Okay, everybody, it's 6.30 and we have a forum. I don't know if anybody's online yet of council members.
I know Dave Rollo said he was gonna be now. Okay, so this is a work session, so just say that you're
here. I'm here. I'm here. Okay, great, wow. I said that for the record, but the people are here now.
Okay, but Isaka, city council at large.
Go ahead, Courtney. Courtney, District 5, Bloomington City Council. Isabelle P. Mopsmith, District 1.
Hopi Stosberg, District 3. Sydney Zoellick, District 6. And we may be joined later by Dave Rallo.
District four. I don't think that any other colleagues are able to join today. Regrettably, the goal
of today's meeting is just to work through a handful of draft or budget amendments to think just think
about what we might want to advance. We may not want to advance what we can put together.
those type of things. And I know there may be others still working on other ideas. And so also
the controllers here, the controller plural is here, too, if you want to ask any questions. But it also
might be a good time also for us to think through questions that we might have as well for going into
the actual reading. Next week, just for public
purposes where today we're not voting on anything. This is just us having an open discussion. And we
don't at the moment intend to do public comment, but happy at any moment if anybody wants that to open
that up. And so we can do that. I asked earlier before we met, but I think the goal, I mean, sorry,
the way that most people want to do this is just go through the amendments as they're listed in the
packet. But unless anybody has another
idea of how to do this. Okay. And I just note as we do that as well that, you know, obviously the handful
of them have some obvious overlaps and we can, you know, sort of highlight those. But I think, you know,
there's multiple that look at that ED lit $600, $600,000 reduction, multiple that are looking at that
$2.5 million. Okay. So, I mean, obviously we may not have to spend too much time sort of, you know,
discussing those specifically, but okay. And let's sort of aim to do about, you know,
10ish minutes per sort of set of things if that, or what do you think? I have no, I'm totally agnostic,
but just to set expectations.
I think some will naturally take longer than others. Okay, fantastic. At the 10-minute mark, if anyone,
we can flag and say, hey, do we need to continue having this conversation? After that, we can talk about
action items. Yeah, fantastic. Let's take at the end whatever actions we might want to take with them.
Okay, so I think Councilman Stasberg yours is first and again this one that appears a couple of times
but you want to talk a bit about it. Sure, it reduces the sanitation subsidy by $600,000 down from from
1.6 million down to 1 million. And that is primarily
as a result of the fiscal committee got a presentation from sanitation. And basically, they have a rate
increase plan that includes a subsidy of only a million dollars next year. And so that rate increase
plan, of course, would have to get approved by all of council. But I mean, there's nothing stopping
us from reducing it now. And if that rate increase does not get approved, then we can reallocate it
later. But I would, you know,
This is the time to cut things if we cut things. Yeah, yeah, they're going to plan on bringing it anyway.
And the four fiscal committee members all thought that the plan that they had was a good place to start.
So yeah. And then Isabel has the same exact thing on hers. So questions, concerns, thoughts? Makes sense
to me. Thanks for working on it.
And I think in this particular case, it makes a lot of sense, too, to have that. I mean, I think that
we've made very clear that with a lot of things, we're very happy to receive another appropriation if
necessary. I think that that sort of flexible approach, you know, makes sense, too. So, yeah. Yeah,
I think it is kind of common sense. Great. Isabella, do you just want to co-sponsor this? Yeah.
And then... I made...
Just a textual amendment to item one, which I put in the document that Larry Allen has. OK. So we just
need to make sure that the language is right? Yeah. It's just putting it in a sentence. Exhibit D, DLGF
form 1 shall be amended to reduce the appropriation for fund. OK.
So will the three of us, you and I and Larry, will work on good final language? Yep. Great. Good stuff.
I think we're done with that one. Next. OK, so this budget line is what I believe was the same budget line
last year $575,000 for election operations and is now at $1.2 million. So I went ahead and reduced some
of that with just some flexibility for inflation and rising costs. Happy to reduce it by more if colleagues
are interested, but. Is that something that we have to do, like do we have a say in how much
We have say but but does the city isn't that set externally by like the county or something like that?
Like how does the how do we determine the 1.2 million? Jeff Jeff controller so actually that line includes
several several different things the what was added for the election was six hundred fifty thousand dollars
and the 2023 election costs were 471,000. So we felt that the 650,000 was realistic, but that said,
yes, you are required that the statute says council shall appropriate, but you don't have to do it right
now. You could, I mean, it's perfectly legitimate to cut it and then we will come back for an additional
appropriation. Now, just to understand that there are
you know, costs and for additional appropriations. But yeah, so basically it is an increase from $471,804
to $650,000. What else is in that line? I will have to, I would have to. I feel like I asked a question
about that and I'm looking for it. I'm sure that I asked a question about it. So it's in the public
works budget, which is a weird place to put the election, but that's apparently just where it's always been.
Oh, it's Brighton B-Town. I think they increased Brighton B-Town, and then put 650 in for the general
election. Because that's all the same line, right? The 12, 18, 20? Yes. That's the line that we're talking
about? Yeah. So per the questionnaire, the questions that we submitted that I'm pretty sure are public record.
Right now, I asked for a follow-up, please confirm the other services and charges line and the increase
of $1 million from 2026. So Brighton B-Town has $350,000 and the general election city portion is $650,000.
I don't know what's left of that though. $350,000 for Brighton B-Town? Yeah. But then there's another
$218,000 that's left. I don't know what that's for.
Can I ask about the, so I mean, we'll know the cost of the election presumably before the new year,
yes? No, it takes some time. It would generally be at the very end of the, it would be the end of 27.
Got it, got it, got it, got it. Oh yeah, of course, because it's for the municipal elections of, yeah,
it's not for this current midterm, yeah, yeah. Sorry. And yeah, that makes total sense.
The other $218,000 is the 2026 adopted budget. So the $350,000 is just the increase in Brighton-Betown.
I guess so.
Brighton B-Town moved from facilities to the public works. So just moved in location. You remember you
all voted on that. Right.
the 350K for Brighton B-Town compared with last year's funding for Brighton B-Town. It was in a different
division. Sorry, that's only tangentially relevant. I guess while Controller McKim is looking, I'll
say that I've
I've heard very good feedback about the bright beat-out crew, and I have no interest in messing with
that part of the budget. My understanding was that that line was specifically for election purposes.
That makes sense. But I will be reducing it to that 218 if we can't get a clear answer. About what the
218 is for?
What I'm doing right now, and Jeff could probably find it faster, is I'm trying to find the second quarter,
year-to-date expenses, and see what came out of that second quarter. And I'm just taking a minute. So
that whole line is $650,000 for the election. There's $2,500 for the election.
State Board of Accounts that sanitation pays for auditing an asset management software support at $12,000.
Crisis cleanup response at $25,000. Gateway high traffic area beautification and maintenance expenses,
$90,000. High priority pedestrian network contracts, no removal, $50,000. Land surveys, title work,
appraisals, and small miscellaneous projects, $25,000.
And then, sorry, it's 16,000 for the State Board of Accounts annual sanitation utility fee audit.
So the $2,500 was an increase in what that fee is for a total of 870,500. So it's a number of different
things. A number of the things that you mentioned, Jeff, are Brighton B-Town, right? Yeah, but for the
details on that, yeah, we would have to ask Public Works. OK. Thank you. Can I move on?
Isma, you're next. Your first one, yeah. Okay, so the first one is to cut the $10,000 that was intended
for branding implementation. Happy to jump on as a co-sponsor. We've had that conversation.
that's similar, I think a bit more expensive within that same fund. But I mean, if depending on how
we all feel happy to also obviously support this one, if the more limited one is preferable. Okay, go
on to number two. Okay, this one is to eliminate the position of transportation demand manager in ESD.
Is that been vacant? Do you know? Not that long. No, a couple months. Yeah, it's just very recently.
It was pretty recent. It was the director of public engagement that was a year. I thought the TDM manager
left earlier in the year. I think Isabel's right. Isabel's right. I totally support this. I have one,
and obviously,
I was just, I'm still working through lots of things. And if we have time, I can share, I'll share sort
of my thoughts on this, but I totally support cutting this position. I didn't see that it accomplished
much of anything when it was created. Since it was created, I mean, it was supposed to,
get more people to carpool or use the bus or bicycle to work. And we have no idea whether it did that.
It's also trying to regulate individual people's behavior, which is probably not the best use of taxpayer
money. And BT ridership is down, is it not? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I don't think that that position ever
quite did what it was envisioned to do.
I'm hoping that as a corollary to this we can keep negotiating with ESD to use that about the same amount
of money to hire somebody to work on food security and other climate action plan items. I'm on the city's
climate action team and we've been reviewing the climate action plan
In the interest of an update that's going to be happening First part of next year or even starting late
this year and there are just so many things in there that There are a lot of things in there that are
pie in the sky But there are also a lot of things in there that we just don't have enough staff to tackle
them and so I know
Councilmember Barallo mentioned food systems coordinator. I think that's, we do need to pay more attention
to our food systems. I don't know if I would make an exclusive position for that, but I'm hoping to
continue negotiating with the administration on using these funds in a different way for sustainability.
And I think maybe the approach with some of these new positions too is for us to, via resolution, so
that we also can have a broader debate about what, because I think to me,
Another proposal would be that you that we allocate funds directly to food organization in town You
know that whether us adding a brand new person is the right, you know So I think that's a debate to
have but regardless side I support getting rid of this position Transportation a man manager person
that is supposed to do XYZ in terms of
alternative transportation. I think our planning department is doing really good with that kind of stuff
in terms of the outreach that they're doing and the projects that they've been working on. I think that
that is making as much difference as that TDM position was. Just note that Council Member Rallo has
also joined us. Okay, let's move on to your next one, Council Member Pujosman. I think it's just the
salary ordinance of the same, yeah?
So do you want to do number three? It looks like that one is also a sanitation one this year. I hope
he had some. Scrolling right along. Parking. OK, so I think I thought this was duplicated by somebody
somewhere also, but he saw it. So this is two.
to cut the placeholder budget allocation for implementing the parking study until we know exactly how
they're going to implement it, what they're going to buy, what the money will actually be used for.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Is that entire account, that $2.5 million, that's the only thing in the other capital
outlays? That's what they said, but it's OK. That's what I recall. Is that correct? Yeah, it's just for that.
Yes, for parking. For parking in the category four. Yes, that's it. Yeah. And I think, I mean, it's
sort of needless to say, but I feel like, you know, this may be, you know, recency bias, but, you know,
a handful of things that we implemented that then came back to be like, oh, city council approved this
thing, and we're like, wow, maybe wouldn't have approved that if we had been presented with it,
you know. And I also just think,
Culturally, I like the idea of, you know, let's co-create and force people to do that, so. Yep. Okay,
my last one is to reduce the amount of appropriation in the housing trust fund. I think, Isak, you may
have had a similar, more drastic fund, perhaps. I left them a million dollars, but I'm for anything
beyond that, because Anna Killian Hansen did say, you know, it's important to
Have some money available in case there's a quick turnaround needed. Yeah, totally. So that's why I
was like, OK, yeah, we'll leave you with a million dollars. But after that, we want to know, you know,
what did you use the million for? And why do you need to? I mean, a million, it feels like a lot to,
you know, I mean, my thinking, I think, is twofold here. Like, I am fully in support of us deploying
all of the funds, as much of the funds as are necessary to address the problem that the vast majority
of us say is the biggest thing that we're dealing with in the city, which is the Fort Williamson. I
think both historically how this was set up, it was, you know, a sort of, there's a lot of sort of pay
to play happening, you know, in some of the accounts. Obviously, we made some adjustments to pilots
and those type of things to in fact beef up this type of account.
Ideally making it a little bit more, you know, changing the incentives around doing some of those things.
But I still feel like, again, and this is, I've, you know,
I would like to surface the conversation of how really are we deploying this and are we deploying it
to the best of our ability? Because to me, it feels like we just are doing, okay, well, these are the
people who are in front of us and we have this much money, so let's spread it out amongst them. Could
we do something better? I don't know, but I think that's a conversation that we have to have. I just
think that as long as we continue this, just put some money here and we'll talk about this. Come back
to us after you spent a million dollars.
feels like we're just pushing the can down. Like, let's have the conversation now. And so that's my
approach to this thing. Let's hold it. And I mean, we could have this conversation today. We could have
this conversation next week or whatever. But I'm just like, I just really want us to, maybe we want
to think about putting more money in this fund in some approach. I just think there's a lot of ways
that we want to be thinking about this beyond just, there are some people who have applied, and let's
give them some money because we have it.
I see your point. And we could even have that conversation before January 1st. 100%. And then appropriate
it accordingly. I do think that Controller McKim does raise the point that it's like, I think the downside
of this approach is one time. And so luckily, we now are willing to discuss things on first reading.
Again, we can't.
necessarily as easily pass things right away but there's a time thing and there's a cost associated
both the time cost and you know noticing cost and things like that of so if we have a lot of these separated
ordinances of you know appropriation ordinances just something to keep in our minds but to me this is
a big one that you know really does move the needle. Well and I also
I have a few concerns about this. One of them is transparency related to these projects. A couple of
years ago, that first year that I was here, and I was trying to figure out how some of this housing
development money had been spent, and it took some work on behalf of staff to figure out how it had
been deployed in the first place, and it shouldn't take that much work, especially when we're supplementing
large projects with potentially
than a million dollars. And I think that making it go through council for all of it adds a
lot of transparency. I emailed Anna asking her, so last year we also did a housing development fund
allocation and she had talked about piloting lots of
programs about assistance, and I emailed asking the status of those and whether any of the $3 million
was going into those, and I've gotten no response at all.
And that was probably a week ago. So at this point, I'm kind of like, all right, like, I asked this
question a week ago. I'm not getting a response. I'll take it down to zero. And I'm sorry if they're,
you know, because I was very excited about those programs. And it's those kinds of smaller allocations,
I think, that, you know, those programs we're talking about that I don't want to oversee that are maybe
more private or personal because they had to do with
More individualized grant kind of stuff smaller amounts of grants for individual people as opposed to
developers that were developing larger projects. And so it's those, you know,
development projects that I think need to be aired, and not the smaller things. How would you all feel?
So should this amendment be introduced and passed, whether mine or Isabel's or Hopi's? I think you have
one as well. Oh yeah, we actually co-sponsored the one. I think that I co-sponsored yours, but I can't
remember for sure. Yes, you did.
of setting up an ad hoc committee for council members to actually work with HEN to rapidly actually
address this. So again, it doesn't become a thing like, you come back and then it just happens to be
the last thing on our agenda and we're all wanting to move away. So that actually becomes a thing that
we focus on and give work hours to that it's not like, hey, we're just cutting this, you go deal with
it and then later come back with the same request and we say yes or something like that.
I think that we would need to see what hand thinks about that because I'm not sure that they would want
to deal with an ad hoc committee. Sure. I mean, or do we want, you know, or, I mean, or attaching some
clarity of like, what we want is, you know, come back with this before we allocate, you know, so I just
think, I think some direction of some sort, whether we do that by resolution or we could have another
working group, I don't know, but we have to figure out some way so it doesn't, you know. I think it's
fair considering it's such a large
Yes. And again, critical, right? I think we are all the same opinion that we want this money spent and
more if necessary. But I just want to make sure that it's moving the needle, right? Yeah. And so I guess
there was that sort of resolution or ordinance that you passed a very long time ago after the, I hesitate
to say Bearcat,
that restricted the police from buying things over a certain dollar amount or something like that. It
wasn't just the police. As a matter of fact, I asked the administration a month ago, something, for
a list of all capital expenditures in any fund that are over $100,000 to be listed out as part of this
budget process.
And I'm looking at Jeff, because I hope he remembers this email. And I haven't gotten any response,
because we did pass an ordinance after the Bearcat was purchased that said, OK, you have to tell us
about capital expenses of $100,000 or more. Because what happened with the Bearcat is that it was just
in their capital budget, but they never mentioned it during the budget hearings. And as a matter of
fact, the money was supposed to go to something totally different.
Capital expense and they just use it for the bear cat and so we were taken by surprise and we want to
avoid that happening in the future so Sorry, it kind of what you said just through me on this tangent
that yes matter of fact I asked for that and I have not received it and so that could be something too
that could almost go along with this concept that like you know, yeah, we we could you know, allocate
this money, but then have some kind of
something attached to it saying anytime there's more than such and such a dollar amount.
that is going to go to one place, then you have to come back for a resolution of approval or something
like that. If it's a resolution, then it's only one task or one reading that's not as intense. What
I wouldn't want to happen is that you make the incentive to spread the peanut butter thin, where you're
just like, well, I'll just do a bunch of 50,000 here, here, here. I also think that this has to be paired
with some policy guidance where appropriate from us to say, well, these are the things that we want
this money spent on.
you know and then figuring out but to your point I think the mechanism of how we yeah how we oversee
that then is okay if it's over this maybe yeah right I think there's a similar threshold I'm not sure
what it is for the trigger of a request for proposal instead of a professional services contract but
I have never gotten a clear answer on what that dollar amount actually is are you asking now
I'll have to get you an answer to that, but I did want to answer the question about the capital items.
I'll have to go back and see to whom it was sent, but I did upon your email, Isabel, I did create that
document and I just shared it with Larry now. I'm sorry if I missed it. No, I may have created it and
not sent it. You can share that, but I definitely created it and it is right here and I see Larry's in it.
Thank you. For the Housing Development Fund, let's be clear also that it's not being regenerated every
year. We're getting hit or miss maybe, and as I think from what I hear from developers, the number of
student housing projects is probably slowing down. We're not likely to get big injections of money in
there, so we have to be very careful about and strategic about how to spend it.
That's what I suspect, yeah. So there is in the linked to the budget Q&A spreadsheet, there is, I think
it's linked in there. And I did put in the criteria, the ranking sheet that they use when they get proposals,
which looks pretty good to me. But they get proposals on a rolling basis, so how can they really compare
proposals?
Excellent. You guys happy to move on? Yes. Okay. So I think this is my first one is here. This is already
duplicated. So this is the parking meter fund. So we can move to the second one. Okay, the second one
I think I've talked about
at length already. But this was addressing the purchase of new software in the controller's office.
My reason for highlighting it was that in the budget proposal, it said multiple times that the reason
to do this is for outcome-based budgeting. And so in the questioning, I asked very clearly, are we going
to do a minimum viable product of outcome-based budgeting? And the answer was, no, not really.
So that to me is like, I'm like, okay, well, if this is for that, then we should remove it. Since I
think both the controller, Director Paycheck, as well as noted that this was actually about other things.
So, I mean, I'm happy to be convinced otherwise still. I mean, I think Director Paycheck, you know,
is always is very convincing. So, you know, about the sort of real need
I do, though, would like to highlight that it's not talked about in the proposal, right? Like, the proposal
says, outcome-based budgeting, we'll spend $600,000, and then next year we'll do outcome-based budgeting.
So I just felt like that's money we could spend elsewhere if we're not going to do outcome-based budgeting.
So that's it on that one. So I guess I would need more information to decide whether or not to vote
for this. Does the administration have any response?
So the administration is preparing a memo that will address each one of our take on each one of these
proposals. And both Rick and Shar and I have all written, provided substantial responses, particularly
on this one, because we all feel very strongly about this particular. That you need it for many, yes, yes.
both on the HR side, on the core financial side, and on the IT side. But yes, we will provide that,
Maria. Sure. Fantastic. Thank you. I kind of remember some of that from budget hearings, and so I'm
not in favor of this amendment. I think that that software upgrades sound pretty necessary. Apparently,
New World is old enough that it's not really
It's not performing for us in the way that we need it to perform. And it's not like the number of times
I've said something along the lines of, can we get X, Y, Z in terms of fiscal committee? And the answer
is like, yes, we can. I'm going to have to do that on a spreadsheet because I can't just print off a
report and make it easy. And so I think that it's. But then last year, we also had something in the
budget to update.
software systems, no? So there is budget to update HRIS, Human Resources Information System. But the
problem is, we can't just do that without, or if we do it, we'd be going kind of in the wrong direction
and in the wrong order when what we really need is something where we upgrade core financials and then
layer on the HRIS. Yep, yep, yep. Makes sense. Yeah, and I think that Jessica, former controller Jessica,
had some kind of add-on for New World that I think just didn't work out in the way that they wanted
it to work out because the underlying New World was just, and I'm right about that, right? Yeah. But
this is what I wanted to get at is we've already identified the software, how confident are we that
it's going to work, so on and so forth. Thank you.
So we still would need to go through a procurement process, a selection process, to purchase the,
you know, to select and purchase the software. But we would certainly want to include... Software, right?
We're actually talking about multiple systems. Well, not necessarily. It would be an ERP, an enterprise
resource planning software. For example, our New World system now, by Tyler Systems, incorporates core
financials and HR and
utility building. It just doesn't do any of them very well. And so chances are the new system that we
would move to, which could be an upgraded Tyler system, but it could be a different system, would incorporate
all those functions as well. All right. You all happy to move on? Yes. Okay.
My next one is cutting studies out of planning. I think last year we talked about wanting to do less
studying and more doing, particularly this. I mean, there is the 265,000 for a corridor and sub-area
study, and then just generally had 225 for additional studies and projects.
don't think we need to be doing studies unless we're going to be very clear on that we're going to be
implementing the studies or doing, like that there's some type of follow-on associated with it. Yeah,
we spend a lot of money on doing studies that then we don't do. Or by the time we do them, it's like,
I mean, you look at some things in like our, in some of our big plans that cost a lot of money and like
now we're getting to implement them. And it's like, yeah, this is not even
This isn't a relevant data anymore that we're acting on. And so I just think, philosophically, if you
really don't have an intention of doing the thing. But again, I get it. You'll be like, OK, well, we
won't know if we'll do the thing unless we do the study to tell us what. But I'm just like, we're spending
an awful lot of money of doing feasibility things. So that's my take on that one. I think it's a matter
of funding, right? You do the study so that you have it ready. When the funding opportunity comes along,
you're like, oh, yeah.
pull this off the shelf and do this. I mean, theoretically, I don't know if that's actually the way
things have been going because I know, I mean, they did the Indiana M. They did the walnut corridor
study three or four years ago. I don't know. Whatever happened to that? I don't know. So one thing I
remember asking about this last year and one of the things that
The response to me, basically, was that studies are different than plans, and so they can last longer
on the shelf. And so that's, I think, so if it's three, four, five years old, it's still relatively
relevant as opposed to detailed plans, which then are not relevant after one or two years. And so that's
where I would need a little bit more information about the studies and where they are in that, because
the other thing is,
I'm not sure if any of these studies are related to perspective MPO funding because there is MPO funding
out like 10 years and so we've got to like do certain studies before we can get that MPO funding and
so it like builds upon each other in this very like intricately coordinated way that it's kind of amazing
actually that the planners can keep all that straight to be honest. So I would need to
have a whole lot more detail about that before I was in support of this. One of these corridor studies
is for Kirkwood, right? Might be. I mean, I think so. It's supposed to be early 2027.
Yeah. So I would assume that it would be caught up in this. I would not want to cut that because I think
that... But what do you think? Do you feel like we're going to get an outcome that you can't already
guess? Like, what is it going to tell you that people can walk down the street while people drive down
the street? Like, what's the actual objective of studying something that has already been studied? How
to do it so that it's not a dead street and it's still safe.
But like, okay, but like scope out that study. You don't go like, generally, we're going to do like
a Kirkwood study that's going to tell us that that we want a shared street, even though I hope it would
tell us how to implement it. It might. Yeah, but that's my point. And again, again, recency bias, perhaps, but
look at, look at, hey, we're gonna do a survey of residents, and you make a lot of design choices about
how you're hiring people, what you're asking them to find out, how they then design that survey, and
then we then receive a word, this isn't useful information, okay, too bad, you paid for it, right? And
so I'm like, if you want to study, come and scope out the study and ask for the money for that study.
We shouldn't pre-fund studies for you to figure out what study you want to do.
I agree. I think that planning studies are different though. I mean, what you were just talking about
was surveys and planning studies are different. I don't think that we on council are in any position
to judge whether or not a planning study is valid because none of us are planners. That's fair. But
I think that the point of the Kirkwood example is we've already set very clearly
the administration has already said very clearly what their view is on this. And so I don't understand
what you're going to get out of a study beyond status quo. I agree. I think I'm one of the people who
says a lot, stop studying and start doing it. Isabel, I think, are we going to do some first names?
Yes. I think what you are talking about is a plan, not a study.
Like do it, design it, show how we're going to not have it dead. That's not a study. Like we know what
businesses think. Like we know what we have feedback from humans, right? Like we don't need to study
it. And it's also true that the study will probably be designed to just say. To fit the outcome that
we've already set. I made this list a while ago that I like about studies.
that they stall controversial decisions, they pacify those opposed, they defer accountability, maintain
status quo, and they add cost to more project financial, making them unfeasible financially. So I do
think sometimes studies are useful. I think Indiana Avenue got added into this
downtown corridor. It's not a corridor. It's five blocks of a street, but I think Indiana Avenue got
added into it. I mean, I haven't seen it, but it's like, we just studied it. We just had plans that
IU said they didn't like, and then it got trashed. We don't need to study that again. We have an awesome
plan sitting in the planning department right now. Like we've had Kirkwood open to people for years.
We have ideas, like it's not a new concept across the world. We should just,
My only hesitancy is like I think this money should not necessarily be cut but should be put to plants
About what exact studies it is that we're talking about cutting I mean as well throughout the Kirkwood
study is maybe that's wrapped up in there somewhere But I don't think that we really know
Right. That's my point. Come to us and ask for a specific study and we appropriate that money. Or a
set of them. If you have them planned out. But I don't get the same philosophy of the parking fund.
I don't get the purpose of pre-allocating money for you to then later go and figure out what you want
to study. If you have a clear sense of what you want to study, come and tell us that now.
Yeah, I mean, in general, that's not the purpose of a budget to allocate money to any projects of anyone's
choosing. That's not a budget. Yeah, you don't scope it out later. Yeah. I mean, I think clearer answers
on what these studies were for might have not led to this amendment. Yeah, exactly.
That's exactly my point. So again, I don't think I'm going to withdraw this one like some of the others
that I'll probably withdraw. And again, it's a conversation that has to be had.
I mean, you're all welcome to vote how you want to vote, obviously. We don't need to, you know.
Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Here I go. OK, can I move on? OK, number, and you'll note
my things jump. So I'm missing number four. Number four has a bunch of positions that I'd like to address.
But let's go over the ones that are in the packet first. And if we have time at the end, I'm happy to
go over the positions that I've suggested we cut.
Number seven is the next one in the in the packet for me.
Most of this was just trying my best to identify some areas where we sort of historically overfunded,
so where we might have a little bit of wiggle room. You know, happy as appropriate to adjust that.
I mean, that's just if maybe I found it, I probably didn't. And a lot of them are, the amounts are relatively
small, but they add up to a lot.
Which again, maybe it's good to have that cushion room. I mean, that's that's up to you. But the one
thing that's separated here that maybe I should have I think I'll separate into a separate amendment is
money from the risk management account. So they proposed in the budget proposal and then in answers
to questions to add $274,500 or $250 to adding telemetry to the fleet. And it's unclear to me
that that is going to lead to future savings or anything that just sort of seems like we can do this.
Because I don't know. I don't understand the end goal of better observance of our fleet. So that's why
I proposed that. What is telemetry again? It's like seeing how fast people go, how slow people go, use of gas.
Things like that. Yeah, I mean, the purpose is to increase safety and reduce accidents. And I mean,
Margie will have to, and I know she'll provide a kind of a written response that'll give more detail.
But in broad, that's the purpose of the equipment, is to basically monitor the safety compliance with
city-owned vehicles that are being used in the conduct of city business to reduce performance. And that
costs $274,000?
That's my understanding, yeah. I mean, it's equipment in a large number of vehicles. Yeah, so the question
is, is that the outcome that you write for an outcome conversation? So may I move on? Yeah, and then
all the other ones are just sort of adjustments. And Dave, sorry, we haven't given you a chance to anything
that you've been wanting to add. So if I assume you would just pipe in when you wanted to, but just
in case not,
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, but I'm just listening at this point. I appreciate it. OK, excellent.
Excellent. OK, if I move on. OK, so the first part of this amendment makes reductions because you looked
at their spending versus appropriation, and you felt the appropriation was too high. It has historically
been too high as well. It's been higher than what they needed. Correct.
Yeah. And again, like that, I think I'm happy to separate these out because I think these are, if we
found something, hooray. But I think there's a strong argument, like cutting whatever $5,000 from a
printing budget or something like that isn't monumental. But when you put it all together, it is a lot.
So just also seeing where we have flexible money.
Because again, I think this is more of an approach thing than anything. And controller, feel free to
tell me I'm wrong. And maybe this is why we need to spend $600,000 on better software, is that we
I don't think it's a good thing for us to say every year we budget blah, but then we actually spend
blah. So deficits don't really mean anything in the city. I think the more exact we can be, the better
in the long run. I will just say that I agree in some ways because there are some things that are kind
of spent on a regular basis and you have sort of a
and normal burn down rate, there are other things like repairs that may be needed or may not. But if
they're needed, they're really needed. That's a great point. So happy to adjust this one or whatever.
If it turns out that it's very insignificant, we can pull that back. A lot of these should all be from
the general fund. I'll just also say that I
agree with Jeff there and I think that it's really hard when budgeting things like this because we don't
want them to have to come back with little piddly things throughout the year. Putting in some cushion
allows for the unexpected increase in something, the unexpected without them having to panic about having
to get some legislation ASAP in there.
I don't know the temporary contractual employee for animal control. Why is it underspent historically?
Is it because they don't always have the person? So it's those sorts of things. I feel like all of these
need a little bit more of
Well, do they really need it? And then I feel like if we get into that too much, then we're second guessing
what staff already did. So that kind of makes me a little bit shy of this. I think that's great. And
if anything in this way, we don't have to spend too much time on this one. I think like we have to wear
it. But if anything, like this is also a sort of noticing activity, which is useful, which is just,
you know, again, like we have this
concept of not having any money. And it's like, well, yeah, there it is. Just like we're choosing to
put it in padding as an example. So it's just thought. And the memo will provide a lot of extra guidance
and information. Yeah, one helps. One helps. OK. The memo from the administration, the response memo.
But I agree. But also, to your point, I understand there's some really, really wide padding.
So it might be helpful to narrow it down just for deficit. My next one is very similar to Sydney's,
but just a little bit more expansive. That was mine.
This is what, yours? Ours. Oh, yours. I don't see which one. Yeah. And I thought we're cutting the branding.
Yeah, so cutting the branding. But then there was also some funds for, it was like cabinet leadership
development or something like that, which, I mean, you know, lean times. So, I mean, identifying a handful
of those things.
I'm happy to go with a simpler one if that's what you all prefer. I think that one we'll see, we'll
get better information and can better judge that. Okay, my next one, this longer one, this one just
reduces travel, at least attempts to reduce travel by 25% across the board. On what basis?
No, just to say it looked like if we're gonna, I mean, for starters, the mayor's travel budget went
up significantly when it came into office. The clerk's travel budget is high. I think it was just like,
you know, and if petrol's going up, so on and so forth, I just think that maybe we should consider why
we're traveling, be a bit more, just be a bit more judicious about it.
use the clerk's office as an example, but point out that sometimes the travel is tied into requirements
for certain positions. So the clerk's office, they're actually required to attain certifications. So
they have to go to certain places to get those certification points that are required for their jobs.
And those things can cost per person up to, I think, the highest one is about $2,000 per person, including
the registration cost, hotel cost, and travel.
city did not have to pay for mine for the last four years because the clerks like paid for it because
I volunteered my time so that I could offset the city's cost but there are four other people in the
office and that will not pay for them to actually maintain their required education costs and there
are limitations on what qualifies and what doesn't otherwise I'd have them all taking
Yeah, and I think that's like the, you know, it is. It's a modest reduction. It's not like a lot of
money, so it's one I'm not particularly glad to, but, you know, again, all of this adds up a lot when
you put them together, so. Strikas? Not all these come from the General Fund either, so, you know. Yeah,
the ones from the Parking Meter Fund stood out to me, like, why are we funding travel from the Parking
Meter Fund? Good question. I'd like to know more about that.
For the city council, for our department, I'd like to know how much of our travel funding has been used.
I think very few council members use it, but I have. And I think the conferences I've gone to have been
quite beneficial. So if I, and I, almost every conference I've paid for something myself because it
wasn't enough.
I also think that our travel budget for council has not substantially increased in a long time. I have
just a general concern with just across the board cuts without individual consideration for anything,
and I can appreciate wanting to do that. It seems like you're not targeting anything, but I think that it
It matters, the individual things matter, not just in this, but in anything. And I did, I mean, I do
think that the clerk's travel and education funding is kind of outpaced based on the number of staff
that they have. And there is a split out of that actually in the clerk's memo with travel and registration
to the various things and that travel,
expectation budget that got laid out there is still less than that 25%. But like $1,000. Like there's
still like $1,000 cushion in there based on. Yeah, no, that's fine. Your memo says that the travel that
you added up added up to 6,200 in the memo that you gave us. That's assuming only one person goes to
all of those laid out, but we're actually expecting a couple of people. That was, by the way, if you
really want
money map, you should go to that office. Either way, I don't think this one moves the needle all that
much. I think it's fine. I think that it is a point that what is that travel for and the holding times
thing and how should we be considering that. On the other hand, conferences are really meaningful.
Sure. So it's hard to... Okay, I'm going to move on if that's okay. So number 13 from me, this is more
of a need more information thing.
And I guess I'll get this in the memo. And so I'm not prepared to make an argument for or against this,
just simply that it was unclear to me in the presentation, very clearly, what are we licensing, who
are the users, utilization, renewals? What is actually being procured with a fairly large amount of
money? And so I just wanted to get a sense of what we're spending money on, if we already know or not. So yeah.
Why did I reduce it specifically by 90,000 though, actually? Yeah, we couldn't identify that number
either, specifically. I'm going to have to go back and look at my notes and figure out why, why. Because
this one was not arbitrary, but I'm forgetting now why. I don't know. I do not know why 90,000 was reduced
from this.
I know the general reason, but I don't know why 90,000 and not 120,000 or something like that, so I'll
come back with more information on that one. So no use talking about that one at the moment. Okay, the
next one I'm not going to introduce, so if that's okay with you all, I have no interest in introducing that one.
initial as we were thinking thinking out loud about things and we can only think in writing so I proposed
it in writing but we got the answers last week from director paycheck about that one we're talking about
the gasoline and fuel no the next one was the uh the additional the additional um cost of um uh insurance
yeah because in the questions the reason i put this one together was because in the questions the way
we the way that
I think you had framed, or one of the two of us had asked the question, it was framed as though that
was a mistake. It was like, oh, we think it might be this, but we found out it's actually this. And
then I thought that was just a carryover. And so I was like, OK, well, let's cut that. But then as was
described, that was on purpose to cover the cost for employees. But I don't think that's reasonable. Yeah.
Number 15, this one I know, Councilor Morrell is not going to like this one, but this was a similar
just, I mean, you know, the gasoline increases were quite, quite high and seems like even higher than
what we saw for BT. And so, so just pulling, pulling back some of that. But, you know, I think that
there's, I think there's a strong argument to keep it, keep it high because we might have a whole fuel
recession in a day or so.
There's a whole lot of uncertainty right now. We may even come to you for an additional appropriation.
Exactly. I'm unlikely to introduce this one either. All right. We're almost done, everybody. Sorry.
Number 16.
This one is reducing special legal services by 350,000, because I don't think that we're going to continue
to try to annex people or sue people or whatever. So sort of thought we don't need to have so much increase
in that general service money. And it has been over a year since I've asked Councilor Rice for an update
on the annexation lawsuit. Yes. Well, yeah.
Just generally, I think we should maybe stop suing people. What was the appropriation last year? What
I've said it to. 350,000? Yeah. Should we perhaps reduce it further? I'd be happy to. We reduced it
last year from their original proposal to, and yeah. I do think that sometimes we do need outside counsel
for bond stuff and for some other stuff, so.
And Corporation Counsel Rice is working on a response to this as well. So she'll provide some additional
information. If there's anything else you would like to know in that response, please let's voice it
and make sure she can get you the information she needs. Is she working on updating us on the annexation
lawsuit? Yeah, we would like some updates on the various legal procedures, including the beacon lawsuit.
exactly how much money we've spent on all of them. Yeah, how much have we spent? Including the eminent
domain lawsuit that we just lost. Yes. What? There's an eminent domain lawsuit? Well, there was, and
we lost it. Same. I don't even know about that. It's on our local resource, B-square bulletins. She's
referring to the showers must lawsuit where the city department asserted or attempted to assert the
user's condemnation, I believe.
To get the tenants out? 17, I'm not going to introduce. It was exploring the idea of lowering the cola.
One, don't think it moves the needle, but two, also like, you know, like why make people sad for no
reason. Number 18. Hold on, hold on.
And again, for whoever's listening, because we all can't talk, so if you want to throw an idea out there,
here's the idea. All right. Number 18. Number 18 does... So this one is another padding thing that it's
like we...
I don't, is this the appropriate way to do it? Probably not. I mean, it's like, you know, yeah, this
is not the way to do it. So I'm trying to figure out a way to- I'm still scrolling just to get through
it. Yeah, yeah. It just applies a 1% vacancy hold back of money, which is also somewhat negated by what
I'm going to propose an amendment for. But it's just like, you know,
We say every year that we have all this money left over because there's vacancies. So you could hold
back 1% and use those funds for something else. Again, of course, it's not because you want to allocate
the money so you can actually have the positions. But again, it's just about, is there a way? I'm trying
to explore out loud. I'm trying to explore out loud if there's a way to be more precise about how we
budget. That's it, right? So I don't know if this is the right approach.
A flop. But I don't think, yeah. I think that what we're doing when we allocate for positions and assume
positions is that we're saying, yes, we want a person to be doing this thing. And we want that to happen.
And if it doesn't happen, then that money just reverts back to the general fund. So it's not like we
lose anything, per se, except for
whatever work product it is that we really wanted that person to do, but we still are saying at the
high level, we want this work product from this position. That's what I think the TDM cut does. It says,
this position never delivered the work product that we actually wanted this position to create. Instead
of allocating this money toward this position, let's do something else with it.
Right now, I just don't think that a vacancy factor makes a substantial difference. And if we're- I
think one way, though, you could think about it is something like, so my argument has been that you
only deficit spend when you have a real investment to do. And there's lots of ideas that we've floated,
lots of things that have been brought up that would be some type of an investment in something vibrant downtown.
walkways, whatever. And so one way you could think about this is that, you know, that's an amount of
money we should feel fairly comfortable, you know, allocating in additional appropriation and have the
sense that like actually, you know, this is this is not really tied up in our budget, roughly speaking,
you know, but it's an arbitrary like approximation, right. So, but yeah, I agree with you. I don't I
don't think as an amendment, it's it's particularly useful. So I want to introduce that one.
That's everything that's in the packet. I have one other thing that I'm happy to talk about, but only
if you guys are interested. And I've talked enough at this point, I feel like, for the whole week. Well,
I mean, what we're supposed to do here is talk about the ideas and thoughts we have about next week.
So if anybody else has any other amendment ideas that didn't make it into the packet, I think we should talk
What is your idea? A lot of people are still ruminating. Okay, from Fred, and you know, I don't know.
I think that we should also remove the legal risk administrative assistant job in legal and risk. That's
a grade four position. Roughly $79,000 fully landed. It is vacant. What position is that? It is the
legal stroke risk. She has started.
Yeah, she just started. That does not make it. OK. Now, I might still hold the same view. I don't like
attaching it to a person's name, but I don't like it. It's this legal risk system. It had been vacant,
but it is not. I think the first advertisement failed, and they had to go through the process again
to find someone. So it took a lot.
I think that we should... Well, on what basis would you cut that line? I think that we are over-investing
in risk management in the city. On what basis do you make that judgment? Well, one, I think that we
are fairly...
And I think that we are, when you think about things like, so risk is also managing these questions
of, for example, a free FOIA request, yes. And I don't see that having another person makes FOIA requests
go faster. I think it actually makes them go slower. For example. Do those go through risk? Do they
go through risk? Or do they go through? They go through legal.
They do go through legal. Is legal not the risk people don't work in legal? Legal is over risk, but
the risk people are not necessarily working on. I can't say definitively that I think that we don't
spend too much money on risk, but I think that there's a lot of risk.
And I think that there's a lot of risk because we manage a whole lot of public space as a city. And
so there's like constant risk associated with the spaces that we manage because there are a lot of them.
And then we also manage a lot of people as employees in terms of their safety. But then we also
those people that we're managing are also interacting with the public. And that's a whole nother risk
sector in terms of those person to person interactions and how that sometimes might go. So I'm not sure
that having a department of three which includes
an assistant is necessarily over spending and risk. Yes. I should say something that I should have said
something at the beginning. So my approach to all of the vacancies and positions that I'm proposing
otherwise to. First is that, I mean, we could start with this question of just, is our budget model
sustainable when over the last
so many years we've increased what we're spending on on positions by you know 20 plus million dollars
and that was before we put the six million dollars and last year which is all I support the goals of
doing all that and then we did spend that whole thing I remember all that great but in the long run
the proportion of our budget that is that is positions has increased over the last several years and
the question is
Like, at what point, if we do not expect to see increases in revenue, does that become unsustainable?
And so I think that one approach could be that we said something like, you know, the mayor needs to
find a million dollars of cuts or something like that. In positions, you tell us which ones, right,
is one way of doing it.
My approach was saying, okay, let's identify first all of the, I'm sort of like, essentially I have
a hiring freeze of vacancies for now. Outside of, you know, I think there's a handful of them that,
you know, like you have a grants, like a grants. No, purchasing manager. Purchasing manager,
which is like, it's like critical, right? Like, you know, so there's like a handful of things that make
a lot of sense.
but for us to just continue in the path dependency of like, well, this position is there, let's fill
it, and let's just figure out what happens next. I think that, so that's sort of my philosophical approach
here. Now there's another set of things which will be more controversial, but I think that in terms
of, so I sort of looked at the vast majority of vacant positions, but this position is no longer vacant.
So, you know, and saying, okay, like, let's actually talk about what is the real outcome, and is this
a critical position, or is this just sort of like, somebody's gonna have to do a little bit more work
if this position doesn't exist?
So that was my thinking about vacancy specifically, but this one now not being a vacancy moves to a
different category.
But I do still think that it may make sense for us to ask that there be a significant exploration of
how we might have a reduction in force and or some statement that says if you actually think that our
revenue is going to go up in the next couple of years and make this more sustainable, then
You know, great, but I think every indication has said that we're going in the opposite direction. And
let's go in the way, and, and, and, so. I think on the other side of that, where we have personnel,
we also have equipment that we're paying insurance on. So I think it would be perhaps helpful, if it's
possible, I know it's a very quick turnaround time, to get a full list of all the equipment that we
have, what we're paying insurance on, and how we're using.
every single piece of medical equipment. Sure. I think this is a great point. This is a great point.
So we don't see this amendment, right? This is the one you still have. Yeah, we're not done with it
yet. We're not done with it yet. So are there other positions? Yes. The public engagement director in
the mayor's office, I think, is worth getting rid of. I think that the second
uh, comms position in the mayor's office is worth getting examining. Are these, they're not vacant though?
They're not. This one is not vacant. The first one is vacant. The public engagement director. The public
engagement is vacant. The, the second comms position is not vacant. I'm happy to give my reasoning for
why. Please do. Well,
Main reasoning is if you look at the questions that I asked, I said, what would happen if this position
doesn't exist? And the answer was that somebody else will have to do a little bit more work. And when
I look at how we're doing comms in the city, we've decentralized a lot of comms. And then there is some
central capacity for comms in the mayor's office that the very branding report that we just received
said very clearly that most of our comms are focused on the mayor themselves.
And I think that it doesn't really make a lot of sense to spend, I guess it's like $200,000 fully-lended
to do political comms for the mirror. When you have a bunch of comms capabilities, I think that we have
to be really then clearer about what are the outcomes that we're getting from sort of
our comms capabilities and where do those best sit? I think that's a hard conversation to have, but
I think it's a conversation that we have to have. I get it, I won't be invited to the dinner party or
whatever, but I think that's a conversation that is much needed. I also think that we have plenty of
recent examples where
they say that the main outcome of comms is, so my question was, okay, why don't we just let all of the
departments do comms, right? Because everybody has access, they all send out press releases as well,
so why not just have those departments do it? And the main argument is that you need this for critical,
what do you call it, like crisis communication? And exhibit A is we just had a boil water thing happen
all across the city that didn't go out until midnight,
My understanding is that we found out about that at five. I don't know, sort of feels like that's a
crisis. And so if centralizing that slows that down, it's a conversation we should be having about does
it make more sense to put this somewhere else? Should this be in another office? Should this be in public
work? Should this be in something like that? So to that end, as to force that conversation, I also propose
that we only fund the communications director for half of the year.
so that that conversation has to be had before it proves that outcomes are justified by what we're spending
on it. I agree. I think that when you have the comms position in the mayor's office, it turns political
in a way that it doesn't necessarily need to be. And so now a lot of things become PR issues.
when it should be about, how is the government supposed to work? Or how do I get to the event that's
happening? And the amount of comms that are, the event happened.
Wasn't it awesome that somebody was there? And I could go on and on about so many examples of that,
where I've been wanting to go to a bank, can't figure out what's going on. And I think that there's
a clear standard. We also know that there's been a lot of times where the press have asked for things,
or they've chosen to give only certain press outlets certain information, or where they take a long
time to get the press information before things happen. All of those type of questions, I think, are
critical to the way
functioning not only of our democracy, but of our city government. And I think it's anathema to a lot
of the things that we say are high priorities, like transparency and accessible government and all those
other things. So put in a spotlight on that. I would also like to see better communication with council.
Internal comms are lacking. Well, to that end, I also propose that we examine the legislative affairs
specialist position.
Again, I don't have friends. Then I think similarly, Parks has a Community Relations Manager. I think
there's a question there, and then there's a Health and Wellness Coordinator. I think those two are
vacant. Are they filled? I think the Health and Wellness Coordinator got filled. This is why I'm still
working on this one because I wasn't clear on what's vacant or what's not.
I think it's good to entertain all of those. I just did a little Googling about where two cities house
communications, and it's kind of a mixed bag mess. I think, again, it's worth us being clear about what's
going on and what's the direction going forward. What was the other thing in parks besides the community
relations manager? So the community relations manager, which I think is vacant. Community relations manager?
You mean the community events coordinator? Let me pull it up. Give me a second. Community relations.
What was it called? Oh, community relations manager. Yes. That's the actual title? That is filled. Oh,
that's a filled position?
says it's filled in our 2027 budget thing. Okay. I might be wrong. So again, like this was wasn't ready.
In the original budget, the health and wellness coordinator was open and the program facility coordinator
on community events was open. Okay. So I think that both of those might be filled now. Okay. So yeah.
So all of this, this is just me speaking in this context. When we have some clarity on those, I'll finalize
that obviously before the meeting.
Yeah, I don't mind thinking about some kind of hiring freeze if we're really looking at cutting some
expenses that is non-essential. I mean, that's just a code phrase, right? And how do we define that?
That would be something we would need to discuss, I guess. I appreciate the work you've done on this
part. And then the very last thing. I have one more thing, I guess, kind of on that note.
that I hesitate to cut positions before we actually have to in terms of the big financial picture. Yes,
we're going to maybe really have to slice next year or the year after.
in terms of 2028, 2029, but do we really need to do that to our staff in 2027? I think that any time
we talk about doing that, you want to know what people are going to start doing, they're going to start
leaving before we actually want them to, and then we're going to struggle as a community. So I'm really
nervous about cutting any positions or de-prioritizing our staff in any way. I think that's a totally
fair and I
You know, it might sound like I'm of two minds. I share that approach as well, which is also why thinking
about, OK, let's think about vacant positions for sure. But then I also do think that we can consider
if we are not happy with particular policy directions, outcomes associated with current jobs,
that we need to figure out some way of having that conversation. And it's like, how else do you have
that conversation of like, look, you know, everything that you're doing right now is outside of how we feel.
you know, taking, you know, and again, this is not any knock on a particular person. It's, I think,
of the structure of the job itself, you know, and I feel like we have been bringing these things up
for, you know, the three years that I've been on council, but then it's like, oh yeah, we're gonna address that.
We've all known that the transportation demand manager was not a meaningful position for years.
But yet, every year we just kept doing it because we had a person in the position. So at some point,
we could have deployed that same capital, even the same person, in another way. But we have to have
that uncomfortable conversation of, wait, is this working the way that we want it to? And not, is this
person good? That's not the question. We have the most incredible people
But I think often deployed in ways that maybe could be done differently. We can't change job descriptions.
Sometimes it could be easier. And I think some of the... But it's outside of our scope. So our scope
is whether you fund something. Right. Like TDM, that was a big thing.
last term that it wasn't put in a proper department. Transportation demand management is planning and
transportation, right? And it was never created to be an effective job, I would say. That was correct,
right? It never was used the way TDM should be used. But I mean, something we've talked about too is,
like that one specifically,
our city would benefit from having TDM. But it's going to happen under this administration. You have
to be interested in managing your transportation in a way that might not be super appealing to people,
I would say. So that's hard. I think, too, some of the positions you're talking about in the administration's office
It's coming from that branding study that says this is mayoral promotion and doesn't make sense necessarily.
And then community members feedback, I think, too, just saying that's not how they maybe imagined an
Instagram or Facebook. The idea that social media is a pretty quick way to get information out of anything
going on. It's not exactly how it's used.
but we can't change that job description, right? What were the other, were you done? The last thing,
and then I will stop talking for the rest of the time. So I think in a similar vein, the, I think,
that our economic and sustainable development department as a whole has become, I think has been built,
grown in a way that isn't optimal, I think. I think there's lots of those functions that should maybe
happen elsewhere, should happen outside of the city, should happen in other departments in the city.
And I think talking to stakeholders in economic development that the sentiment is that we would get
a lot more out of our economic development activities if you went back to the pre-ESD structure where
you have a point person for economic development in the mayor's office who's fully empowered to be economic
development person.
and that you redistributed some of those functions to other places, like sustainability should probably
be in parks or something like that, or in planning and transportation. And that you actually then put
money into the community to run some of these things. And I'll give an example, like the overhead associated
with us administering our arts program is large and growing, right?
And I'm like, we should be funding it and funding it more, but we are creating a bureaucratic system
that's not serving the community the way that the intended recipients totally intend while raising the
overhead cost of that. And so in other words, we've created a position
that then has created a process that necessitates the position existing. And so I think that we should
address that question. And again, one of the ways that you can address that is by you fund that for
half of the year so that it forces us to have that conversation. Fund what for half of the year? All
of the ESD positions.
know that I love the idea of funding anything for just half the year, because half the year ends in
July, and we go on recess somewhere in June. And I think that that almost doesn't give enough time to
properly prepare for that. I just think that that would be hard, especially because of how the budget
calendar works in terms of what staff has to do
between March and June, March and July. I don't know how practical it is. I feel like it's more practical
to put it on notice and say, hey, this time next year, we want an entirely different proposal.
But what's the teeth for that, right? That's true. That's true. That's true. What is the teeth for that?
This is where I totally agree. That is my preferred approach, but that's the approach I've taken for
three years.
Right? Where I'm like, look, these are some things we should change. And it was like, yeah, yeah, we
should change those things. Yeah, we all agree. Yeah, change. I'm not saying us. I'm saying, like, we
can talk to stakeholders. And then come back next year. And it's like, ah, well, this isn't the year
to do it. Let's do it next year. Like, if we fund it for, say, nine months instead, then that gets us
through that budget season of OK.
how are you rethinking it next year? The six months, I guess, is the thing. I don't love six months
because of how that falls. I'm totally open to play. I'm also open with us as a council. I'm not trying
to force my will here or anything. I'm just trying to like, hey, there's some conversations that we
have to have and I think there's other conversations that we should have too. I only have so much
energy to fight them all. But like, but I think that that's a way of starting, starting this process.
It's like, look, like, you know, I think this has been a fairly clear direction that a lot of people
said, that's been echoed in a lot of different ways that, you know, and like, how do we how do we actually
have that conversation? Like, you know, and so this is available to us. I mean, you're on several economic
development related commissions.
I am not, so this is the first time hearing of the city is not the best entity to handle these things.
So I would need a whole lot more information before I cut anything in ESD. I mean, you heard me at the
budget hearings. I think it is a department that's cobbled together by three, you know, with three totally
different kind of goals in mind. So I do think that
it should be reorganized. I just don't have enough information to say, oh, well, the chamber should
be doing this or some other arts organization should be doing this or farming out these pieces. I mean,
when the assistant director for sustainability position was created, Andy, Dave and I were like,
That should be its own department. That should not be an ESD. It made no sense to us. We took it because
that was all we got under that mayor. So I definitely think I would like a workshop to try to understand
more from the ED perspective. And I have worked with sustainability perspective.
But I don't know if between now and next Wednesday, or of course, we don't have to vote next Wednesday.
But that's also why my approach here is saying you say it's nine months, whatever it is, six months,
to force us to have that conversation. But if you were an employee in ESD and you heard it was six months,
wouldn't you start looking for another job? Yeah, so then how else do you have that conversation? The
hard part is we shouldn't
be in this position that we have to threaten? I would say there's a threat. I see it as a, like...
I mean, it should be easier to have this conversation, is what I'm saying. We shouldn't have to say...
And if we fully adopted outcome-based budgeting, that conversation would have been part of it. We're
going to try to make you talk to us by saying we're not funding these in nine months. Like, that is,
like, an insanely weird thing. But it's like, this is where we are. At no fault of our own. I think...
I think it's neat to have curiosity around. I am more interested in maybe a path that is, and I don't
know how we do this with the budget, dispersing the positions into maybe departments where they should
be. Or like you were saying, ED used to be in the mayor's office. We've talked a lot about having a
climate director, cabinet level position, and never gotten it.
There's some time here. We can't create those positions, but it's a neat time when council is a little
more willing to talk about it, I think, at least amongst yourselves. Can we create positions? No.
We can't? I don't think so. We can't? No. Looking at Larry. I think that one thing that we also need
to remember when we think about new departments,
you know, department heads end up being appointed by the mayor. And that's a different thing than being
hired. And there's different job protections when you're hired, as opposed to when you're appointed
by the mayor. And then there's different reporting, different, you know? And really, the mayor could
appoint anybody, you know? And this is, once again, not personal at all. Like, I'm not talking about
our current mayor. I'm just saying, in theory, that structure, like, the mayor doesn't
the mayor does not have to appoint somebody who's actually qualified. They can appoint whoever they
want. That makes me very wary of saying, let's make a whole department that is sustainability. Because
then it's like, well, are we going to always be guaranteed that we're going to have a mayor who's going
to appoint somebody who's definitely qualified for that?
kind of position. Well, we don't know that about Annie. Yeah. That's true, but I'm just saying that
I think that we should be. And the oral appointment is firing that position either way. So it's like
you can have, I mean, I've always also thought that I wouldn't stick on that. Well, we can take it as
a good signal. Yeah, you can. Is it on here? No. No, you can, I think you can just. It's for the wall?
That's for the wall.
Yeah. I don't know. Just maybe, where do I? They're OK, but no, there's not. No, I think you just click
OK. I think it's just time. Yeah, I think it's just time. We can take it as a sign to.
Finish. I don't think we should do that. No, can you just pause for a moment? Because I don't know how
to get into this. Everyone, if we lose you online, it was. I think you lost them. We already lost them.
No, no, no. They're still there. I did that twice. I think last time this has happened, they've said,
OK. We don't know what will happen. Literally type in, OK? Well, that's what we thought was going to
happen. We're still online. We're still online. You can still see it.
Yeah, it's just, there we go. Oh, OK. Well, that was much to do about that thing. Thank you. Did you
try turning it off and turning it on? It was just so dramatic. Anyways, OK, so what are our actions,
friends, moving? What is the actions? Well, I, for one, need to see these.
And that's just about this. All of the things. Yes. About all of the things. Oh, all of the things?
Yes. I don't got anything else about all of the things. Are there any other amendments that we're working
on to flag? Did I miss the Housing Development Fund? Where is that? Yeah, we talked about that in depth.
Okay. We can go back to that. No, I'm fine. I've talked about it enough.
Can I make a process comment? Yes, please. Just so everybody understands that if you do decide to make
cuts, say, in the budget adoption meeting next Wednesday, you would then have to continue that meeting
to a future date and have another one to actually adopt the budget. Because if you make any cuts that
are more than, just say, one or two lines, we would need time to be able to enter them into
into the new world system, do the calculations, enter them into Gateway, produce a new form for which
is what you're actually...
Good, you know if you were just say just cutting the sanitation in the parking, right? We can probably
do that on the fly With a 15-minute recess, but if it's anything, especially like positions. Yeah, it's
anything more complicated Right. It's exactly it would take us some time. So just you want to be thinking
about a date to continue And do we need Larry
Larry, do we need a special session to be in a regular session on the agenda for budget? You can add
the agenda to a regular session. I mean, the special sessions are just what's out of the ordinary scheduling
for you. And you can schedule a special session at any time. And our drop dead date is when?
October 31st, you have to pass it by November. Exactly. So I think the takeaway, though, is that if
you do have any other amendments, I think reasonably, we cannot really introduce them without having
to schedule a whole new meeting. Basically, there would be an off-cycle meeting and stuff like that.
Does that make sense? Is the 14th enough time, so a week?
from the 7th to the 14th? You mean from our perspective? Yes. Yes, so I mean, if now I know you're going
to be gone, your daughter's getting married. Well, yes, the short answer is yes. We're not going to
be delayed. We do need a few days, but a week. We can make a week. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, but
the point is we should not, you know, it would not make sense to bring an amendment on the 14th when
we continue. Right, right. Do not do that. Yeah.
We have a meeting on the 14th, and then what's the next meeting after that? We have a deliberation session
on the 21st. OK, so we could. But that doesn't seem reasonable. We already made a lot of plans for that.
A lot of plans. You could always schedule a special session just before it if you felt reasonably satisfied,
ready to pass it in a relatively quick amount of time, and allow for the deliberation session.
And this doesn't change, so if we make an amendment to the budget, it doesn't change. You don't even
have to re-notice the budget or anything. No, no. We notice. What we would do is, again, we would enter
as long as we reduce. We can only reduce. But we can reduce in a gay way and then produce the
new documentation. Cool. If we really had to, the 28th is open. I would prefer not to do that.
Then if somebody gets in a car accident, you don't have to go around. Exactly. Exactly. There'll be
a lot of car crashes. All of them are together. Well, look around. There's only six of us. Not just
looking at Wednesday nights, but... Yeah, well, exactly. But I just think as a matter of course,
of course, you are elected people who do what you will with that power. But I'm just saying as a matter of...
general decorum or something. Let's aim to not try to have wild amendments between this next meeting
and what will come thereafter. So we should hopefully be able to deal with all of these in between.
But it might happen. And that's probably better. We did more time than ever, I think, for more tinkering.
I won't be at any of them. We'll miss you. We will miss you.
So you don't take as long as you want? All right. Any other interactions, y'all, or any other things
for the good of the order that you'd like to say? Would anybody like to have a public comment?
Anything else? All right. If nothing, anything else go to the good of the order? Nope. Thank you. Adjourned.