# Budget COW-Revenue Projections - April 26, 2011 > Auto-transcribed civic record · April 26, 2011 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1980 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1980?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2011-04-26 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 13,430 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Committee of the Whole Budget Meeting convened on April 26, 2011, at 1:30 p.m., presided over by the Vice Mayor. The meeting addressed two main agenda items: a presentation on the Mayor's Proposed Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Revenue Projections, which was presented for informational purposes, and a discussion of LINCS and the budget process schedule, which was approved. The committee took two motions to a vote during the session and heard seven public comments from members of the community. The meeting focused on fiscal planning and budget procedures for the upcoming fiscal year. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on April 26, 2011: **Staff and Officials:** - Bill O'Meara - Ryan Barrow - Elizabeth McGee - Jane Driscoll - Richard Maloney **Council Members:** - Council Member Beard - Council Member Martin - Council Member Crosby - Council Member Henson - Council Member Myers - Council Member Lawless - Council Member Farmer - Council Member Blues - Council Member Ellinger - Council Member Ford - Council Member Stenet - Council Member Kaye - Council Member McCord **Other Attendees:** - Jeanette - Kevin - Jared No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions **Motion to Amend Committee of the Whole Meeting Time** [timestamp: 1:07:23] Council Member Ellinger moved to amend the meeting time for the Committee of the Whole budget meeting on May 12th to 4:30 p.m. to discuss the mayor's proposed restructure of the budget. Council Member Farmer seconded the motion. The motion passed by voice vote. All council members present voted in favor: Council Members Ellinger, Farmer, Blues, Crosby, Henson, Myers, Lawless, Martin, Ford, Stenet, Kaye, and McCord. No votes were cast against the motion, and there were no abstentions. **Motion to Move Council Meeting to 7:00 p.m.** [timestamp: 1:09:07] Council Member Ford moved to move the Council meeting to 7:00 p.m. on May 12th to allow additional time for restructuring discussion. Council Member Farmer seconded the motion. This motion was withdrawn and did not proceed to a vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included approval for funding related to an indirect cost allocation study. A consultant was appropriated $25,000 to conduct this study. No additional details regarding the consultant's identity, the study's scope, or implementation timeline were provided in the available meeting materials. ## Public Comment Council members raised several concerns about the budget process, timeline management, and specific service decisions during this meeting. **Budget Process and Timing** Council Member Farmer [0:46:21] expressed concerns about insufficient time between the bonding debt discussion and the first link report out. Farmer urged the council to discuss policy goals and priorities earlier in the process to avoid rushed decisions. Council Member Martin [0:59:24] noted that the timeline for reviewing proposed amendments and making decisions on reorganization is too tight. Martin suggested holding a special work session to discuss the restructure before final decisions are made. Council Member Ford [1:12:55] emphasized the need to define council priorities early in the link process to guide cuts and avoid inefficiencies. Ford questioned how additional cuts would improve efficiency given prior reductions. Council Member McCord [1:31:56] urged the council to address the recurring issue of insufficient time for critical decisions, calling for process reform to avoid annual crises. **Service Delivery and Cost Considerations** Council Member Henson [1:19:03] highlighted the importance of considering not just the cost of layoffs but also the true cost of outsourcing services, such as security, and the impact on service quality. Council Member Lawless [1:23:33] noted that most positions being cut have been vacant for years and were funded by the council, questioning the fairness and necessity of layoffs. **Immediate Decisions Required** Council Member Stimmit [1:25:24] stressed the urgency of deciding on the closure of pools and golf courses immediately, warning that delays would prevent proper preparation for the summer season. ## Contested Items **Timing of Critical Decisions on Pools and Golf Courses** Council members engaged in heated discussion regarding the urgency of making closure decisions for pools and golf courses before Memorial Day. Members expressed concern that any delays in reaching these decisions would prevent adequate preparation time and could result in operational failures. The contention centered on the need to act quickly to ensure proper implementation of whatever decisions the council would make regarding these facilities. **Budget Process Schedule and Capacity** A split vote occurred over a proposal to extend the meeting time on May 12th to 7:00 p.m. to accommodate additional discussion time for restructuring matters. Some council members argued in favor of the extension, believing the additional time was necessary for thorough deliberation. However, other members opposed the extension, contending that it would be impractical due to prior scheduling commitments. The disagreement reflected differing views on how to balance the need for adequate discussion time against existing calendar constraints and logistical considerations. ## Mayor's Proposed Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Revenue Projections Bill O'Meara presented the revenue projections for the mayor's proposed Fiscal Year 2012 budget [timestamp: 00:03:00]. The presentation outlined a total revenue estimate of $271 million, with O'Meara noting that growth would be minimal due to reliance on one-time revenues. **Key Projections and Assumptions** The presentation highlighted several important assumptions underlying the revenue forecast: - Real growth estimates for the budget period - Tax amnesty revenues - End-of-term fees - Changes in specific revenue categories including EMS, golf, and parks operations **Discussion and Questions** Council members raised several questions during the presentation: - Council Member Martin, Council Member Beard, Council Member Henson, and Council Member Myers engaged with O'Meara on various aspects of the projections - Questions focused on net profit trends across revenue-generating departments - Council members inquired about building permit revenues and their projected performance - Discussion included examination of indirect cost allocations and their impact on departmental revenues **Outcome** The agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action taken. The presentation provided the council with detailed information about the revenue assumptions and projections that would form the basis of the proposed FY12 budget, allowing members to understand the financial foundation for the upcoming fiscal year's spending plan. ## LINCS Discussion and Budget Process Schedule [timestamp: 00:49:05] The council discussed the proposed schedule for the LINCS (budget process) timeline, including the timing of link report outs and the need for additional meetings to accommodate the budget review process. **Key Discussion Points** Council members raised concerns about the adequacy of the proposed schedule for making critical decisions. Specifically, concerns were voiced about having insufficient time for decisions regarding pools and golf courses. Council members emphasized the need for early prioritization of these items to allow adequate time for thorough consideration. **Motion and Outcome** A motion was passed to schedule a Committee of the Whole meeting for May 12th at 4:30 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the mayor's proposed restructure. **Participants** The discussion involved Mr. Schoeniger, Council Member Farmer, Council Member Blues, Council Member Ellinger, Council Member Ford, Council Member Martin, and Council Member Stimmit. The agenda item was approved. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to amend the meeting time for the Committee of the Whole budget meeting on May 12th to 4:30 p.m. to discuss the mayor's proposed restructure of the budget - **Motion** — withdrawn: Motion to move the Council meeting to 7:00 p.m. on May 12th to allow additional time for restructuring discussion --- ## Full transcript The Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. 1.30, and so we'll go ahead. This is April 26, 2011. and we'll go ahead and convene our committee of the whole budget meeting. And we have two specific items on our agenda, the mayor's proposed fiscal year 12 budget revenue projections and a LINCS discussion. And so, Council Members, you should have a packet of revenue items from the proposed budget. And so in our audience we have the Commissioner of Finance, Jane Driscoll, Bill O'Meara, Director of our Division of Revenue, and Ryan Barrow, our Director of Budgeting, along with Elizabeth McGee from Budgeting. So do any of you want to make any opening comments about revenue? I think council members will want to know if the revenue projections are about the same as they were when we had our budget workshop. And we can take questions from council members. Welcome, Bill O'Mara. Thank you. We presented a general fund as well as the major other funds at the budget workshop, I think, on the 7th of March. And they are pretty much the same as presented now as what came out with the mayor's proposed budget. There were a few nuances or small changes. There's half a million dollars added to EMS, which was part of the mayor's proposed budget presentation, some changes in golf and parks, revenues based on some of the proposed operational changes that are in the mayor's proposed budget. But other than that, that pretty much summarizes the major changes that happened between the time when we started the budget presentation to council and directors to when it was published as the mayor's proposed budget. And it's $271 million and some change, which is approximately the same amount as what we're estimating for 2011. And I think it's pretty darn close to what we ended 2009. So one of the takeaways for the general fund revenues, while we have increases projected in some of the major categories, the total revenue for the general fund seems to hardly move because there are so many one-time revenues that are in this year's revenue estimate that are not predicted to occur in next year's budget. I don't see any council members on the queue yet, so I wonder, Bill, if you could talk about the things that came up in our earlier meeting. One was real growth versus the tax amnesty, and one was the end-of-term fees, if you'll go over that one more time, particularly the county clerk's big check. Okay. and then transfers from the urban services and sewer funds. Can you come back to that? I was following you just fine until you said that. Sure. This is some of the selected slides from the March 7th presentation when we went over our basic assumptions for revenue. And your first question was, sorry? The real growth versus tax amnesty that was built in. Okay. Here is March year-to-date with adjustments for amnesty revenue, which are one-time revenue in the year-to-date 2011 revenues. It's about $355,000 on the employee side and almost a million dollars on net profit. So if you look at the far right, this is the percent change year-to-date through March, which we think is more normalized, and the numbers that we look at in trying to come up with predictions for the following year. Withholdings are a little over 2 percent up. Net profit is up 1 percent after March. It was moved quite a bit in that one month. We've been tracking 10% to 8% below last year until March, and we're tracking April very closely to see if this is a trend or a timing difference. If you remember, Council changed when the minimum license fee is due. It used to be due December 31st of each year, and this is the first year that it's due April 15th. So some of the revenues that historically come in in December and January in prior years are not going to show up until the April 15th filings. And so I suspect that part of this variance is that timing difference between when minimum license fees arrived in prior years versus when they're going to be recorded in FY11. So, Bill, if I can just thinking about this morning's meeting. So the real growth rate projected is 2.39% without tax amnesty dollars in these four. Well, let me parse a little bit about your phrase. 2.39% is the change this year over last year. It's not a prediction. These are historical numbers. And I can go over the projected that we used to build the 12 budget. We estimated a 2% growth year over year for withholdings. We predicted a 4% growth year over year for net profit for 12. And I'm forgetting insurance. Insurance, we predicted a 1% growth. and franchise fees, we predicted a 3% growth. These were the assumptions that we went over on that budget workshop that we presented at the beginning of March, whatever the date was. Yes. Does that answer your question? And that compares to where we are right now. Council members, do you have any questions about that item? We can, some council members may have questions that they think of in a minute. Did you want to address the end of term fees? Yes. In the other revenue, 12 over 11, we pointed out at that presentation on the 7th of March that there were quite a few one-time monies that were reflected in our 2011 estimate that are not considered to be recurring and will be budgeted in the 2012 revenue. $2.5 million is the end-of-term fees that was discussed earlier today. We have $1.3 million in amnesty. There seems to be $1 million in accelerated payments from the state this year in detention, and so we think we're back up to date and can't expect that in the future. We have reduced surplus property sales because the mayor's proposed budget in 2012 is not buying vehicles, so there would be fewer to sell as surplus. And then there are some changes in recording things. The Build America bond rebates, these were the bonds that were part of the federal stimulus where you sell at a taxable rate and then quarterly the federal government gives you a rebate so that it makes the actual cost of capital much less. we are putting that in the debt service line instead of the revenue line so that we can see a true cost of debt rather than it be overstated in the debt service and then the other side being in revenue. And then the WEG reimbursements are in there in 11, which we're not expecting in 12. Are there any questions? Council members? Council Member Beard? Yes, Bill. Yes, sir. Where do we stand on the World Equestrian Games situation? Do we bill them for X and they send back 0.5X? I'm not the expert on that, but I can tell you what I do know. It's all through public safety, and so I would look to them to fill in the blanks if my answers are insufficient. But FIRE submitted their overtime and received payment, and police has submitted theirs, and we're waiting for payment. So one is in the hand, one is to be received, and we're expecting that. Do you just off the top of your head know what the scope of what we should get for police? In this reference material, because I didn't know what you were going to ask, it's in here. It's in there? It's in here. It'd take a minute for you to find. That's fine. There's no real rush if I can have it in the next 15 minutes. We'll work on that. Just any time in the next few days is fine. Do you mind to send that to all council members, please? Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Bill, thanks for joining us and helping us to understand some of the revenue assumptions. We had a conversation back in March when the mayor sort of went through some of the revenue numbers. In years past, we've had the revenue projections sort of certified by the economists over in the U.K. Is that what we have here, or is this more an assumption? Well, first of all, again, I'm going to parse the numbers to make sure I'm answering you correctly. Revenue forecasts are that. They are forecasts. It's just who does them is the key. If we could guarantee it, we'd all be rich. But we work on revenue forecasts both in the budget department and the revenue division, and then we meet with people from the University of Kentucky School of Economics. Ken Trotsky came over, went over our assumptions before we finalized them and presented to council on March 7th. And so Dr. Trotsky is comfortable with that these are defensible numbers and our best guess, and that's what it is, is a guess, but based on all the economic tea leaves and indicators and things like that, this is a justifiable guess for where our revenues will be next year? We used a lot of descriptors. I think the one he used was reasonable. So that was the review that he gave. Did he think anything was a stretch? A stretch? No. What you may be referring to is the 4% increase in net profit. All the economists have been surprised that it hasn't shown up in Lexington before it has. So they do think we're due. And that 4% is on a suppressed amount. We were over $30 million in net profits. Now we're in the $24, $25, $26 million. So that 4% wouldn't still bring you up to the 2008 levels. Do you mind walking us back to the net profits? Because that is one number that I was a little curious about in March because I think we had been running a substantial negative net profits, and we have new numbers since March now. So can you maybe walk us through again how that's recovered and why the 4 percent may be more justifiable now or recognizable than it was maybe even in March? Well, first of all, let me remind you that over 50 percent of the total net profit income of the year arrives in the last three months of our physical year. So we're trying to put our forecast together before over half of that revenue stream comes in. So when you get to forecasting, you really are forecasting in this one area. The other thing is, as I alluded to, excuse me one moment. On the national and the state level, corporate profits seems to have returned. The stock market is reflecting that federal corporate revenues and state corporate revenues have seen increases, and yet we were still trending double-digit declines year over year. By the time we put the revenue together, we were into single-digit declines. So the question was, had we hit bottom and were we starting to come out of the trough? The collective wisdom is, yes, you have hit bottom. You're coming out of the trough. The $64 question is how far and how fast. And so the 4% is a best guess for us to build a budget for next year. And I guess just to share with you my thinking, I am more comfortable with that 4% today than I was in March. Since that time, I guess one of the national financial publications has, I guess it was Forbes perhaps, named Lexington as the best place to find a new job this spring. And what they did, they surveyed 100,000 companies or something like that throughout the United States. And of all the different cities that they looked at, Lexington was the number one place that had the most, I guess, enthusiastic business community for hiring. So I think perhaps maybe that gives us hope that we are about to see a turnaround on it. So you're comfortable with it? I am, sir. That's good. Thank you, Vice Mayor. That's a forecast. Thank you. Council Member Beard. One other question, Bill. Building permits for March, did they take an appreciable jump? I heard just a bit, a slice of a radio commentator of some sort that said that nationwide new housing jumped 300,000 homes. And that is way, way above what has been running for the last two and a half years. Well, two things. In Fayette County, number of building permits was 1,019 in the month of March. That compares to 786 for February and 793 for January. To look at March over March, again, March had 1,019 building permits issued. March of 2010, it was 1,139. March of 2009, it was 1,284. So there still is suppressed building permits year over year. Just the increase then is attributable to spring and out of the winter? Correct. And then it rained. Lots of rain. Total home sales for March were 520. That compared to 569 in March of 10 and 536 in March of 9 and 659 in 8 and 811 in 7. So the housing market has not boomed yet, no. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Are there other questions from Council Members? Bill, I'd like to ask a question, and I'm not sure. I want to be able to be sure I understand it, and I'm not exactly sure where in here it is. The indirect costs. Maybe you're not the person to answer that. I get to say that's not revenue. Oh, good. Okay, so maybe that's a budgeting question. I saw Ryan jump up. In the past, we've had money allocated in the budget from, for example, sanitary sewer fees to other parts of the budget like law, HR, et cetera, that do service for that division. Number one, are they in the budget this year? And if they are, what sort of formula was used to decide how much? Am I making sense? Yes, maybe if I can go over it globally. We have four services rendered. We have fees charged to various funds, and it's on several different levels. Specifically, I heard law charged to other funds. We look to the division level on a person-by-person basis, and there's actually metrics in each division that they identify individuals for which do specific work. So let's use law as an example since it was mentioned. There's specifically one, two, three lawyers that spend 90% of their time in the Urban Services Fund, for instance. That comes into our office through the director of various divisions, and we allocate, in that example, 90% of the salary and benefits to the Urban Services Fund. So those are what we call direct personnel allocations. The other piece of the pie, or actually the second of three I wanted to touch on, would be the indirect cost allocation. That's computed in accounting for global services rendered. Urban Services Fund, for instance, does not have a purchasing department. There's nobody in purchasing that's directly allocated to the Urban Services Fund. So in order to recapture cost that's in the general government category, such as purchasing, Urban Services uses the purchasing department. So they're captured in indirect cost allocation for which monies from the general government included in it would be purchasing is charged to the Urban Services. And then the third category would be specific items that are identified, that there would be a transfer between funds for such a purpose. So I guess to answer the specific question, yes. The indirect cost allocations are in there, and the direct personnel cost allocations are in there this year based on the same methodology that's been done previously. Actually, the indirect cost allocations went down. There's less money being recovered from other funds. But the rate's the same. The rate's the same. What is that rate? That's what we were looking for. Oh, okay. It's different per fund. We've got a chart. I was looking for it. I just don't have it with me. Perhaps would you be willing to, or could you email that to council members? Is it something you could just email us for indirect cost formula? And so if we have, okay, so on the first that you mentioned was the metrics where you have, if you have three lawyers who spend 90% of their work on urban services, they just are paid straight from urban services. or it's the, it's, I'm just trying to figure out those three categories that you mentioned and which one uses the formula. Is it the middle one that's computed in accounting? In terms of the formula, I would say that both of the examples, the first two examples use a formula. The direct personnel allocation, it's a formula. You calculate the total personnel cost, including benefits, and then on a percentage basis it's allocated. If it's 10%, in the example I gave 10% general, that 10% of the three lawyers' salary would stay in the general. 90% of their salary would be allocated to the Urban Services District. So that's how we pay for those three lawyers. Okay. And accounting actually does the figuring of that and gets that to you and you plug it in the individual budgets? Or how does that work? I apologize. I wasn't clear on that one. The first one, the direct personnel allocation, is given by divisions. So in this instance, well, law is a big example because we don't have a director, but Commissioner of Law sent us, you know, these are a list of the lawyers. These are how they split their time. So we allocate that out based on their recommendation with a review in our office for some level of reasonableness. And typically we work those issues out with divisions. The second piece, the indirect cost allocation, is recognizing that in certain departments, it's not just going to the individual and say, how do you split your time? Because they don't split their time uniform. They may one year work 80% here. So it's less quantifiable, but it's based on math that accounting puts together for the indirect. So it captures individuals such as purchasing that we can't just go to Brian Markham and say, how do you split your time in purchasing? They're captured in indirect cost allocations. It's something we need to look at and we're going to look at. But, you know, the methodology, until we do a study, you know, the methodology is the same as last year, the percentages that we received from accounting. Well, that was going to be my next question is when will we do an update? Because I know a lot of places do a desk audit, and they ask people to keep track of how much time they spend doing purchasing or doing whatever for the example, for example, urban services. So will that study be in the next year or two, or do you know to update our formula? On the indirect piece, I think we're still hashing that out. We're focused on the budget right now. My just take was is that we probably need to sit down with commissioners and directors shortly after the budget and go through the process, because I think there's a lot of haze around the indirect cost allocation, so that everybody's kind of aware of it and starts thinking about collecting that data. And there's actually money budgeted in accountings. As proposed, accounting has some funding available to retain a consultant for that purpose. I think it's a very valuable analysis, and I think it'll be money well spent if the council so approves that. But that is hopefully going to be in place before we do next year's budget. Okay. Very good. Thank you very much. Council Member Crosby. I wanted to follow along with what Council Member Vice Mayor Gorton was saying. And last year in our budget link and then what was ultimately approved as recommendations from the council was that we would do an audit within two years of our dedicated fees. because I think what we saw, at least I know some of us who were on environmental quality, was that we were seeing a lot of direct and indirect charges to this division, more specifically water quality, and there was no way to quantify and there was no consistency quantifying what work was actually done across the different divisions within government that were charging that fee specifically. So that's why we made this recommendation. So I just wanted to make sure that if a recommendation was approved in the last budget cycle, it would have to be done during this next budget cycle to have these dedicated fees audited so that we know exactly what they're being charged and also as a government to come up with some consistency on how, like Council Member Gorton mentioned, a desktop audit. It was so inconsistent across the board within the different divisions on how they quantify what they're doing and why they're charging, for example, water quality, certain reimbursement fees for their services. We couldn't really get a grip on. And ultimately the taxpayers are paying a fee for this. And so we just were trying to get a handle on what they're doing. So is that something you all are looking into since it's been now almost a year of a recommendation? Well, I can speak to the first piece in terms of the direct personnel allocation. That's a thorough analysis submitted by directors that we allocate each individual person and we allocate a percentage of their cost basis among funds. My understanding was not necessarily that we were going to do an audit, is that we were actually going to do the indirect cost allocations. Originally, it was where proposed the former director of accounting went to the GFOA and received that training. Specialized type of training, it's not just something that I think you can pick up without some experience in it. Unfortunately, the director of accounting left, and with her, left that expertise. So I think in order to make the time frame of recalculating it, I think the commissioner of finance recognized that and put the money in accounting for that purpose so that if we retain the consultants and go through the calculations, I don't think it's going to be difficult to put it in for next year. I can't guarantee that that will happen. But I think that's where the haze is around the indirect cost allocations. I don't fully comprehend it myself, to be honest. We had concern even with the direct cost and with how different divisions, with employee time specifically, were charging these dedicated funds, and that's why we put it in as a recommendation from council. and the recommendation was that it was an outside third-party agency to do an audit. And so what we saw as a link was it was extremely inconsistent. Regardless of who the director is, I'm sure that the time is probably accurate, but there's no consistency across government on how they are quantifying their time. And that was, I think, the concern with us was we would hear from one division and they would be doing it one way and another division would be doing it this way. And there was no consistency. So that's partly why the recommendation came about. And we do recognize that. And we did ask in the finance link, talked about the inclusion of it's $25,000 to do the entire study that would cover looking at how the indirects versus directs are categorized. I did find the rate. I won't be able to read it. But just to show you that they're consistent over, they're going to put it up on the screen. I can't. So you can see that if you look at the column for fiscal year 11, those were the same rates that were included for the proposed fiscal 12. So it's 25 percent. The first, forget the scratch outline, that was an old rate, but the full urban service district is 25 percent. The sanitary sewer, 16.65%. Landfill is 25%. And stormwater is 16.65%. So we used those same rates for the year. One, because of the consistency and because we had not completed an indirect cost plan and we didn't want to, you know, not have any basis for the rates. But these are the historic rates, and those are what were assumed in fiscal year 12, fiscal year 11 totals. But we'll email this as well. Are you? I have a comment, but I don't know. I'll just keep. Okay. And just while you have that up there, does anyone remember why for fiscal year 2008 it jumped by 10% for the full urban services? Is there anyone here who knows that? Connie, do you know that? Do you remember? That's a huge jump in one year, just since that's on the screen. I don't like the answer, but yes, I was here. The feeling was that the 15% that we had charged in 07 really wasn't appropriate. It's too low. And it was sort of, you know, everybody knows it's too low, but nobody had the time or the money to go through and figure out what the real rate should be. I think that a long time ago we did an ABC study with sewers, And I think the rate that they recommended was around 28%. And the 25% was simply a it's less than what they did. It's more a feeling that it was more appropriate than what we had been charging before. And it was a difficult budget year, and they changed it. But you don't think there was a desk audit or any kind of official study? Okay. Thank you for providing that. I could just follow up on that comment. That is exactly why we're asking for the resources in order to be able to answer your questions as well as questions that we have as we've gone through historically, you know, why these rates are. Some may go up, some may go down, but going through the analysis is what is important and will add value to the budget process in the future. Okay. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have questions on the revenue in the packet. I just wanted to. I had questions on the first two pages in our packet where it has the general service district revenue statement. Yes, ma'am. There's a lot of fluctuation in the numbers. if you look. So I just wanted to see if maybe you could help me better understand it. Like, for instance, on page 2, where it says detention center bed fees, in 2009 it was 2.6, and now it's like doubled. which is the second line on the second page. Right. I can follow up with you on explaining that. I think you'll find that actuals have been booked in one account, budget was booked in another, and we have looked at that and combined all of those together to come up with the total budget, and we'll work with detention to get the actuals recorded or the budget recorded to the proper revenue stream. Okay. Because, you know, I was, I guess I didn't know if there's changes that have occurred that have caused this. Now, for instance, the prisoner fees, that originally was $2.3 million, and now it's $216,000. And that's a substantial decrease. And I can get with attention and give you explanations for each line item. You know, I just noticed that there are a lot of them. And parking validations down at the end where nothing's been budgeted, and now we've got, even though it's a small amount, but $16,000. And those were all submitted from the people in that work group? So we can look that up and tell you the thought processes behind that. Do you know what the fines under service is? Fines and forfeitures? Yes. And ABC fines? My mind's blank. Elizabeth? Well, ABC is Alcoholic Beverage Control, but the line right above it, $145,000. Fire. That's firing security alarm fees. Okay. You get so many false alarms and you get fines so much, that type of thing. Okay. And police would have that and fire. Okay. Do we collect fines from the state, correct? We receive payments from the state. For instance, sheriff fees are collected, go to the state, a percentage comes back to us on citations. that type of thing. Right. Can you tell me what that percentage is? Can you find it? Okay. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Earlier we had the conversation about the desk audits in terms of the different funds, and actually Ryan was up talking about that. You know, now that we approve our council aides time, when I went through the training, there were different codes and things down at the bottom of a couple of those pages, and I asked what that was, and they said that that's for different folks who work under grant funding and that when they fill out their time card, they put, you know, I guess they've done a desk audit, and then they put what time they work on this grant, and it's coded into their time card, and then that information goes behind the scenes to anywhere from purchasing with Brian Markham into community development with Irene Gooding, and the money is segregated out that way. So could you have somebody from HR come and have a conversation about how we're already using that? And maybe we don't need to spend the money to go out and have consultants come in and tell us how to do it if we're already doing that in some aspects. Next. Specifically, the global, I think, or just to recap so I'm clear, when you submit your time sheets at the end of the week, that you would have a mechanism for which to report, say, you work across three different funds, you would have a mechanism to report that. I came from the consulting world, and I used to have to account for 15-minute intervals. Just from doing that, it was probably an expensive way to keep track of my time. We have a lot of people that work in various funds that actually are never at a computer. They're out in the field all day long. So when they come in, they actually have a central location to key in their time or they have to get access, and obviously we pay them while they're filling that out. So we do that in certain instances because we have to keep certain records on grants and other ways. I tend to think that it may be cheaper if we can get some real good credence and some good math behind the indirect cost allocations that we can group general groups together and just know in the aggregate. But that's certainly something that we can explore, and I think we need when we talk about globally, how do we allocate costs, I think that's one of the things in the mix that we need to consider. But that is for certain specific employees. We do do it that way when they work on a specific grant, for instance, and we need good, accurate records to submit on to the feds or the state. Okay, so maybe there's an opportunity to, when the consultants come in and they tell us how to do this, use this and some of these other opportunities as well so that we save money there. Instead of bringing the new people into their system, bring them up to the new system. Yeah, I think to your point and Council Member Crosby's point, I think it's well taken, is that we do it a lot of different ways. We have people do it on their time cards. We have indirect cost allocations. We have direct cost allocations. We changed chart field coding for periods of time for certain employees. It would be nice if we could limit it instead of doing it several ways to do it to maybe one or two ways to accurately reflect and allocate cost. Thank you. Ms. Michelle just came in from HR, so I don't know if she has anything she'd like to add or correct me or maybe. Good afternoon. As far as recording time against the grant on the time cards, you could right now have us provide to you queries that would show time worked that had been reported against any grant, and that could then lead you to the hours that they were paid for in that grant. The one piece that isn't really straight from that time card is the benefit cost. It's done with an allocation right now based on percentages of total. So that isn't quite as clear cut as you might want it to be. But everything that we send across to the grants module has to come from the time card. Okay. So I guess as long as we have everybody in that conversation, then we'll get it all straightened out. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Excuse me. Have a... In the fines and fees, there's the building permit fees. I believe it is. I was trying to. It's under services, count 41910, building permits. Is that what you asked for? Building permit fees. Trying to find what page that is on. It's on page two. Two? Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Those are fees that are specified for, it's a $20 fee, and I believe maybe the sheriff's department or the county clerk gets half of it, and we get half of it. And it amounts to several hundred thousand dollars a year. Actually, there's a whole shopping list of fees that building inspection charges, depending on what the review is and what they're being permitted to do. I lost my page, Vice Mayor, if you'll let someone else. We don't have anyone else on the list. Oh, Mr. Farmer has stepped into the gap. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And this is kind of, Bill, thank you. Others may have questions for you. I'll let you enjoy your seat. Mine is kind of a discussion that I tried to begin when we were setting our group of budget meetings up in terms of what kind of goals do we as a council want to set for working with the mayor's budget, especially in our link building block capacity. And, I mean, we've had great help. We've had a tough budget that's been proposed to us that comes to us with great input from staff that we have, as well as all of our experience. And what I'm trying to discern is kind of what's our end game. Do we want each of the five links to come up with an X amount of money or see what they can save? Or do we want to have a discussion as a policymaking group about the pools, the golf course, the layoffs, the things that we're all getting individual e-mails about in differing capacities? And this is not, I think, the best forum to try to work out what those things are. I think we can discuss them and try to figure out where it is we're trying to get to in our deliberations. Because we've really been presented with a budget that's just dynamically different than anything we've ever been presented with. And in some respects, the work of the links may be lesser or different. But in other respects, you know, we're walking down the hallway past people who will be laid off in 60-something days. I mean, everybody, I'll tell you, everybody who I talk to who knows that they're being laid off knows exactly how many days it is until they're going to be laid off. And I'm not proposing that we can, as a group, come up with recurring funding to save all those positions, but I'm just trying to ask us to think either out loud or in private or whatever, what is it we're going to try to get to? What is most important? And I don't really have the outline for a goal-setting objective here, but I just want to see there's discussion to try to move us from we've had great, The link work is so interesting, and you can derive so much in-depth information and learn so much more about government. What do we want to do with that information, and how do we want to hone or change the product that the mayor gave to us? That's all I've got. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. That actually is the next item on our agenda. So I would ask, that's a good segue, I would ask are there other questions about the revenue while we have Mr. O'Mara and Commissioner and Ryan here. Is there anything else about revenue? If not, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. And we'll move into our next step, which Mr. Schoeniger, do you want to introduce us to the LINCS discussion? discussion and council members on the back of the packet is the schedule as adopted as of right now for process moving forward with various topics for various meetings so mr. Schoeniger thank you vice mayor actually councilmember Farmer introduced the topic and that's that's his his discussion at or his questions at the April 14th council meeting were really the genesis of why this was put on the agenda and then there were some other questions from other council members that went by email subsequent to Council Member Farmer's discussion so it's open ended but that's kind of up to you folks well according to the calendar we're yet we still have to hear bonding debt and capital which is on Thursday And then we have Lynx report outs, which in the past what's happened with the Lynx report outs is that they have detailed needs or places in order to cut, places where cuts can be made with discussion. And then there's also a point in May where Council Members can recommend changes to the budget, and then discussion on June 9th would be about the proposed amendments. So, Council Members, what are your thoughts about the dates that are outlined and Council Member Farmer's comments, which I think are very timely? Council Member Blues? In response to Council Member Farmer's point, let me ask this question. Would it make sense to go through our links process? And I think that we probably would all agree that what we're looking for there are the ways that we can prudently save money to the government, to the taxpayers, and operate the government as efficiently as possible while still maintaining essential services. And then in the wake of the report outs, Perhaps it would be the time to assess where we are and what our options are. And I think we do want to look at whether we can save jobs where it's possible to do so. and still do the work that we need to do. And that's not a proposal so much as a question. Is that the way we should do it, or is there a better process? I think that's very good comments. Mr. Farmer. I think that's logical. I just think that just from looking at this proposed committee of the whole schedule, it just leaves us in the loss of the opportunity of time between the bonding debt and capital discussion on the 28th of April all the way up to the first links report out that's not until the 24th of May. I'm not trying to re-rank this schedule, but there's a month there. Because once you get to the report outs, then things kind of rip along, you know, 24th to 26th, 27th, June 7th, June 9th, June 21st, June 23rd. We're done. So I'm just wondering if we might want to roll into this between April the 28th and maybe May the 24th with some – And your point is very well taken. The input from the links is what makes your decision base, because that's where we will have our period of discovery. We can see what resources we can or may want to reallocate in relation to what the mayor has proposed. I just don't want to deprive ourselves of the luxury of that conversation by having kind of a quiet month. But I don't have a proposal. I'm just, as you all will get so tired of hearing me say, I'd love for us to have a discussion, And that's what I'm trying to get today. Well, let me ask Mr. Schoeniger. The Lynx have to have some time to meet. And so do you know when the last Lynx meeting is? I don't know when the last Lynx meeting was, but when the schedule was put together, Council Member Farmer refers to it as the quiet month. That's really when we anticipated the Lynx would meet or continue to meet. They've clearly met before now. So you have some ability either to meet as a whole about the process, or if you want to push up a few links. I'm not sure that the chairs want me to say the chairs are the individual links. It's conceivable that you would want to hear from a link earlier, but I don't think that that's really what you want to do. I think I got the impression at least from Council Member Farmer that it looks like you might want to meet as a whole about the process before the 24th. Before the 24th. I know one link meets on the 10th, and I don't know if there are other links after that or not. Is that the last one on May the 10th? Not necessarily. It looks like no. I know that our link talked about possibly having a follow-up to on the 12th. I mean, really, the only thing you could do is move it back a week, possibly. But, I mean, you're not talking a month here. You're talking a week at this point. Yes, I think we might have a week. But one of the things that LINCS do is, after all the meetings with the divisions, is put together a summary and recommendations. So they need time to do that. And as of right now, there are no meetings scheduled the week of the 16th, which is the election week. We traditionally don't meet that week. So, Council Member Crosby, you were next. I was just stating I was going to say I had the schedule and that it was just a week. Okay. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. When Mr. Schoenner and I were looking at the proposed schedule, and there is a time between the 28th and May 24th, but unfortunately when we redid our scheduling, we really did not have anything scheduled for that week of the 16th. So that might have fit into our schedule, but since we didn't have anything at that time, we scheduled for the 24th. And as the Vice Mayor said, what we try to do is as the links meet, they gather the information, and then they try to get together afterwards as a group, and then they kind of come up with their summary. So they still need time to do that. Just because they meet with that does not mean that's the end of the process. And then they need to, at that point, come to the full committee after they've come up with their summer of what they think needs to be added, subtracted. And that's when we have our discussions. And one thing I will be needing from each of the, and I'll be meeting with the chairs, is when you'll be ready to report out so we can schedule the links to report out, who's going to be ready so we can get down on the 24th at the 11 o'clock, 1 o'clock, and also at the 3 o'clock on the 26th, So we'll know who's going to be ready at what time, so we'll be ready to do that. But we usually give ourselves time to not only meet with the different divisions, but also to meet amongst ourselves in each council link so they can come up with a summary of what they think needs to be done. So when they come to present, that they're ready to present to the full council then. It seems to me we do have, as we go along this week and into the next week, we do have one opportunity we might use on the 12th before the 6 o'clock council meeting if we had an opportunity to determine what we needed to do more. And, Mr. Farmer, I would look to you to maybe give us some feedback on what you're thinking we might be doing before our report outs. As long as we're comfortable with this schedule, I am too. And I'm not trying to go back and add more meetings. I just think when you get down to the link report out time, we will have to make some decisions rather quickly, but we'll have all of the focus at that time to make those decisions. I just want to make sure that I haven't done this in a while, and we've never done it like this. Thank you. I just want to make sure that all of our best work kind of blooms at the right moment for us to make all the decisions and pass the budget in a timely fashion. And as long as everyone is comfortable with that, I am too, but I just wanted to have a little bit of a discussion about it. I'm good. I appreciate that. And knowing that both you and I were on the council and Richard Maloney was on the council when we had to go back and rebuild the budget, which took a lot of work. So I understand and appreciate your thinking on this. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yeah, and I'm in some ways echoing some of the concerns of my fellow council members, particularly the week of June 7th and 9th. You know, we're reviewing recommendations, we're discussing proposed amendments, and then we have to ratify and put a motion to place it on the docket. One of my concerns is that we just don't have enough time to maybe digest some of those last-minute changes, because that's getting down to the nitty-gritty. I know last year that we were up on the fifth floor really sort of slashing it out there at the end. And whether we need more time before the motion to put it on the docket by the 7th, 9th, and I guess June 7th and 9th time. That seems to be where it's going to get pressed. if we were to move that, you know, either the motion to put on the docket for, like, a special meeting the next week or something like that, but sometime to give us a week or so to work out if we have to do some major rewriting. Another thought was that, you know, one of the big things we have to decide is are we going to, you know, where are we going to come down on the reorganization? And as Council Member Farmer indicated, that's something that we might want to have maybe a special work session so we can discuss among ourselves to talk about what our ideas are and whether we agree with it or disagree with it. I've got some concerns about putting these two big project departments, environmental and public works, together, but I'd like to learn more about it. And so there's some other issues, I think. So if that conversation doesn't happen until the week of June 7th, we're going to be in a world of hurt. So we might want to look at some special time to kind of get a feel for the council's position on those items as well. So that's my thoughts about the schedule. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. All right. We've allowed, I think, six hours for the links report outs. It's interesting we don't report in, or we don't just report, but we report out. And we've got six hours for that, right? And I'm wondering if we could move that a little more efficiently. in our first two meetings, get it done maybe in four hours. I don't know if that's possible. But then we'd have some time for the kind of discussion that council members Farmer and Martin are talking about here. Well, and just to mention, Jeanette pointed out that traditionally we don't schedule meetings the week of Memorial Day. However, on occasion we have scheduled extra budget meetings at the last minute. And the other possibility for the restructuring discussion is the May 12th before the council meeting. So I think there's some possibilities. Council Member Beard. Well, I really don't think we're going to be very productive if we are able to carve out an hour and a half to talk about anything. for that matter, during this span of time. If, in fact, we want to get under the cover, so to speak, and really roll up our sleeves and see about improving efficiencies or improving other things in concert with the administration, that can happen in August. You know, this whole process has been timelined from the mayor's budget address to the end of June, and it gets pretty tight. And I agree that we probably ought to give some time to some of these questions and dig into them, but, you know, you're just not going to get it done in an hour-and-a-half meetings or two-hour meetings. and then you're through and you can have another meeting to follow up. And I would like to see us do something later also, maybe not exactly instead of, but also. I know that the commissioner and folks are very open to a different sort of process next year. We talked about that and maybe some discussions in the fall before all of this starts. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The one thing I was going to add, and you pretty much said it, was if we want to, and I think Council Member Martin said that, is one thing we didn't anticipate when we put this schedule together was the restructure and how that was going to affect the council and the budget. And we might want to add an earlier time on the 12th, before that council meeting to see if that's how we want to proceed with the restructure because I think that does take in the whole council's input because if we're not going to do that, then it is going to have some implications on how we're going to deal with the budget overall. So I can make a motion that we have a council whole meeting at 4 o'clock on the 12th of May to look at the mayor's proposed restructure of the budget. So there's a motion on the floor to schedule a 4 p.m. Committee of the Whole budget on the 12th of May with a second by Julian Beard discussion. Do you have some discussion, Council Member Stenet? I think I'd like to change the time. instead of 4 o'clock. I think there is a 3 o'clock already scheduled for social services. So can we do 4.30? Is that enough time for you all, an hour and a half? Is that a link meeting? That's a link meeting, yes, at 3 o'clock. It's a special committee. At 3 o'clock on May 12th, there's a special meeting of social services committee. So, Council Member Myers, would a 430 meeting for this Cal work? Do you have one item on your agenda or more than that? We do. We have one item. I think we could do that. Maybe we move it to 230 if the committee members will allow. Most of them are probably here. Committee members, speak up. Okay. Madam Chair, how about 8 a.m.? Well. We have a whole day to work on it. Well, the motion on the floor, which did you change your motion to be 4.30? So the motion is to have the meeting at 4.30, the Committee of the Whole on May 12th. I think I'm hearing an approval to change our meeting to 2.30. I don't hear any objections, so everybody's shaking their heads, so we can move our meeting to 2.30 and that'll work. Okay, so we're back to, well, I think we're at 4.30. Yeah, I'm at 4.30. Social services would move to 2.30 and the Committee of the Whole for specifically to discuss restructuring would be at 4.30 on May 12th. Is there more discussion? If not, all those, did I hear some discussion coming out? Council Member Ford, are you on for discussion of the motion? Okay. I'm not sure if this is on the motion or not, but, you know, we used to have Council meetings at 7. What if we moved this one back to 7 on this day to give us some extra time to work on the restructure if we needed it? Is that possible? The dilemma is we've already advertised and approved it, so it would have to be re-advertised, which is a cost. I believe that's correct. I'm just wondering if that's... Could we just not adjourn the meeting, go ahead and do the council meeting, and then come back to the council the whole meeting? We've done that in the past before, too. If it wants... Sorry. the way we do it now because I send it out. Sorry. Because the way I send out the notices, the public notices to the media through the email, we do not publish those in the newspaper any longer. Even though this was approved on the council calendar? Yes. I believe we can do that. I can ask the law department to be on the safe side. I don't know that there's any consensus to change the 6 o'clock meeting. At this point. The motion is to have the cow at 4.30 for an hour and a half. I would make the motion to move the. To amend the current motion on the floor. The motion on the floor is the 4.30. And I would like to make a motion to amend that, that in addition we move the council meeting to 7. So the motion is to amend the motion on the floor to have a committee of the whole at 430 and to move the council meeting to 7 o'clock so we would have two and a half hours for restructuring. Is that correct? So did I hear a second, first of all, to the amendment? Bill Farmer seconded. Is that correct? It is. Okay. I'm just getting that. So the motion on the floor is to amend the motion. To add 7 p.m. council meeting. Yes, Mr. Lane. Okay. I might want to vote for yes for one and no for the other, and I think we should bifurcate this vote. But we've got to vote on amendments, so it would be separated. You vote on amendments initially. Okay. Can I have discussion on this, please? Is there more? I'm sorry. Can I have discussion on her amendment, please? Yes. Thank you. I understand the spirit that you're doing that. I think we have done in the past where we can start the 4-3 meeting. If we do not finish and have not had enough time by the 6 o'clock, we can go ahead and do the council meeting, and then we can come back after that. If we do finish and we're done, then we've just got to weigh around for an hour, between 6 and 7, so I think we kind of might have wasted the time. So I would rather say let's do the 4.30. If we are not done by 6, then we'll just adjourn that meeting, or we'll just not adjourn the meeting, but we would recess that meeting, and then we'll come back to it after the council meeting. Okay, I'll withdraw my amendment if we can do that. Okay, did you withdraw your second? So the motion on the floor is to have a committee of the whole to focus on restructuring May 12th at 4.30 p.m. Mr. Myers, did you want to speak to the motion? I already have. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Crosby. And you just clarified my question. Thank you. Other comments on the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? So, Jeanette, if you can add that to the schedule and see that it's advertised May the 12th, 4.30 p.m., restructuring, and the CAO, you'll get that on your calendar, correct? Thank you very much. Okay. Now, Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Also, Ms. Jeanette, could you take care of the re-notice on the rescheduled social services meeting and also please let the Commissioner know? Thank you. Vice Mayor Gordon. Yes, Vice Mayor Gordon. I do not believe that my votes are getting recorded because it keeps coming up. I'm absent. I've been logged in. Thank you. Now, is there anything else on the links discussion at this point? Other business. Mr. Schoeniger, did you have other business? Mr. Councilmember Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I do wish to chime in here in regards to the lynx process, this being my first process. But following up with Councilmember Farmer's initial discussion before we got into our calendar review, I want to talk about, I guess, where we go in the lynx process to identifying the council's priorities. because from what I'm gathering in my observation is that general fund-wise, that we're set on revenues being where they are. I don't see a motion to kind of, or an effort to kind of raise revenues upward from the 271 area. And then we're talking about the links process, which I'm on Council Member Beardslink and Council Member Elliger and learning that process. If we're looking for efficiencies and cuts, it appears that we're going to need a priority to know for what and for which we are attempting to cut. One of the things about if cuts are to be made, and I believe that there will be additional cuts as the council's purview, I just don't personally, in my view, see how additional cuts will be made for the purposes of efficiencies. I think that all of our operating divisions and governments have already been cut, and they've responded to our proposed cuts at the 7, 10, and 12. So if we have to make cuts, I think we've got to be cautious that they may actually, while they may be needed, they may lead not necessarily to greater efficiencies. So I guess my question is in regards to when in the link process will council's priorities be brought for our discussion so we'll know for which we're cutting. One thing that I would like to end with that I would like to know just personally is the layoffs, not the cuts of vacant positions, but the layoffs themselves. What is the X dollar amount that would be required if Councilor Sochoose to keep a portion or all of those positions? Just my thoughts, Vice Mayor. Thank you. And I think that that is something we can ask specifically to hear in our LINCS discussions, and that's a very good point. Last year in our process we did something a little different, and that is that we didn't, we did not, we have to officially take a vote to approve a certain revenue amount, and we used to do that toward the beginning of our discussions, and last year we waited as long as we could so that we could allow revenue and those folks to give us the latest up-to-date projected numbers. which we may want to do again this year. So just in answer to a couple of your questions. And then Council Member Stenet. I was just going to respond to Council Member Ford with a couple of the questions. First of all, I think Commissioner Driscoll does already have the layoff number chart that you prepared about a week ago. Can you email it to all the council members so they can see the cost associated? I think it's about $1.6 million for all the layoffs. So, you know, that will help a lot of people in each department know where the dollars have to come from. For, like, security, it's $562,000. So we can see that kind of play out, and that's a good point. I think all the links need to look at that. So I think going back to Council Member Farmer's point, you know, I think we kind of need to make a list, maybe circling among Council members as to what we, as a group, feel like we need to be looking for in each link. Chris just hit one big item, layoffs, make sure we have an answer or explanation and or a recommendation from each link back to the council as to what to do with those layoffs, keep them, find money elsewhere. Because to your point, not only will we be doing additional subtractions from the budget, we'll be doing additions too. Believe me, every link will come back with something they want to add. So that's never not happened. So if you add something, obviously either you change the revenue number or you do cut somewhere else. So it's not a perfect process, but as with most government processes, especially this government, It does work eventually. But keep in mind, the one key thing about the budget document, it's not a static document. It's not we'll pass it and move on. As the mayor's talked about, as a lot of you have talked about, we'll change this budget year-round. As Councilman Beard alluded to, getting back together after the budget is even more important than probably this next two months. So we've got a lot of work ahead of us. But I think we probably need to circulate a list of vice mayor, if we can, about key things everyone wants to look at as we're going through these links. because layoffs is a big one. You know, any additional vacant positions that weren't, that were cut, do they really need them back? Because you know public safety is going to need them back. There's going to be a critical day when they're going to get to a point of staffing where we're going to have to add back. So all those questions need to be answered during the link process so that they can come prepared to the link or to the meeting prepared to answer those questions to the whole council. How about would it work if, council members, if you have things like that, layoffs and the amount of money involved, those kinds of things that Councilmember Stennett just mentioned, if you could email them to me, copy Mr. Ellinger and Connie Underwood and Paul, I think that that might be helpful for us to start establishing a list of things that you want to see specifically when we talk about this in the links. Does that sound like a process where we can develop a list? Well, if you want them to be anonymous, Mr. Farmer, just lay it on my chair. Oh, well. Okay, how's that sound? Will that work? Okay. Councilmember Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to comment. I think that sounds like a great process, sending the emails. But when you also look at the layoffs, we need to look at someone will be performing that service, you know, in the case of the security. So not only the cost, you know, it's cost savings for the layoffs, but what is the true cost of another agency, whatever, may be providing that service. So I'd like to have that information, and I'll email that. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Yeah, and to follow Council Member Henson's comments, you know, as we sort of wring the fat out of this budget, we have to be careful that we don't dip below what are really fundamental basic services. And, you know, not only are we looking to save money, but we certainly don't want to push a particular department or a particular service below what is safe or advisable or things like that. And we also have to make policy choices between, you know, is it better to cut $50,000 from the Hope Center or is it better to cut $50,000 from a sidewalk fund or something like that. And so particularly in an economy where we have some people in very dire straits and very difficult circumstances, we have to remember that perhaps not every budget cut is equal to every other and that some services are crucial during this time and that we need to watch about not taking just a sort of a broad brush to it. The other thing, though, is that are each of the departments bearing their fair share? I mean, how is it being allocated? Do, you know, if we have, for example, a part of the budget that has 58 percent of the budget, are we asking them to make 58 percent of the cuts? Now, whether we should or should not, but that's a question I think is appropriate to ask. Are the cuts being allocated sort of disproportionately by departments? And so it is going to be really tough, and I look forward to working with my fellow council members. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think along those lines, Council Member Martin, the position count that has been where those positions have been abolished, it would be nice if the administration could give back to us maybe some type of a hierarchy of those positions, not people, but positions that we might want to bring back on board if things got better. We might want to add six patrolmen or this or somebody like that. And it's a grading process, I guess, you know, a Class A group and a Class B group and a Class C group to have so that we can move forward in better times with a little bit more accuracy, I think. I was going to ask our CAO if he had any comments about that. If I might just jump in briefly. He was asleep. I'm sorry. Given that our revenue is coming in April toward the end of the year, that might be certainly a sort of a guesstimate to be able to do that. Well, yeah. Interesting to see how that happens. We've got to have them do the picking. Council Member Beard, did you have a question? Yes. Question for Richard. We've already sent the position to all of you on which one that we are abolishing. Now, commissioners, we've had meetings. They're concerned like you are if the economy or what starts picking up. It's like when I worked for the state, I had to lose all my folks. But when I went to my secretary, as long as I showed the need and the money was there, we were able to bring positions back, and that's what we plan on doing with this. When the economy picks back up for positions you need it and we have to use them, we're going to ask our commissioners to be sure to have everything back up and the numbers there, and we'll also present it to the council, too. That's fine. I just want to be sure that process was in place. It didn't necessarily have to involve us, but as long as you've got that covered, it's great. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lawless. It's my understanding that the majority of the positions that are so-called being cut are positions that we have funded, like over 200 of them, that we have funded year after year and have remained vacant. And there are, I believe, 28 that, like, communications, GTV, we have almost twice as many employees in that division as Louisville. So I don't like to lay off anybody, but I also know that we just laid off three employees, to from human resources that we were told in January, I think it was, by Acting Director Jarvis that she needed the employees. They were funded for the rest of the year, and then they were laid off, and we didn't do anything for them. So I think we need to really be careful about, you know, laying off people is a horrible, horrible, horrible part of a job. But when we talk about abolishing all these positions, most of them have been vacant for year after year. The council has put them in the budget and passed it, and they were never filled. So I just want to remind people of that. Thank you. Council Member Stimmit. I have one item I was hoping we would address, but given the time today, we may want to add it to the May 12th meeting, and that's the issue of the pools and golf courses. If those of you on council last year, we have to make that decision. If we are going to close Meadowbrook, if we are going to close Constitution and Berry Hill as a council, we've got to do it now because we can't wait. The pools open Memorial Day, and I assume, C.O. Maloney, that if we don't make a decision, the pools will close, will not open Memorial Day, right? As you all want, even though there's money in the budget this year to keep them open through the end of June, you're not going to use that money to open them, correct? Ken, do you mind to come to the microphone? And we may want to meet on this sooner. We may want to schedule a special meeting Thursday. I mean, I'm telling you, this is the most critical need of the budget right now is to decide on the golf course and pools. Otherwise, they will not open. And, Mr. Maloney, if you could let us know, I know we've done this before, what's the last date that we would need to make that decision in order for it to happen? Well, she's going to present at 3 o'clock how we're going to balance the 2011 budget, and that's going to be part of those pools being closed. So that would probably answer a lot of y'all's questions on that, And if that's something you all may want to do. Okay. So we might have questions about it at the 3 o'clock Committee of the Whole when the presentation's made on the current budget. Do what? On the current budget. She's going to do a presentation on how we're going to balance it out the rest of the year. I think Council Member Stenet's question is opening the pools for fiscal year 12. Well, right now we're banking on those two pools to stay closed the rest of the year because that's part of balancing the general fund this year. Now, if you all want to open it up for next year, my recommendation, you all need to do something quickly because we're still committed to keep those pools closed and keep them closed for next year to balance the budget for next year too. So what about the golf course? Is it going to be closed now? The golf course will probably close on, Meadowbrook will close probably the end of June, July, I mean, June 30th. If we don't change anybody, you're going to keep it open until the end of June and close it in the middle of the year of our busy season. That'll be the end of it. I think that discussion needs to be had, but this counts on both items. I don't know if the general services link has met with them yet. Has the link met? It's not. Well, we have two more people on the list. And then if you, I think certainly a motion's in order, if someone wants to move to put another meeting on to discuss these two items. But we have Council Member Myers and then Council Member Ford in about five minutes. Okay, I guess I go ahead and make that motion then. I'm not sure when we're going to put it on. Councilman Stinnett, did you have an idea for a meeting date? Well, I think at 3 o'clock we can discuss it in more detail. We have another budget discussion, try to set a meeting. But we need to make those decisions quickly because the gulf, even though it's open, there are costs incurred if we keep it open all summer versus two more months. Sure. Then I'll just say quickly then, Mr. Maloney, can you come up for just a second? I know that Council Member Henson had talked to you about the cost that we're going to incur as a government for the things that we outsource. And I'm just going to ask the question, and I didn't hear all the conversation, so you may have answered it already, but do you guys have quotes or responses to RFPs that are specific in nature in terms of the cost? For example, I think you plan to outsource security. Do you know for a fact what it's going to cost to do that? I know you came up with the dollar amount that you're going to save, but how do we know what it's really going to cost? We've been in contact with a couple of security firms in town, specifically with one that's currently providing security services to the University of Kentucky, as well as Kentucky State University and a few other government operations such as ours. We have been offered the use of the current price contract that they have, which would simplify matters a whole lot and we can move forward with it. The base unit price, which is per hour, it's slightly under what we have put in in the initial analysis of the cost. So we're very comfortable with the numbers that they have on the contract currently. Okay. Okay, so I'm not asking for specific information today, but before we get through this process, can we have from the administration the numbers of what it's going to cost to outsource whatever it is that you guys plan on outsourcing so that we understand? We're going to present that to the Lynx, too. All that information is going to be presented to the Lynx. We have not met with that Lynx yet. Okay. That will be presented to the Lynx. Can you provide it also to all the council members, though? I mean, it has been presented. Sure. Lynx committee members have already received our analysis that we did. We're in the process of updating the numbers based on the current price contract that we're interested in and be more than glad to forward to everybody. Okay, and is that for all outsourcing or is that just security? Okay, we like that for all outsourced. And then all council members would get it. We'll make sure I try to get it. Okay, thank you. Clear something up with Kevin. I think that you were right on that. Okay, first. What the golf course? Are we going to bank on keeping it open? Council Member Kaye. I need to get back with you on the golf course because... Has it been open now? It's supposed to have been open as a week. Oh, it is open. So I thought, the golf course, I believe, is open now, but I believe if you vote on it, we will close it June 30th would be the last day. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The links for the parks and recreation has met, and we have most of this information from them, and I'm happy to have this be more of a conversation at the 3 o'clock meeting. I would like to make a distinction between pools and golf courses. I think the pools are an issue that has to be addressed immediately. golf courses, we could probably allow the Lynx process to go on and make that decision in a reasonably timely way. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you. Council Member Kay, you're in the position I was in last year as Lynx Chair with General Services. Do you like it back? No, thank you. And this is exactly what we had last year, which is you have to make a decision about pools now because you've got to give parks some direction. You don't want to fill up a pool and then close it. And so pools and golf courses create a problem for the Lynx chronology. And so I do think that we need to take that up. And, you know, as we look at this budget provides the opportunity to look at everything on an equal playing field because there is no room. And I do think that this council really needs to understand where it's going to go policy-wise as it relates to pool, as it relates to golf. And, you know, I don't know if we go far enough or if we've gone too far, but we need, Council Member Farmer, as you said, We need to decide what's this council's policy and what's the direction because it is very unfair to Jerry and to General Services every single year to try and cram all this in in two weeks and what are we going to do. These guys have no ability to plan whatsoever. And if that's a tough decision that we have to make that's unpopular with some folks, then so be it. But at the same time, we can't just keep trying to do this every single year because it is very difficult on the lengths and it's even more difficult on staff, and I appreciate you guys with what you have to contend with. Jared, do you want to say something? You look like you're ready to stand. Actually, it is 3 o'clock, so I wonder if we could have you talk to us about this when the issue actually comes up for discussion. Vice Mayor, I need to scrape the pools, and I have to paint the pools. That takes a lot of time, and then we have to fill them in higher and all that, Waiting until the 28th of May would be too late. Too late. I think we're going to have more discussion at the 3 o'clock meeting. Thank you. So, and Council Member Kaye, and then we'll take, we'll adjourn, take a five-minute break and come back for work session. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a quick comment. I'm very interested in not being here next year, whether I'm the chair of this link or not, and having the same conversation. So I want to put a marker down, and that is as we go through the revision of this process, one of the things we pay attention to is these kinds of decisions which we end up not having enough time for. Thank you. Thank you. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? We'll be back in five minutes. Thank you.