Sounds like we can call the meeting to order. We do have a quorum. This is a meeting of the Committee of the Whole. And on our, on our agenda today is the, um, a review of the budget reduction suggestions, uh, that have been offered by the mayor. We also have other business that's identified, and if we get into other business, um, one of the things that's right at the top of that list will be the rules and, uh, procedures, council rules and procedures that the inner-government committee has been considering, and that we re- that were referred to the Committee of the Whole. Um, and I did get an email from, uh, Commissioner Askew saying that the meeting which was expected or planned to occur, hoped to occur between when the, um... between the meeting wh- when we referred the rules and procedures to the Committee of the Whole and this meeting of the, of the, um, of the Committee of the Whole, that meeting with, I think, commit- uh, council members... I've got it here, so let me read it. There was a group consisting council member delegation considering- consisting of Council Members Feigel, Lane, Lawless, and, uh, Commissioner Askew that was planned to have occurred to discuss the rules and procedures. In that meeting, according to Commissioner Askew, has not yet been held. So, he is asking if this can be deferred. We still may want to discuss it though. All right. So, I ask, um, Council Administrator, um, Rebecca Langston to, uh, introduce the, uh, budget issues, the budget reduction issues that we have. And is Jerry gonna do that or are you gonna do that, Rebecca? Jerry's gonna do that if you're talking about the issues for our office. If you're talking about the general government issues, I assume that, uh, you'll be doing that. I'd just like a platform for it. So... Well, the first, the first item was, uh, the quarterly cal was supposed to be the, uh, our council office budget reduction discussion. And then at the last work session, Council Member Crosby asked for a discussion of the, uh, budget reductions that the mayor had made. So I believe that, uh- Okay. Yeah. So, Commissioner Rumpke and Director O'Mara, thank you all very much for joining us. Linda and Bill, you bet, you've memorized this budget by now, haven't you, Linda? I have. Good morning. I'm not sure what format, um, Vice Mayor, that you would like to proceed through this review. Um, Friday, each of you should have received, uh... And I apologize that they were 11 individual attachments, but it was the easiest way to get the information out to you all. Um, you should have received in your email a, uh, what we term the Revised General Fund Operating Plan, and then a summary by department of the, uh, expense, uh, reduction recommendations that were made by each commissioner. Each commissioner is going to be here today, should you have questions about their individual, uh, department recommendations. So, Vice Mayor, I'm not sure exactly how you'd like me to proceed on this. And excuse me, at your, um, seats, each of you will have the details of the partner agency and county official reductions. My apologies, that attachment did not go out with that, um, email on Friday. All right. So what's... Is there... Pleasure of the council is suggestions from the council members on procedure for reviewing. I feel, um, imagine that some council members have specific questions that they'd like to have addressed, and, uh, we can approach it that way if it's appropriate. It looks like Council Member Blues has got a question. Council Member James. All right, let's, uh, I acknowledge Council Member Blues first, but is that okay? When... Uh, Vice Mayor, when did you want to take up the, uh, the council office budget? We need to take up the council office budget after we get the general budget. It's my view. Thank you. Is that all right? Sure. Okay. Council Member James. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, my, my statement to you and maybe to the rest of the committee is, what's our intention? So, throughout this presentation, what, what are we aiming towards? Just so that we're sure as a committee what, and are we gonna be defining administrative roles and legislative roles within today's conversation? And, and what can our, anybody watching expect for us to do at the end of this meeting? My view on it is that we would have a conversation and a discussion in which the questions that any council member has related specifically to issues in the budget reduction plan are addressed. And as we go through that, we will have a better sense of. ... the, the expectations and the, um, the expectations on the authority or the re-, uh, responsibility of the council to act on specific issues. Okay. Um, thank you. And is there an assumption that if we are to ... And I would, um, probably go to, um, I don't ... Who's the chair of Budget and Finance? Uh, C- Council Member Stennet. Council Member Stennet, is there a ... Is there an assumption that from today's conversation, if we adjust anything from this plan, if there's any proposal to adjust it, that we also need to find, um, find the, whatever the word is, the rest- the- more money? Do we need to cut somewhere else if we make a decision to not cut somewhere that the mayor has proposed? Th- there is no planned topic for the Budget and Finance to, to that effect. I was just talking with Logan about what our power really is. We don't have any power to change this plan except the fact that we budget amendments. If we wanna go back and increase- ... another department's budget and lower another one's budget, we can do that. But as presented, we can't go tell them not- ... for- to spend money, so to speak. As long as they have it in their budget, they can choose to spend it all or not spend it all, but we can change their budget amount. So we can add to another department's budget. If we wanna go into, say, fire for instance, and increase their overtime budget, take it from somewhere else, we can do that as a body. That's my understanding, through budget amendments. And we can bring that to Budget and Finance. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. Beeping sound] Thank you, Council Member James. Uh, Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, well, back when this first was being discussed, one of the things that I personally wanted was information, and to be able to understand from a position of knowledge. And, um, I think it would be helpful since this came at the end of the day on Friday, which was a holiday weekend, if we could have a very brief, um, overview going through by each, um, each of the commissioners to ... I mean, some of these are not self-evident on here, um, as to what they are. And I'm not sure how many- ... council members have had an opportunity to read this since it did come on Friday afternoon. So, would that be reasonable to have a very brief overview with any questions that come up to go through it? Is that ... So that ... What you're suggesting is that Commissioner Rumpke would make that overview, or individually by- All the- ... departments? Well, all the commissioners- Okay. ... are here. Or I don't know if they're all here actually, but most of them, and they're smiling. Okay. So, it might work that way. All right. Unless there's a- Objection to that. I- I would think that we could go it that way. Mr. Stennet, you got any suggestions? Is that okay? All right. Coun- Can we ... Council Member Lawless. Um, I think that would be great. I believe what the intention of the request was, is that ... I mean, this is kind of an outline. We have no idea what's being cut, um, and what impact it might have on the operations of the city. Um, you know, we, we talked about more of a line item spreadsheet. Social services is one of the more complete ones. Um, so that would be helpful if you could give more detailed information. Thank you. Any other comments? Mr. Stennet. I mean, I- I think, you know, to ask them to go back to every department and give that level of detail is a pretty tough task, unless there's certain departments we wanna take a closer look at after today's discussion. Because again, um, you know, un- unless you all can give us a s- synopsis of which departments or, or where we'll feel the biggest hit in terms of ser- city services- Somebody's- ... overall- That's pretty simple. ... um, more of a brief s- would- would be what I would be looking for. Because that, that little detail, I mean, again, we can't go back and change it unless we increase their budget and give 'em more money to spend. Again, they can choose not to spend it as well. So, thank you, Vice Mayor. Is there any need to confirm the ... to confirm or have any more conversation about the revenue forecast question? Does any- any council members have any ... Mr. Lane? Ah, sorry, Chairman- Mr. Chairman, but I ... I was gonna comment on the previous issue. Uh, .......................... in conjunction with, uh, Council Member Stennet. You know, I think if we want more detailed information, that we either ought to ask the commissioner come up, if somebody has a specific question, or maybe to ask for a more detailed report. Um, because, uh, there ... I mean, there's ... This took a lot of work to put all these reductions in place. I think it's gonna be hard to go into micro-detail on where all the cuts are, 'cause they were line item by line, I must understand. Um, I've just ... Just my thought on that. And, uh, with regard to your question on the revenue, um, you know, I- I think we have to rely on the information we've been given. I don't know if there's any new revenue opportunities, unless we wanna raise taxes. Are ... Does anybody wanna raise taxes here? Okay. I- I guess that's self-evident. Thank you. Well, the r- ............................ Okay. Well, Bill is here, right? Mr. Romario is here, right. Okay. Well, I'd... You'll, you'll s- be on standby in case we do have questions about the revenue. I, I suspect that it may still arise, you know, the- the crystal ball of the budget projections of the revenue projections. Pardon? Snowy Snowy crystal ball. There we go. Good humor is a very important asset. Okay, um, then is there any suggestion as to the, uh, as to the priority of... by departments? I mean, you know, this is going from, like, 92,000 up to 2.8 million. Obviously, the ratio is, is greater at, um... I'm s- that's by department, and then we're, um... So, uh, abs- absent objection, do we start with public safety at 2.8 million 'cause that's the highest number? Or do we... Gotta c- c- call, Mr. Lane? I noticed you were looking at me, M- Mr. Chairman, but I think on the public safety area, that's... a lot of that is overtime money, and I think we've discussed that already in somewhat, somewhat more detail. Yeah, we have, that's right. Council Member... Council Member Crosby. I guess when I requested this... Uh, for example, um, fire. We'll look at fire and police, and there's some with correction... Well, all of 'em have operating. I guess what I was looking at, when you take operating costs, $137,000 with police. You have fire operating, $305,000. That's, that's, uh, uh... to me, in fire, $305,000 is a tremendous amount of operating cost. And what I was hoping to see w- was can they... I mean, can they operate with that big of a reduction in their overall operating, um, the operations within their department? Yeah. And then you take away their overtime, and then you have $400,000 in vacancy man- management. I'm assuming we're not filling positions, so, um... and we're taking away their overtime, and we haven't heard anything from them on, uh... well, they're already slim as it is. They're gonna have retirements, so I guess I was looking for more... when, when, um, Council Member Lawless talked about line items with their, with their operating, and then getting some details on how... what the retention's gonna be with the retirements, and, and then how that's gonna affect their retirement. To me, I can see that... what you've cut, but how is this going to affect the department, having to cut $1.5 million, and that cu- and, and looking at the line items of what you're cutting, and how that's gonna affect the department overall? Obviously, if we cut them that much, or if we decide we can't do that, and we have to make budget amendments to help them operate, I mean, is, is the operating cost coming from, like I said earlier, copies? And on some of these things, we see that, you know, from law, they're, they're doing stuff with their copying machines and things like that, or is... what is the operating cost that they're cutting? $305,000 is a lot of money, so that's... that was kinda like what I was looking for. That's, that... that's a pretty... that's a big chunk. And Commissioner Bennett's here, and can address any of those questions. Okay, while Commissioner Bennett's walking up, um, let's just get our arms around the, the procedure for the... for today's meeting. Um, if we're, we're, we're starting out with a question in public safety, so if we're s- we might as well go on with it then, and then go to general services. So we'll, we'll go down the l- we'll go... we'll take the list from the dec- highest number going down, or backwards, except Artie Green... Artie had asked me about... Mike Webb has some meetings, so looks like Mike's number, he... at 743,000, he'd be number three on this list. So we can escap- if he, if he's available, ask him to come on down in 20 minutes or so. But if he's not, we can relax and come back to him, Artie, okay? And I, and I would just say, Commissioner Bennett, most... a lot of the operating cost with... I- I'm asking this question in general with most of public safety, because they're... with the exception of, uh, E911, they're pretty significant cuts when you look at the overall budgets within the departments. So if you could maybe just... I'm, I'm not just singling out one division, I'm kind of looking at them overall, so thank you. Sure. And, and Chief, Chief Baston and Chief Hendricks are both here, to the extent... you wanna dive in a little more deeply than, than I may be able to. But, um, specifically, you were asking about the fire operating cuts. Fire's total operating budget, uh, is in the $5.8 million range. Now, a lot of that, they don't have discretion over. Uh, a big piece of that's what we have to pay to Kentucky-American each year for fire hydrant rental. Uh, utilities, vehicle equipment, fuel, uh, repairs and maintenance, things of that nature. So it looks like a big number, but in the end, what you have to work with is, is really not that big. The total proposed reduction, uh, for fire is 305,000. Of that... I'm gonna climb to... let me find my number again real quick. 131,000 is in the fire hydrant rental line item. That's money that we ex- expect to be in the budget that we won't need to pay Kentucky-American this year. So as you see, that's, that's a big chunk of the overall operating cut. The rest of it is scattered throughout the, the various operating accounts that they have within the f- the different bureaus. ... um, as the year goes on, needs will change, priorities will change, so I'm, I'm sure more will be cut, or more will be saved, uh, in a particular line item maybe than is currently proposed. More will be spent from another line item that's currently proposed, uh, but we think we can manage through it for the rest of the fiscal year. An- any more? Uh, Mr. Stennet. Can you repeat that, what their total operating alone is? Their total operating budget for the, for the current fiscal year is 5,840,000. So, the 305,000 is a percentage of, of that, obviously. Right. Wha- did you try to get a flat percentage amongst police, fire, corrections? No. So, okay. Each, each was asked to cut an overall dollar amount, um, and it was left to their discretion how they could best do that. Okay. So we weren't to, we, we didn't go in and tell them to reduce X percent of their operating. All right. It was overall budget-oriented. Any other questions? All right, okay, um, Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, Commissioner Rumpke, on the, let's see, second page, I believe, of the, um, printout, I wanted to ask some questions about unanticipated funds, and I wonder if you would mind to, um, they're, they're about 11 items listed, one of which is the debt service savings on the January 14th bond sale. I wonder if you could, uh, since this is actually, I would suppose, unanticipated revenue, would you ... Could we call it that? Uh, since it wasn't built into the budget? We weren't sure what to call it- Okay. ... because it's not, it's not recurring- Right. ... revenue, so that's why we, we labeled it unanticipated- Okay. ... funds because I'm not really sure how to technically classify it. I- i- essentially, you know, if, if it's unanticipated rent, it would be revenue to us. Um, but if it's a reimbursement, it's a one-time hit, so. So, okay, well, anyway, um, so the audit fees, can you tell me what that is? Th- yes, and, and I can just go down the list if that would be easiest for you. Would you mind to do that? That would be helpful because the total is 2,895,000 which is a b- It's a good- ... pretty big chunk. It is. So, the audit fees, um, if you recall, we had our, um, internal audit team, uh, Bruce, uh, Selley and team, uh, and that is the fee for the library audit. And so that is something that is being billed and we will collect. So we didn't put any other audit fees in there because we're not s- sure they're gonna be there. That might be out there as an opportunity, but that is one for certain where work has been complete and it wasn't in the budget. Um, the IRB fees, uh, D- Anthony Wright can talk a little bit more about this, but these are additional fees that will be brought in as a result of IRBs that we had already participated in. And, again, it was not in our budget for FY10 so we were able to quantify that and Anthony could answer more questions on that. Um, the LexTran reimbursement, this is something that LexTran, um, uh, there was some question about and I, I don't know if Bill's back yet or not. He can explain this better than I. It was something in the, um, uh, service reimbursement area and we had to wait till the end, uh, we had to wait till we issued the CAFR, w- which just got issued last week, to be able to then in turn request the reimbursement. And I can have Bill come up and talk a little bit more about that because it's actually out of the FY9 budget, and it is something that LexTran owes us, and it's a reimbursable item. And beyond that, I apologize because I don't have the institutional history on that one. Um, increased law collections, these are, these are collectible items that the law department, you know, people that aren't paying their fees, et cetera, that the law department has in turn filed suit. And so Logan, um, put together, his team put together a list of additional fees that we're anticipating being able to collect as a result of various suits and collection actions that we've taken. So, is that above and beyond what was originally expected? Yes, that is correct. Okay, and so do we go back every year and look at more law collections or why did we go back this year and estimate $60,000 more? I think we were, we were stepping back and looking at collections in general. It wasn't just for this, this exercise. We actually were looking at collections and how could we have a higher percentage of collections- Okay. ... as a result. And as a result of that exercise, we identified that and added that to this. And then on an ongoing basis, um, Logan and team has been working to increase our- Keep it up, okay. ... percentage of collections. Mm-hmm. Um, the Naturalist expense reimbursement, we had an opportunity to actually shift out of the general fund into, um, I believe into the urban services fund, but please don't hold me to that. Sheryl Taylor's group is now gonna be able to pay via, uh, grants, et cetera, uh... ... for the naturalist salary. So we were able to move that out of the general fund into, um, urban services funds. So we were very pleased to be able to do that. And as part of this exercise, let me just point out, eh, eh, and this is continuing to happen. We have been going position by position and really trying to understand if we have 15% of Linda Rumpke's salary that worked on something that was grant-related, can we, in fact, bill? And, and we had done a good job up to this point in time, but I think we're really getting the microscope out now and, and trying to see- ... you know, okay, so if I bill 10% of my salary, can I actually bill 15%? And doing a, a more in-depth analysis. And Cheryl was able to help us with this particular line item. But that review continues, and I think it's a good exercise for all of us to be going through. And that's at Raven Run? Pardon me? The Naturalist? Yes. Okay. Uh, Broadway Shops rent, um, that is the, uh, former festival market now called Broadway Shops, and that's new, uh, tenants that had just been, um, signed, and that's incremental rent that was not in our budget that we... that will accrue during this, um, fiscal year. And Kimra can talk a little bit more about that if you have questions on, on the tenants. Um, the UK Clinic rent and the EKU Clinic rent, um, Commissioner Helm can talk a little bit more about, but that's, uh, rent that, again, was not in the budget. It's where we are no longer in that business and now we'll be collecting that rent- Is that Family Care Center? ... for Family Care. Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh, corrections funds, um, Tim, I apologize. I can't remember the specific on that particular item. There are two separate funds that correction, um, realizes re- realizes revenue and the revenues go into, uh, both of which you may remember from the internal audit that was done fairly recently, uh, and the recommendation was not to have them as sever- separate funds, but to put them in a general fund. One is the phone revenue account from revenues from inmate phone calls. Uh, the other is what's called the CAP account, Community Alternatives Program, primarily drug testing revenues and electronic monitoring revenues. Which is which on this list? They're both lumped together in that 815,000. Oh. Oh. A port- a portion of the funds actually were brought into the general fund at the beginning of this fiscal year, uh, to be used as part of the, the revenue sources to support the budget. Uh, this would be bringing in the remainder of the funds that we anticipate accruing through the end of the fiscal year. And then the next line item, uh, the corrections, uh, federal reimbursement, our actual reimbursement rate from the federal government went up, and so that's the incremental, uh, add to revenue on that particular line item. And then finally, our debt service savings, um, we, we shared good news last Thursday when the bonds got floated. Uh, and in running the analysis on, um, late Thursday night, all day Friday, uh, we came up with a million two in debt service savings, and that is, um, several different pieces. Um, it's the... it's our refunding that we did. It's the fact that, uh, we now have, uh, lower, uh, debt service as a result of the interest rates that we were able to obtain. Um, Bill, what was the other one? Oh, and, and the timing in general, uh, because of what we had in the budget this year, um, and how we are, without getting too technical and using the committee's time, um, we- we- we're able to move that debt service out. Um, it- it allowed us to pick up a savings of a million two. And as of this morning, I have even better news to share with the committee. Um, Bill and his team, um, Chad Hancock, in particular, ran some additional analysis and we're... we believe we're right at a million six in debt service savings. So that is a huge pickup for us. And, um, it's all a result of the, the bond sale that we had and the way we structured it, the fact that the timing of the bond sale was just incredible, that that day was probably the best day to go to market that we've seen in the last eight months. Um, so what, what you see there with an additional 400,000 is what we're anticipating at this point in time. So, um, just two quick questions. Yes, ma'am. So really, that 1.2 million is 1.6? Yes, that's correct. And, and has anyone built in the, uh, 400,000 extra dollars into any of this? No, no. Okay. This, this was just as of this morning- Okay. ... that we actually were able to firm up all of the analysis. They were working really hard on Friday because we wanted to be able to quantify this for you, and knowing that we had just floated the bonds Thursday late. Um, so Bill, Bill has that information here, uh, and we're happy to share it, but it wasn't something we had available Friday, and I, I wanted to make sure you had that information. Okay. Well, if you could find a little more by tomorrow - Yes. ... maybe that would be good. We'd like that. Um, so that $400,000, um, so then would it be your feeling that that could be built into the... ... you know, to balance some of the cuts and that some of the cuts would not need to be made? Well, uh, th- eh, my personal feeling about this in talking, um, as we prepared for the bond sale, um, one of the things both rating agencies talked to us about is, is, uh, the importance of having a structurally balanced budget, and when I say structurally balanced, I know everyone here understands what that means, and they really were looking at, um, our use of the carry-forward dollars knowing that we, ah, still need to go forth and do a $35 million pension bond, um, this fiscal year. Uh, I feel that that gives us some leeway in, in going forward and doing this bond. And if we keep that in our carry-forward number, I feel that our rating will be preserved because we'll have the liquidity that they were talking to us about during this last, uh, bond sale, uh, exercise. Because there is concern about the spend downs in all of our funds, not just general fund, but all of our funds, which is why I notated at the bottom, um, about the maintenance of our liquidity as the key determinant of our cost of borrowing. So it would be my recommendation that we would, um, utilize that savings or other savings that we have to get to a structurally balanced budget to allow us to maintain our bond rating and continue to be able to borrow at such a low cost that we just experienced last Thursday. Because, um, really what that has done for us, by floating that additional 35 million, we'll now be able to get through FY11 without having... Excuse me, let me back up. Well h- if, if we have a structurally balanced budget and we carry forward the entire FY08 carry-forward amount, the 2 million and change, um, it would give us that breathing room in FY11 because we will have floated the bond for the pension. We will have just completed our GO bond and it'll give, it'll get us through that squeeze and debt service during the FY11 budget. So we'll have that FY08 carry-forward available to us to take care of our debt service needs and the other needs that we're gonna have that we've already acknowledged in other committees, such as, you know, increases in salary, under contract, that kinda thing. So that 400,000 would be put into a fund balance basically and then used- Well, essentially, essentially what would happen is we just wouldn't utilize the carry-forward. So in other words, right now, we're using 851,000 and change to, to balance the budget. We would use... M- my recommendation would be to use 451,000 and continue as, as all of the commissioners are as we're trying to find additional opportunities for revenue and expense reductions, which is an ongoing... Just because we went through this exercise doesn't mean that's not what we're looking for every day, because we are. But as we identify some of these other opportunities that legal's researching, all of the things that, you know, we're not far enough along to be able to say, "Yeah, we can get that savings." Um, anything that we do come up with, then I think we can go back and say, "Well, maybe we go ahead and hire XYZ." But, but it would be my recommendation to try to keep your FY08 carry-forward intact. And then just finally, what date did the, um, corrections federal reimbursements go up? Um, I'll have to ask Commissioner Bennett. Actually, they've not gone up yet, Councilmember Gordon. Uh, we're in the process of renegotiating those. Um, we're in a back and forth now, but even at the, kind of the, the floor level the feds have proposed, uh, we feel comfortable we can achieve this for the rest of the fiscal year. We're still trying to negotiate a higher rate, however. Do you expect that soon? Uh, we hope so. Yes, ma'am. Like within a month? Within a week? Within two months? Within at least the quarter. What we built in was, was what we expect to be a quarter's increase in revenue. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner Rumpke. Councilmember Stunnet. And our, our, uh, monitors are working, are functioning now. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, I was gonna kinda piggyback on what Councilmember Gordon asked about what do we do with the, the savings of 1.2 or $1.6 million now. Wouldn't it be prud- I mean, some of the, some of the cuts in public safety have been pretty drastic. Are we not gonna look at maybe dr- putting some of that money back so that brownouts can slow down or the police o- you know, can have some additional efforts in patrol? Have we even looked at that yet? I mean, I understand your rationale for wanting to save. Well, giv- But we're not there yet. Given that we just found it this morning, I have not had that conversation with... You're, you're hearing it- Okay. ... just like the administration's hearing it. We literally just found out this morning that we have that available, so certainly that could be on the table. The, the additional 400 or the 1.2? The 400. Well, the, the 1.2 on your... Uh, have we not made any changes to what you, what the mayor presented a week ago Friday to what we're seeing now? Yes. What you, what you are seeing is that we are not using as much of the FY08 carry-forward. Okay. That's what I wanna know. Yes. That is correct. I just wanna make that clear 'cause- And then the extra, the, uh, uh, additional 400,000 has not been discussed because it, we just got the calculations, but I want, I wanted you to have it. And June, July date is on the $35 million pension bond? We're actually looking at whether it would make more sense to go ahead and do it now because twofold, and I, I- ... obviously was gonna bring this to budget and finance as well. Twofold, number one, we have this nice little window where the rates have been extremely favorable on tax-exempt in particular. You know, it's a day-to-day thing, but we think it's prudent for us to go ahead and research that. But secondly, because of the rate, our debt service obligation for next year has come down because we got such favorable rates. So we, that, that's when I was talking about. We do have the cushion to go ahead and do it now and take advantage of these low rates. Well, that was gonna be my second question is, is debt service, if we do s- sell them today, our debt payments still won't be till fiscal year 2012? The, the, um, principal payment will be 2012. The interest payment will be- 11. ... will be 11. Of, of course, okay. But the principal won't be till 12. Sorry. That is correct. Thank you. All right. Uh, any other questions for, while Commissioner Rumpke is here? Coun- Council Member Lawless. Um, one of the things I would be interested in is there are a lot of professional service contracts that we enter into that the council doesn't see if they're under $50,000. And, um, if somebody could get us a list of those and what they're for, and who they're with. I believe that, uh, Brian Markham's, uh, group is already working on that, Council Member Lawless, but I'll follow up on that for you. Well, my understanding is some of them are in different departments, so it's not ... But thank you. Okay. Um, are there any questions then for, um, uh, General Services? Uh, I'm sorry, Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice M- Mayor. I lost my voice. Tim Bennett, please. Commissioner Bennett. Refresh my memory, I don't know whether it's in the 2010 or 2009 budget, you came and there was a question of 600 and some odd thousand dollars that was coming out of Corrections' telephone budget. That was in the '09 budget, as I recall. Okay. And, um, that left some kind of a balance, a working balance, I guess. Mm-hmm. Um, and we've accrued this much more money in- This is what was remaining in the fund as well as the additional revenues we've realized this fiscal year. So this is not just one year's worth of revenues that you're seeing here. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. That you're seeing here. Mm-hmm. Nice work if we can, if we can get it. It's- Try to keep it up. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Council Member James. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner Rumpke. My question is for Commissioner Rumpke. The, um, the 1.6, um, the 1.6 possible debt service savings, what line item budget is that in right now? Is that under debt service payment? Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you, can you get that number, that line item number for me in our budget? We ... Um, I can, and we actually, um, Bill and his team put together, if you recall, when we went through the bonding exercise, he put that debt service analysis back together with that million six savings- Mm-hmm. ... factored in. And if that would be helpful to the council, we certainly can distribute that today. Um, you can do that. I, I just really wanted the, the number of the line item, um, as it's written in our budget. And I can go look that up while- Okay. ... we're talking. Thank you, Vice Mayor. All right, um, Council Member Feagel. Uh, Commissioner Rumpke. I was gonna send you back there. So thank you. Um, I think I heard you say that you are considering the possibility of issuing the next cycle of bondings during this window of opportunity where we can get the low interest rates. Correct. Correct. Is there any additional savings on that bond issue that we can expect to get? Well, we've run the analysis based on actually where we floated last week. Mm-hmm. And, um, our underwriters are running that as we speak. Okay. We could pick up a, a little bit of savings, but, but we've run the analysis based on probably some of the best rates that we've seen or we may ever see, uh, as an urban county government. So I don't know that there's gonna be a lot of incremental savings, but there could be. Mm-hmm. There could be. And, and part of that, um, we actually got a, um, a- and, and I won't take the council's time today, but happy to speak with you individually or at another meeting. Uh, we actually had about $800,000 in savings in the underwriting costs. So the actual cost to float the bond helped us have this incremental savings as well. So, uh, the market's ripe right now, and that's, that's really the reason we wanted to move forward. Just to clarify, those savings possibly could be in 2011, but not in 2010. Okay. That was my question. Thank you. Sorry. Okay. Uh, Council Member Stennet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You know, I'll, I'll go ahead and formalize some of the comments that, that I made earlier and, and make a motion that it's the desire of the council to put any additional savings above the 1.2 million shown here, um, back towards, um, the police and fire budget, and how, you know, they wanna, how you wanna split it up. I don't have, you know, any heartache either way, either half and half or- ... how it proportionately broke out, on, out of the operating budget would be fine, but I'll make a motion to put it back towards public safety, any savings above the $1.2 million bond- Second. ... issue that's already on the paper. Second. Towards- Okay. So that, again, towards brown-outs or any patrols that have been cut. So moved. There's a motion and a second. Uh, is there a discussion? Councilmember Lawless. Um, I absolutely support this, but it's my understanding that if we make that motion and we pass it, the administration still doesn't have to spend it. That's why- That's why I worded it, "Is the, the desire of the council." Okay. And the wishes and intentions. Okay, um- Question. Councilmember Feigl? Um, just a question about, um, how this might impact that next cycle of bonding if we do go ahead and designate those, those funds and we actually are, are kind of taking away from our liquidity. Does that affect your ability then to go out with the next cycle of bonding and get that same low rate? It's a good question. It's really up to the rating agencies, whether they maintain our rating or not. Uh, I'll share with the council what they said to Bill, uh, Mary Pfister and myself is that they're concerned about our liquidity. Um, they would, uh, challenge us to come up with the ability to have a structurally balanced budget, and if we move these savings, um, that's gonna make it more challenging for us to come up with the structurally balanced budget, because even though we will be balanced, it will be balanced by using previous years', uh, surpluses. And so it, it's difficult for me, uh, Councilmember Feigl, to say it would cost us more because I don't want to say that it would, uh, but the... both bond, uh, rating agencies did talk to us about our liquidity and concerns they had about it. So... And not just in the general fund- That's terrible. ... across, across all funds, so... Yeah, definitely. I'm sorry that I can't be more specific. Councilmember Crosby, then Councilmember Gordon. I just wanted to clarify, um, with Councilmember Snudd. Did you say, uh, half and half as part of your motion? Uh, I, I don't have a thought either way. I guess it doesn't matter- Mm-hmm. ... 'cause they don't have to do it anyway, but c- should we just clarif- sh- should we just clarify and say half and half so if we, if it does pass and they have no questions? I, I don't think it's proportionate out of either operating clear lines so, I mean- Per... Go ahea- Councilmember Myers, I... Yeah, Councilmember Myers? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, what about three to one and fire taking three and, and police taking one? Is that a friendly amendment? Yes, that's fine. Okay. All right, uh, Councilmember Gordon? I, I just wanted to be sure I understand the bond rating and the issue there. Now, this morning is when, mm, we realized the $400,000, so what, um... So before this morning, when we didn't have that, um, what, what were we thinking? That we... the negative impact on our bond rating? And so af- are the words that you were told by your, uh, bonding folks before this morning or after this morning? It was before this morning, but this morn- I, I... Let, let me put it in a different context. Okay. Um, you could have asked me this question last Thursday or Friday- Okay. ... and I would have answered the same. I'm, I'm thrilled that we've had savings and what they have challenged us with is, they didn't change our rating, they told us their concerns about our liquidity, and I felt it was my role as Commissioner of Finance along with the team here to continue to look for opportunities to have a structurally balanced budget before the end of the fiscal year because that's where the commentary is coming from. So whether it's a million two in savings or a million six in savings, I would suggest doing the same thing and that's, that's me as your comm- you know, commissioner of finance saying the rating agencies want us to have more liquidity, they view that carry forward as part of our liquidity and if there was a way for us to have a structurally balanced budget that would be viewed favorably by them. Beyond that, I mean, it, it's really not whether we have an additional four or we don't. I, I had recommended the, the 1.2 million savings, that got added, right? Mm-hmm. So that, that took down what our adjusted shortfall is, and, and the mayor and I did discuss that. We have not discussed this additional 400,000, Councilmember Gordon. Okay. Okay. I hope that helps clarify. It, it does help clarify and I've, I think this is, um, it's difficult because I, I understand that and I want us to have a good bond rating and to, um, a- as we go forward, but I know that the public and many of us up here, uh, expect that first and foremost our public safety is as strong as it should be. And there was a great, uh, concern by the public when the brown-outs started occurring and, um, I know that, uh, police also were cut in over time and I think that, you know, it's, it's not to say that other things aren't as important, but my feeling is that a long time ago, governments were formed first of all because of public safety. And so I see a great advantage to adding this 400,000 into, uh, putting it back into our public safety, because I think it will give our citizens a lot of confidence that we are taking seriously, that we believe strong public safety is a foundation of government. So, I guess that's just my, my opinion. I, I perfectly understand, uh, what you are saying. So... Thank you. And Council member Gordon, if, if I may just make one comment. As we ... We're already in the FY11 budget cycle, we're getting ready to start that, so we need as, um, a leadership team do really be thinking about this is a one-time opportunity, so, uh, depending on how our revenues continue to play out, uh, we'll need to take into consideration how we're using the money now and, and can we sustain that in the FY11 budget. So... Thank you. All right. Council member Martin. Thank you Vice Mayor. Um, I too support putting this back into, to, to public safety. It is, uh, it is, is crucial that we, we keep that department fully staffed. And that we, if possible, that we, we keep, uh, our, our, our fire stations open. Um, but I also want to make sure that we're getting up-to-date and accurate advice from our finance folks, so is there some way we can get some more, um, clarity about our, our bond rating? Uh, because if our bond rating gets hurt, we're gonna take that $400,000 and spend it and increase interest cost. Is that accurate? Is it? Again, I, I, I don't know what the interest costs would be. Right. And I, I'm not here to wave a flag of, uh- But that's what we need, is we- Yeah. ... we need more clarity with that. We need- The, the bond agencies, Council member Martin are not gonna say, "Well, we're gonna jack you up to this," you know. Mm-hmm. "And this is what it's gonna be, because you didn't have a structurally balanced budget." Th- they speak in a different language and when they say they want liquidity, they say they want liquidity. Now- Is this like tea leaf reading? Kind of. Is that ... 'Cause that's what I'm hearing. It's almost like a projection. And so that's why I'm not trying to be evasive in any way. Um, Bill and I- But it's important to know- ... tried to pin them down, uh, with questions and- But it's important to know how close to the precipice we are. Well- And, and we as a deciding group up here, uh, uh, need to know how close we are. So I, I mean, and th- that's different. I'm, I'm fully supporting, uh, co- Council member St. as motion, but at the same time I want finance to give us more clarity about where we are in our, on our bond rating. Because I know that y- y- y- you have, uh, you know, told us there was a concern by the bond agencies, but we need to, to address that and because it, it, it saves us money to have a top rating. And, uh, as, as y- y- you all's efforts last week showed. So we wanna make sure that we're not doing something to hurt that, or that we n- th- that, that we need to, to continue looking for other funds other places to work toward a structurally, uh, uh, balanced b- budget. Um, and, and Bill if, if you have any additional comments, please feel free. I, I know we ... the, the, the call with Moody's was very lengthy. They went into a tremendous amount of detail about our desire to s- to utilize this carry forward, this FY08 carry forward. They expressed concerns about it. Um, they also got into the Urban Services Fund, the fact that, you know, we are making purchases out of the Urban Services Fund, which was planned. I mean, all of this is planned. Everyone knows how that money is, is, uh, earmarked to be spent. But they continued to come back to their concerns about liquidity, about this council and this administration being able to produce a balanced budget not only now, but in an FY11 knowing ... Again, going back to the layering conversations we've had, knowing that we have additional needs in FY11 and FY12 at a minimum. I mean, whether we do any more capital improvement projects or not, that we have other contractual obligations and the, the level of liquidity, um, is obviously ... At one point we thought we were gonna have to use the whole $2 million carry forward, so the fact- But let me- ... that we aren't- Let me say a couple of things 'cause I've got, uh, a minute and- Oh, I'm sorry. ... 20 seconds left here. Um, I think we need vastly better projections on our, our, on our bond expenditures and, and bond ratings. And so I'd like to maybe, uh, try to have a, a, you know, a, a session to, to, to look at that, because I know that as we review projects here and, and, and during the last year, I think many of us were caught by surprise of about the, the fact that, that we, we had to ... that we had approved more projects than we can bond. And so I'd like to more closely watch how our decisions affect the, the, uh, uh, the city's long-term debt 'cause I think that's gonna be, uh, a continuing, uh, issue for a lot of us. And so, um, so on this issue I don't know whether we need to have, uh, uh, some sort of a, uh, in- informational session so that we can uh- better understand how our decisions affect our bond rating, or whether we need to continue to look for, uh, other ways to achieve a structurally balanced budget. ... um, but I think we all want to be good caretakers and good stewards of, of, of the tax revenues. And one of the ways we do that is by preserving our rating and to, to spend dollars wisely. So, thank you, Chair. Okay, thank you, uh, Council Member Martin. Uh, we do have a motion on the floor, we have a second, we have a friendly amendment to it. Um, are we ready to take a vote on it? Mr. Tennant? I just wanna add a couple things to Council Member Martin's last comments. Will we actually be tackling the Fiscal Policy Task Force Report as it re- relates to the, uh, debt management policy being adopted by this body, as well as a capital management policy? We'll have Mayor Hackbart come back actually at our next meeting, uh, actually it won't be till February now, but, um, we'll start tackling those issues and trying to get, uh, everybody on the same page on that. The second thing is I was gonna say that, that Commissioner Rempke, I, I certainly appreciate your caution you're giving to us, but at the same time, you know, these are the same rating agencies that have been under heavy scrutiny across the country the last two years- Right. ... during this recession. They're telling everyone the same thing. And, and I don't think they're telling us anything dramatically different from what they're saying to other people. And if $400,000 changes our bond rating, we got, we got other problems in this government to worry about. So, the intention of the motion was to take any additional savings that, that you all are able to get, which I again commend you for getting to the mark and getting that for us, um, to go towards public safety. That is our wish, expression of, of desire from this body, and that's the intention of the motion. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Tennant. Ready for a vote? Yes. All in favor of the motion, uh, please say, "Aye." Aye. Aye. All opposed, "No." Motion carries. Yeah, and... Okay. Uh, are there, uh, s- looking at the clock running against us here, uh, it'd probably be best to just den- uh, that we ask questions, f- uh, f- that the council members initiate any questions that they have from, uh, from among the, um, commissioners. Or questions to the commissioners. I'd suggested that we go in the order of the, uh, reductions, but I'd say it'd be okay to just ask questions if you've got 'em. Council Member Lane. Lose, Blues. Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Blues is next. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you. That was mighty generous of you. Thank you, Mr. Lane. Mr. Blues, then Mr. Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, I have a question for, uh, General Services. And the... I thought I saw in an earlier document that, uh, Parks and Rec was proposing a cut of $80,000 into the Summer Youth Employment Program, and, am I correct on that? 'Cause I don't, uh, I don't see it here, and I just wanted to be, to, to, uh, to be certain one way or the other that that's either planned to be cut, that summer program, or it's not. Um, Council Member Blues, the Summer Youth Program is actually in Social Services. So that one- ... Commissioner Helm will have to respond to that one. Thank you. I'm sorry. Councilman Blues, could you repeat your, uh- Welcome. ... inquiry? I'm glad I, now I'm in the right department, but- ... uh, there, uh, as I understand it a, uh, uh, a proposal to, to, to cut $80,000 in Summer Youth Employment Program. Is that, is that correct? That is correct. That is, um, a portion of the reduction offered by or, uh, put forward by the Division of Youth Services that would actually reduce the program from six weeks to four. Um, that takes off the first two weeks of the program that falls in the current fiscal year. So, is it, so we'd still be, we'd, we'd, we'd still be supporting the program, but we would be cutting it back by a third in, in number of weeks? The funding for the portion of the program that would occur in fiscal year 11 will appear as a budget request or a budget line item in the budget that we will be putting together, uh, shortly. I think the decision that will need to be made is a four-week program, how, um, you know, how strong that can be, how can we, um, format that so that it has the kind of strength and meaning and outcomes for the youth that are employed that, uh, a six-week program, uh, has done in the past. My, my concern here is that we may be, we may be saving $80,000 on one end, but, but paying, uh, a lot more on another. And not, uh, not only in, in, in money, but also in terms of the futures of these young people who, uh, who need the kind of structured summer employment. Uh, they not only receive, uh, they not only receive wages, but they receive, uh, they receive training, and some, some supervision. And, and it's not just a make-work program. So that's my worry here, is whether we're, uh, uh, wh- wh- whether we're making a, a, a short-term saving, uh, and trading that for a long-term expense. Mr. Blues? Well, I think what you'll hear from all of the commissioners and all of the directors is that this process, um, the, the reduction of a budget is never, uh, one that, you know, you look with, look to with excitement. We had to, to look at those areas in which there were possibilities for us to make budget reduction expenses. And for the Division of Youth Services, this one, uh, was the, the area that, uh, would not impact, uh, as greatly on the day-to-day services that we, uh, provide. We also knew that cutting, making, offering this as a reduction, if as we go through the spring things begin to look up, it is something that certainly could be perhaps put back into the budget without, uh, too much of a detriment. However, we will need to know, um, within the next probably 45 days, because the, the planning for a program of this magnitude, um, does start early. Well, I, y- you know, I appreciate the, uh, the, the fact that, that this program is not intended to be completely, completely cut. And I also recognize that, uh, that in a budget of a thousand cuts there's gonna be- Yeah. ... uh, uh, you know, a good deal of, of pain. But I do hope that w- w- w- where we're, where w- where we're really dealing in a, a crucial, uh, I think social services area here, not that all of the areas aren't- Sure. ... aren't important, that we do all we can to, to, to see to it that, that, um, uh, that, that young people have an opportunity to be, to be, to be productive, to be educated, uh, and, and, and to get some workforce training, which can be immeasurably important in terms of, of motivating them and guiding them, um, as they move forward with their educations. Uh, and, and that they're not gonna be idle in, in the summer, because we, we know the parable of the idle hands. And, and so- Absolutely. ... I, I do hope that, uh, um, that going forward, if we can find a way to, uh, to save in another area, uh, to, you know, to, to, uh, uh, to lengthen the, the program, extend it from four even to five weeks, um, that, that I hope you'll be ready to do that. We certainly will. And we will continue to look, again, as we go through, uh, the remainder of this year, we'll continue to scrub and scrutinize all of our spending. Um, you'll note that if you're, if you look at the social services summary page, you'll note that the Division of Youth Services actually did not, um, make their, uh, projected cut, but they were helped by, um, colleagues in other divisions to come up with that total. So we will continue to do that as a department. And, uh, we recognize the importance of that particular program. Thank you very much. Mm-hmm. You're welcome. Appreciate it. Council Member Lane. Like, thank you, Vice Mayor Gray. I just wanted to, uh, remind the council that one of our duties today was to approve a reduction in our council office operating expenses, and I noticed the time is starting to run long, and perhaps we should address that as soon as you feel it's convenient. Thank you, sir. Yeah. See, we, m- m- my own thoughts on it were we take another five minutes or so and then we- I think so. ... then we'd move over to the council office. Okay. Yeah, Council Member Gordon. No, Council Member Hanson, sorry. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, uh, I couldn't agree with Council Member Blues more that if we... I think we have to invest in our children in this community. And if, um, you, you may cut cost in one area and then it will cost you in other areas. So I was, um... I had a question for Commissioner Cole about the cuts at particularly Valley Park, but, um, it also has Highlands and Douglas Park listed on here as well. And if those programs were being totally eliminated and what that would include. Um, Council Member Hanson, uh, that particular line item that you're looking at, the recreational seasonal for Valley and Highlands and Douglas would include the soccer and the tee-ball programs. Um, those are programs that were started by the Police Clear Unit and we're currently looking for some grant funding for those programs. Okay. But what is, um, put here would be the parks, the general fund piece of those programs. So we're hopeful that in some capacity those programs will continue, but maybe not at the level that they've been in the past. Okay. I, you know, I, I think it's very important that during the summertime when our youth is, uh, are, they're out of school that there is activities for them, that they stay busy. And I know the Clear Unit would totally agree with me. They have worked very, very hard on, uh, gang prevention, and I've spoken with Commissioner Bennett about possibility of getting some gang prevention monies, um- ... for Valley Park, and there's probably other parks in the city that could utilize it as well. But, um, I just wanted to voice my concern mainly that, you know, that you're not talking about a lot of money, um, in savings and that would just be in Parks and Rec, but I believe it would cost you money in other areas. Yeah. Um, as Commissioner Helm had said, all of these were tough choices because there are so many really good programs, um- I understand. ... that LFUCG provides. And, uh, you know, and I, I guess it bothers me that the funding would be cut in a low-income area. Thank you. All right. Council Member Feigl. No, Council Member Gordon. I have a couple quick questions, uh, Commissioner Webb, couple. And then while you're coming down, maybe, uh, Commissioner Rumpke, you can ad- on the partner agencies, I was, um, under the impression that the Lexington Public Library was totally tax dollars and it says in here that we've requested the library reduced by $342,700. Is that tax, property tax money that we think they are not owed, or what is that? Um, and, and, um, Commissioner Askew can speak to the- Okay. ... legalities of this, but we asked every agency to come forward e- regardless of the source of the dollars so he can comment on the legality. So... Okay. So you're ma- mainly asking them to give back. Yes. Okay. But it's a property tax specifically for the library, so I presume it couldn't go in the general fund. Is that- It is not a property tax- ... specifically for the library. Okay. What is it? It is a, it is a property tax that LFUCG imposes, and then by statute, there's a mandatory appropriation by the government- I see. ... to the library of five cents for every $100 of assessed value. There is a provision in the statute that talks about a request for a lesser amount, which the library and the Department of Library and Archives at the state would have to agree to. So- Okay. ... they had then made a request. But it's not... It, it's a, it's a mandatory appropriation as opposed- Yes. ... to a tax that says this is for a library. Well... Okay. Okay? Yes. Um, okay. Commissioner Webb, uh, two quick questions. In the commissioner's office, 43,500 for pers- professional services animal retrieval. Is that the large animal- Yes, ma'am, that is. ... retrieval? And so, if you cut that, who will pick up the large dead animals? That... There has been no contract in place now for- Hm. Excuse me. For over a year for that. Hm. So, um, I have, I've had some calls with the Ag Department who have been advising me if there would be any grant funds about that. Okay. And actually, where we were, uh, with that, uh, Council Member Gordon, was originally that was grant funded and we put in some general funds for that. The grant funding went away over a year ago. We continued through the end of the year by adding additional general funds. Okay. And then, I think through the Links Group, there was money added in there. And we had started to work on that contract whenever we were, uh, we were advised that we needed to look for reductions. Uh, generally, what we got back from these pickup companies, uh, at first there were no pickup companies due to the EPA regulation, then we started getting pricing in, they were sending you small contracts. Uh, but one, to start a contract review, and the original contract was a very simple contract, uh, signed by, uh, oh, uh, the s- Director of Streets and Roads. But we didn't feel like that w- that was adequate any longer. It was re- just reviewed by consent annually by letter. Uh, now they, these dead animals would be taken to a rendering plant where they had to be managed properly, and our contract was gonna be with a hauler and not a rendering plant, the way it came out. Originally, Nation Brothers operated both, and that, they are no longer in business- Okay. ... due to that, so... Okay. Well, and then just real quickly 'cause I'm almost out of time, uh, in planning, $100,000 professional services, is that small area plans, ND1- That, that was not a specific- ... or what is that? Uh, let me pull that over and take a look at it for you. It says operating $100,000 professional services, and I know that they do the- The- these funds were not for a specific small area plan, had not been earmarked. Uh, they were for implementation projects such as ND1, uh, form-based code, ordinance rewrites, or similar projects that we had during the year. But there was not specific area plans that were connected to that $100,000. But, but if a small area... If, if a small area plan was proposed, would that fall into there and there would not be money to work on it? To start that process with a consultant right now, that would be correct. Okay. There would not be any money. Thank you very much. Um, thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a quick question under traffic engineering. Uh, the funds that have been, uh, targeted to, to, uh, decrease, will that affect any of the ongoing traffic studies that are being done in the neighborhoods and how we plan to address those? For, uh, the neighborhood Traffic Management Program, this, this did not eliminate all the funding for those. We, uh, there was a re- a partial reduction in that funding. We wanna keep that program going, uh, so studies will continue, but the, the larger impact on that program are the devices that go out- Right. ... into the neighborhood, so that w- it reduced the amount of money we had to spend on those through the remainder of the fiscal year. Okay, so my question then is if the study has already been completed and some, uh, recommendations have been m- made for these, um, traffic, uh, devices, then those will be deferred until the next budget? I don't know that they would all be deferred, because we kept money in here. Mm-hmm. And I would have to get back to you specifically on if there is one that won't go that there's already been a decision on. Okay. All right, thank you. Councilmember McCord. Uh, thank you. Commissioner Cole, if, if you wouldn't mind, I just, uh, wanted to bring up something that, uh, is related to this, but, um, you know, Councilmember Feigl has a group that's been put together looking at parks funding, uh, looking at ways to bring money into parks that, uh, is different than the way that we do it. And, and I think that group, uh, group's work is probably more critical now than ever after these, these budget cuts. Um, but I do think that as we go through this, there's some common sense things that, um, eh, that this discussion forces. Um, it was brought to my attention, and I didn't, uh, did not realize this in full, that, um, last week as, as we had snow and ice and all those types of things and freezing temperatures, our golf courses are all open during that timeframe. I mean, people are actually working out there, and, and golf courses are actually open. Um, yes, actually, our golf courses, the, the large golf courses do stay open. Um, and that's really, it's a function of the way the labor works. Um, they, we have full-time civil service employees that are assigned to each of the largest golf courses, and then we supplement that during normal golf season with seasonal. Right. But they are still there. So what we have found through history is that the larger golf courses, having them open for those days that, uh, the, the nice weather does come out, the golfers do come out. And our incremental revenue that's generated from that does cover the incremental expense. So it actually is a benefit to LFUCG, because, um, while they're there, you know, they're not operating the golf course- Right. ... per se when it's snowy outside. I mean, you can use common sense. But they're doing repair and maintenance and doing work that needs to be done, but they are there, so then when the days are pretty, we do allow golfers to come out and enjoy our courses. I, and, and I appreciate that. And, and that's an answer that I've heard for, yeah, about six or seven years about why we c- maintain that. Again, I, I, I come back to some common sense type stuff. And, uh, if we're browning out fire stations and yet have golf courses open, that, that, that rubs me a little bit wrong. And so just know as, uh, uh, a part of, uh, this outcrop, I've, I've pulled the language from the state in how they do their golf courses, which is when it's 40 degrees or below, they're closed. If there's an impending tornado, they're closed. I recognize that we have full-time folks, and that's another issue and, and so forth. But I am gonna bring forward that motion that we align ourselves with the state, because I just think it's very commonsensical, um, to do that. And, and I look forward to working with you on, on how we maximize that opportunity. But I just wanted to make sure that I had heard correctly, so I appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh, before I ask this question, Linda, it looks like it's gonna be you, um- What else do you ? ... it, it is strictly a matter of curiosity. It's no- I have no other nefarious plans stuck away in the back of my mind, uh, to put, uh, the rest of the employees, uh, in, in any k- concern of them. How does a furlough work? 'Cause we're, right now, we only have 11 pay periods left. W- with respect to the senior staff that is taking- Right. ... and the commissioners that are taking furlough, and, and I hope I get this right, Councilmember Beard, um, we can only take a furlough on a day or a week that we w- for example, if I was gonna take one day per pay period the rest of the time, I could not work more than 32 hours that week. So if I had comp time or something like that, it would throw everything out of kilter, because then I really, the urban county government would not get that benefit. It's my understanding, um, I think many of us are gonna take them instead of taking a vacation day. Um, so it, it, it, with only 11 pay periods left, we're each trying to mold that around what we already had on our calendar. But we, it has to be during a week that you would not work more than 40 hours, and so that really limits how we can do that. Um, my commissioner of law has also told us that you, you're not physically supposed to be working, which causes a challenge for all of the workaholics on this team. So we're trying to work through that right now as well. But, um, we have, uh, put a pay code in place so that the, the... ... the days, my ten days of furlough will be coded furlough and it will not impact my benefits as an employee, um, if in fact we keep it within that realm of, you can't work more than 40 hours. So it wouldn't be a, um, loss of service credit for any of the employees taking those. Does, does that help? It, kind of. Okay. Uh- It's, it's a little fuzzy for me too. Ha-have you, um, how many of those 40, uh, hour weeks have you had since you came to work here? Not many. That's why I'm gonna use them when I had scheduled some vacation. Thank you. Oh, do, do you wanna talk? Oh, okay. Rama, Rama said - How, we'll get the programming end of it now. Yeah, the basic concept of it is, uh, ex- 40-hour exempt employee. Now, you can exceed it if you worked over 40. You basically have to put less than 40 if you're gonna use the furlough, um, and we, the recommendation for us is not to use all of it in one pay period, the ten days, because it would affect your benefits then. Right. So we're gonna stagger it out. If you have, uh, at the time we talked about it, you had 13 pay periods. Now you have about 11, so you're looking at using, uh, you know, five days at the most in one pay period, not to exceed that. And then, uh, you know, kinda work it out, work from home, uh, whatever works. Well, we are running out of time every, every month w- we drop off two, uh, pay periods, so we gotta make this decision. This group, I guess, has got to sign off on that decision soon. Sure. Thank you. And we'll be glad to assist you if you want me to come and, uh, address it in- No, I, I, I just wanted to get a broad view of how you all, uh, were going to address that and what some of the rules were. So thank you all. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, sir. Okay, uh, I've got a couple of questions qui- quickly. Have we closed, have the November books, we closed on November, we have a November n- revenue yet, and when will we have December? We actually have December. Bill's team worked diligently through the holidays and through the early days, and so I didn't know when we, we were gonna bring it to budget and finance. We, we have it here today. Uh, I can share very quickly, or Bill, if you wanna come up and- Do you all wanna hear that? Do you wanna hear that today? Probably to me- add some insight. Is that okay? It'll, it, it'll give you... I... The, the, the- Well, give us a, give us a- 30 seconds? Yep. 30 seconds, uh, we ended up at five million and change, uh, deficit. Is that right, Bill? Do you have it right here in front of you? Um, do you wanna talk? Go ahead. I'll let him talk. Um, 30-second sound bite. We lost a little ground, we didn't make up any. Thank you. that, that's, that was concise. Yeah. Um, we, we, uh, we were below in both withholdings and net profit year over year. Our year to date, year to date deficit is, uh, through December, is 5.5 million for the four top categories. Th- that's deficit as it relates to the- To the budget. ... budget? Okay, how does it track for last year? Um, year to date? I didn't bring that- Year to date. ... because the 12.5 is based on budget. Right. And that's, that's the hole we're trying to, uh, to- Okay. That, that's what we're trying to control, so I brought to you compared to budget to show where we- So five, so that five, five million represents how many months out of 12? Six. So it's literally, so- Five million- ... if you annualize, then that would be 10 million- 11. ... to 12? 11. If you annualized it, it would be 11. And we've, and we're now looking at a 12 point, what, how much? And I just, 12.5, and I would remind you that fourth quarter is very heavily weighted in revenues because of net profits. And so that's that snowy crystal ball. We don't know what's gonna happen April, May, and June. Fourth quarter meaning? Calen- uh, calen- Fiscal. Fiscal for us. April, May, June. April, May, June quarter. Okay. Th- th- the other thing, um, we, obviously we had Verizon announce their 250 layoffs. Well, what does that represent in terms of, how, how, how are you all crystal balling a deal like that? Because 250 jobs at 50, what are you, what's the average annual? And then you've got your percentage on the payroll tax and then the i- the full impact. What's the number? That's correct. I, I don't have a dollar for you. We will have a little bit of a lift because there is some severance. That severance will be, uh, subject to the occupational tax. So when those people roll off, there'll be just a little bit of lift, and then it'll drop off. And so we're looking to see what that little bit of lift will be. Yeah, but I'm saying order of magnitude. You know, we read a headline like that and immediately the sky is falling in. It's either really falling in or it's sort of falling in, so what's the level of- Let me say they're not one of our top 30 employers. Right. Okay. And that's significant. They're not one of the top 30. Okay. All right. Um, all right, why don't we shift now over, if it's okay with the council, uh, if we shift over to the council office budget. And, uh, Mr. Jerry, where's Jerry? Hey. Yeah, Jerry. Okay. The, uh, handout that, uh, I think Ms. Courtney was passing around, it's the recommendations, uh, that I had put together for just, kind of, a starter discussion for the council as they look at, uh, m- making reductions to the council office budget. This is, uh, these documents have been in the, uh, past two budget and finance, uh, s- um, reports, I think for December and November. But anyway, to tell you what you've got here on page one, it's the prop- it's the proposed reductions and it's three scenarios that I came up with after looking at the council office budget, trying to meet the 118,300 that was requested that council reduce. Page two, it is a summary of the council office budget remaining balance and the three scenarios that have been, um, itemized there. If you look at page three, it is just the administration budget, and I would point out that you're s- you see that, uh, civil, non-civil service salaries, uh, are shown in the admin budget. Um, so just kinda keep that in mind as we go through. And that's why it's been shown under administration. Uh, page four is the at large and district budgets with the proposed reductions summary. And then finally, on page five, it r- it is the districts' and at large individual budgets. And based on each one of the scenarios, it would be, uh, what would be proposed that each one of the, uh, call centers or districts would have to, uh, make to meet the, uh, goal or, or the reduction total. Now, I know that Council Member Gordon, Ms. Gordon in the last committee of the whole meeting asked if it would be appropriate for each council member to determine within their call center how they would like to make the reductions, and I, personally I think it's very appropriate, and probably would be the most preferred way to do it instead of, uh, you know, me or a council administrator. But these were just put out there as kind of starter discussions. Hypotheticals. Pardon? Hypotheticals? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay, Council Member Bilyous, then Council Member Gordon. Well, thank you Vice Mayor. That, uh, that was gonna be my, my question. Wouldn't it be best for, um, for each council, each council member to meet his or her obligation? Yes, sir. It would be an a, an uh, a, and a good example of that is some council members don't travel- Exactly. ... and so they may wanna use part of their travel funds to, to meet the r- reduction plan. Some may wanna use more of their office supplies. So- Yes. I, I, I think it's entirely appropriate to do it that way. Thank you. And, and actually I would recommend it. Well, thank you for that recommendation. All right. Hmm. Uh, Council Member Gordon. Well, my comment was simply going to be to bring this back up, but since you already brought it up, I think that it would not be appropriate for us to mandate where each council member's cut comes because one council member may not have money in that part of the cost center- ... because they've spent it. So I would, uh, as soon as there's a number d- um, what's the magic number again from each cost center? Well, it would be based on which scenario that- Area. Well, so I would advocate then, once we, um, have that discussion that each council member find that within their own cost center is, was all that I was going to say. And if you look at page five of the attachments, you will see, based on the three scenarios that I had submitted, uh, under one sc- on scenario one, it would, uh, it is asking each district to reduce $5,200. Scenario two was, if you accepted it, it would be 4,700 and then 3,800. So, or some other change or recommendation collectively that the council would have that they would think would be more appropriate. So there's really two pieces to this. It's the reductions that council would approve for reducing the admin budget, and then the reduction for the individual call center. Interesting. Or district and the at large budget. You're welcome. Uh, Council Member Lawless. Council Member Lawless. No, yeah, Council Member Lawless, then Council Member Meyers. Um, in this reduction package, um, first of all, I, I also think that each council member needs to figure out how they want to reduce their cost center. But is the, um ... what's her title? I'm sorry. I just- Council Administrator. Council Admin- The, uh- ... Citizens Advocate- Oh. ... office. Does that come out of our ... It's not built into this. Okay. So, is there any reduction in that plan? I, I have that. Uh, she has, uh, the Citizens Advocate, I believe, has discussed that individually with some council members, and I have a separate copy of her proposed reductions. I don't know if you all have received that via email or not. I've just been waiting for some guidance on it. I, I haven't heard anything about it. All right. Has- I can forward that appropriately to everyone. Just forward it out to everybody if you've got it. Okay. Would, would that be part of our 118,000? Okay. No, ma'am. No, they were requested. I believe theirs was 9,000 something. Councilmember Meyers? Councilmember Meyers? Councilmember Meyers is not here. Councilmember Crosby, we'll come back to Councilmember Meyers when he returns. Councilmember ... Yeah. Um, thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Jerry, for preparing this for us. Um, a couple questions. Can you clarify under scenario one, F, is ... Uh, each district and at-large has as part of their original budget, they have, um, let's see, $500 at the beginning of the fiscal year. So, that's a typo. That's what I mean. It says 5,000 on our copy. I just- No, uh, it is. Oh. It's less than 5,000 because if an expenditure is over 5,000, then it's treated differently. But this is just a ... It, it's an account description and so it's, it's really ... You, you- So it's just 200. You get- That's, that's, that's the recommendation is 200 total? To reduce, right. Okay. The way it, uh, it didn't, I'm sorry. It just di- ... I- Get your price tag. Sorry. I was having a mi- mind brain freeze when I was reading it. Sure. Yeah. Per- um, personally if we have to look at 'em, just gonna say if we have to look at furloughs, I would, I w- I would prefer that we look at operating within scenario one if, if this is something we're gonna have to do. Um, I just think that, uh, two weeks, I know that probably for, um, the mayor's staff that might be a little bit more doable, uh, with, with some of the salaries. We ha- we've gotten a copy and it, I know it's been passed around. Um, some people have seen it. I, I just saw it this morning, but, um, when we're looking at, uh, the salary range at some of the people that are going to have to take off, I, I think that, um, right now during this economic time that furloughs wi- wi- with the salary ranges we're looking at, I just think that scenario one is a little more reasonable for our staff versus, um, you know, what the administration is asking of, uh, of, of his commissioners. So, I would prefer that if we can, if we have to do this, that we try and look within scenario one and cut our offices as much as possible through, um, NDF and other, other ways. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Crosby. Councilmember ... Councilmember Meyers, you were out when I, when you're, when you came up on the monitor. Yes, sir. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes, sir. Um, one of the things that we found in working with, um, Jerry and the administration is that, and he may have talked about some of these things already, but the $30,000 in personnel apps. And so here's, I'll just run through a scenario that'll get us partway there. It'll be 30,000 in, in personnel apps. Um, 2440 on that, the first line up there, the second line, which is professional services. Then jot down to the fourth line, there's another 2,000 in professional services. The next line would give us 1500 out of conferences and other training and travel. And then $8,000 from the equipment less than $5,000 category. Make that- And then I guess for the rest of it, um, there might be another option that comes up. By the managers. But other than that, we could maybe take the rest of it out of our personnel, or each council member could take it out of their, either their cost center or their NDF. Uh, okay, that scenario is not down here. It's, uh, I, I guess it was calculated. Oh, they just created it. Pardon? Yeah. Okay. I, I think- So, uh, s- s- since we're in motion here, why don't we, uh ... Can you translate that again, Jerry, if y'all talked about it? You don't have it, actually. George. I'm sorry. Councilmember Meyers. Um. Uh, Mr. Vice Mayor, can you put that on the overhead? I, I got it. What page did you get it on? No, he doesn't have it, so. I think George has got it handwritten that, uh, his aide developed, he and his aide worked on. Wh- while we're doing that, let's, let's talk a bit, a little bit about where we're going since we're running up against the clock here. We've got 25 minutes and we don't need to unnecessarily- ... you know, unnecessarily abbreviate this conversation. Um, it ... I was thinking that what we do, let's go through this just ... Just one second, George. I'm thinking of how we're gonna process this. We need to address this at the, in my view at least, at the next work session. Today's Wednesday, so Tuesday. Um, in a final sense, us suggesting ... And I was gonna suggest it, a- appoint, um, appointing Councilmember, uh, Stennet and, uh, Councilmember Gorton to sort of- ... help rodeo this in after this meeting. Let's get as far as we can today and then look toward, and again, I'm just suggesting, then we look toward the next, uh, council meeting, uh, or the next work session for a final on it. 'Cause we're gonna only have 25 minutes left today. Council Member James, yeah? I'm sorry. I'm, I'm very confused. Are you talking about wrapping, rodeoing the council office stuff, or every- The council office. ... Everything. Okay. The council office. Uh, I mean, I think we're in the- Council's also 100%. ... re- the rest of it, we're going to need to address that as well at the next work session. Okay. Thanks. What we can or have authority to or need to take responsibility for. Um... Vice Mayor? Yeah. Would you consider since next Tuesday is budget and finance- Oh, that's a good idea. ... t- that, that each council member could submit their plan or their recommendations? We could kind of digest them, give a s- time to get them all in, and then maybe review them in the budget and finance meeting, then have a recommendation coming out of the budget and finance meeting for the full council, plus invite all council members who are not on budget and finance at their will to, uh, attend the meeting. Yeah. It sounds like a good idea. Council Member Beard has a... ...It, it sounds like a good idea to me. We got several hands coming up right now at one time, just letting you... There's a list. Well, and I think this is on the, to speak on the council administration issue, um. Council Member Delaine, and then... Uh, Vice Mayor, uh, I like the idea of having each council member decide where to, wher- they wanna c- make cuts. And may I just throw this out as just sort of an idea of it could be, uh, modified, but what if each council member cut $6,000 out of their budget and then the, uh, vice mayor would cut 28,300 out of the overall operating budget for the office? And those two numbers combined would give us $118,300. And, uh, the other thing I would mention is that I know that the, uh, Kentucky League of City Dues was on the list. It's my understanding, and you might wanna check with the Department of Law on this, but I believe in order to receive the rates we get, at a discount, I guess, on the insurance, we do have to be a member of the League of Cities. So, uh, we might wanna look at that. If that's not necessary, then that would be another option open to us. Three hundred. That's all I have. Thank you. Uh, Co-Council Member Feagel. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to clarify some point. Um, there's $118,000 we're looking for, correct? Yes, ma'am. And, uh, is, is that divided up between just council members? How does, how is the administrative budget, um, affected by this? Uh, if you look at scenario one, for example, uh, on page three, you will see the admin. Has that, has that been figured into the 118,000? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So in this particular case, since all the labor is shown under admin's budget, and it's something that we're working on trying to get it changed, but that's where it is today. Uh, if you accepted scenario one, there would be $21,052 in furloughs, which is essentially one week for all council staff, uh, or five days or 40 hours, and then the remaining, looks like, uh, close to $20,000 would come from the, uh, admin budget. And that- Is that furlough as well? That's separate from furloughs. The furloughs would be l- if you look on page three- I'm with you. ... scenario one, you've got $40,300. Mm-hmm. Now what makes that total is the $21,052 in furloughs, and then the rest of the proposed reductions would come from, uh, the admin's operating expenses. Okay. But the operating expenses does not include... I, I, I'm trying to figure out if the furloughs are only gonna be council, uh, aides, or if that includes- No. It's all staff. Okay. It, it, it's everyone. It's everyone except council members. Okay. Thank you. Um, okay, y'all, uh, let's go back to the, to the monitor here. Council Member Hansen, le- uh, uh, ag- again, uh, one more suggestion on process. Council Member Hansen. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh, Jerry, I was just curious, okay, scenarios are for the administrative cuts, correct? Is he going to answer that? Yeah. ... uh, question. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. 'Cause I wa- I was just curious why do we have to choose a scenario. Why can't we just, um- Well, 31, 32 of us. You can't- ... divide it equally? You, you can, you can make a recommendation, whatever you feel is appropriate, and then get consensus among all council to, to get that done. Please don't stay within this. This was just a guide with my different scenarios. Okay. Hypothetically, as the vice mayor said, that as you deliberated, you could look at different areas to make a reduction. That, that's all it was. But we, and we need to reduce 118,000? 300. Yes, ma'am. And if, uh, and I, if you divide that by 15 council members, it's about 7,800, I think. I'm not sure you wanna do that, uh, because i- in the council budget, you've got the admin budget- Right. ... which is everyone other than th- the council. Correct. So, you wanna kinda look at it from both perspectives. How much do you wanna make a reduction from the district's budget, and how much do you wanna make from your admin, your- Right. ... admin budget- Correct. ... to get to the 118,000. So, if we did the admin first, subtract it from what and, and then divide it equally- Yes. ... and- Yes. ... simplify it a little bit, um, I, I would w- want to really, I would prefer to stay away from furloughs. And I know that it's listed in each of the scenarios. Sure. Um, just the length of time is different. But, um, you know, unless it was a voluntary type furlough, but not, you know, a mandatory- Right. ... I guess. Okay. Right. But that was my suggestion- Very good. ... if we could come up with an admin- administrative reduction first, and then divide it equally. Right. Councilmember Lawless. Thank you, Councilmember Hanson. Very quickly, uh, so there's a $30,000 that we can reduce from the 118, is that correct? Well, you know, I was working with budgeting to see where the council office labor would be. And, uh, a best guess estimate would there, possibly would be $30,000, but that would be cutting it thin. And don't forget, it's just a, you know, we're doing like a, you know, a, a six and six, six month of actual and six-month projection. So on a million five personnel budget, that's not much money. I mean, but, but we pro- projected around $30,000 in- Okay. Yes. And secondly, um, another option would be for, um, council core admin staff, we could ask that anybody that makes over $30,000 or $30 an hour to take a two-week furlough. Sure. It can be spread out. Sure, you can do whatever you want. And then the others a one week or three days, and then divide- Gotcha. ... it equally amongst- Sure. ... the... So- Sure. Thank you. Yes. Councilmember Gordon. I have just a couple comments, and then I wanna yield my time to another councilmember. I personally don't want us and I may be the only one, to follow these scenarios. I would not presume to tell another councilmember that their staff should take a furlough. I think that's wrong. I might choose to take a pay cut. My aide might choose to do something else. I don't want to mandate- Right. ... each of my colleagues to do one thing. So, I would support, if you can give us a good number, um, gi- each councilmember finding that number, and then the number for admin. And then the other thing about the $30,000 personnel lapse, at our last meeting, I believe Commissioner Rumpke or maybe it was, um, our budgeting folks told us, it should be in the record, there is no money built in. Whatever the staff is making, that's what they budgeted. So, where is the personnel lapse? Is it the week or two that one aide was out of, you know, not working, or we're getting a conflicting- Well- ... message. ... you know, the personnel budget is comprised of several aspects. It's the overheads, you know, from your fringe benefits. Uh, it's the base labor amounts. So there's about five different accounts there. So, it's really nothing spread over a year for, like I said, on, on a personnel budget of 1.5. So, it, it may seem like it's a pretty good lot of money, but it's really not. It can evaporate pretty quickly. So there is something? W- we think there's gonna be something left over. Uh, but it's, it... But there again, it's an estimate, you know, like revenues or anything else when we do projections, it's- Sure. ... you know, uh, ask me at June 30 and I'll, or, uh, the middle of July and I'll give you a hum- 100% accurate number. Right. But- Right. ... you know, sitting here now- Okay. Well, with that said, I'd like to go ahead and yield to Councilmember Lane for a motion. Uh, thank you, Councilmember. Uh, I w- before I make the motion, I, I'd like to throw out one more suggestion. Since Jerry mentioned that we may have a- as much as 30,000 in vacancy or lapse, I would, I think I'd like to raise the amount of the cut for the vice mayor accordingly. So, uh, I'm gonna throw this out- ... and then you can, you can give me some feedback, but I would like to make a motion that each councilmember would reduce his or her budgeted office expenses by $5,000, and that the vice mayor would, uh, using lapse, vacancy, and operating expenses, reduce the, the overall council office budget by $43,300. Yes. And if we in fact have approximately 30,000 in lapse and vacancy already, that would only mean about a 13,300 additional cut that we would have to make. Uh, and that way each councilmember would be responsible, and it would also give the vice mayor, who manages the council office, the authority to make the other cut. Second. Say those numbers again, please. Okay. The numbers again are that each councilmember would reduce his or her budgeted office expenses by $5,000. ... and that the Vice Mayor would recommend back to the council a $43,300 cut, which would include lapse, vacancy, and operating expenses. And that was seconded by Council Member Gordon. Council Member Beard? Can you say the last part? Council Member Lane, can you say the last part of what you just, uh, were talking about- Okay. ... as far as the council office was concerned? Uh, yes, sir. Uh, er, just a little bit earlier, uh, Jerry Sellers was mentioning that he felt we might have up to 30,000 in vacancy and lapse. And that would mean that if the mayor made a $43,300 cut, 30,000 of that would be already s- sort of totaled up, and that we haven't used all that money, and that would leave him about $13,300 in other operating expenses for the overall council office to cut. And then each council member individually would cut 5,000- 0000. ... from their own personal office budget. Well, I mean, we, uh, eh, the, the 30,000 we're gonna plug some number in there for personnel lapse. And if it's 30,000, or 25,000, or 32,000, whatever it is, it is what it is. And the difference then would be, uh, uh, th- 13, 15, whatever it may, may be, that, uh, would have to come out of the council office, which I think is, is, uh, a, a pretty good deal. Well, I think it's doable that we could get that done. Well, that'd be fine. That'd be ... I'd support that. Okay, there's a motion. Is there, is there a second to Council Member Lane's motion? I did. There's a second. Oh, we already got a second. I missed that. Have a third even. Did you ask about that on there? Um- That's 20% each. Okay. What's the question? Sh- sh- so- I just want to see these numbers up there, so I know exactly what ƒ?$2.50. What, what Council Member Ellinger had asked was that we illustrate these numbers. I'm not sure. You're writing them down, Ed? Yeah. But instead of the 40, uh, for, for the administration, it became a personal 30 and 17. Uh, did I miss add on that? No. $7.60. Okay, we're- That's close to what I had. We're in discussion then on a motion now. So while you're doing that, Council Member James. Well, I'm a verbal learner, so, um, I need to talk it out a little bit. Um, the total number we're looking for is 118.3, and that's based on what percentage of... Is that based on a percentage of our total operating? That was just a number provided to us from the administration when they provided all divisions with what the recommended reduction should be. Okay. Which I think was based on some percentage of operating. About 5%. 5%. Okay. So what's being proposed is that each council district, including the at-larges, um, reduce by 5,000, so that would give us 75,000. That's right. And there's an assumption that there's a vacancy credit of $30,000? Based on a projection that w- you know, we w- where I was working with, uh, the budgeting department when we analyzed our labor. So, um, that's our best guess. Okay. Um, so we can all agree then to go with the best guess. Is that what's happening? Or are we gonna do this proposal- We accept the, uh, yeah, we accept the, uh, yes, that you're, you're accepting making a reduction, that, th- th- you're, you're making a reduction to personnel costs- Uh-huh. ... of $30,000 as part of the overall reduction. Okay, so then it would just be 13.3 that who would be left to figure out how to cut that? The council administrator would- Okay. ... because it would become now the admin budget. Okay. And what I would like to do, you know, somewhere we need to collect all this data to determine who's gonna do what, by when and everything. So, you know, maybe this week, each council member could make a determination of what areas within their cost center they want to make the reduction. So I'll take all of them and summarize them, plus take what's been proposed from the admin's budget, put it all together, and then distribute it to all council members for their review. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Vice Mayor, I'm done. You're welcome. Okay. Um- Ask me. Council Member, Council Member Gordon, uh, could you ca- you, you have a planning committee meeting coming up, uh, at 1:00. Yes, sir. Do you have a thoughts on that? Uh, well, I think you're asking if we could yield some planning committee time- Yes, ma'am. ... which, um, I think we could easily start planning at 1:15. We've got one major issue and one road report, if that suits council members. Okay. Uh, we might could go to 1:30, if, if we need that here. So yes, that's fine- Okay. ... if it suits council members. Yes. Yes. Okay. Council Member Myers. That's fine. All right, that's okay. We're gonna then... We're... We got some more time. Um, I've gotta take... I, I have a funeral that I must attend that, so I may, I need to leave at 1:15. So don't charge me with anything while I'm gone, okay? Um, Council Member Myers, on this, th- we got a motion, so we're in, we're in discussion now. Yes. And a second. You wanna discuss the motion too? Okay. Council Member Myers. Okay. I wanna make a point of clarification. When we talk about that $30,000 in pers- personnel lapse, the... It's my understanding the act- actual number is 60,000. ... but the administration has already taken 30,000. As part of the savings. As part of our savings, so- It's already been recognized. That's right. ... So the council should understand, there's actually $60,000 in our budget in personnel lapse, but the administration's already taken 30,000 of that- How come- ... in realizing their savings. And that's why the number is 30 for us. And if someone from the administration wants to come and speak to that, that would be fine, but that's- ... the understanding from my aide, Joe Schuler and Jerry met with, with, uh, Ms. Craft and the administration in budgeting, and that's the determination that there was $60,000 in our budget, and they've already taken 30 of it. Oops. Where did they get it? That's a question for- Okay. ... I can't answer. I'm sorry. I was researching another question for you. Um, the, the, the way the vacancy management worked, um, everyone, every director, every entity, uh, th- the first half of the year was already taken. Okay? So we, we captured that information. So then every director had the opportunity to utilize the second half of the year for vacancy management. So, um, we have already captured the first half of the fiscal year's vacancy management. So you can't just say, "Well, it's 60," because 30 of that's already been captured in coming up with what our deficit is, Councilmember Myers. Does that help you? No, I'm clear on that. That's- Oh, okay. ... that's what I explained to everybody. I wasn't saying there was 60. I was explaining to everybody that there was 60 in the beginning, but the administration had already taken 30. Yeah, that is correct. I, I apologize. And, and I think the difference is that when the administration spoke to the directors, it was made clear to them that the first half of the year personnel lapse was already absorbed. That is correct. But the council office wasn't given that information, and the only way we found out was my aide and Jerry met with someone in budgeting. Oh, I'm sorry. So that's the point of clarification I was trying to make for the council members- Sure. ... is that that 30 was taken without our knowledge, and so we have given another 30 into the mix as well. Thanks. Thank you. So does that mean then that the percentage that the council office is actually cutting is a greater percentage than we thought it was? No. Or not? E- everybody's would have been the same. Okay. Every, everybody- The same, yeah, right. Okay. ... gave that across the urban county government. Yeah, after you add the 30,000 to this 118, then it's the same percentage. Okay. Ev- everybody... Yes. Yeah. Okay. So financed... D- you can go across urban county government. Okay. Thanks, man. Uh, Councilmember Ehlinger, we're still on the motion discussion. On the motion- Yes. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Lane's motion. Right. I had had a similar scenario as the, as Councilmember Lane did. I was looking at scenario one at B, D and E, and that came 6,248, less the 118,300 gave us 112,052, less the personal lapse of 30 gave us 82,52. So I was looking at each councilmember, coming up with 5,470. You had suggested 5,000, so that means the administration needs to come up with another 7,052 along with the 6,248 would be 13,030. So I'm pretty close on the numbers you are, so I can agree with that. That was a lot of numbers. You might wanna actually see mine, just like I asked to- ... see his. Put those on the board? Yeah. I can put those on the board. But it's very similar. I was just asking a little more, um, per councilmember, but we can then with the personal lapse and the 6,248, then we need another 7,000 basically, 52 from the administration. I'll put these on the board just to show you, but it's very similar. Is that some... Is that a- While he's putting that up- ... is that a tribute- ... let me just say, that's a few thousand dollars among councilmembers. We're down to one ten-thousandth of our budget now. Yeah, exactly. You need to bring it down a little. So this is to the motion that he- This is to the motion as it, he's- That he- No, I think he's saying that the motion... Just bring it down just a little if you would, and you can, I can start from the top and go through. And I'm not making an amendment to the motion here, but I'm just giving you a different opportunity that I might make an amendment eventually. But if you look at the first scenario that had, it had B, D and E. Okay. And that, by taking those out, that was 6,248. So you'd given us already suggestions on 6,248. That'd be reduced professional services, administration from 4,440, eliminate outside travel for administration of 1,500, and also reduce food and house, household administration budget of 308, and that comes up with 6,248. So that'd be part of the administration. Then we have the 30,000, uh, personnel costs, and we're down to 82,052, less the 55,000 per each councilmember. That would be 75. So we're now at 7,052 the administration would have to come up with. So- Okay. ... that was the numbers. They're, they're very similar to what you're doing, but that was just- ... by using what they'd already given us, it gives initially 6,248 to start with. So that was just my ideas there- Great minds. ... Vice Mayor. Thank you. Great minds. Isn't there some old saw about great minds? Yeah. Councilmember Wallace. Um, so the administration took the 30,000, half of the 60,000. Uh, is that my understanding on the personnel lapse? Uh, Ms. Lane said- Well, I think they took it across government. Did... Were you aware of this, Rebecca? I, I wasn't. You weren't either? Right. I mean, I thought the council budget was the only thing that the council really had total control over. But we didn't see the- And so I would like to find out- ... why the administration took $30,000 out of our budget without our knowledge, but until we get real numbers, it's kinda hard. So anyway, thank you. I- if I may, we didn't get a look at the mayor's proposed reductions until like a couple of weeks ago, at our first look. So, there's no way to know what they were planning, 'cause we hadn't seen it at least. Right. Okay. A lo- I'm very aware that we just got this, so... But, it, it doesn't seem to me... I'd like to make a request of, um, finance or law about the ability for them to make those reductions in the council budget. Thank you. Can I... Sure, absolutely. Just a, a point of clarification. No one has taken any money anywhere. I... What, what we looked at is, how do we calculate the deficit? So we took the entire urban county government. W- we weren't picking out one versus the other. We took the entire urban county government, finance, budgeting, and accounting, sat down and said, "Okay, here's, here's what vacancy management looks like the first six months of the year." We had to give a starting point knowing that any vacancy management from January 1st forward... Excuse me. That, that in order for the directors to be able to appropriately manage their vacancies, we had to give them a point in time to start. So we said, "Okay, January 1." We thought we could have plans in place by January 1 that would allow them to effectively manage their vacancies. So if I needed to hire, uh, an accountant, I wanted to know in my mind that, "Okay, if I'm not gonna hire them till March, I'm gonna be able to pick up Jan- January through, uh, March 1st as part of the savings that I would capture in the budget reduction process." So it wasn't that we thought, "Okay, we're taking this money out of council." It, it just was part of the overall calculation that we started with on October 1st. And that was just a methodology that finance and accounting used to come up with that. Other than that, it's, it wasn't money moved anywhere. It, it seems to me though that we were given a percentage, but before we were given that percentage, we, you all had already taken that money out of the budget. As we did for every single- But- ... budget sheet that we sent out. Right, but you all are the adm- the other divisions and work for the administration. The council administration does not. That's, that's my- It's... All it was, all I'm trying to explain to you- I'm not upset with you. I'm just asking the question. ... was just the methodology. It wasn't a, it wasn't a, you know, a directive, "Well, do this or do that." We just did it across the board, so. I under- I understand. And I'm not taking it personally and I'm not personally with you. What I'm talking about is the... Actually the legality and the ability of the administration to make that decision on behalf of the council. That's all. And I'd like, uh, some kind of... From law or somebody about that, because- What? I, I guess what I'm trying to say, we haven't done anything to the budget. Nothing has been touched in the budget. We were just trying to identify opportunities for additional reductions. And, uh, obviously, the commissioner of law can talk to that. Okay. Yeah. What Commissioner Rumpke said is accurate. There hasn't been any budget amendment or reduction in any budget, but if you... If using that methodology, if you don't capture the vacancy credit, I think I'm saying that correctly, during the first six months of this fiscal year, then that would mean that the proposed cut, the 5%, would actually increase. Am I right about that? So all of us were given, told, well, you know, you... The first six months, if you had a vacancy, then that money is already swept up to try to determine what the shortfall is going to be. Does that make sense? So there hasn't been any budget reduction and the administration didn't make any decision on behalf of the council. So I'm, I'm not sure I'm... But from a legal standpoint, I don't see a, an issue. N- nevermind. Thank you. I'm still confused. Councilman Meyers. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Still speaking on the motion, right? Yes. Logan, could you come up just for a minute? The only thing I... I agree with everything you said. The only thing I would add to that is that back in November, I think it was maybe a budget and finance committee meeting, I was having a conversation with Mary Feaster about our budget when we talked about needing to come up with reductions in the future. Well, we can- And we talked about $60,000 in personnel lapse in our budget. And at that point, she kept saying there wasn't $60,000 in our budget for personnel lapse. And then we find out later on that there actually is $60,000 in personnel lapse, I think is really the, probably the rub in the whole thing, is that back in November, we... It was actually my council that identified the $60,000, because when the council started to deliberate on what it would do for its cut, we wanted to include that 60,000 as part of what we would give up. Right. But it was told to us that there wasn't any personnel lapse there and then we find out later on that- ... you guys could have absorbed the first half of the year's personnel lapse without us knowing about it. I realize the money's still there. You didn't take the money and move it anywhere. But in essence, instead of us being able to take the $60,000 in personnel lapse and offer that up as part of our reduction, the administration absorbed half of it before we had a chance to do that, and left the other half of us to offer up. The issue about Mary Fister and what she... I mean, I don't even know why there's a personnel lapse, so I'm not really sure about the numbers there at all. I don't, I'm not really sure, but there hasn't been any reduction. I understand that. Yeah. I understand that. Thank you. Okay. Councilman Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. A- as I understand this, and, and don't go too far, Logan, but, uh, we're talking about, um, positions that were budgeted in which we didn't, uh, spend all the funds that were budgeted on those positions during that time. So unless we, we, uh, amend our budget to add a new position, we wouldn't be able to use those funds that didn't, weren't spent on the positions that were budgeted. So if we had ex-employee that was budgeted for the fiscal year 2009, 2010 and that employee didn't work the entire time, in order to actually use that money for something else, we'd have to actually amend the budget to take it from that position and use some... Is that what we're talking about? So we didn't spend, we didn't spend all the money that we could have spent in 2009, and the only way to go back and undo that is to actually create a new budget item and spend it on that. Is that... And maybe this is more of a budget- I'm going to defer to Commissioner Rumpke or, or Director O'Mara on that. I know that on certain budget items, there cannot be a transfer of funds within a division or within a department without council approval. And I believe personnel is one of those, but I'm not... I wanna... That's, that's- So I mean, I think the bottom line, we just didn't spend everything that we could have. That's, that's... Is that right? And, and in order to, to, to, to actually use that deficit, we'd actually have to create a new account or to, to amend the budget to put that someplace else. Is that correct? To the best of my knowledge. Yeah, yeah. That's all I had. I just think I, I think I understand that. It's just that... And so, and so when you all calculate what our deficit is, you look at what wasn't spent that could have been spent- Right. ... during, during a period of time. I'll give you an example. We had, we had a vacancy, uh, which we will end up having for the entire fiscal year. When Law started looking at its, its proposed cut, that first six months of salary and benefits, it wasn't pla- it wasn't, wasn't spent, was... I mean, that wasn't part of what I could use to meet the cut, because we were six months into the fiscal year. So we just looked at the last six months, because you've got half a fiscal year that you're trying to address the 12 and a half million dollar shortfall. So money that you haven't spent in the first six months, as I understand the methodology, doesn't really help you because- It's, it's just gone. ... if you put that in, the deficit- Yeah. ... is actually higher, I believe. That, that is exactly right. Right. That's the problem. Your deficit wouldn't be 12 and a half, it would be more than that. So if, for instance, in the council situation that, uh, uh, Councilmember Lawless is, is mentioning, if you, if you want to use the 60,000 as opposed to the 30, that 30,000 is already gone in the first six months. Well, we're talking about the second six months. So I think what it would mean is, is the cut would actually have to be higher to get to the 5% target. In order to use that 30,000 that wasn't used the first half of the year, we'd have to actually hire an additional employee to do that. Instead of having the one, one employee for the whole year, we'd have to have two employees for the... both working the second half of the year to, to both work. I'm not sure. I'm being confusing, but- Yeah, I'm not. ... we just, it's just money we haven't spent, that we didn't spend. Right. Thank you, thank you. Um, the Vice Mayor needed to leave, so Councilmember Lawless, and we still have the motion on the floor. Um, thank you. Uh, yes, it would take a budget amendment by the council, but that's what we are. And we moved funds from one account to the other with budget amendments. And the point is that that $60,000 should still be in our budget, and I can't believe that the 30,000, when we went all through government and this is... that that $30,000 would have increased our reduction by that much. And you're shaking your head. I'm not sure about what, but... So the motion is... I don't see anyone else who wants to speak. Um, the motion on the floor is to... that each council member find $5,000 in their own cost center, and that the Vice Mayor work to recover 43,300 from the personnel lapse and administrative budget. Any further comment before we vote? Councilmember Lawless. I'd like to make an amendment that we look into where that $30,000 is that was absorbed, because I believe we do, as a council, have a, a right to amend our own budget. Point of order, Chair. ... to control our own budget. Uh, yes. Your point of order? Point of order. I think, uh, uh, Councilmember Lawless is, this is her third time. Is that correct? Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lolis, could that ... How about if I, um, i- is your vote contingent on that? Could we ask them to review the tape of the me- meeting where, uh, this was discussed and come back with a definitive without putting it as part of the motion? Okay. So can you- Ca- can I clarify 'cause I do reme- Yes. I- it happened in Budget and Finance. Yes, it did. George is absolutely right. And, uh, if memory serves me correct, George made the s- council member Meyers made the statement that his aide had done some preliminary calculation, it looked like there might be $60,000 for potential lapsed funds. And the best, and I don't want to speak for Mary, but what I remember from that conversation, Mary said, "I'm not sure it's gonna be that much, because there'll be some additional costs that will come out." I don't think, I don't remember her saying there're not gonna be any funds available there. Now, but we can check the f- check the tape, but I don't think she was saying that it was, you know, there was not gonna be any lapse from what I remember. Well, and just for clarification, the question was asked, "How much money was budgeted for each position?" And the answer was, "We budgeted only what the person is making currently." Could- Plus any overheads. Could you review the tape and maybe get with someone in Budgeting to clarify this whole thing? Yes, I would be happy to do that. And I, it was said that, because I think I was the one that said it. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Any other question before we vote on this motion? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is there any opposed? Okay. That passes unanimously. Um, now, is there any other issue to come before this about the, uh, council budget or et cetera? Move to adjourn. Second. We've had a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? And we'll take a five minute break before planning committee starts. Thank you.