So really excited to see that on that. There's lots of numbers
- on that. Sometimes they are hard in our current format to understand. Uh, and just as one example,
- you know, if you're working on a road, asphalt is a cost, but there's also labor and other costs. And
- those things are, uh, hard to separate out from our budget into the program. So we're going to.
- do our best to present some numbers on all of those things that relate to maintenance and enhancement
- of city assets, which on the other side is called assets. Homelessness, that was your number two request,
- and that's also, of course, everyone's concern. And it's important to understand that we have kind of
- two different kinds of spending over ways that funds the inside of the city, and there's some overlap over
- housing and homelessness programs that are difficult to track. So is eviction prevention, it's homelessness,
- but there are also other housing issues, things we do for housing to try to prevent people from losing
- their homes in the first place. So there's a little gray area between preventative housing type actions,
- funds to other organizations that do the hands-on work or often
- very often non-budgetary work, such as the mayor's work with other organizations to write grants that
- then secure extra case manager grants. That money doesn't come to us, but the city is very involved
- in making that happen. So that's not a budget issue, but it's still something we might like to understand.
- And then finally, there are a lot of expenses at the city for mitigating just the impacts of homelessness
- on the community, whether those are
- our plumbliness grants to businesses that are experiencing some waste issues, or the Port-au-Lat, which
- is also part of that effort, other things like that, that are not root cause, not standing on root objects,
- that need to help our community, regarding this national crisis. So next on our list, transportation.
- uh, and implementation of state safe streets for all. Uh, one of the things we're going to expand this
- year, last year on the transportation memo, we had sort of created a little grid showing, uh, the stages
- of transportation projects from study, design, build, and maintain. And those span different,
- uh, departments. You have planning, doing study, engineering, doing design, engineering, supervising,
- build, and then of course public works.
- does main mixes, so we're going to try to flesh that out more this year and tie it to, as we can, how
- are the lists of projects that are in those phases determined? Which plans are they committed to so
- that there's a source you can see a base to save streets for all, you know, item one from the table.
- And there will be, I think the main piece of it is the fuzziest part. There are lots of different qualities
- for that, lots of different ways of approaching that. And I think some of that is very close to time,
- of course, to assets maintenance and enhancement. So as we get through that, it's going to be a mess.
- So bear with us as we sort that out. Housing, economic development.
- And so let's see. So going back to your priorities list, your number three item was zero traffic fatalities
- or serious injuries. That's where we get identification as an item on here. And snowball removal,
- particularly the outsource snowball removal that we piloted this year, those types of expenses with
- Elmer housing issue number four item.
- address and reduce systemic inequities. So this is a broad category, but we do have, last year we gave
- you some data on the money that the city gives out for grant programs and for organizational support
- and sponsorships. And we find that a little bit this year to include some more of the scholarships,
- assistance, other kinds of programs.
- that we do to make sure that folks have equal access to services and what they need. So there's some
- good numbers we've already collected on that. Economic, strong inclusivity on local economy, which are
- number six priority. Those are, of course, very long term projects. It's hard to put numbers on those,
- but we do have those numbers from ESC and what we'd be spending there.
- Food safety, security networks, we do have a couple items there that we do have programs that some of
- our departments on, folks, see if they're getting the CMA physical experience, so we'll pull those out
- for you. Air quality is maintained at a high level. That's not a budgetary thing we track, but we did
- add climate as a note there because last year, controlling the flow and separating DSC's target in a
- nice way. And I think just as a side note, a really useful
- exercise for the administration that would be very helpful would be, I mean, perhaps we'd see it later
- in the day. So look at the detail of the climate budget because it's a very large budget and it has
- a lot of programs. And as I look through them, they're very different kinds of programs. And some of
- them are going to be highlighted and said, it doesn't work so well, we're going to stop that. Others,
- Shania has really found great ways to implement those in their own straw. But I would really love to
- get some feedback, especially from the council members who are
- who have cited this as an important answer on which of those programs do you value the most? Should
- we be thinking about, especially if all of those programs are funded by ULIT, when that money goes away,
- it will be really important to understand what is the most crucial piece, pieces of this mix of programming.
- green and vibrant third places, neighborhood hubs. Obviously we've just had our urban legislations passed,
- 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
- that. And then waste reduction, of course, we've got sanitation right here, but that is likely not to
- be a separate pulled out, other than the sanitation data that we talked about today in our thesis. That
- was your last response. So that's how we boiled, kind of went through your list and said, what can we track?
- what has budgetary numbers that are in there. Again, these are not things that are tagged separately
- in our accounting system. So it's not like a controller thing. You can just press a button and it spits
- out, oh, here's what we're setting on all of this. It is a manual process and it will be manual and
- involve also our department heads and division leaders having to go back and pull out some
- of the spreadsheets that used to manage programs and help us find what we can find. So we're gonna do
- our share of the best. So that's the final.
- Great. Questions from cast members about that? Yeah, so one of our priorities was creating vibrant third
- spaces. I wonder if we could get a rundown of how much was spent and how much is planned to be spent
- on activating Kirkwood. I think you already have that in the original packet that ESD submitted
- earlier this year about Kirkwood. I think there's quite a lot of data in there about what has been spent
- in the past. If you, we can certainly dig that up and add to it, but of course things will have to change.
- So, and we'll need to find, you know, you know, as we, as we look, we all know last year we, which said,
- you know, no new requests unless we say where we're going to cut it. And it will certainly be true this
- year as our controller has passed us to keep the budget as flat as possible in line with what's coming.
- So anything we add at this point, it is cutting for something else. So those are some of the other things
- we'll need to discuss is when there are things we want to do that are new or increase funding, where's
- the best place to cut that from? And so we'll have to present some options on that. That's what I was
- saying. Okay, yeah, I mean, I guess I was hoping to see how much was spent this year and in other years
- when Kirkwood was closed.
- so that we get a sense of the minimum that would need to be spent next year. Well, as I said, I think
- you can look in the packet that was provided to council once when the legislation originally came, not
- this current legislation, but the previous one, and ESD had provided a lot of numbers about that, and
- I'm sure they have more. But again, there is not in the accounting system a button that says what expenses
- 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
- of the presentation at budget season.
- to look at next year. So we'll bring as much data as we can. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I have a few
- questions. We don't need to dwell here too long. I know this, but you say, I agree to what are probably
- requests or increases of what else is coming down. Does that also apply to the administration in our
- role we see?
- where you all have added new things or increased things, if that's the case, will we understand or see
- what you all have cut? We can work on that. Every, when we submit, when each department and of course
- council also submits budgets, so you can look at that process, but when you submit your budget, when
- there's an increase in the line or a decrease, you do have to explain why. And I think for a lot of
- 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,
- actual trend instead of what you hope you might send. And that counts for not just things like office
- supplies, but also grants. If you have a grant program and you just don't get enough applications for
- it historically, then maybe you don't really put as much money in it because it's not getting the traction
- it needs. Or maybe it's a really not equal program that you need to advertise for. So there is a list
- by that, but it is quite granular. Sometimes it's easy to see when it's, for example,
- make up. Let's say we had a program called Gretchen's Fashion Grants and we wanted to cut it $500,000.
- That's easy to track because it's probably one line, but for something like building maintenance, those
- costs are spread out over many store lines and it's a little harder to see. But yes, short answer, yes.
- Finish with the best burger.
- And just to add on to that, we will be, one thing that we definitely are seeing throughout the budgets
- is an increase in utilities of all kinds, including preparing for CMU increases as the similar rate
- cases pass, and then also liability insurance. So there is sort of a base of a new system that don't
- represent a change in priorities that just kind of reflect the cost of doing business.
- And in the climate and the structures that we have to get in the department heads, some departments
- are more impacted by that than others. And when we ask them to keep a flat budget, but for example,
- asphalt is a petroleum product, and so when gas goes up, so it's asphalt, it makes it into a challenge
- for them to keep a flat budget. One other thing, which is, we haven't wheeled around as much recently,
- but the notion of outcome-based budgeting, which
- we have committed to, but not yet achieved. And I know there's some various barriers to that. And I'll
- say from my perspective, measuring what we spend on things is largely measuring the front end of a logic
- model of inputs or the resources. And then it's what we, you know, so inputs are the resources,
- the funding, staff time, what we do with those things, the activities, the outputs, the things we produce,
- and then the outcomes, what we actually achieved. And, you know, that's where,
- where it gets to our plans and things like reduced deaths and serious injuries on our streets or reduced
- emissions and pollution and things like that. Lots of other outcomes too. And we've talked about how
- we have plans for some of these things with goals, but they are kind of all over the board and how they're
- structured. Some of them are smart goals, some of them aren't, et cetera. Other areas where we just
- don't have at least shared legislative, administrative plans and goals.
- And I'm just curious for you all, you're all, like, I'm less interested in how much we're spending on
- a priority area versus what the impact we're achieving is, what the outcomes we're achieving are relative
- to our expectations and goals. And I know that's not an easy fix, and that would be a bit of work to
- do still to think about what that could look like, but how are you all thinking about that beyond just,
- again, kind of measuring the reporting on inputs
- or resources around priority areas can actually be cut out of them in that necklace. Well,
- I think characterization is a great area to kind of look at an example of that. So my feeling is for
- us to understand the outcomes, in order to understand the outcomes, you first have to currently have
- what we want, the gap between what we think we want versus what we have. We have to understand our current
- state. And so the first step would be understanding how much are we actually spending on sidewalk repair,
- for example.
- And how much does that get us versus what is the need that we have? And so when we talk about tracking
- some of these numbers from priorities, tying it to our plans, I think the hidden step in there is where
- we have things that oftentimes divisions are already tracking, the effectiveness of those programs to
- share that information and make that transparent. So we understand that if we were to, for example,
- add $100,000 to sidewalk repair, what does that get us? And would that be transformative or is that
- sitting in the ocean
- and not work together to make something else. So I think we're on the same page. I just think that we
- have a lot more education at the starting point that included life. And so I think it's premature to,
- we have finance, we have the numbers, we all don't have quite enough transparency on those numbers to
- really understand what is our money currently getting us. And I think once we understand that, we'll
- have a better sense of if we added more money,
- what would that do? And of course, because our public works team is sitting here, I feel obligated to
- say, there are things like weather and temperature and resource availability and staff time, even if
- you contracted out that, put limitations on things. So for example, we wanted to say, if we had enough
- money, we would take every single one of these in this year, money is not going to solve that problem, so.
- And the problem would be bigger than the rotating. So there are constraints as well. But I think that
- would be a good starting point for if this is what we're currently achieving with what we've spent all
- these part of the areas, where do we feel like we need to make more progress faster? Is that possible?
- How can we do it? Is money a solution? That's my perspective. I think that's fair. I mean, we are...
- You know, just speaking from the financial system perspective, we are definitely limited in what, how
- easy it is to pull out the kinds of data that I think, in particular, the outcomes that you're interested
- in. And so there really isn't pretty much a kind of manual exercise that involves getting outcomes and
- outputs from our departments and matching that up with the end-to-end summary of the retrieve. Yeah.
- Do you all think that,
- a, sorry, last question here. Like a uniform framework for outcomes and outputs, I guess, would be helpful,
- but across, I mentioned our plans are quite disparate, some areas they don't exist. Would it be useful
- to have a future date that we're trying to achieve maybe? Like, yeah, a uniform approach across the
- city and across departments for like how we think about outcomes and how we track the report and then
- be city to touch it.
- Yes, but it would take an incredible amount of work to get there. And then, you know, you have to wrangle
- the timeframes of various outcomes. Right, well, that's the department. Yeah, yeah. I would just say,
- you know, we've been trying to use standardization for a lot of things. And NPHR would be a great example
- of standardized OHR practices across three Hickley and several city, 15 different departments. And as
- you try to do that, there are, there's a tremendous need to make things
- more streamlined, more aligned, more consistent, and as you do it every time, you find something that
- is just so unique that it can't fit into that box. So I think that's a worthwhile effort though, and
- kind of goes to a better place too. Yeah, thanks. That's great. I would really like to try and get to
- sanitation. I see Udall's hand up. I'm waiting to see if we have any questions at all. Isabelle, is
- yours quick? Yes.
- So I just wanna make sure we're all clear in order to have a budget that is not increased, we're gonna
- have to cut things because of inflation and everything costing more and hopefully we can keep up with
- our salaries and such. So do you expect every department is going to have to make cuts?
- I will say that our instructions were to keep the supplies and services categories flat to the degree
- we could. We understand that there may be personnel costs just as people advanced in the steps. And
- if we decide that we're able to give a cost of living adjustments. So, I mean, at this point, we're
- not asking for that kind of cut. I will say just from the way I think of things, because I am concerned
- about the future,
- I kind of feel like this is a trial run to see if we can sort of hold the line of increases so that
- in the future we don't have to make more drastic cuts. But yeah, we're not asking departments at this
- point. We are looking at the efficacy of individual expenditures. I mean, the deputy mayor and I went
- through yesterday and she's gone through extensively on each budget line and we are looking at it.
- areas that might represent opportunities for savings. But no, we're not asking departments to cut personnel
- to make up for inflation for example. Great, thanks. I have a couple of questions. I might email them
- for suggestions, I guess, because part of this conversation is about how budget presentations are going
- to go in the fall. But I do need to say out loud that one of the tasks of this committee is
- to be responsible for supporting council staff with the 2026 council budget. And our council staff is
- temporary right now. So as a committee, and I kind of realized that in the middle of last week, I went,
- oh, wait a second. And so I will try to, as committee chair, making sure there's some assistance to
- our council staff around that.
- Definitely have deadlines and I know that Lisa was pretty good at meeting them. I wonder if that has
- completely fallen off the radar. It hasn't. It hasn't. It's been great. So I'll talk to you about it.
- We'll talk about it, yeah. Okay. We've been working on it. I know that, you know, just like the other
- departments, you know, we'll have to draft a memo and things like that. Yeah. It'll be helpful for you
- all. Okay. Yeah, the committee is tasked technically with helping you with that. Great. So that's perfect.
- Okay, yeah. For the people online, after the meeting started, Council Attorney Allen walked into the
- room. So, welcome. Feel free to send them the big tickles. So yeah, thank you Gretchen for that update.
- There's a lot more that we can say about that clearly, but I do want to move on over to sanitation in
- the department, because they said I started as a guy.
- They're here for a reason. And so the origin of this ask kind of started because Jeff presented the
- funds transfers and it was kind of like brought to light once again that this year the fund transfer
- for the sanitation department. I mean, it's just been ever in recent. And I remember there was some
- conversations last year about the potential need or thoughts of using sanitation fees
- But then we hadn't really heard much about that. And one of the things that we've been exploring as
- a committee is the concept that, you know, as the Facebook committee, this can be a place where there
- are discussions of fee increases and things that people have to approve for different increases and
- having those things kind of heard here in kind of exploratory cases.
- We start with sanitation. So at this point in the packet, there is a memo from Gretchen about sanitation
- prices, which is on the screen right now. And kind of asking some main questions like, is it acceptable
- and would it have desirable outcomes to charge for recycling? At what pace should we increase pricing?
- By how much each time?
- Given residents are seen and will continue to see increases in many other fees taxes and cost of living
- should be set a goal of diminishing or completely eliminating or diminishing rather completely eliminating
- the subsidy or set a longer timeline for implementation or some other option. And other factors for
- general fund support.
- saying one thing just for any members of the public that have to be watching and looking at these numbers,
- these are alarming numbers. And that's one of the reasons why we wanted to bring them to this committee
- to discuss so that there's transparency on why this problem is so hard to solve. It has a deep impact
- on our residents. This is a core city service. And so if you are, if you're a resident and you've looked
- at the packet and you're alarmed by these numbers, so are we, nothing, this is not a plea.
- This is an exploration and a reality check. And so part of why we're here talking with our colleagues
- on council is to find out what path should we pursue that we will have agreement on to make progress
- on the problem of the deepened gap of sanitation, while also providing a direct service to our residents.
- Thank you. Thank you for that clarification because it should be really clear.
- This is the deliberation. There's no plan here that's detailed. It's just kind of, I mean, I think that
- probably if you scroll to the last page of the packet, our controller put in there the transfers from
- sanitation over the last several years. And so the one this year is, you know, I mean, it's almost twice
- as much as 2025. It's not quite information for what the context is.
- Do we know roughly what percentage of households in the city receive this service? Is that the other
- big factor here in informing the idea of a general? Because some people get the service, a whole bunch
- of other people do not get the service. So no, there's never been a calculation done on the number of
- apartment units. I've never myself as public works director gone to the level of
- trying to do a detailed analysis of the number of apartment units or businesses or commercial properties,
- industrial, like across the whole community. No, I really haven't taken the unprecedented. But it's
- fair to understand, isn't it part of the rules of ordinances that if you live in a city limits,
- 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
- units that are four or less. So single-family units of four or less. So if you have a smaller apartment
- unit of four units, we'll service that. If you have one that is five, six, or a hundred or a thousand,
- we don't service. I'll talk with Anna about that a little bit more to kind of compare on the apartment
- numbers that they have and such.
- And then there is that kind of commercial and industrial component too that we don't really take into
- consideration. So, yeah, so just as a point of clarification, no, that doesn't exist currently. And,
- you know, so I guess as we kind of came into the room this morning, Hopi, Council Member Stossberg had
- said, well, you're going to lead this, right Adam? And I said, oh, okay, yeah, sure. So instead I'm
- going to turn it over to Lazarus. No, I'm totally kidding. Yeah.
- Well, so just general background here. We sent a spreadsheet with a lot of information and numbers in
- it. And it was it was mentioned earlier that, you know, we talked about this as part of the 2026 budget
- process and we haven't heard a lot since then. Last fall, we started doing a lot of work here to try
- to understand what some of the numbers would look like. So
- I want to, when it says staff proposed monthly rate, that is just the calculation we're doing. It's
- not that we're actually proposing this right now as any formal legislation. It's more of this is what
- it would need to be to start eliminating the general fund support of the sanitation division.
- So we did this. We kept the 2026 information in here as a point of reference because
- even as we've updated these numbers here in the last few months, we're still seeing volatility of sanitation,
- fuel prices, tonnages, capital purchasing prices, et cetera. And so what these numbers kind of show
- is over time, what would it look like with ever increasing costs to actually eliminate the subsidy or
- support to the sanitation budget overall?
- currently for 2026. Let me pull up some numbers here. We are at 43% on expenditures year to date based
- on what we looked at this week on our current operational year. That is
- a good indication of that we're on track, but I'm also still very concerned with fuel prices, and that
- goes across the board for all city services right now. Just can I say, please jump in whenever. On track,
- you're referring to budgeted expenditures, which include the fact that there was a transfer, a cash
- transfer from right there. Yes. Yes. Yes. One other consideration that
- Adam and I talked about that's not in here that we should think about is what is the cost of private
- service? So keeping in mind, are we charging people more or less than private service? Because obviously,
- if it can be done cheaper privately, that's a different, that tells us a little bit different. So, and
- that is not the case for me, by the way. What's outstanding is that whatever we do, that many of these
- proposals here, even though they look steep, are still cheaper than private service. So any answer to
- what our attacks are?
- dollar finance, cheaper service in the private sector? That's the answer. So just, yeah, so these, and
- want to just kind of reiterate what Deputy Mayor Knapp said, it was, these numbers are pretty alarming.
- So as we were starting to look at them in 2026, it became very clear that, you know, it is, it's a pretty
- steep increase, even though it is still less than the private sector costs that a lot of residents or,
- you know, county residents or others would pay.
- What else? So in the end, the numbers kind of are what they are in terms of these calculations, their
- projections. We also did look at our large item, our appliance, our yard waste charges as well. And
- you'll see some figures in there on what some projected revenues and things could be to help, again,
- increase revenues overall to lessen that general fund support. A couple other things to consider right now.
- The big increase that we're seeing for this year's general fund support transfer includes all of our
- capital. So if we were to purchase trucks this year, that is in that 1.6 million. So that was one of
- the big things why that number went up so high.
- To just put it simply, we cobbled together funds year after year to try to purchase the trucks that
- are needed for replacement. We used the vehicle replacement fund. We used some of the capital lines
- in our public works admin budget. And the cost of trucks are ever increasing. When we did sanitation
- modernization, we were buying trucks for around $340,000 in 2017. Most trucks at this point in time
- are $440,000 to $500,000 plus.
- The other side of this is they are the most complex maintenance, it's the most complex sleep maintenance
- division we have outside of probably street and utilities where these are, they're used every day, 4.30 a.m.
- 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
- with our fleet set rates that sanitation pays into the fleet fund.
- We also are required to keep minimum cash balances for the sanitation fund on a statewide level, just
- to have adequate reserves. And then just a few other notes. We've been really diligent with our contracting
- for waste disposal at the landfills and with our recycling processing. We locked into some rates.
- in 2023 that I think a lot of communities would really, really like to have right now. We did a contract
- then that can be renewed out through 2029 with increases simply based on CPI. So I believe we're at
- this year, maybe like $12 a ton on recycling processing fees. We've got communities in the state, they're
- paying $40 and $50 a ton. So we have really, we've made a really smart decision
- couple of years ago to build in that renewal language. And we're really glad that that exists as well.
- There's so much here. I'm almost- Why don't you call us and just let our council colleagues tell us
- a little bit about, you know, things like, and it's both about her and that she's already been asked
- questions and talked about some of these core questions of recycling and toxic, freeze and shower.
- And sorry, the last thing I would also just really want
- Part of what we've been looking at here also is taking into account all of the other economic factors
- across the community, across the state, across the nation. So that's also probably why we haven't been
- talking about it as much. No one expected fuel prices to start spiking in February like they have. So
- when we look at these numbers, I always keep that in the back of my mind. Great. Is it all right if
- we can go first? What was your question? And is it still helpful for me to share the screen there?
- Go ahead, Isabelle. I'll just leave this for you. I'm surprised to hear Adam say that in 2023, you got
- a great deal for the recycling rates, especially the recycling rates, because in December 2024, the
- Waste Reduction District
- got proposals from Rumpke where they actually pay for some of the recyclable materials. And that's the
- contract the waste reduction district currently has. And we are still not getting paid for any recyclable
- materials as far as I know. So I'm skeptical that we're actually getting the best contract we can as
- far as the cost of recycling.
- Rumpke put in at the bit at that time, we can revisit, but on the overall recycling commodities market
- based on what you're paying for processing, is it a net positive at the district? Or is it that you're
- just getting it for a certain material? This is for commingle. It's just for certain materials. Yeah,
- ours is that the big difference is we're commingle.
- it has to be processed, whereas the waste reduction district has self-sorted. So your most valuable
- material there, probably your metals, your steel or cardboard are completely separated. And it's just
- a completely different scenario with having separated versus co-mingled. The cost to us isn't actually
- processing it to be put on the market for reuse. I see.
- OK, well, it's something to keep in mind maybe for the future. Our policy of co-mingling. Because what
- you did used to separate locally, at least to a greater degree. And we do now. Thank you. I would step
- away in a minute or two. This is very helpful. And if you're here yourselves, I'd put away briefly a
- few of the questions. I think in my mind,
- Drawing on general fund or additional non-user fees for recycling as kind of a public good is okay up
- to a point. I think there's some balance there and I think that's a good conversation to have.
- More broadly, I still generally support the idea of user fees covering all costs, including
- cattle replacement costs. We haven't talked much about what is essentially another form of cross-subsidies
- that are drawing on admin funds or people replacement funds. And again, the reason for all that,
- quick AI research, a little more than 50% of buildings and houses maybe get this service. And the other
- 47% don't because they live in multi-family, including myself and many others, including owner, architect,
- and director. And just from a fairness perspective, both of the multi-family are often disproportionately
- lower income, more income constraints. We know that in our affordable housing context. And so it's hidden,
- but the idea that
- folks are paying taxes that are going to a service that is not something I generally support. There
- are some things that are really well suited to user fees. This is one of them. But I think not so much.
- I think the most important benchmark for me is trying to avoid major price shocks. So yes, getting things
- is probably a good idea. And second... Oh, I think the...
- Looking to what private service costs and what our other, you know, city residents and, you know, neighbors
- in the county are paying is a relevant figure to be looking at. So not just like relative to what the
- status quo is or what we're doing now, but actually relative to what it costs. So those are my two cents.
- Sorry again, I have to follow up. We do have data points on some of the private haulers from at least
- I think in January or February, so we can update those.
- So I need to look up right now when I pay for this. So I really take that point to heart. It does feel
- awkward when we ask people to pay a fee for something that they don't use. But I would just say that
- in taxes, that is how it works. You know, if you don't have children, you're still paying for a PCS.
- You don't need the library, but you're still paying with that. Those things are very, very different
- than a parking garage or a... They are. In my mind, sanitation
- having a clean city is a very high priority for most residents. And so they would consider like,
- if we said, and to think about, you know, our sanitation team goes out, for example, cleans up the parkway
- after it's closed. And when it's closed, they do that when they know. And so those are costs that our
- sanitation costs that everyone pays into and everyone benefits from. So it's not just picking up the
- trash and residents, our sanitation crews are picking up the trash and cleaning
- We do all the parks, we do all the pedestrians. There's some other things. Yeah, yeah. Thanks Matt.
- So on that point as a follow-up, thanks Matt, see ya. Ken, is there a way to kind of separate the sanitation
- budget into like the cost for the curbside pickup versus the cost for those other communities? We have
- some general, I mean, we could do some general numbers on there because
- 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
- to do we we would track the barrel truck differently than the other trucks in terms of the way we pull
- tickets for the landfill so i was worried about that we wouldn't be able to actually pull out the tonnages
- exactly on how much we're picking a lot of the
- and sanitation is the disposal cost of the tonnages you're actually picking up. We use a separate truck
- for that, but we also do sometimes use it for additional pickups or other things that would bleed in.
- But we can get a close estimate would be possible. OK. And then kind of similarly in terms of just separating
- costs out. And I'm sure I feel like this one at least should be easier to be like,
- How much is the static cost of like staff for running the curbside routes? Because that is a number
- that I'm interested in. And just kind of the question that I had attached to that is what would the
- impact be if we shifted something with routing? So for example, right now we pick up recycling every
- week. What if we only pick up recycling every other week?
- what kind of impact would that have on the sanitation? Other than the heart palpitations I just had.
- That's the kind of thing that I'm like, you know, shouldn't because I mean, now disposal cost is one
- thing, but salaries and manpower cost is another thing. Absolutely. In terms of that. And so like, are
- there ways to do something with the routes?
- how do we recycle this gap? I find that when we get into these discussions, what often happens is we
- leap over to philosophical questions of how much should we charge? Should it be completely subsidized?
- Should we charge the result and go straight to, couldn't we do things better to prevent these problems
- from ever arising? And I think those are great questions to explore, but they're very detailed. And,
- you know, with somebody having negotiated the Aspen contract earlier this year, and some of those folks,
- it's really important to understand that when you talk about staffing, like, yes, we can count up, these
- are the hours spent on this system, that is the cost, but what you're not counting is, because we did
- that, this other work that had to be done that takes however long it takes, now there's OT being approved.
- And where does that OT live? Does the overtime live with the other stuff, or does it live, because the
- overtime happens because of the totality of the work you're doing, not a particular job, per se.
- So I just caution us to maybe we can find solutions by, you know, like, well, we'll just cut down on
- staff time in this one area because it can have these unforeseen ripple effects. So the more we can
- focus our conversation on, you know, if yes, we think it's okay to charge people for everything, solve
- that problem how you will, or no, we don't think it's okay. I think the suggestion of subsidized recycling,
- for example, is a really great, that's a really great point for a thoughtful tool to use in our number question.
- personally have to actually have number crunching attached to philosophical stuff. And so especially
- with that question of, you know, should we charge for recycling? Like what would the budgetary impact
- be if we charge for recycling versus crop recycling services in some way, right? And then like, what
- does that look like? Because, I mean,
- I think philosophically, it would be great to pay for everything all the time. But that's not actually
- practical, which means that for any of my philosophical answers, I have to have some mathematical stuff
- to live with it. So that inquiry was related to that philosophical question, because part of it is like,
- well, how much does the recycling piece of that take? Because it's not like you just send one truck
- around that picks up the trash in the recycling. You have two trucks running that route. And the point
- is, these guys
- have looked at routing software. Routing is something they work on all the time. It's their area specialty.
- So when we ask them, can you do routing better? I think that's maybe not the most productive line of
- conversation. I'm not asking if they can be routing better though. I'm asking if there's something different.
- And I'm kind of assuming that they already explored this because I feel like I remember a conversation
- last year where you've already looked at some of those possibilities of different kind of scheduled pickups.
- and what kind of impact that would be. And that was something that, I mean, I remember having
- that conversation with somebody last year in terms of like, is there something that we can do differently?
- And so that's, I guess. I don't recall ever being asked to analyze reducing the weeks of recycling to
- go to a bi-weekly instead of a weekly. I don't know that we've ever really run those numbers. They shouldn't
- be too hard to run, but again,
- The hard palpitations I get with the idea of reducing recycling by 50% over the year is it won't meet
- our customers' needs. We have a very heavy recycling community. Their carts are full.
- the impact it would have on a customer base as much as anything that I think it's just such a heavily
- used service that- People would put it in the trash. The cycle is in the trash as well. Yeah. So yeah,
- that's kind of just generally how I think of it. But we can also explore. I can't remember that. I don't
- think it was with you. It may have been with that, actually.
- We'll be preparing one of our meetings last year. But it was just that exploration. I don't mean to
- give you part computations, but that has to be, you know, a conversation in terms of like reducing it
- also. Isabel? Yes, I wanted to go back to the spreadsheet because there's a part of it that I don't
- understand. So at the bottom where you have the red headings,
- um, expenses 2026 and 27. Um, and then you have the difference in revenue and expense. So, like, if
- we look at 2027, um, you know, if with the theoretical rate increases, um, you would have, uh,
- expenses of 6.2 million, um, revenues of 6.
- seven million, so you'd actually be making half a million dollars or I guess. Also to keep maintaining
- the cash fund that we need to for this. Help me understand. I'll say the wrong type of fund that it
- is. Well, yeah. In particular, because the sanitation fund is a fund that has salaries, you need to
- be able to maintain enough
- operating balance so that January 1st, you can still pay the employees. If all you were buying was stuff,
- you could hold off on purchases. Any fund that has salaries, any non-reverting fund that has salaries
- is going to have to have a sufficient cash balance. Another big thing to note about these figures and
- these numbers, and I alluded to it earlier about the capital expenditures,
- These numbers fully fund our capital needs based on best management practices. The life cycle for a
- sanitation truck should be seven years. We average 10 to 12. Sometimes our sanitation trucks have made
- it 15 or 18 years. It's not ideal the longer you wait to replace capital, the more you're spending on
- maintenance. This model does continue to try to fully fund the capital needs.
- which is a huge part of what this budget needs as well. Okay. Is there a percentage that needs to be
- maintained as cash balance or is it customized for this is what you have with your employees? I think
- it's based on those salary figures that Jeff was referring to, but we can double check. 25 to 30 percent
- is standard.
- Okay, thank you. I have questions. No, I just say that, you know, I'm old enough to, you know, remember
- and regret that we ever closed our wind field because we've always been old, you know, callers. I mean,
- that's obviously related to, you know, field costs and things like that.
- I think that probably, unless it's changed dramatically, we still have 40% of the weight occupied by
- organic material. We haven't done enough. I don't think that's a solid waste mixture to some more recent
- study than what we did back in 2017. So if we could reduce that use around, if we could have a composting
- program where people could, that might reduce some of the weighting volume
- There are other hazards of that, of course, rodents among them, if people don't do it correctly. But
- I know other communities do it. They're trying to reduce the volume in there for the rodent. I saw the
- stats that Indiana has produces more waste per capita than any other state in Michigan. We have the
- best stats in Indiana. Now, it probably doesn't apply to Bloomington. It's probably gonna change in any case.
- So I appreciate the data and I'm just mulling over. You're obviously caught in. It's a tough one to
- unpack. One of my questions also is, you mentioned the system modernization and the chance of being
- more expensive. Has that saved on health costs and injury costs and all that kind of stuff? And have
- you looked at that like balance each other out? So I remember that being like part of the
- debate at the time or the reasoning at the time. Yeah. Absolutely. Part of the reason we want to invest
- in those sidearm trucks is because it reduces the physical labor that goes into actually dumping cans
- and such. It's not an injury-free work zone by any means. It's still one of the most dangerous in the
- city. But at the same time, yes, we've had less serious injuries. We can pull numbers on the workers'
- comp comparisons over time, which do show that it's helping and working.
- Again, we still do have a level of, I don't know that the expectation was ever that the increased cost
- of the more efficient trucks would cover all of the costs that we would see for the workers' comp insurance
- or claims or things like that, but it's been a significant help, yes. Do you also see an impact in employee
- satisfaction or retention or anything like that because it's
- Uh, not as like strenuous or like, I don't know that we have anything but anecdotal information there,
- but, um, yeah. Uh, I mean, Bobby and Mikey have been there 36 years. Um, we've got, we've got staff
- that we've got a lot of long time staff that are at sanitation that have been there for many, many years.
- Um, we tend to retain employees, uh, really well there. Uh, we don't have excessive turnover. Um,
- I think if you ask some of the team that were there before we went to this newer system, the strain
- on their bodies is much less and that has to lead to better job satisfaction. Lazarus does a great job
- leading the team and from a morale perspective, it's strong, so yeah. So we've got lots of revenue numbers but not
- Well, there are some offenses. We have a breakdown of expenses. If not, we can get them to and they're
- all in the data portal and. Another one of those things that can be easily pulled out. I'll talk to
- my friend, the controller, and we can. I mean, they're going to be in the form of budget line. Yeah,
- that item is not, you know, for example, the expenses of taking, you know, 35 pound toters versus.
- in the standard budget. We can do some kind of expense categorization. What are our disposal costs?
- What are our recycling costs? What are our fuel costs? What are we going to blame? I'm going to ask
- you. I don't know. OK. Oh, I agree. All right. Let's look at the questions on desirable outcomes to
- charge for recycling. Do any of us here
- weren't really charged for recycling right now in terms of as well or favor. It's probably good then
- we should subsidize. I would not like to. My preference is not to. I mean, maybe a small fee, but yeah,
- I don't. I think we should continue to subsidize it. I would agree with that.
- I would also agree with what Matt said about bathing could be important. And should we have, do the
- folks here want to have the goal of completely eliminating the subsidy for sanitation in general versus
- just diminishing the subsidy? Do we have a thought on that right now?
- Yeah, I don't know. I mean, definitely, it would have to be a phase in of the higher rates. I don't
- know if we want to go as far as totally eliminating the subsidy. I mean, I think I would need more time
- and data to think about that. Great. I think either way, no.
- brief phase and something is raised to help cut into that, that is a starting point no matter what happens
- at the end. So, okay, let's go ahead and go to public comment then. So I'm gonna stop the screen share
- so that, actually maybe I will keep it simply because sometimes those numbers are helpful to see for
- everybody. So if there's a member of the public who is
- online and interested, we still don't have public in the room. Though our council is currently certainly
- welcome to comment here in public. Virginia, the member of the public would like to speak to sanitation
- fees. If you could raise your hands. I'm not seeing any hands raised right now.
- Any other last words from members. Oh, no, I'm late for it. Okay, very grateful for your time. Oh, my,
- my comment would be sanitation, you know, we've got a lot of really hard working teams and public works
- sanitation work is
- It's some of the hardest work we do. It's in, you know, 100 degree heat indexes the other day and then
- negative 10 in the winter and 4.30 in the morning out in traffic doing really good hard work. So just
- want to just send all the praise to the team that does that work. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. And I'll echo
- that. And I appreciate the conversation. I think that any, any time that we have that kind of subsidy,
- I think it's important to talk about it.
- Um, and in the same way that like, you know, parks, the variable master planning and, and then a whole
- lot of budget stuff where they kind of looked at how much they're subsidizing different pieces of the
- program and then like evaluating, you know, what should be subsidized in their programming. So I just
- think it's a really important conversation. They'll always have to go like, what are we subsidizing?
- How much are we subsidizing and making a conscious choice to as government subsidize things that do
- so. Thank you all.
- Anyway, thank you guys. They're not quite adjourned yet, so they don't quite leave yet. I will not stop
- the screen share because I will just throw up the schedule on the screen right now to note the things
- about the future. So our next meeting is after break on July 24th. That is the day that Refinancial
- is going to come back, and we're going to talk more about that stuff.
- August 7th, we're going to do council business. We're going to go back to those elect official salaries
- and that study. And then those are the other meeting dates that are planned. For Crosley, if you could
- take note of canceling the August 21st meeting, I think that that did not get done yet.
- We have this every other week schedule, but I looked at that one. You'll see there's a couple of gaps
- in there. One is around Thanksgiving, and one, of course, is around Christmas and the winter break.
- But the 21st date is right in the middle of our project presentation, so I was like, maybe not. Maybe
- you have a meeting that day. We'll have plenty of time to talk about fiscal matters and full council meetings.
- I figured that so I'm not having any data for 21st was good. Isabel, Dave, does this look all right
- to you, Ruth? Okay. Oh, and I also want to note that I added these 2027 dates up here to start discussing
- finalizing 2028 budget priorities, and then make sure that we have an official meeting where we have
- administrative response to those 2028 budget priorities because we kind of missed that this year.
- Anything else for the bit of the order right now, I feel like this was a really packed meeting. It was.
- Yeah, it really was. And I suspect the one on the 24th with Lee here is going to be similarly packed.
- 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
- it will kind of be packed. I was going to suggest that, yeah. Okay.
- First of all, I do think that you could make that adjustment as well in terms of the room reservation
- and the meeting time. And what do you want me to do? Have the meeting on July 24th be an hour and a
- half instead of just an hour. We're going to keep that an hour because of people's regular jobs. But
- I think that that would be good. OK. So July 24th. July 24th is going to be an hour and a half.
- Thank you. No, I don't think that we can start earlier. Larry, I'll be there at seven. Y'all can be
- there whenever you want to be there. I'll be here before you're ready. All right, we're adjourned. Thank
- you all very much.