Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Unconvene the meeting, please. It's 3 o'clock. Today is Tuesday, February 15th, and this is the Council Committee of the Whole Work Session. And I call this meeting to order, as we do have a quorum. And the first item on our agenda is public comment on issues on the agenda. And is there anyone who wanted to make public comment? Seeing no one. We'll move to number two on the agenda, which is approval of the February 1st summary of the Committee of the Whole Work Session. Council Member Beard moves approval. Council Member Blues seconds. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Now we will review our docket, and we'll first look at first reading of ordinances, and I would ask that, and these ordinances and resolutions are built into our agenda for first reading. Council members, will you log in if you want to refer a matter to committee or recommend the administration provide more information or remove an item? And this is for first reading of ordinances. Seeing no one, I will entertain the same for first reading of resolutions, which start on page 2. Is there any action you would like on first reading of resolutions, which are quite lengthy, through number 30? Yes, this is the time for questions, referral to committee, or removal from the docket. Mr. Farmer. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm still getting used to our new style of meeting. Yes. I'm also picking up on things that have been in the pipeline since before my return, and my question is about number 24, which is a resolution initiating zoning ordinance tax amendment to Article 15 for regulating the height of fencing and the construction of fencing abutting public property. I would just like to know more about that. Or not. Is there anyone who, Council Member Blues, I think we discussed that in planning committee last year, did we not? We did. That was approved by the council. Well, part of it was approved. Do you have any information on that at all? Or is there anyone from the administration here who could answer that question? Or we can do it for Thursday. I mean, there would be a time to ask these questions again on Thursday evening. Am I correct? Yes. This is first reading, so there certainly would be a time on Thursday. I would just wait until that time because I don't think there's anyone here who can. Perhaps Mr. Maloney could take that under consideration to alert planning that there will be questions on Thursday evening about number 24 for first reading since there's no one here today to answer it. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak about a first reading of resolutions? All right. Seeing no questions or comments, Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Council Member Gordon. I see here that an existing aid is – oh, never mind. I'm sorry. I read it wrong. Thank you. I didn't know if we all had to renew our aids with the expiration of our term or not. Okay. Never mind. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I would be interested in knowing, in reference to number 26, actually what the total, what we have done on West Main Street, what we're going to do in this case on Vine Street, and what I saw in the paper we were starting to do from Limestone to Martin Luther King, and I think further from there on to Elm Tree Lane. But what that in total is going to be, Mr. Milligan maybe can give that right off the top of his head. Unfortunately, I can't. I do know that. Will you just, Mr. Milligan, will you say your name? George Milligan, I'm Construction Supplies Department of Public Works. Council Member, I know that the total for the east main portion that we're finishing up now is, I believe, $2.6 million. But I'll get those other numbers for you. Just curious, we've got a lot of money tied up in all of that, and just curious what we're going to end up with when we get our money's worth, hopefully. I can have those numbers for you. Okay, very good. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any other council members have questions or wish to remove something or refer it? If you'll sign in and I'll, we'll, Council Member Lawless. This is on number 26 also. And I'm not clear about what the change order is about for Marilla. Mr. Milligan. Arnold. This change order is to adjust quantities to actual quantities that were used during the construction project and to add items that were discovered in the field. This is not the final change order. There will be another one more minor change order coming. This is Old Vine Street Project. Yes, ma'am. This is Vine Street from Broadway to Limestone. Okay. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. One Vine Street. I'm sorry. Phase one. I thought it said Old Vine Street, but my bifocals. aren't working so well. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Are there other questions from Council members? Or referrals? Or with things you want to take off the docket? Seeing none, we will move on. And although the continuation of the agenda is on page 7, and although it isn't in here, we do need to go to page 59 and review our second readings, second reading of ordinances. Are there questions, referrals, or removals? There are only two there, so if not, we will go to page 60, which has the start of the second reading of resolutions. Are there any questions on those three resolutions? Anything you wish to withdraw or refer or ask about? I don't see anyone signed up, so we'll move right on with the agenda, which continues on page 7. And next we'll have review of budget amendments, which is pages 8 through 10. And are there any questions about budget amendments, Council Members? Okay. If not, we'll move on to Item 5 on the agenda. This is the point where Council Members can refer matters to committees, recommend items be placed on the docket Thursday night. Anything at all? Okay, if not, we'll move on to page 52 is our next item, which is review for just, if you'll look at 52, this is for information only. it's our list of neighborhood development fund funds, which will already be on the docket. And seeing no questions, we'll move on to item six on the agenda, which is committee reports. And those start on page 53. And the first report will be from Councilmember Ellinger for the Budget and Finance Committee. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The Budget and Finance Committee met on January 25th. The first item of business was the selection of the committee chair. The second one was the selection of the vice chair, and Ed Lane is going to serve as the vice chair. And the third item on the agenda was a report of the Police and Firefighters Retirement Fund. Tom Cavanaugh, the CEO of Cavanaugh-McDonald, made the presentation of the retirement fund, and there are several questions from Councilmembers. And in the many questions that we had, we have asked Commissioner Driscoll to come back and bring an action plan from the administration on their recommendations, and we look forward to having that hopefully in our next meeting if possible. And then the last item was just items transferred into committee. We adjourned at 2.50. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember Ellinger. The next committee report is General Government, which starts on page 55. And I'll call on Councilmember Ed Lane, who chairs General Government Committee. Thank you. The first mention I'd like to make is Councilmember Chuck Ellinger attended this meeting and was left off of the summary, so I would like to modify it to add his name. And essentially what we did at the first meeting is David Barbary made a presentation about franchise agreements with utility companies, and he'll be bringing back some updated information at our meeting on February 22nd. The Internal Audit Board, Mr. Chali, Director of Internal Audit, made an overview of some of the improvements to that committee, and he is supposed to be back on March 22nd to have a more detailed report. The council member Record emphasized that the public pays for much of the health care coverage of the LFUCG employees, and he encouraged our council members and other leaders to encourage our employees to have healthier lives. And then under new business, referred to the council was a review of the facilities use policy, and I asked Councilmember Myers with two other council members, Crosby and Ford, to review the prior information on this issue and to provide a summary of that information and report out on March 22nd to the committee. And then also Council Member McCord, Council Member Kaye and Martin are going to review the citizen's advocate position, and they're going to review prior information and try to report out on February 22nd. Mr. McCord advised we might be delayed on that, but that's our target date. There were no actions or referrals required by the committee at this time, so there are no referrals to the council. And the next meeting is set for February 22nd. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lane. The next committee report is Economic and Community Development Committee, and that starts on page 57 of the packet. And I will call on Council Member Julian Beard for that report. Thank you, Vice Mayor. As most of us know, and I'm sure maybe many of the people watching GTV have already known, Eric Patrick Mars has been prodding us for some time now on the subject of economic development. And he brought a gentleman by the name of Saul Kaplan, was Business Innovation Factory and his experiences and observations with the Rhode Island Economic Development Cabinet. Mr. Kaplan stated communities don't often know what they're selling is quality of place as a business climate. He noted the community assets are usually fragmented. As an example, he stated that generally within workforce development efforts, there is a disconnect between research and development capacity and higher education entrepreneurs. All of these things, by the way, are issues that we have touched and will continue to touch as we go forward. Council Member Farmer asked about Lexington's capacity to embrace the new economy and reach entrepreneurs. Vice Mayor Gordon asked about his Aging in Place initiative, and he spoke about the Elder Experience Lab. Council Member Stennett, Vice Chairman, actually, Council Member Stennett, who in my absence actually chaired the meeting for me, asked about the role of government within economic development. Mr. Maher introduced a Ms. Selina Schmidt, Executive Director of the Power of 32, a 32-county multi-state development corporation centered in Pittsburgh. He addressed a strategic theme process that they're going through to develop a long-range economic and community development strategic vision for the region. Then Mr. Mars introduced Andrew Sparks, student president of Ohio State University Entrepreneur Club, and he outlined the programs Ohio State offers to student entrepreneurs. He also discussed the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Ohio State Fisher College within the business school. Mr. Sparks stated it was important to engage Generation Y as they are the future leaders and consumers of products and services developed by the entrepreneurs as well as the next generation of entrepreneurs. We had, at least from what I see, a pretty full book. I don't believe there was any other discussion at that point. No motions came from this discussion. And the meeting was adjourned at 2.15 p.m. on February 8th. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Beard. At this point, we'll go ahead and have council reports. So, Council Members, if you'll log in, please, for your council report. And first we'll hear from Councilmember Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a couple of announcements and a couple of questions for the administration. One, well, I'll go ahead and get with the questions. I see we received the World Equestrian Game reimbursement for the fire overtime, $214,000, which will go on the docket Thursday night. Can you give us a copy by Thursday night of what the amended budget looks like for fire overtime? because I know we're at $800-something thousand in the budget, so I guess we're going to add $214 to that. Then how much we're going to need for the rest of the year. So if we can get that before Thursday night, that would be great. And then also, in Frankfurt, there's a couple major issues, I hope most of my colleagues know, but pending before the House and Senate that will affect our government in the next fiscal year, some of which are multimillion-dollar price tags on if they pass through the House and Senate. I guess, Mr. Maloney, can you give us an update maybe next week? I mean, you're welcome to today, of course, but if you want to do it today. I know you went and testified. Right. But I think the citizens need to know and the other employees in government need to know what's happening because this could really damage our government, and we're treading water as it is. This could sink our boat. Well, we went today and we testified. We were against it. An administration was against their proposal where they want their spouses to get the retirement, pay for their spouse's retirement. Mr. Maloney, can you, is this for police and fire? Police and fire. Or can you, okay. Yeah, police, I'm sorry, police and fire, I'm sorry. And we ran numbers, it would be about $2.9 million around there without an actuary and all that, but we're looking around $2.9 additional if we were to do this. They tabled it today for Tuesday, and we'll be glad to give you an update. When they're going to vote on it again Tuesday, that's what we were told next week. So as of now, they've tabled it. We went down and told them what our shortfall is for this year, 11 points to 16 million, and then also next year it's going to be a lot more than that. So we gave them our case, and we're doing some research right now, along with some help from Louisville on some of their information. So we're going to try to get there, and I'd be glad to update you on that. Just so the public viewing and my colleagues know, these were two bills, one in the House and one in the Senate, that were introduced by two local Lexington representatives to change the fire and police retirees' health insurance so that we have to cover the entire family at retirement, which is a much different change than what it is now, just covering the employee. So obviously our health insurance concerns would extend well beyond our current employees if that passes to the retirees at that point, and the city would be on the hook for covering that cost. So that would be an unfunded mandate basically from the state government, and I appreciate the administration taking an active role in going to Frankfurt and discussing that. There are some other bills up there we may want to be abreast of too in the coming weeks. So if you can keep us up to date as to where we're at, that would be helpful. Hopefully we'll have an update next week. If I'm not here next week, you know where I am. So I'll be down there. You'll be hanging out in Frankfurt. Thank you, Richard. And one final thing. I thought I got out of Frankfurt, but I'm back. And one final thing in my report. Again, next Tuesday night, February 22nd, from 530 to 730 at the Hamburg, it's all good. We'll be having the Hamburg Business Networking Group. We're trying to start it off the ground. So anyone that lives, eats, or works in Hamburg, please show up and support the businesses out there. This is a new concept we're going to try to get going like a neighborhood association, but instead for businesses. So next Tuesday night, the 22nd, from 530 to 730, that's all good in Hamburg. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Very good. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a couple or three things, actually. On Saturday, the Hamilton Park Neighborhood Association organized a cleanup of Fersales Road, which I helped with. And we went six blocks on both sides, east and westbound on Fersales Road, and was able to pick up a half a ton of garbage. So we actually, waste management actually helped get it weighed and disposed of, and I want to thank them. But I think it just really shows how much that we need to educate our community that, you know, trash in our roadways ends up in our waterways, and it's not acceptable. And we all, you know, if you want clean water, which I hope everyone agrees with, we really need to educate and then possibly enforce. I know there's been very little enforcement with littering, and our police, we know, have plenty to do, but it may come to that. And also, there's been a considerable amount of graffiti in the Fersales Road area, Alexandria Drive, Oxford, and so forth. And I just wanted to publicly thank the Sheriff's Office who assisted with that removal. The longer it stays there, I think the more of a threat it can be. and Officer Shannon Gayhafer with Clear Unit helped get that organized with the Sheriff's Office. But I really appreciate their work. And, Vice Mayor, I wanted to ask that you form a task force for itinerant merchants, and these would be merchants that move throughout from location to location, temporary in nature. And I know, you know, we're trying to enhance our downtown and bring more people downtown, but yet there are places where itinerant merchants are not a good thing. They make the appearance of our entrances to our neighborhoods look poorly. So since it is such a complex issue, and I would like to have some citizens involved in the task force, if you would be willing to create that, and I would volunteer to chair it. Excellent. And take any volunteers from the council members. Okay. Okay. So I will form a task force, and if you don't mind to email me the actual purpose of what the task force will look at. I'd be happy to. You just said it. And then you will chair it, and Council Member Henson welcomes at least a couple of other council members to volunteer to serve. and we could maybe talk about who might be good to serve on that. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Next is Council Member Jay Birthday Boy-McChord. Happy birthday. It's good to be nice. I hear you're 19. I'm 19 today. Thank you very much. It feels good. Hey, just one announcement. next Tuesday night at 7 o'clock at Jesse Clark is the neighborhood meeting, the public meeting for the Clays Mill Road Project, the pre-construction meeting. I want to extend an invitation to everyone that lives in and around the Clays Mill Corridor that works up and down that corridor to come out to meet with the contractors, to meet with the folks from government that will be project managing to bring questions and so forth. And I guess from the administration side, if there's anything that we can do to get the word out to a number of folks, I know we're working with the neighborhood right now to try and put signs out. But if everything that we can, just to let folks know, because it is such a big deal and it's been going on for quite a while. And I sincerely appreciate everything you all are doing to help neighbors understand what we're looking at. But just so folks have heard, this project, I guess, officially begins on the 22nd. It ends on October 25th, and so for nine months it's going to be a difficult corridor. And I would say that from the start of school in August with a brand-new school at Wellington, along with this construction, there's going to be a whole lot of phone calls that we're going to be getting. So, again, I appreciate the administration's responsiveness to put this meeting together and just encourage anyone that has any questions about Clay's Mill to come to Jesse Clark at 7 o'clock on next Tuesday. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. As the Council members know, we've got an open seat on the internal audit board that's to be filled and supposed to be a Council representative. I think the rules call for the Council to vote on that person and then send that on to the Mayor for appointment and then back to us for approval. and I guess a couple weeks ago we passed out the information for Fred Brown to sit on that internal audit board. As you all know, he was a council member for the 8th District for about 11 years. He's also a distinguished CPA in the community and served on the council at the time that this internal audit board was created. And he has applied for that position, and I support that 110 percent and would like to move that forward to the document. So I want to make the recommendation that we put that on the docket Thursday. Do I hear a second? Or a vote? Second. Yes, it is in the mayor's report. Yes. So that, I believe, is automatically on the docket. Okay. Is it not? It just requires a vote of the council, so that's perfect. So we'll vote anyway. Yes. Since we have that motion to make it official that it go to refer it to Thursday night, so is there any discussion about that motion? No. Did you have some discussion? Yes, Fred Brown, the recommended for the position that's a council recommendation for a seat on the board. Did you have some comment? I mean, I know Fred Brown, he's a very good guy. You know, the only concern that I have is that this is supposed to be an internal audit, And there are two representatives from the council and there are two representatives from the mayor's office. Since Mr. Brown served as a council member, you know, I just question, you know, whether that is the best moment we could make because the idea is to have outside auditors who are totally independent. And, you know, having served on the government and the council, I think, you know, might be an issue that we want to consider. Is there any other discussion or comment about the motion? Seeing none, we'll take the vote. All those in favor of referring to Thursday night, Fred Brown to serve on the internal audit board as the seat recommended by the Council. please, we've got our voting machine going, register your aye or your nay. And that motion passes 12 to 1. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. That concludes my report. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Vice Mayor. There's going to be a neighborhood association meeting for the Elizabeth Street Neighborhood Association at 6 p.m. this evening. There are several items on that agenda that may be of interest to people in that area. It will be held, again, at 6 p.m. this evening at the Woodland Christian Church, which is on the corner of Audubon and Forest Park. Everyone is, of course, welcome to attend. Wednesday, February 16th at 6 p.m. at the Lexington Public Library Theater, downtown branch, there will be a presentation by Omar Blaik, I always say his name incorrectly, on how great universities can shape great cities. and that's a great book if anybody's interested. Everyone is welcome to attend this presentation. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Actually, I had a question for Council Member Henson. On your litter campaign that you did, geographically the six blocks started where and ended where, if you would. We began at Mason – well, actually, it was from Mason-Headley to Delmont Drive. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. That's all I have. All righty then. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to take a minute to let people know, if they are not aware, that the Lexington Fund for the Arts was kicked off this morning at the LexArch building downtown. They've set an ambitious goal of $1.1 million, which is a little more than they raised last year. They presented a lot of really good information about why the arts are so important in our community. You'll be hearing a lot more about it, and I hope we'll all be in a position to support that effort. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to take a moment to thank what I refer to as Chief Rebecca Langston for her service to the government, and more recently specifically to the council itself. Having worked with Neil Hansen, Sean Gillen, Ellen Kershaw, and Bill McKinney along the way, I will say that she has been the preeminent council administrator that I have had the privilege to work with, and I appreciate the fact that she was able to contribute to this government before she took her position in the council. office and we all wish her very well in her retirement, which probably, I guess, begins with this meeting ending or something. Anyway, we appreciate her being with us for so many years. Thank you. Are there other council members? If not, I will jump in here first to ditto what Council Member Kaye said about the Fund for the Arts. It was actually a very inspiring breakfast and presentation, I thought. to kick off the Fund for the Arts and the campaign in a time when our economy is not very good and most cities' arts programs are looking at, I guess I would say, taking a pessimistic view. Our Lex Arts and city are taking an optimistic view. that we can still have a campaign for the arts and our community will be supportive. So that is a very exciting campaign that has kicked off today. And then I would also like to follow on what Council Member Farmer said and publicly thank Rebecca Langston, who is retiring. She, to my way of thinking, is a very capable person and has served us well. And I would add to your list in there, Councilmember Farmer, we also had Acting Council Administrator Southers and Acting Council Administrator Schoeninger. So we actually have had six in the last 12 years. So anyway, many thanks to Rebecca Langston in her retirement. And that leads me right into what I wanted to say about the Committee of the Whole, which met in a special meeting this morning. We had 13 council members there, and we had a very productive meeting. I want to thank council members because the council members came to a consensus to approve a short-term plan for operating the council office. and also we have put into place a long-term look which involves a committee and that it's really a working group, and that working group who will take a look at the long-term plan for any reorganization of the core staff will be chaired by Council Member Kevin Stinnett And the members of the work group will be Councilmember Chris Ford, Councilmember Chuck Ellinger, Councilmember Diane Lawless, I have since added Councilmember Steve Kay, and then myself. And this working group will be looking at recommendations from lots of folks on the council floor and from council members to put into the hopper for discussion to bring back recommendations to the full council. And so with that, my final report is I've distributed a blue, red, and white. I guess that's, thank goodness it's mostly blue. handout to council members, and you have seen this before on email. Back in January, I asked to meet with Commissioner Jane Driscoll, Finance, and CAO Richard Maloney, and we had a couple of very productive meetings to discuss how the council could have a more collaborative budget process with the mayor. And the mayor was certainly supportive of looking at this. And so about a week or so ago, we met with Councilmember Ellinger, who chairs budget and finance, and Councilmember Ed Lane, who is the vice chair of budget and finance. And this visual represents the ideas which we wanted to bring to the council as a look at how we could be more collaborative up front in our budget work so that when the mayor presents the budget in April, the council has had more input and more discussions and interactions with the administration And there are some dates on this. I know the administration is in the process of getting information from partner agencies and doing preliminary revenue forecasts. And then the council would look at, and I'll turn it over to Council Member Ellinger to talk about a prioritization process, and then that would all come together in a joint workshop. administration and council moving through to budget hearings and down through the process to where the budget is approved. So with that, I wanted to let Council Member Ellinger first talk a little bit about prioritization process, and then we can open it for questions and discussion. Thank you, Vice Mayor. As you said, we met about a week ago, and we thought it would be helpful if we could do a proactive council member's priorities to look at how we can be part of the process before the mayor actually presents the budget on the 12th so we would have our priorities when the budget is presented to us. And in that, we are in the process, and I think it's being copied as we speak. will either be down here in the next minute or so, or it will be up in your box if they don't get it down here in time. But I want to thank the commissioner. I want to thank Elizabeth because we were scrambling here at the end and trying to get some numbers in here. But what we've tried to do is look at the different divisions, look at programs and partner agencies, and have a one to five, one being the most important and five being the least important to you, and being able to kind of go through each one and show what you think are your priorities. This will be a confidential document that's just going to be a work document. But from that, we'll present that to you all today. By next Tuesday, if you would, we'd like to receive that back from the council members. And that way we can kind of do a scoring system and see what you think. And I think as the door is opening, we should be receiving these documents coming in here. So with that, it will show what you can do to the scoring system. We'll receive that back next Tuesday on the 22nd. I will give the results. We'll go through that and see what's ranked the highest, what's ranked the lowest on your priorities. We'll give that to the administrations on the 22nd, and then they'll use that information. Then when we have our workshop on the 7th, our joint workshop, to kind of know what the council priorities. There will be three different phases in there. Besides just the priority ranking, that will be the first one of the different programs. Then also there's going to be general concepts that you could put in there, what you think are important. from the pension fund to debt. What do you think are your most important concepts that we need to really be looking at in this budget? And then the third one is going to be for the district representative themselves, for the 12 district representatives. We'd like to get your top three priorities in your district. So on this, the document that doesn't have the district, I would not put your name on it. We want to keep this confidential so we don't know who they're coming from. So you'll want to give the most accurate answer as possible on these. But with the district, obviously, we like to know your district and know your top three priorities. So when the mayor is going to be putting the budget with the administration together, we'll know what is important in your district, what your top priority is, and that way we can have a collaborative effort come April that we'll have, even though it's going to be the mayor's budget, it would be nice, I think, if the council has an input in what we like to have in this budget. So when we get the budget back from the mayor, we'll have a good start on this budget. With that, I'll open up if there's any questions. Council Member Beard? Exactly how, you know, when we discussed in the reorganization the seven committees initially, that they would also function like our council links, budget links. And I see no mention about budget links in here. Is that process going to happen at some point? That will happen, yes, sir. Yeah, we'll still do the council links. This just gives us a little getting starting point for this budget. But the council links really look at after the budget's been there and then we go through that process. So this is kind of getting us a little proactive jump start on the budget for this coming year. To get the council's input, get your priorities. Let us tell the administration what we think this budget needs to be. They've talked about a zero-based budget. Let's let them tell what we think is what needs to be in this budget. And this gets us on the front end. That's fine. I just didn't want to see the lynch process solved. No, I think the council lynch has been a good process, and that will definitely be still used. Very good. Thank you. Mr. Lane, did you have a question? I think he was on for after you. And this is not a full list. There's other things that you would like. You know, we've done our best. I want to thank the commissioner. I want to thank Elizabeth. I want to thank Ed, because we tried to compile the best we could. But it's a working process. This is our first time trying it. So there's going to obviously not be as good as it probably could be, but we've tried to give a good start, and we're always looking for some suggestions. I asked Council Member Stennett earlier, and he gave me some good suggestions that we've tried to put in here, too. So if you have other stuff, we're more than willing to look and try to make this the best document and the best that we can give the administration. So it gives our priorities to the administration. Mr. Farmer. And then if you look at the document in front of you, with the numbers to the left is what the fiscal year 11 budget is. So that lets you know how much money each one of these divisions or agencies had in the budget this year. So that just kind of gave you a little number to kind of know where to start. And that's kind of what we were waiting on because the way that we did this, it wasn't as easy for budgeting to come up with these numbers. So thank you, Elizabeth, for going through and doing all this because I know you were scrambling here because we kind of asked you at the 11th hour to do this, and I appreciate that. More questions about this budget process? Mr. Myers? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a question. In the past, the council has asked for a list of agencies and entities that we have to fund, either by ordinance or by statute, it would be fantastic. And I know it's probably short order to ask for that today. If we could get that to pair with this document, that would help us maybe make our – And actually, I asked for that when we were doing this because I'd like to have an asterisk beside everything that either state statute requires or the charter requires, and they're going through that as we speak, but it wasn't able in time to be able to do that. But I agree with you totally that we like to know what is required of us, And we have, Commissioner, you can come and maybe give a little further description of that, but that's something that I asked and I think would be very helpful. And I know they're working on going through each thing, and actually I think when they're going to go through their budget hearings, they're going to be requiring everybody to document what is required. Yes, thank you. Sorry. As a part of the budget request process for the agencies, We actually asked for them to distinguish between mandated and mandated being defined as by state statute, local ordinance, or some federal requirement. So that's a part of the budget request information that the divisions were asked to submit to us. And we may have to go through and refine what they've submitted to us. But that was an intended part of the process. Okay. And can we also get to what level? So if it is mandated, the dollar amount that's mandated or the formula they use, so that say if there's something on here that has $2 million by it, and it's according to state statute, but only a million of it may be a state statute, the other million is what we decided to do. If you could help us with that, too. I think you may find in a lot of state statutes and requirements, it might require a certain service be provided, but it will not likely go into the detail at how you provide that service or at what level. That's pretty rare, I would say, to find that. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Ellinger, I'm not quite sure what we'd be prioritizing here I think that's a number one priority. I think that's a number one priority. I think that's a number one priority. I think that's a number one priority. I think that's a number one priority. I think that's a number one priority. I think that's a number one priority. or what? Well, initially we were looking at doing this. We had, and Commissioner, you were acting like you wanted to stand up and answer that. But when we initially did it, we had about 60 that we had, and we were going to label them 1 to 60. And what you thought was the most important to your lease department, but it was almost trying to compare apples and oranges, and really we didn't see that as going to be helpful. We're just trying to find some tangible information that we can gather from the council members that if we can find that people agree on these programs as being ones, then that will be something we want to make sure the budget is. And if we find that there's agreement that there's five, if we have to make some tough decisions, then those fives are the ones that we're probably going to look at first. And then it's going to have to go back to what state statute, what's mandated that we have to do. But that way it gives us a little decision in prioritizing what we think are most important in your eyes compared to what the rest of the council is. And we were trying to come up with some kind of matrix that we could do that, and hopefully this will be a start. I don't think it's going to be the end all. I think we were just trying to give you some guide as to how much of the current general fund dollars were associated with that program. So it was just a guide of the current, that's just the current budget dollar amounts. So the real emphasis is on the division or on the program? The program. Yes, sir. But not on the number. Correct. Correct. We just want to give you the number just to let you know what is that as part of this past budget. Council Member Lawless. Having served on the partner agency, whatever it was, task force, work group, committee, One of the things that we were trying to get information on was how many properties are leased out or occupy, et cetera, city-owned buildings. and I don't believe we ever got that, did we, and if that's reflected in this budget in any way. I think, George, you want to answer this? We have that list. I'm not sure if it's reflected here or not, but we can get that spreadsheet to all the council members. As Chairman Lane said that we're going to have a presentation in the next general government standing committee meeting, it's a huge spreadsheet. It's about like this, and it's pages and pages. What it has listed are all of our partner agencies and whatever contributions they're getting from the government, whether it's in-kind, whether it's free utilities, free office space, dollars, whatever it is. We've got it all listed, so we do have that comprehensive list. I'm not sure if it's included in this, but we can provide that to everybody. May I? Also, we have buildings that are occupied by private businesses that we rent to or lease to. Do we have a list of that anywhere? I'm not sure if the list that we had for our committee included private business. If they were getting it as an in-kind or reduced rent other than market rate, there may be in there. but if they're paying market rate rent, then it's not going to be in there. I think most of the ones that we looked at, at least in the committee, were nonprofits or government-created entities. So I think that would be very helpful if anybody has that information. Thank you. I think Mr. Maloney would like to answer that question. If General Service has that list, we'll be glad to get it to you. Council Member Lane. Mr. Eleanor, who prepared these numbers around this exhibit? Because I have a question on that, I wanted to direct it to the appropriate person. I've got it from Elizabeth and from the commissioner, but I think it mostly came from Elizabeth. Okay. Has the fire department submitted their numbers? Because they have almost a little less than $800,000 or $900,000 in their list when their budget is like $50 million or so. Well, those numbers are FY11 original budget numbers. They don't reflect their 2012 requests. But that budget matches their 11 original. Well, I don't understand. I mean, the police department's got all their numbers in there. No, for fire. Fire is all down. It should be on the first page at the bottom. EMS, fire training, prevention, suppression. Then something on the sheet didn't print out accurately. I'll double check it. Okay. All right. Well, good, because I was thinking their budget is about 50 plus a million a year, and I was wondering where that money went to. I'll double check it when I get back upstairs. Okay, I think it would be helpful, too, is if we could put a total on the column after you've added all the numbers in so we could see what. Not every division is represented, so it's not going to match the total you see for the general fund as a whole. Okay, all right. But we can add that in, but it won't match. Okay, all right, thank you. As I said, this is kind of a first run. We're trying to get this more conceptual just to see where the council is on your priorities, where you think that we need to be looking at to give the administration some kind of blueprint of what we'd like them to put the budget in. But this is the beginning of it, and any input that you all can give I sure greatly appreciate. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Ellinger. And just to say again, the date you would like to have these returned is February 22nd? That's correct. End of business? That would be fine, sure. just by the 22nd because we then are going to take these numbers that you submit to us, and then we have to get that back to the administration by the 1st of March so they'll be ready by the 7th to present it at the workshop. Council members, you'll note on here March 7th from 1 o'clock to 5 o'clock p.m. is a joint budgeting workshop where council members, the mayor, the CAO, commissioners, and directors will look at the information which has been gathered, including revenue estimates, council prioritizations, and partner agency requests. So I really appreciate Commissioner Driscoll. And did you have something else you wanted to say? The fire issue? Yes, the fire issue. There was a category when it was resorted, fire administration. It's a really big number. $52 million was off the list. So when it was re-sorted, we alphabetized and we sorted this thing many times. We'll go back and check all those categories. I like the way you cut the budget this very day. You're starting out on a good leg there. At any rate, I'd like to thank the commissioner and the CAO and Elizabeth. this is something that I have felt we needed to do for a long time because the way it worked in the past is at the mayor's budget address, the council received a document, boom, and then we sorted through it to find things and look at things. And I think in the long run, if we can work together a little more at the beginning, it will produce better results. And Commissioner Driscoll said that maybe next year, if we like a collaborative approach, we can work ahead of time and do it, yes, through committees and work before the first of the year to start the process. So I appreciate all of your work, Council Member Ellinger and Council Member Lane. And I appreciate your work on this and your acceptance of trying something a little different. I have one question. Yes. Commissioner, could you tell us about, now this is dealing with 12, about what your ideas are for 11 to look at filling the hole that we are going to be dealing with here to finish this budget cycle out? We are actually working with the commissioners right as we speak this week. We've asked for some target figures in terms of potential adjustments to the division budgets. So we've asked them just for an initial round of thoughts so that we can work again with you as we go through. we are going to have to adjust the current year budget to meet certain assumptions, again, that were included in the budget using reserves, for example, or some property sales, et cetera, that we need to propose. If certain things are not going to be realized, then we need to make adjustments in the budget by a certain amount. But we're gathering information at this point. We were doing it simultaneously so that we can then come back and present to you. what some of those options are. But we're looking at, obviously, positions. We're looking at discretionary expenditures. We're looking, as we have encouraged divisions to do, look at the way services are delivered and see if there are any changes in the way we deliver services that would capture some savings. So that's the process we're going through at this point. Well, at the joint workshop, will you be bringing that to us at the first part of that? Yes. Okay. Okay. I think we have maybe another question. Mr. Lane, are you on for council report? And then, Mr. Beard, are you on for a question for the commissioner? Okay. Mr. Beard? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm a little bit confused about this part of the process. Because prioritizing our present budget doesn't necessarily mean, until we get revenue numbers, what next year's budget is going to look like. And then what does the priority mean? Does priority mean that it gets, if it's a one, it gets what's there 100 percent? And a five means they don't get anything? I don't understand how that might work, and maybe Council Member Ellinger can tell me. Like I said earlier, it's more of a conceptual approach to trying to see what our priorities are. If we have a consensus on some things that are ones, then those are going to be more that when it comes to the budget process are going to be probably less cut than if you look at what the fives are. Then those are going to be the ones we're probably going to look at first and see that there's a consensus. At least that will be what we'll be telling the administration. This is the councils. And then it will be important also from the priorities that each district represented on what they want as their specific priorities and need to be, because the district representatives know better than the rest of us on their own districts as their priorities. So this is a conceptual trying to figure out what you think are your top priorities and where we need to, when you look at a budget, we can't fund everything, and we're going to have to make some cuts. what should be on the top and then what's going to be at the bottom, and that's where we're going to have to be looking to try to make some changes in their budgets. Are we, Commissioner, are we looking at this year's budget and paralleling what we have in this year's budget for next year's budget, or is there another number that we don't know yet? For instance, with partner agencies, You know, my economic development and community development committee deals with the economic development agencies. and I guess I just don't know exactly how to, as a mechanism, with the short leash that we have as a mechanism, I feel like the committee ought to get, as a group, a consensus as opposed to individuals within the committee because they could just null and void each other And, you know, we wouldn't bring anything forward that the committee as a whole might want to do. And I know this is kind of tough to come in in the middle, so to speak, of this whole budget process, because the budget process has been going on with the administration for, what, three months, at least two months. and we're getting this and we have to have it back on the 22nd. Is that correct? Yes, sir. You have a week. And that's why when I initially did it or we talked about we were going to do 1 to 60, and I thought to try to figure out who's number 1 and who's number 60, I didn't think that was going to be possible. That's why I tried to make it a little easier on trying the 1 to 5 and go through each one and try to decide how high is that on your priority list. And once again, it's just going to be a concept, and we're going to just try to see if we can find something some area of continuity between the council members who thinks that these are number one and if there are some number fives, and that will give us a little input on doing the budget process for the administration. When they start doing the fiscal year 12 budget, they'll know this is what the council really wants us to emphasize on and wants to make the priorities, and these are some areas that they think that if we're going to make some cuts, these might be the areas that we cut. Once again, it's a concept. We'll just try to see if we can get some input. We'll try to get the data and see if we can then give them some educated guesses on what the council wants. Until we can apply the priority to some dollar amount, you know, it makes no sense to me from a mechanism point of view, as it stands right now anyway. Again, I think we included the dollars to be a guide just to give you some comparison, if you will, of how much of the budget goes to certain areas, which all of you are very familiar with. Anyway, in terms of, say, your partner agencies, in terms of a guide, you know, I've had experience in that partner agencies, the group would also rank those partner agencies or at least determine if there was to be a reduction, how that reduction might affect the amounts that you were looking at for those partner agencies. For example, if we had to reduce budgets 2%, would it be an across-the-board 2%? Or would you maintain the top three agencies whole and make adjustments elsewhere? So I don't think we're where you want to be yet in the process. I think this is just to be a guide for priorities. And then as we, what was envisioned with that chart is that the revenue estimates, the priorities, as well as what the divisions have requested will all come together in that work session. And then I think you'll see the pieces fit better together. Maybe so. I just was curious how we were going to wade our way through this. This is just the first step on this, just to kind of let us get a kind of handle on what you think is important on the overall and then also in your district, too. Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. And I think the other thing is in the past, unless a council member met individually with the mayor and requested something as a priority, there was no input ahead of time. And so this, I think, will give the administration, if the administration sees that 15 council members rated something a number one, I think that sends a message. And the numbers are not hard and fast. So it's a concept. My concern wasn't necessarily what got the ones. It's the shades of gray in between that was bothering me and how we were going to handle those. And that, I think, will be worked out through the rest of the process. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You actually just summed it up really well. I think it's a great opportunity for the council to be involved on the front end, and we've never, to my knowledge, had that, at least since 2001, since I've been around. And so I appreciate the administration on giving us this opportunity, because to use an example, like you said, if the council votes 15-0, So in a previous year, day treatment center was cut from the budget, and the council voted 15-0 to keep it into the budget. What this does is give us an opportunity to provide that feedback up front, because otherwise what happens is if the council votes 15-0 to put it back in, then the council has to fill the hole that it created when you put it back in. And so it works a lot better and a lot smoother if we can get input back and forth up front, and then we kind of come out maybe on the same page, and I'll get there a lot easier. So I applaud the administration, Commissioner, Chairman Ellinger, and all those who helped with this process to make it possible. If I could ask one more question, and it might be a little bit off basis, but in your experience in Louisville, it's my understanding that might be incorrect, that when they passed the budget, a lot of items were actually line-itemed in the budget. So, for example, in our street repair, if I had these streets in my district that were going to be paved, they were actually in the budget document so that when the budget was passed, that money was sort of earmarked for that. Is that how they did the budget there? There was a combination. Many times it would say street paving or sidewalks, but there were some discretionary funds as well as some general funds that would have district-specific attachments. So District 21, I know there's not 21 here, but District 21 sidewalks in an amount. So they were specific to a district. And it could be a lump sum or it could have been a specific Main Street sidewalks. But sometimes it was a pot of money and then it was moved to individual projects during the year. Okay. Just for your kind of thought later on, that would be, I think, awesome if we could implement some of that, maybe not this year, but into our budget process in the future. And if I could just say this one last comment. In previous years I asked to what extent, what expectation does the council reasonably have that if we put something, if it's in the budget when the budget's passed, that it actually happens? And I think this would be an excellent solution to get around some of that, is if some of those items were actually put in the budget as a line item and there was a schedule that went along with it, then it's sort of the ordinance like they do at the state level when the documents pass. So I'd love to talk to you about that a little bit later on. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Ellinger just got his first one returned. So both the prioritization list and the council district priorities need to come back by the 22nd. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Chairman Ellinger and the administration, for getting us started on fiscal year 12 budget priorities. The question I have pertains more to where we stand right now in real time, And I wonder, have we been prepared a mid-year budget report for fiscal year 11, I guess, from July 1 through June 30 to date? Has that been offered to us just yet? Commissioner Driscoll, and I know our budget director is here, Ryan Barrow. Yeah, they touched on it a little earlier, but they're compiling the numbers now to come back with a plan. There's actually a couple of things I'd just like to say in response to that question. At the Budget and Finance Committee next week, we'll be presenting year-to-date financial information. And then also in terms of what we need to do to adjust the current year budget, we're going to be presenting that information to you as we work through the budget process that was just presented to you. So at next week's Budget Committee? The 22nd, we're going to give you year-to-date report. Thank you, Ms. Driscoll. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Mr. Stenet, did you have a comment about this process? I do. You know, having served under three different mayors now, we've tried a lot of different things on council, but this will be a good change, a good start. You know, no matter what we put a couple of the questions, no matter what we put on this paper at the end of the day, it's still the mayor's budget, and he's still the one that delivers it to the council. It's our job to pass it and change it, et cetera. So I think this will be helpful on the front end. I'm glad to hear Ms. Driscoll and Mr. Maloney say whatever we vote on as a top priority, you're going to automatically put in the budget. So I appreciate that. I'm glad 15-0 matters a lot in what we're going to put in there. So that's good to hear. And also in follow-up, Council Member Ford asked what I was going to ask about. You said March 7th you're going to present to the council the budget reduction plan for the rest of the year? And the only reason I ask this is last year when we did this, we did it in December, and here we are almost mid-February today. Exactly. We don't have a lot of time left to make some decisions. Right. Any reductions we make now of a certain percent are obviously a larger impact on the agencies because there's less of the fiscal year remaining. we are going to present options, a plan, proposed plan to you. Well, but my question is, when are we going to implement the plan? Because we don't have time to sit here and wait until the end of March, do council meetings, and you're in April. We're doing certain items now, like review of filling of positions. It's happening now. So there are some administrative procedures in place that are going to realize savings for us that we're going to be able to present to you. But we have parts of that, like the personnel review. But we have also asked our commissioners, who most have only been on board a short period of time, to come back with some proposals for reductions in their area. and realizing that we have this amount of time in the fiscal year remaining. So you are already implementing budget reductions as we speak? We have implemented some processes to review hiring, for example, whether we would move forward with filling positions. To say we've implemented, we've actually cut something today, no. But to say that we've got processes in place that are going to realize money for us to balance the budget, yes. And have you all reviewed the charter with the Department of Law to how we can end the fiscal year, if we can end it with a deficit? I have not asked that specific question. I am operating on a balanced budget theory. Well, of course, we would like to as well, but I think there are some criteria and caveats in that. So I think it would be smart for the council to understand that. We can bring that back. As well as the administration to understand what our real options are, because the cut, I don't know, I heard it's $16 million today. I don't know how much we're trying to cut. That's another thing I was going to ask. Hopefully you'll have Tuesday what the real numbers we're trying to make up before the end of the year, because to find $16 million in four months is going to be a tough job. And we'll have that, some information for you. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. If there are no other questions about this item, I have two more on my council report. I just wanted to announce, and council members are aware of this, that the council will be hiring for a temporary part-time budget analyst, Connie Underwood, who's a long-time urban county government budget person. And she will be starting to work for the council on March the 7th and will take us through the budget ratification in June. And then the other item is, Council Members, one of the items that my office has taken over in our short-term plan for operating the office is the RFP request. You know, frequently the divisions request a Council Member to serve on an RFP committee. and one of the ones which I sent out last week, you would have gotten it from my legislative aide, which received no response, is the RFP for the West Loudoun sidewalks and the Southland Drive bike lane. And they would really like a council member to serve on that RFP committee. And so if you could serve, will you please let me know? They don't have any council member yet. So I would appreciate a volunteer. And with that, my report is finished, and I recognize Councilmember Ed Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a couple of different thoughts I just wanted to share. The first one is that with regard to being collaborative with the mayor and his administration, I think that's very good for the council because many of the staff there are new on board, and anything that we could do to be supportive and helpful in this transition period I think would be beneficial. I also feel that this will give us an opportunity to carefully evaluate the money that we're spending on behalf of the taxpayers because we do represent them on the council and how we're spending the money. We are very lucky because Lexington is one of the richest cities in Kentucky. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates, the highest per capita income. the highest household income. Our population growth has been steady, and our tax base and all that has grown pretty consistently over the last two or three decades. But we're now in a crunch where we may be running short $20 to $25 million in the coming year. I don't have an official number yet from the administration, but I heard it somewhere in that range. So I think that as council members and also the mayor's administration, We need to be focusing on reducing our expenses. We already have lots of revenue coming in. It's not that we don't get enough income. It's that we've probably been spending too much money. So I think we need to be focusing on that. With regard to the prioritization, I like that idea, but it's a little bit difficult for some of our council members who are new on the council, and they haven't even been through a budget process. So probably more of the responsibility for prioritizing our expenditures, probably following our more senior members of the council. The other couple of items I wanted to mention is I also wanted to thank Council Administrator Rebecca Langston for her service and her retirement. I'm really happy for her because I think everybody wants to retire one of these days. And I, too, will mirror Council Member Farmer's comments that my first tour on duty, and when I came in, my office was totally vacated. All the furniture, the TV, the computers, everything was gone because we had very lax administration of the council office. And thank goodness that's not happened to any other council members since. But it used to be a policy that once the council member was out, all of their computers, TVs, and everything were up for grabs, and that hasn't happened lately. I'd also like to finally comment on Vice Mayor Gorton, is that I think she's doing a really effective job in embracing getting her arms around the council operations, and I think from what I'm seeing that we may have one of the most effectively managed councils in the future here, and I want to thank you for all your efforts on that. That's my comments for today. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lane. Is there any other council member who has a council report? If not, we will move on to public comment, issues not on the agenda. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? If you'll come to the podium and state your name and your address, and you'll have three minutes. Welcome. I'm Brenda Stamper, 2084 Doleville Drive in Cardinal Valley. And I am very, very aggravated. We have called code enforcement several times. We have, I have several pictures here that if you don't mind, I would like for you to put them on the screen so that maybe you all could look at this. It's right behind my house. As I walk out my back door and I sit on my deck, my swimming pool, this is what I have to look at. The apartment buildings are at 2021 Carolyn Manor Apartments on Cambridge Drive. and the 2045 Cambridge Park Apartments on Cambridge Drive as well. And the apartment buildings are the real bad ones. They're at the Cambridge Park. They are B, C, and D buildings. And this has just been an ongoing, ongoing troublesome situation that we have fought. We have cleaned it up so much. We have went over there and picked stuff up ourself and picked it up. And Peggy has also, she's our council person. She has talked to code enforcement and got involved with this. And we just seem to can't get any help at all. They work on cars. They throw their parts over the bank and into the creek behind our house. It's Wolf Run. And they just come out the back doors of their apartment buildings, and they throw it over the hill, and the dumpster is like two feet from the building, and they won't put the garbage in the dumpster. They throw it over the hill into the creek. And we're just really aggravated with this and would really love to have some help from code enforcement or whoever that can come and help us clean this mess up. We'd really appreciate the help to get it done. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and all council members. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Ms. Stamper. And I'm thinking perhaps our CAO can give some assistance on this. And if you want to mention, he wants to mention something about this. I met with the police and also with David Jarvis. We're looking at updating our nuisance ordinance, and this will have a piece of it. not just where the police continue to go to the same place, it also will be where code enforcement goes to the same place. So this will have an impact on these property owners. So I think it will help down the road. But as of right now, we've just got to keep the list of code enforcement. I have an idea if we can contact code enforcement when these kind of problems exist so they can keep count of this. So when they propose the new nuisance law to you all, this might be a help a lot with the problems we have here. And do you think someone could work now? Yeah, what's the one we want to do? We want to meet with code enforcement, but we want to keep a list so we can have an idea where the properties are, where we're having a lot of problems. So I'd be one of the areas we'd be glad to. And David Jarvis would need to have that, and I assume 311, somebody like that. 311 will keep those numbers, too, in partnership with them on that. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak? If not, do I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Anyone opposed? The meeting is adjourned. Thank you.