# Council Committee of the Whole Work Session - April 26, 2011 > Auto-transcribed civic record · April 26, 2011 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1982 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1982?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2011-04-26 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 15,689 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 Council of the Whole met on April 26, 2011, under the presiding of the Vice Mayor. During the meeting, the council took 6 motions and votes, heard 4 public comments, and addressed 9 agenda items. The session included an informational presentation by David O'Neill of the PVA, as well as consideration of two ordinances for zone changes, both of which received first readings. The council approved Resolution 27-11 regarding acceptance of a bid for Lexington Mall Sanitary Sewer Relocation and approved the summary and public comment portions of the agenda. Resolution 39-11 concerning a Purchase of Service Agreement with Downtown Lexington Corp was tabled for later consideration. Additionally, the Facilities Use Policy received a first reading, and the Internal Audit Board Bylaws were presented for informational purposes. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on April 26, 2011: **Council Members:** - Council Member Ellinger - Council Member Farmer - Council Member Lane - Council Member Lawless - Council Member Martin - Council Member Myers - Council Member Stennett - Council Member Ford - Council Member Blues - Council Member Beard - Council Member Crosby - Council Member Kay **Commissioners and Staff:** - Commissioner Driscoll - Commissioner Mason - Mr. Barrow - David O'Neill - Renee Jackson - Senior Attorney Glenda George - Bruce Shelley No members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The council took six votes during the April 26, 2011 meeting: **Approval of April 12th Summary** [timestamp: 00:05:18] Council Member Ellinger moved to approve the summary of the April 12th meeting, seconded by Council Member Farmer. The motion passed by voice vote. **Ordinances 14 and 15 Placement** [timestamp: 00:10:50] Council Member Lawless moved to place Ordinances 14 and 15 on the docket without a public hearing. The motion passed by voice vote. **Resolution 39 Motion Withdrawn** [timestamp: 00:14:17] Council Member Martin moved to take Resolution 39 off the table and place it on the May 10th docket, seconded by Council Member Crosby. This motion was withdrawn. **Resolution 39 Tabled** [timestamp: 01:41:46] Council Member Crosby moved to table Resolution 39 until May 10th with a presentation from the administration, seconded by Council Member Blues. The motion passed by voice vote. **Citizens Advocate Referral** [timestamp: 01:51:11] Council Member Myers moved to refer the recommendation to hire a full-time Citizens Advocate to the Council of the Whole, seconded by Council Member Ford. The motion passed by voice vote. **Facilities Use Policy Amendment** [timestamp: 01:52:53] Council Member Crossman moved to substitute "periodic" with "annual" in the facilities use policy review, seconded by Council Member Myers. The motion passed unanimously. All members present voted in favor, including Council Members Crossman, Myers, Crosby, Kay, Blues, Ford, Martin, Stennett, Ellinger, Lane, Lawless, and Beard, as well as Commissioner Driscoll, Mr. Barrow, David O'Neill, Renee Jackson, Commissioner Mason, Senior Attorney Glenda George, and Bruce Shelley. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting approved the following financial actions: **Service Agreement for Special Events** Resolution 0039-26 authorized a purchase of service agreement with Downtown Lexington Corp for special events in the amount of $120,000. **Sanitary Sewer Relocation Project** Resolution 0027-26 approved a purchase for sanitary sewer relocation work at Lexington Mall with ABR Construction, Inc. for $555,000. ## Public Comment Council members raised several concerns during the meeting: **Homestead Exemption Benefits** [timestamp: 00:07:37] Council Member Lane sought clarification on the financial benefits of the homestead exemption for residents 65 or older or those who are totally disabled. The exemption reduces taxable assessment by up to $34,000 annually, resulting in approximately $370 in property tax savings. **Salt Expense Transfer** [timestamp: 00:49:14] Council Member Stennett expressed concern about transferring $400,000 from the street-sweeping fund to cover salt costs. Stennett questioned the fairness of this transfer, noting that it could reduce services for residents who pay extra taxes specifically for street sweeping. **Dedicated Funds Protection** [timestamp: 01:14:54] Council Member Ford raised concerns about using funds from the Parks Acquisition Fund and Urban Service District Fund. Ford emphasized the importance of protecting the integrity of dedicated revenue sources and warned against actions that could lead to future tax increases. **Citizens Advocate Position** [timestamp: 01:48:30] Council Member Myers advocated for moving the Citizens Advocate hiring recommendation to the full council. Myers noted that this action would help resolve long-standing committee debate and prevent further delays on the matter. ## Appointments Bruce Shelley was reappointed to the Internal Audit Board. ## Contested Items The April 26, 2011 meeting included three items that generated significant disagreement among council members. **Transfer of $400,000 from Urban Service District Fund for Salt Expenses** Council members voted on a proposal to transfer $400,000 from the Urban Service District Fund to cover salt expenses. The vote was split, indicating lack of consensus. Council members expressed concern that using dedicated funds for salt raised fairness questions, particularly for residents who pay extra fees for street sweeping services. Members also questioned the long-term impact this transfer would have on the Urban Service District Fund's ability to support its intended services. **Use of Parks Acquisition Fund for General Fund Balance** A heated discussion emerged over a proposal to use the Parks Acquisition Fund for general fund balance purposes. Council members raised concerns about diverting funds that were originally designated for parkland acquisition. Members emphasized the importance of maintaining trust in dedicated revenue sources and questioned whether redirecting these funds would undermine public confidence in the city's commitment to park development and acquisition. **Citizens Advocate Position Structure** Council members were divided on the structure of the Citizens Advocate position, with debate centering on whether the role should be full-time or part-time. Members expressed concerns about the budget implications of each option and indicated that the decision required fuller discussion by the entire council before proceeding. The split vote reflected disagreement over how to balance fiscal considerations with the staffing needs of the position. ## Public Comment The public comment period was opened at approximately 4 minutes and 10 seconds into the meeting [timestamp: 00:04:10]. Following the public comment period, a motion was made to approve the summary of the April 12th meeting minutes. Council Member Ellinger and Council Member Farmer participated in this discussion. The motion to approve the April 12th meeting minutes passed without opposition. **Outcome:** Approved ## Approval of Summary A motion to approve the summary of the April 12th meeting was presented during this agenda item. The summary covered pages 1 through 4 of the packet. [timestamp: 00:05:18] Council Member Ellinger and Council Member Farmer were the key speakers on this matter. The motion passed by voice vote, and the summary was approved. ## Presentation by David O'Neill, PVA David O'Neill, Property Valuation Administrator, presented information regarding the 2011 property tax rule inspection period [timestamp: 00:06:01]. **Key Announcement** O'Neill announced the opening of the 2011 property tax rule inspection period, which runs from May 2nd to May 16th. **Topics Covered** The presentation emphasized: * Homestead exemption benefits available to taxpayers * The importance of taxpayer conferences before appeals **Outcome** This was an informational presentation with no formal action required. ## Ordinance 14-11: Zone Change [timestamp: 00:10:50] Council Member Lawless moved to place Ordinance 14-11 on the docket without a public hearing. The motion passed, and the item was referred to the Thursday night docket for first reading. ## Ordinance 15-11: Zone Change [timestamp: 00:10:50] Council Member Lawless moved to place Ordinance 15-11 on the docket without a public hearing. The motion passed, and the item was referred to the Thursday night docket for first reading. ## Resolution 39-11: Purchase of Service Agreement with Downtown Lexington Corp [timestamp: 01:41:46] The council considered a resolution regarding a Purchase of Service Agreement with Downtown Lexington Corp. Council members Martin, Crosby, Beard, and Lawless participated in the discussion. During deliberation, concerns were raised about the timeline impacts on event registrations. Council members indicated that additional information from the administration was needed before proceeding with a vote. The resolution was tabled and moved to the May 10th meeting agenda to allow for a presentation and further consideration of the matter. ## Resolution 27-11: Accepting Bid for Lexington Mall Sanitary Sewer Relocation [timestamp: 00:21:34] The council considered a resolution to accept a bid for the Lexington Mall sanitary sewer relocation project. The bid from ABR Construction, Inc. was presented for $555,000. Council Member Farmer and Council Member Martin participated in the discussion of this agenda item. While no supporting documents were included in the meeting packet, the bid was confirmed as the lowest and best bid among 13 bids received for the project. The resolution was approved. ## Facilities Use Policy The Council considered a Facilities Use Policy ordinance during this meeting [timestamp: 01:52:53]. **Key Participants** Council Member Crossman and Council Member Myers were the primary speakers on this agenda item. **Discussion and Action** The policy was recommended for the docket on May 28th. During deliberation, the Council addressed the frequency of policy reviews. A motion was made to change the language from "periodic" review to "annual" review. This motion passed unanimously, indicating full Council support for establishing a defined annual review schedule rather than leaving review intervals undefined. **Outcome** The Facilities Use Policy ordinance received a first reading. ## Internal Audit Board Bylaws [timestamp: 01:53:33] The Internal Audit Board presented bylaws that had been recommended by the state auditor. Bruce Shelley addressed this agenda item. The bylaws were unanimously approved by the Internal Audit Board. The item was presented to the council for review and informational purposes, though no formal action was taken by the council at this time. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the summary of April 12th - **Motion** — passed: Motion to place Ordinances 14 and 15 on the docket without a public hearing - **Motion** — withdrawn: Motion to take Resolution 39 off the table and place it on the May 10th docket - **Motion** — passed: Motion to table Resolution 39 until May 10th with a presentation from the administration - **Motion** — passed: Motion to refer the recommendation to hire a full-time Citizens Advocate to the Council of the Whole - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Motion to substitute 'periodic' with 'annual' in the facilities use policy review --- ## Full transcript The Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our meeting. Today is April 26th, and this is a committee of the whole work session. and the first item is public comment on issues on the agenda and then the approval of the summary. And, Council Members, I would like to ask whether you would then consider, after public comment and approval of the summaries, if we might go ahead and hear from our PVA, David O'Neill, who is scheduled under presentations so that he can get back to being PVA. He has, as I understand it, a very brief something to tell us, that he's required by law to tell us. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay, very good. So would that, Council Members, does that suit you? Yes. Okay. Okay. So is there any comment from the public on issues on our agenda? If not, I have a motion by Council Member Ellinger, second by Farmer, to approve the summary of April 12th. Is there any question, corrections, additions? It's on pages 1 through 4. If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. With that, we'll call on David O'Neill. Welcome. And he is our property valuation administrator. Yes, ma'am. Okay, welcome. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Council Members. I asked for the time today to announce that the 2011 property tax rule is now open for inspection. And what that means for most of us is it's a time every year that's set aside by statute for any property owner to come into the PVA office and conference with us on the assessment of their property if they believe that it's not fair or equitable. So this open inspection period is kicked off every year, but by statute it begins on the first Monday in May and runs for 13 consecutive days, including Saturday. So it will be May 2nd through May 16th. However, we unofficially kick it off when we mail out assessment notices on April the 15th. Those have hit the mailboxes. We sent out about 30,000 of those. We did not upwardly reassess any residential neighborhoods this year due to typical appreciation. All the growth that we've seen in the 2011 tax roll is from sales and improvements. but we have seen a modest growth in the tax roll from 2010 to 2011. So the vast majority of these assessment notices that went in the mail on April 15th are for folks who have the homestead exemption, to let them know that it did go up modestly this year from last year. So anybody who has the homestead exemption should expect their taxable property assessment to go down a little bit this year from what it was last year. But in terms of open inspection, if anybody believes that their assessment is not fair or equitable, and that's what we're shooting for, they should come in and talk to me or somebody in the office about their assessment, and they have until May 16th to do that. After May 16th, I can't make any changes to the assessment, and it is what it is. If they come in and conference with us before the close of business on May 16th, still feel like that the assessment is not fair or equitable, then they can appeal to the local board of tax appeals. And the only requirement to do that is they do have to conference with my office first. During that period of time from May 2nd to May 16th, the county clerk will send a deputy clerk to work out of my office, so if a taxpayer wants to file an appeal, they can do it right there in one stop. Also, on the homestead exemption, please continue to help me remind people that qualify for it by being 65 or older or being totally disabled that may not be taking advantage of it to please do so. I know anecdotally there are people who should be getting it that are not, and we're trying to find them all. Does anybody have any questions? Council Member Lane. Could you stipulate what the benefit is for someone receiving, you know, like for age or disability deduction? Yeah, Kentucky does have a homestead exemption, and it's for anybody who's 65 or older or totally disabled and drawing disability payments. It reduces the taxable assessment of their property by up to $34,000 a year. So that works out to be about $370 a year in property taxes that someone can save. So it's the year you turn 65. So if you're turning 65 at any point in 2011, please go ahead and let us know so we can get it on the books. Are there other questions? Council members? David, thank you very much for letting us know that information. Okay. We'll go ahead and review the docket. And we have first reading of ordinances. Are there any items to be referred to a committee? Any items you have questions about or items that you would like to remove? If so, please log in. Although I'm not sure our granicus is actually working. Okay. Okay. Council members, if you have a question, just raise your hand the old-fashioned way. Council member Blues? Well, number 14 and 15 need some attention. Yes. These are third-district issues. Perhaps the council member has some recommendations on them. And 15, I would presume 14 also requires a motion to place on the docket, either with or without a public hearing, and then we can refer that to Thursday night. Does, Council Member Lawless, do you have a motion since they're in your district, or does anyone else have a motion? If we have no motion, these zone changes don't get put on the docket, folks. I move that they be put on the docket. I'm sorry, my thing isn't working. That's okay. So is this for number 14 or number 15? 14 and 15 on the docket without a public hearing. Thank you. Okay. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. Those items will go for the recommended docket on Thursday night. Is there anything else on first reading of ordinances? Okay. Council members, you will want to refer to your work copy that's at your desk, not the docket that's in your packet for first reading of resolutions. Number 39 is the resolution regarding special events, which the Council tabled until today to go back on the docket, and it has been placed back on the docket. Okay. Are there any, we'll need a motion to actually take that off the table and put it on the docket. Council Member Martin. Council Member Crosby's logged in. I'll make a motion to take it off the table and to place it on Thursday's evening docket for approval. Okay. Is there a second? Is there any discussion about that? This is the number 39 on your work docket that's in front of you. That's the purchase of service agreement with the downtown Lexington Corp. This is to the motion to take it off the table and put it on the docket. Vice Mayor. To the motion? Yes. Yes, Council Member Martin. And the electronic is working now, so if you'll log in, please. Has this been amended? Was the number different previously? Why is it on the docket? The council made a motion to table it until today. Right, but it needs to come back in the same form. Was it 180 before? Or has it already been 120? Are you talking about the blue sheet number? No, I'm talking about the dollars. I believe it's always been 120. Okay. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Vice President. Good. Okay. Council Member Crosby. I thought that we were going to get some information. I understand that this was a request of us to, if we bring it up Thursday night, are they going to be prepared, is the administration going to be prepared to present to us regarding this, or on Thursday night are we going to remove it then from the docket? By request of the administration, we would like to have some more time, so we would like to have it on a May 10th docket if possible. Thank you. Council Member Martin, did you have another comment? No, but you're asking that it not be docketed for this Thursday but for May 10th? Correct. I can sort of friendly amend my motion to have it replaced on the May 10th docket. Okay. It's currently tabled. And I currently made a motion to take it off the table, and it was seconded by Council Member Crosby. So as pertinent to that motion, I'm amending my motion with the consent of the second to say that it's taken off the table to put it on the May 10th docket. Is that too much at once, or do we do? Not for me. That's where we are then. Would that work for the administration? I know that we were going to have to go ahead and pull it off on Thursday night. Correct. We could have to the next council the whole session and then on the following Thursday docket. That would be great. I think it's the 6th, 14th is the council meeting, or I'm sorry, the 12th. The 10th is the cow session and the 12th is the council meeting. So, Council Member Martin's motion would place it back on the docket for the 12th. Is that your intention? If that's what the administration has requested. That's what I'm requesting, yes. I'm good with it. Okay. And the second is? And there will be information forthcoming before that? Correct. Okay. Council Member Crosby. I did this because I knew you all weren't prepared to discuss it today, but my question is if we wait until the May 10th deadline or May 10th for you all to present this to us, and then we still have to go through our process of first reading, second reading, so on, we have registration starting in May for some of these events. Have you all figured out how putting this off will affect the purchase service agreement with registrations that are supposed to be starting? That's a good question. DLC has begun soliciting sponsorships for the 4th of July. What we would prefer is to remove this from the docket and bring it to you under a new blue sheet, if that's possible. That doesn't lock us into a timeline, but we want to get it done as quickly as possible. So rather than do you have a proposal that would speed it up to the before the 12th? Is that what you're thinking? No, it would have to be on the 10th. Okay. Well, we haven't. I mean, I guess my other concern then is with the comment you just made is that they're already soliciting sponsors. I guess that's fine if they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart, but this hasn't been approved by council yet, and it may not be approved. That's right. From my understanding, they have sent letters to our previous sponsors. As this is a DLC now event? It was a joint letter between Lori Houlihan and Renee Jackson. Can we please get a copy of that letter? Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Are there other questions about the motion? Council Member Beard. Has there actually been a PSA executed at this point? No. Is there a draft of it that we can take a look at? It was included in the Council docket from two weeks ago? Yes. Right. Okay. Thank you. Other questions about the motion? And the electronic is working if anybody wants to log in. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. It's my understanding that there were some issues with the PSA and that that's what you need more time cleaning up or changing. Right after the council meeting last week, I had some concerns that I wanted to be sure that were addressed before we presented the final PSA amendment to you all. So that's why I've asked the time to collect the information, analyze it, and present some historical information as well. So if you could get the PSA to us as soon as possible, that might help this process, I would think. Councilmember Crosby. Is there a reason why we can't get a copy and take care of this Thursday night? I mean, we have an entity that's already sent out sponsorship letters to people, and we're not going to be ready to look at this as a council until May 10th. I'm not sure what else needs to be tweaked. It was my understanding that you all had an agreement, but that maybe it wasn't written exactly to the standard that you all would like, but it's, I mean, it's mid-April. Well, there were some good questions asked last work session, and we would like to make sure that we have all the information in front of us so that all your questions can be answered so that you're comfortable approving the contract. I don't think we can do that in two days. Are there other questions? Part of my problem, if I just might add, is that Renee Jackson from DLC has been in Florida. She's on vacation, so I – She's back. I'm sorry. You were on vacation. Please confirm that. All right. I'm not totally out of the loop. So maybe we can consult for just a moment. Welcome home, Renee. Mr. Parliamentarian, what's the proper, if we want to come back to this motion? Well, as in any cow meeting, we have the purview to leave it and come back. Okay, we'll leave it hanging out there. Does that suit everyone? We could withdraw the motion if that's helpful. Okay, that actually might be helpful. Well, just withdraw the motion for now. Depending on what they came back with. Okay. The motion and the second hand. There might be more people coming back from vacation by that time. Very good. Thank you. Okay. Let's move along while they're having a powwow. So we're still on first reading of resolutions. And are there any other items that need attention? Moved, tabled, removed, additional information? First reading of resolutions. Oh, sorry. Mr. Farmer. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mine is on number 27, resolution accepting the bid of ABR Construction, Inc. and the amount of $555,000 for the Lexington Mall Sanitary Sewer Relocation. And they're just very supportive of this. I want it to happen. But there are no supporting documents in the packet, or at least none I could find, even though there were 13 bids. Mr. Martin. I'll step up for Mr. Markin, who's in the back, and if you need additional. Typically, a competitive bid, they don't include stuff in the packet. You know, whether we're buying whatever commodities or what have you. It's a done deal. We've always done it that way, and it's not a good reason, but it's just the way it has been. I can tell you that I have my copy of my memo that I sent to purchasing. This is the lowest and best bid out of 13 bids. It is roughly $33,000 less than the next lowest bid. Anything to say, Brian Markham? A few steps. Thank you. Thank you. Are there other questions or referrals to committee from the first reading of resolutions? No? All right. Let's move on then to second reading of ordinances. Are there any questions, referrals to committee, removals? Okay. Okay. Let's move right on to second reading of resolutions. And are there questions, referral to committee, withdrawal, removal? If not, Council Members, does it suit you to move right on with our agenda and then come back to item 39? Does that suit you? Okay. Budget amendments are on page 26 and 27 of the packet. So this is a good time for questions about our budget amendments. Are there any questions? If not, we'll move on to the next item on the agenda, item 5, which is items referred from council members. Council members, do you have any items that you wish to put in committee or recommend be placed on the docket? If not, we'll look at our NDF list, Neighborhood Development Funds. This is for informational purposes, page 28 of the packet. Can I just ask a question on that, please? And Council Member Ellinger has a question. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess since we had that discussion, we've taken out people's names on this. Yes. How it's going to be reported from now on. Yes. Okay. It's all the new change. Thank you. Are there other questions or comments about neighborhood development funds? Okay. If not, we are ready for our fiscal year 11 budget presentation from Commissioner Driscoll. and this starts on page 55 of our packet through page 74 of the packet. So welcome, Commissioner. I see you've got your sidekick, Ryan Barrow. Our tag team. Yes, Director of Budgeting. And I have my glasses, too, so if I have to refer this time, I can see and don't have to have Ryan whispering the numbers to me. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to come back and talk about the current year and where we find ourselves as of April 26, 2011. We wanted to start by reviewing our agenda with you today. And we are going to split up the presentation as we have historically done. But first thing that we want to accomplish is just kind of give you a history, because we do think it's important to talk about what we've presented you to date and the information that you've received and how things have improved over time in terms of closing our current year gap. So that's the first goal that we have. The second goal is really to give you more specifics about this administration's reduction plan. They really fall into three categories that we'll get into detail, the global policy, some of the global reductions, and then the individual division plans. And then because obviously the other piece of the equation is the revenue side, we want to talk to you about the updated 2011 revised projections and how that fits into this puzzle. So if you look first at the history of the general fund imbalance, we just one more time wanted to review where we found ourselves. July of last year, an original budget was passed that had an imbalance of $15 million. You've seen this before. Why is that? There were one-time revenues of a property sale that was $4 million. and an assumption of the economic contingency draw of $5.87 million, and then we assumed that we had a general fund balance of approximately $4.7 million. As I understand it, I wasn't here, but as the budget was passed, I felt like we would review that in January to see if things had improved and make adjustments as needed. January 10th, actually the day I started, there was an update for the administration, really looking at reevaluating where we found ourselves in current year and understanding that we weren't going to realize the property sale proceeds and that our goal was to make changes so that we did not dip into the economic contingency fund. We also noted that revenues really hadn't improved, so the thought as when the budget was originally passed that maybe the economics would improve as we went through the fiscal year just weren't being realized. So we also at that time, and again, I think my first day, received an update in terms of addressing the health care issue that had not been appropriately budgeted in the previous year and that the subsidy that was required to pay for our health care costs for our employees was inadequately budgeted and that those dollars were taking up our traditional lapse of personnel and that we needed to get a handle on health care moving forward. On the 22nd of February, we came to this body and put together a committee presentation that from a perspective of where we found ourselves, we had closed that $15 million gap to about $7.2 million at that point and had talked to you in generalities and received a lot of attention from the media in terms of how we had begun to close that gap. So that was in February. In March, and we referred to this earlier, the budget workshop presentation, we also, in a general way, told you about some of the steps that we were taking to close the current year gap, and our gap had gotten down to approximately $2.3 million. And that's, we wanted to show you visually kind of the original budget, the initial steps, and we have continued to make progress, and I think that's important to show you visually We've made progress on closing the current year gap, and today we want to talk to you about those specifics as well as what some next steps are as of today's date. If you look at the next slide, again, our goal has been stated from the beginning, and I say beginning from my perspective in January, was to maintain the amount in the Economic Contingency Fund. And we also had a very aggressive goal of no draw from the fund balance. Again, which at the time, looking back a couple of slides ago, that general fund balance was projected to be $4.7 million at the end of the prior year. and when I presented the comprehensive annual financial report to you not long ago, you realized and we went over that that general fund balance was actually at the end of the fiscal year $2.1 million. So, again, some things that some projections had not come through. So, again, our goal, maintain the economic contingency fund, no draw from the fund balance, which is now $2.1 million as of the beginning of this fiscal year. So when we talk about the global policy, and these are some of the things we've talked to you about before, we immediately implemented a hiring freeze, and freeze may be too stringent of a term. What really was put into place was a review, a critical review of hiring of any vacant positions as we've moved forward, and that process has significantly slowed in terms of the number of positions and the type of positions that are currently being filled. For example, there are a couple of director positions within social services. Those of you who were in the social service link a few days ago heard the commissioner speak about she has one of three directors in-house and the importance of getting those other two directors on board. So there were some selective approvals of positions to move forward. Again, this is the hiring freeze was mainly in the general fund for the general fund positions, and it did not keep us from moving forward on hiring critical positions for the consent decree, et cetera, those kinds of opportunities that we needed to move forward on. In addition, there was a global policy of no discretionary expenditure, to limit discretionary expenditure, and we have enlisted the, we've expanded really this process most recently, enlisting purchasing assistance as people are continuing to request purchases of services and or goods. we have asked Brian's shop to help us monitor those requests, and we have lowered the approval level that the commissioners see. Now the commissioners see every request that the divisions are asking for in terms of purchasing because we wanted to make them very aware of the purchases moving forward. So that's a significant change, and it is something we've asked the commissioners to manage with us as we move forward. So their mailboxes will be a little more full over the course of the next month and a half. In addition to that, we've actually put into place some encumbrances. Technically, we've restricted the expenditure of some discretionary amounts across the board. So across the board changes, we've actually restricted those so the agencies can't spend them, and we've absorbed those. That equals almost $400,000 to date. And then we, as we talked to you about before, division plans that were submitted to us a few months ago, where we have also captured approximately $3.4 million from those plans. And Ryan is going to go through the detail agency by agency in a moment for you on those division plans. but I didn't think it was important to tell you that we did work with the divisions and asked them to have input on how they could make the current year work with these reductions. And this is where discussions will come in, just for your all's information, on the pools, for example, in the Parks Department. I think it's also important to note that we had estimated in the earlier meeting that we would realize approximately $2 million in personnel laps, and we are on target as a result of the hiring freeze and the review of positions to capture those dollars. So those are real dollars in addition to these other encumbrance and division plan adjustments. So what we thought we'd do, let me tell you a couple more things before Ryan goes into the detail. There were a couple of places that, beyond some of those that you've talked about in your meetings before, fire over time, some other changes where we had additional funding needs. One of those is banking fees. For whatever reason, again, I can't. I don't know why it wasn't budgeted appropriately last year, but we did not include a budget for the banking fees that we pay for our general banking services for this government. We are going to need, if we look at the current trend over what we've spent to date, approximately $141,000 additional dollars. Now, we're hoping to decrease that as we go through, and we're currently reviewing the potential for an RFP for banking fees and services. We certainly expect to have those fees lowered in a future period, but again, those are fees that we are realizing today. There's also a fuel overage estimate that we have. I don't think I need to tell any of you all about the cost of fuel and how that's gone up. And we are not talking about an increase in gallons used here. We are talking about simply the cost increase to this government for the fuel usage, the historical fuel usage, excuse me, that we have. I will tell you that that fuel usage is net of repairs and maintenance. We took that out and just did a review of fuel. Excuse me. We also have spoken about some proposed transfers in our earlier meetings. One, the salt expense to urban as a result of street cleaning, the ability to clean streets. You have to remove snow from those streets. We've worked with Commissioner Taylor and her folks about the transfer, the appropriate transfer of covering some of the salt expense to the general fund from the Urban Service District Fund. The salt had been being purchased completely out of general fund in the budget. In addition, the Parks Acquisition Fund, which we have mentioned before, that we would transfer $200,000 of that. The question last time I know that was brought up was had we consulted with the home builders. We are in discussions with the home builders regarding this request, a review of the historic documentation regarding this. It doesn't require their approval, but it does, we have established a relationship with them historically that we would seek out their input. And I did want to let you know that that process is underway and that we anticipate a $200,000 transfer. In addition to that, there is a public safety fund. these revenues are realized from, they are accounts for Fayette County's share of an additional $20 that's imposed by the state in criminal cases. These expenditures must be used for police, and we're not suggesting the transfer. We still have an abundant amount of general fund being expended on police, But these funds were inappropriately credited to a different account, and we are capturing those dollars and seeking the transfer of those to the general fund to help balance the current year. In addition to this, we are reevaluating. We did have some repayments in UDAG, and I will say we are still reevaluating this ability to transfer these dollars because there's some question whether they were budgeted already. But these were some additional receipts that we had some indication initially that we could credit these to the general fund. So that $154,000 we are still looking at. So that's sort of the overview from a global perspective on some transfers, from some additional funding needs, from some global expenditure reductions. Obviously, we have the all-important revenue piece that Bill will address towards the end of the presentation. But first, we were going to have Ryan address the division-by-division reduction plans, unless someone had a question before we got there. We have a couple of council members who have questions. Do you want to go ahead and ask them? They obviously were stimulated by your presentation. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Since this slide was up, if you can put it back on that slide. I'm sorry. Let's hit a couple of the points on here. One, the solve expenses to the urban fund, and what you're proposing here is an indirect transfer from our urban services fund, which are dedicated taxes, back to the general fund of $400,000? That is correct. And has the law department looked at that? How do you feel that's appropriate given that salt is not necessarily solid waste, sewers, stormwater, and those are the fees, streetlights? I mean, what fund can you justify with taking that out of? We actually worked with, as I mentioned, Commissioner Taylor's folks and actually looked at the percent of streets within the urban service district that that salt is used on. And this is actually less than the total amount of salt that we purchase and utilize in that process. We did vet that through an extensive discussion process that the transfer was determined to be appropriate. And, again, this is an amount that doesn't cover the total salt expended for those urban service districts streets, but a portion of those. Well, excuse me, but again, specifically, what fund are we taking $400,000 out of? The Urban Service District. Yeah, but it's collected for specific items. I'm sorry, street sweeping. I mentioned that. We're taking out of the street sweeping fund. Yes. And do we have a balance sheet on that? Because some of our funds, like streetlights I know was overspent. Where are we at on street cleaning before we go would take $400,000 out. We can get you that information. I don't have that in front of me, but we'll get you that. And do you need council action to remove it from a dedicated fund to the general fund? We are, when we get to the end, we talk about next steps. One of those is bringing to you the appropriate action that we need to make these changes. And then the park acquisition fund, the $200,000. Have you met with the home builders and asked them how they feel about taking the park acquisition money out? As I mentioned, I've not personally. The mayor's office has met with them, have met with them. We got something in writing. Their board voted. We do not have that in writing yet. What I had mentioned is that we have opened those initial discussions and in reviewing the historic documents, it doesn't require their approval, but again, we've had that good faith relationship with them so we've asked them to go through that process to consider that change. And how long did you give them to go through that process? I mean, you know, if we've got to find $200,000 at the last minute, that's kind of tough to do on June 30th. So So again, I wasn't the person in the meeting, but they indicated that they would get back with us very quickly. Okay. And then last but not least, on the rainy day fund, you mentioned we're not going to take any money out of there. And at our last discussion, go ahead, did you want to stop me? Well, I was just going to say our goal was to not touch the economic contingency fund and then the general fund balance. And then after we go through revenue, I was going to do a summary of where we find ourselves. But I'll give you the cliff notes version is we anticipate not dipping into the economic contingency fund. We are not quite covering the $2 million in the general fund balance, but we're working towards that and continue to work towards closing that gap. My question was, will we be presented in with a budget amendment to put the money back into the economic contingency fund since we put it in the budget by an ordinance? We'll have an ordinance presented back to council so we can put the money back in, because obviously we don't want it to lapse out there and just not be. Again, we will bring to you the technical peace ordinance that will make all of these adjustments. We will. Just make sure we capture that. I don't want to lose that $5.8 million just out there, as Mr. Barrows said last night. If we don't use it, we lose it. So I don't want to lose it in this case. And then last but not least, you had some charts. Are you going to go through all your charts in here? Yes. Ryan's going to do that, and then Bill's going to go through revenue, and then I'm going to wrap up. Okay, because I didn't see $2 million worth of personnel savings on these charts. So maybe we can, as they're going through it, can address how we get to $2 million. I saw about $300,000, so I'd like to see the $2 million. The $2 million isn't on the – this is the divisional plans and the capturing. The $2 million is when you look at our personnel in total. These are in addition to the laps. These are specific personnel. So the two million is not, the lapse is not listed on the next charts? We didn't include that? That is correct. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner? Yes, sir. A series of questions. You might guess I would ask these about banking fees. Banking fees, yes, sir. It says additional funding needs. Are the banking fees $141,000, or are they $141,000 plus something? Plus about $60,000, which we've been able to cover within finance up to date. So a total cost of $201,000? Approximately $200,000, yes, sir. That seems high. I agree. Extremely high. I agree with you. How much are they paying you for the use of the money? I don't have those charts in front of me, But I will tell you that we've already identified some fees that they should not be charging us, that we're making immediate changes. And then, as you know, in our conversations in the link, we are looking at a request for banking services so that we're able to review all the fees, all the costs of the services they are providing us, in addition to services that they may provide to our employees. And again, I can get you that, the fee structure, but they have immediately, we are making some immediate adjustments to those fees. So I'm hoping that we don't need the entire $200 this year, but we are pretty far into the year, and these charges have already, majority of them have already happened. Right. You know, at the time that we signed the contract with the bank, the present bank, our banking relationship, it was a different interest rate environment totally from what it is now. So there isn't a lot of room for them to shave anything off for themselves, and so I'm assuming they had to do it by fees. But still, is there a formula in there somewhere as to how these fees might be charged in relationship to their ability to invest money for their benefit and ours? We do have a banking analysis sheet, and that's what we have done our initial review on, where we think that the charges are exorbitant in certain areas. So we're asking about those adjustments immediately. And then, again, we want to put a request for a proposal out for banking services for the government and have had experience where we've been able to cut out significant banking fees through those negotiations in the future. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner, I have a couple of questions. If we could go back to the parks acquisition fees. Although we understand we aren't required to get permission from the home builders, the home builders are the ones who've paid all of this money. And the agreement originally was that this money would purchase new parkland. So I would request, and if we need to do it by a motion, we can do that, that you have a letter from the home builders. I know you said you're in discussions, but I think it's very important that we have a letter on the record because the last time we did this, we told them we wouldn't do it again. And now we're going to go back to them. And I agree with you, and we just don't have that letter yet. So you're intending to get it. We certainly took your advice into consideration last time, And I reviewed all those historic documents as well as initiated the ask the mayor's office if they would contact. Very good. And then I guess Mr. Barrow will be. That's okay. But we'll eventually be getting a number of what the actual fund balance in the parks acquisition fund is. Do you have that? Or will he? It's a little. It's over a million, but I'll get you the exact number. Okay. That would be very good. And then if I could go back with one last question, the salt expense. I actually have some heartburn over this because the people, if I understood correctly, you said this $400,000 would be taken from the street cleaning fund. Is that correct? Yes. So the people who have paid into the street-sweeping fund to get their streets swept essentially could be giving money that they won't get back in any service. In other words, the salt may go on other roads but not theirs. No, we looked at the percent. That's what I'm saying to you. Our total salt purchases, how we arrived at a figure was looking at the mileage within the urban service district that received those services and prorated the salt usage per those streets within the urban service district. So they're not paying for salt that was used outside of the – in essence, they are getting their streets cleaned of snow. Okay. Okay. So they'll have them salted probably instead of swept. Depending on the weather. Yeah, depending on the weather. Okay. And again, when we did the percentages, the amount that you could charge the Urban Service District was significantly more, but it would have wiped the fund. I mean, we couldn't have afforded to move those expenditures to that fund and had money to pay for the other services that were needed to the provision of services out of the fund. And so I guess when we talk about budgeting, we'll find out what the total amount budgeted for SALT is. Because last year it was supposed to be a million and then it went down to. It's a million in 12, I believe. Is it about $800,000 in current year? So this current year, which is what this is. The current budget was $800,000. We spent a million. The budget for next year is a million. So this current year, which this $400,000 is part of the current year. That's correct. So this $400,000 is needed to pay off what we didn't have of the million? It's a balance. It's a piece of the balancing plan closing the financial gap for this year. So does this take it to a million, this $400,000? We have spent a million. So this takes it to $1.4 million? No. No, this moves 400 of the $1 million to the Urban Service District funds. We've spent $1 million of general fund. Okay. This would transfer $400,000 of those expenditures to the Urban Service District fund. Okay. And so someone eventually will bring us what Council Member Stenet asked for, which was what will not get done then because that $400,000 is spent on salt. Will someone be bringing us that? And we can reap the balance in the fund. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner, I just wanted to follow up for clarification. Does this transfer, the $400,000 transfer, mean that folks who have paid for street sweeping will, that that street sweeping service will be reduced as a consequence? And this is a transfer from the fund for current year. So moving forward, that's not an issue in terms of the services provided in the Urban Service District Fund. And maybe I'm not, I don't know if. It affects the balance in the fund is what it affects. Okay, but what I'm asking is whether it affects the actual sweeping the streets. In other words, in some areas, the property owners are paying to have the street swept, and it's like once a week. So will that reduce that service, curtail it in some sense? I think what's being proposed is it comes from the balance, so we don't necessarily have to reduce service. So, well, you say it won't necessarily reduce service. It's a choice. I mean, we could choose to take it. What I can't explain to you that we'd have to get some help with is the money that goes into the Urban Services Fund goes for the three separate distinct services, and that's a specific amount, but how it's accounted for, I believe, is it's in one big pool. So technically, it's all in one big bank account. I mean, I don't know if that's the correct way to say it. So you have X number of dollars that we have identified for services for the next year and for this year, and there is a balance. And what we've been challenged to do is to make sure that nothing we spend exceeds what we take in in revenue. And that's a challenge because, as you pointed out, we've got a couple areas, particularly around streetlights and that sort of thing, where our costs have gone up and we have not raised the revenue that we take in. So that's a similar example where the money to pay the difference currently is coming from the balance, the total balance in urban services. Well, what I'm concerned about, I do think that people who are paying for street sweeping, I mean, that that's what they expect. I mean, I think that there would be some problem with it if that service were curtailed because of this transfer. That's my question. Right. I understand. But we're not planning to curtail it. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think, like my other colleagues, we do have a little heartburn on this $400,000 expense. And I guess if you would kind of go through the numbers again, because we initially had budgeted, I think, $1 million, and then we changed our budget in the council process to $800,000. So we had $800,000 in the fiscal year 11 budget for SALT. And what was the final total expense that we had for SALT? Was it $1 million? $1 million, yes. Okay. So instead of $800,000, we were millions, we were $200,000 over budget on salt. So now we're taking $400,000 out of the urban service area to pay towards that million dollars. Is that correct? That is correct, although I don't want you to think that that's how we related it. How we related it was asking, and I didn't mean to put the commissioner on the spot in terms of the services because we had talked through these issues. but how we related it to the amount was looking again at the streets within. I understand how you're trying to make the connection. I guess do we have something that allows us to do this, and have you asked the law if this is appropriate since this is a dedicated fee that's put towards basically three different areas, and we've been pretty liberal in the way that we've allowed this to happen. Again, we vetted through the process with the programmatic folks through all the appropriate reviews as we've proposed this to you. Are there any other areas that they have said would be allowed to be used outside of for SALT then? We didn't ask. Again, we were looking at SALT and the relationship with clearing the roads. And we had mentioned this in the budget workshop and mentioned it one time before and actually pursued it based upon the responses in those proposals. So I just guess for my own understanding, so a million dollars is what the final total was for SALT, and that's what we're going to be budgeting for fiscal year 12. That is correct. We had $800,000, and we're adding $400,000 towards that. So actually we're overbudgeting by $200,000 towards salt. So $200,000, now that $400,000 is going somewhere else, then. Would that be a true statement? No. There's a million dollars in salt expenditures. $400,000 of the expense will be charged to the Urban Service District Fund. But we initially had $800,000. If you had $400,000 and $800,000, that's 1.2. We're also cutting $15 million out of the budget, or that's a combination of general funds. I guess so we're taking a net $200,000 from the budget that we're cutting out by using the Urban Service $400,000. Well, I mean, I – Do you understand my logic there? I understand. Instead of $800,000 we're spending for sold out of the general fund, we're really spending $600,000 because we're spending $400,000 from the urban service area. We are. Okay. I'm just trying to see if my math adds up. But my only point was the general fund, the budget as we passed the budget was, we have a gap of $15 million. Part of that we're making up with the good news, revenue, some improvements in revenues. and the rest were expenditure reductions and transfers. I'm just trying to see if my math adds up. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Is part of that $400,000 including labor possibly and not just the purchase of salt? It's just the purchase of salt. Okay. I was on that link, and we collectively decided to cut what they were asking, because who would have thought we were going to have the winter we had? And now we're facing the highest rainfall in April since they started keeping records in the 1800s. So as far as street sweeping, it's not done once a week. And in many areas, it's not even done once a month. I know in the downtown and neighborhoods near UK, we've been meeting, several people have been meeting to solve the problem of being able to do edge-to-edge street sweeping. So, because that's really what helps. And the pilot program is on its way and we've kind of had a good feedback. So essentially they're looking at maybe six times a year. I'm in the highest, my street's in the highest category, and my street is rarely swept, and so, because it's a little dead-end street. But it's not done once a week in any of the third district. I think their target goal originally was monthly, but realizing that because of parking issues in the downtown and near U.K. neighborhoods, it was really nearly impossible to do it and do it well. So my point in that is that I don't think it will be a reduction in services, at least in the areas I'm familiar with. actually we're going to increase the services by doing it well rather than haphazardly. So thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner, back to salt for a second. Now that we're out of the salt arena as far as the weather is concerned, how much do we have on hand now and where does that get carried over and does that affect either the 2012 budget or the 2011 budget one way or the other? We did talk about reserves during the budget process to determine what we needed to include for next year, but I don't have those specifics in terms of the tonnage that we have on board. Is it bigger than a bread box? I mean, is it significant? If we could get maybe somebody to just get, if we can get that information before the meeting's over for you. I thought maybe the CAO was going to offer you some information. The commissioner indicated that our reserves are approximately where we ended the year last year, but we can get specific, again, specific tonnage for you. Well, just an email or something would be fine. They're in a rush on it. I just was curious when we got into Councilmember Eleanor's conversation with you. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Farmer. Thank you for bringing this reduction plan to us. We're focusing on this page, and I have questions about it, but give me what are the subsequent, there's several more graphs, and then finally your end one is we're down to 1.9, I think. and these others are just specific fund changes? What is their function? Those are the specific division changes we were going to run through with you. That was the next piece. I'm looking at midnight right now. No, just in a very general way. We have 2,500 tons back to the salt issue. Oh, thank you. We were going to do them. We wanted to show you because there had been a request for detail by division, so we wanted to provide that to you. Yes, ma'am. And talk about, in general, the process that we went through with each division for their review. So then with this page, are you anticipating bringing us a group of budget amendments to move these funds, to make this change? Again, the technical piece, if you look at the next steps, we'll be bringing budget amendments that will encompass all the changes that are needed to enact the budget reduction plan. And this is everything you've tried to come up with to close the gap? This is the last best ditch effort to get out of this year even? Yes, and we have some additional issues that we're still working through, which is on our next steps, which is the last page of the presentation. But I do think it's important for you to hear some detail from the divisions and the revenue piece. I'm not disagreeing with that. Okay. I'm just looking at there's others that want to talk. Sometimes a presentation raises more questions than it answers. And in this instance, these interfund transfers, by and large, there's just a lack of comfort here because we haven't gone back and redefined the urban service fund for street sweeping to include cleaning your street with salt. So I have a fundamental problem with the $400,000. Just as a personal standpoint, I'm always in favor. I mean, Parks never has enough money, but taking up the $200,000 out of their acquisition fund from wherever to wherever, however, just still doesn't sit well with me. And I know we're in a tough budget year. We're making tough decisions. Public safety fund, $690,000. I'm unfamiliar with that number or what it should be used for, could be used for, or what will be left behind. Well, what it's mandated to be used for is on police expenditures and or expenditures that are related to the jail. However, this is two years' worth of that fund that was mislabeled and put into a different fund. All right. So we're capturing these two years' funds moving forward. Those monies will be captured on an annual basis in the appropriate account. They'll be spent in the same way, police-related expenditures and or corrections. Again, we spend way more than this fund generates in terms of expenses, general fund expenses on police and corrections departments. So this is a technical correction, if you will, for the last two years. We were able to identify these funds with the help of the police department and appropriately account for them. And on the surface, I'm comfortable with that. And I want to close the gap too, but I don't want to do it at the expense of principle and policy. But I still want us to balance our budget, but I'm not comfortable yet. And just as a matter of, just so everybody's aware, The salt expense and the parks acquisition, something we've presented a couple of times now, we actually had $400,000 attached to each of those when we did the budget workshop. However, we've adjusted those because we're looking at the parks acquisition fund and the future of that fund as well. You're welcome. I just had one more comment because I'm trying to follow your thinking on the salt expense. Under this scenario, and we have quite a few neighborhoods right now who don't get street sweeping and don't get some of the urban services. So under this scenario, people who are not in a street-sweeping neighborhood, they will have their salt provided by the general fund. I'm just trying to follow through the thinking, which, and we just saw all of our revenue sources for the general fund. And then those who are in a street-sweeping district, potentially, will pay for the salt through their extra tax, and they will also at the same time be paying through the general fund for everybody else's salt. And there's something about that that just doesn't seem right. I mean, I understand what you said about, you know, the percentage and how salt could be viewed as a street-cleaning function, But I think the folks who pay the extra tax might disagree. So I would echo what Council Member Farmer said about when an item brings up a lot of questions, then, you know, there may be some further discussion that needs to happen about that item. And so then my only other question would be, would we program into fiscal year 13 budget to pay that money back to the urban service fund, which is what I would advocate if this passes to use the urban service fund, is that at some point we pay it back from the general fund. So just some comments. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Vice Mayor. On the public safety fund, I was able to participate some in the public safety transition team. It was my understanding, and this might be where this $690,000 is from, is that two things. One, the phone calls that inmates made used to go directly to the jail, and then a couple of years ago they put it into the general fund. And another part was the dedicated franchise fee or whatever on telephones. These aren't the commission fees. These are Fayette County's share of the additional $20 that is imposed by the courts on criminal cases. So we get a share of those costs back from the state. This isn't telephone commissions. Okay. It's not that same fund. It's not the same dollars that we're talking about. Okay, thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice President. I just want to follow up on the public safety fund. I know, Commissioner Mason, you're here, and I see Commander Stack, but I'm not sure if either one of them can answer it. Is this the 413 money from the state? This is the 413. And I guess under statute, the KRS does allow us to utilize it to balance our general fund budget? Well, if the money is going, it's for we spend more than this amount of money on police and corrections. So it is on how you view those expenditures. I mean, it's a source of funds to provide those services. We spend millions of dollars on those agencies. Well, and I know you weren't here, so I know my colleagues that were in 2006, we had a major issue with this fund. And the statute does specifically say what within police we can spend it on, if I'm not mistaking. You know, we even had two state legislators come down here and remind the council what we could use this fund for. And I'm not sure that answer would be sufficient in explaining. So we probably need to develop a plan that would be specifically what within police were using $690,000 to fund. And if you have that, please let us know. Okay. Because I think that needs to be spelled out correctly. Police can be used in corrections as well. Right. Right. And then on the salt, I guess my big concern is, and this goes back to the vice mayor, you harped on the salt waste issue for years. We save money to buy trucks and things. You're taking $400,000 from street cleaning. How are we going to provide for additional equipment in the future for street cleaning if the tax is just going to pay to actually do the work? What happens when we need new equipment for street cleaning trucks and things in the past? How are we going to pay for it if we take the $400,000? And again, you know, it is a choice. and as we moved through this budget, there were some tough choices. But the Urban Service District Fund has to balance just like the general fund. Expenses can't exceed revenues. And so we are, I mean, we'll have to, in the future, look at choices on evaluating what the fee is allowing us to do in terms of the provision of services and present where we find ourselves with those funds in terms of choices on debt versus operating, et cetera. That's the point I'm trying to help my colleagues understand. If we use that money now, we'll probably have to pay double for it later, either by paying it back or if we need a maintenance request within that division, we're going to have to find a way to keep clean our streets. So thank you. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner Driscoll. I've had the opportunity just to kind of listen to my council colleagues as we're talking about fiscal year 11, a fiscal year that I wasn't here as a council member and you coming in to transition. And the points that have been made by my colleagues I think are valid in regards to talking about the policy and procedural steps we ought to take and the caution we ought to take when we're dealing with dedicated sources of funds. But I definitely understand and applaud the administration for what you're trying to do in applying your budgeting principles in fiscal year 12, the principal year forthcoming. But the reality is sometimes you just have to play the cards that you're dealt. So when we're looking at the sought expense of 400 parks acquisition, I totaled that up, and my math comes up to about 1.5. If it's council's directive and guidance to the administration not to use those sources of funds, we still have to come up with about 1.5 to cover those. What would be the administration's plan for that? And when I say play the cards that you're dealt, I know it's the preference of the administration not to use the contingency fund. But that would be one of the few options that would be left. Is that correct? Well, as I see it, you have a choice of additional expenditure reductions, which if you looked at as working through with the agencies, we've evaluated their operating budgets. They're pretty thin. As we move forward into 12, making some additional changes, you're talking additional changes mean additional people changes. Obviously, the reserves are an option. And I don't mean to interrupt you, and we haven't even got to Director Barrow, but additional cuts, personally, I don't see how that's possibly feasible. So if we were to discard that as an option, we're talking about cash reserves. We're talking about rainy day funds, which we don't want to tap, but it's built into the current fiscal year 11 budget. So we're going to have to, as you just mentioned, it's going to be choices. But luckily we're here as a council get to have a say and get to indicate what our preferences are. And the administration has to bring forth its proposals to us. So I guess that's kind of where we are collectively. We have to make a tough choice whether to use these dedicated sources or whether to use reserves. However, I don't think that additional cuts are going to get us to where we want to be. Just my thoughts. Thank you, Commissioner. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just kind of have a comment, and that's to follow really what the Vice Mayor has said and what Council Member Stendis said. And with regards to the use of those dedicated funds, I've always been one that wants to really protect the integrity of what we've said to the taxpayer that money is going to be used for. And if we use that money to do something different like you're suggesting here, and we don't have enough to buy trucks or repair trucks or those things down the road, and we have to raise that tax, then we have to go back and explain to people that we made some adjustments back here, and that's why we're having to raise the tax to do what you already thought this tax was going to do. And so that's going to be really hard for me to support. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Okay. We'll go ahead. Thank you. We had two questions to begin with, and that just sort of snowballed. So, Mr. Barrow. I'd like to transition from more of the policy debate and move into the minutiae of the individual division plans. As previously mentioned, I'll be cognizant of time. I'm going to go over this kind of quickly. I think that the request has been showed to me by department, so that's what we've done in this presentation. By no means am I going to go through the math of that. I just like to work through each department. First, public works and environmental quality. The original target from the administration, so on the reduction to meet target, that's a 4% of original budget figures, is a very daunting task, given that the procedure and the reduction plans were not implemented until – or initiated until February when the new administration kind of got up and running. So that 4 percent annualized, you know, is over 8 percent. So that was what it was going to take to close the gap. Considering Council Member Ford's comments of the operating being somewhat lean, And we worked with each individual division to kind of come up with what their plan was. Some were easier than others. Particularly in this department, engineering was able to give a lot, but it was a result of a grant match that was not required. In addition, the administration's goal of no discretionary spending, given what's proposed in 2012, it's a little hard to justify discretionary spending this year, particularly sending people to conferences and other training that may be postponed and not necessarily required. Law and general services, law was able to get two-tenths of a percent out of there as a result, mostly certification and training and some cuts in their subscription accounts. General services was able to submit almost 5%. The big one there was the repairs and maintenance category. We had some capital monies that were stuck in the budget. Realizing we had large, large, large capital expenditures this fiscal year 11, we did not do a lot of that on the capital side via the bonding. There was $750,000 roughly that was set aside for repairs and maintenance for a large capital expenditure. We've assumed that those are not going to be required, and actually accounting has encumbered them. Social service, I'd like to give them a compliment. Actually, they probably put the most level of due diligence of any department, I think, in this process and submitted what I considered a very great reduction plan. They were able to make reductions in professional services, operating expenditures, and again, like most people, some of the discretionary certification and training count. And they were right at what their administration asked them to do. The CAO was about three and a half. There was various reductions in supplies throughout the various divisions, reductions in travel and training accounts, and additionally grant match that was not required. And again, I'm just touching on the major categories with the detail presented in the chart. The CIO piece of the CAO's office, there's professional services that were not required from additional people's off spending, business travel, operator supplies, supplies and some of the similar accounts that other divisions were ever to submit. And then the general government category, we obviously grouped in there. I think with internal audit being a large contributor on some monies they had set aside for some auditing of some of our IT systems, it was actually insufficient to do the work so they were able to offer that up in the reduction plan as well. Finance was, like most divisions, was able to offer up some various amounts for all of remaining discretionary spending for the balance of fiscal year 11. And they came in at a half a percentage from the original budget. And public safety was the exact same percentage cut, roughly half of a percent. Conferences and training and other discretionary spending. The one thing I want to point out that's different, at least after they submitted the reduction plan that was incorporated and encumbered, they were able this week to come up with another $210,000 in efficiencies throughout their department. So I applaud them for that endeavor, and that was able to be added into this presentation today, although it was not added into the chart because that has yet to be worked through on the encumbered side in accounting. Hello again, everyone. I usually talk about revenues, so I wanted to stay on topic this time, too. In order to put this together, we looked at the March information and tried to see if anything needed to be changed. And we did make some changes, some up, some down, and some all around, I guess, in order to try to make a ditty out of it. But the net effect is that we were looking at $271, about $48,000, and our new revised revenue for 2011 is $271,249. We're hopeful that the net profit, as we spoke earlier in the day, may be catching up to state and national trends, Whether it's going to show up in the fourth quarter of this year, we'll wait and see, but we are hopeful of that. We do have air going out of our insurance, so we've reduced that a little bit with also a tweak to the payroll withholding. There are some other changes in services, and intergovernmental investment income is up slightly. other income went down. And I think Council Member Beard, the police has asked for $76,000 for reimbursement from a WEG for overtime, and I believe the amount for fire was a little over $200,000, and we've already received that, and that's reflected in our estimates. and I'm ready to let the expense side take over from here. Talking through the expense side of the equation on how we're going to spend the $271 million, actually, Council Member Stennett had asked before on the personnel numbers, When you look division by division basis, the only personnel reductions that you see in there are what they offered up on accounts that they control, such as part-time, seasonal, and overtime. So there was operating reductions, divisions offered on those kind of discretionary personnel expenses. And then we have on top of that another $200,000 roughly. Again, it's an estimate, and we're talking about roughly percentage points here. So when we look at it on a monthly basis, I think last time Councilmember Sennett asked when we were all together, I told him we were tracking about $300,000 below budget on a monthly personnel basis. That statement I made last time is true. When we look at the March numbers, we're actually $390,000 below budget. So that is a reasonable estimate, but it is an estimate. In the operating category, what we've reflected here, this would be a new variance for you, but roughly $3.5 million. That detail is what I just went over quickly in the line item detail by divisions. It's $300,000 there, and if I could draw your attention to the operating capital expenditure there, it's where the $750,000 I mentioned comes from general services. Debt service is roughly going to perform to budget on an annual basis. And then partner agencies were going to end the year a little bit above the original budget because there were some budget amendments throughout the year that correct some errors. So basically the highlights of that category are the personnel estimated savings of roughly $2 million. Again, the caveat that we're talking about, just a percent here, it's a very low tolerance level. But based on current numbers is something that we feel confident in projecting. And then the operating category coupled with operating capital expenditures is the initiatives that was made on the division level working with all them. Down to the transfers line, that's where the property sale, we've obviously removed the $4 million property sale that was originally estimated. There is some surplus properties such as vehicles and other things that we do have our projection in there roughly over $200,000. And then the transfers based on the revised projections there. So what we look at on a year basis when you say revenues to expenditures, we're looking at roughly $1.9, just under $2 million. The gap has not been closed. Keep in mind, it started with $15 million. Now we're down to roughly $2 million. So that's the progression. I thought I'm a visual person, so I thought it was important to put this graph again. So the commissioner touched on through budget workshop, and then through today, this is where we're at, just under $2 million. If this holds true, there's money in the general fund that will cover that, and the Rainy Day Fund or the Economic Consumency Reserve would not be touched on an annual basis. But however, these are projections, and when we're talking $271 million, you don't have the level of accuracy within just $1 million. But these are the projections, just under $2 million of an imbalance. Thank you very much. Council Member Martin has a question. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So on the expense side of it, we had a presentation a month or two ago about fire overtime. Can you update us about where that is, where our projections are? Well, last time I looked at fire overtime, there was a budget amendment that came through that was, I think it was $214,000. It was a reimbursement from WEG. I think I looked at fire overtime ending March. With that budget amendment, they're actually below budget in their overtime category. Now, I'm speaking a little bit out of my bailiwick on the policy initiative. And I will tell you, with the interim chief, he has been tasked with controlling overtime for the remainder of the fiscal year. So that's the expectation. Do we have any new projections about where we're going to end up at the end of this year on overtime? The total expenditures I'll have to get for you. Because I think we were at the $80,000 or $90,000 when we started, but looking at possibly up to $450,000. Obviously, that's a big chunk of our shortfall right now. That seems like a controllable cost. Again, the expectation, and I don't know if Commissioner Mason is here, but the expectation was given to the chief to control and not have additional overtime, to control the staffing in terms of apparatus. Look for them coming and updating us at some point about what their plans are. Commissioner, do you have any? Can you come to the microphone, please? Public Safety Commissioner Mason. Hello, Commissioner. Yes. The expenditures on overtime have been adjusted and cut dramatically. I can't give you exact figures right now, but we'll get them to you soon. Well, that's great news, and I appreciate both the effort but also the contribution of the folks on the line. It just helps everything to get these two blue and red lines together, and I know that everybody's working hard to make that happen. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Are there other questions? Council Member Ford? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just recently spoke about the operating cuts, and I want to talk a little bit more about those. With the transition of the new administration, it appears that basically just in lay terms, government-wide, that our divisions have been asked to basically do more with less, basically stop spending, continue working but at all costs almost to say kind of to stop spending to allow us to close this gap in fiscal year 11. Is that correct? No, I would say it's to stop discretionary expenditures. They are expected to continue provision of services, the core services, but we have asked them, one, to give us plans on reductions that didn't impact direct service provision, And two, we have cut out and asked them to cut out discretionary expenditures, expenditures that don't impact direct service delivery. So I wouldn't interpret it that same way. Well, and I say that as an applaud to the administration's leadership, more of an applaud to the division directors and the staff on the ground to respond to the cuts. I think I have a slightly different take on it. When I think of discretionary, I think it's in the budget, and whatever was cut was originally in the budget to support staff in carrying out their duties in regards to service delivery. But neither here or there, we've gone beyond that. The question I have is, it still raises an issue of efficiency for me. I mean, you can only sacrifice at this level for so long. Again, staff and the employees have responded to get us through this tough time. But as we go forward, we won't still be at this same crunch level day in and day out on the backs of the employees, will we? What we have presented as a proposed budget from the mayor makes changes to present a structurally balanced budget. So moving forward, our revenues and our expenditures are estimated to be equal, actually, with the ability to add to the economic contingency fund per the council's ordinance that's in place. So what we have done is reevaluate the services that agents, divisions are providing and worked with them to present a budget, again, to provide direct service. But efficiencies is at the crux of moving forward. Some of the things we're doing, the questions on banking services, you know, I know that there's improvement there. Who has cell phones? Are they appropriately used through this government? The fleet review, I could go on a list of things that, again, not necessarily cutting out what we're providing the employee, but it's how we provide the service, the tools that they use, can we get some economies of scale in terms of purchases, all of those things we are still, this budget was just the beginning. It was the first step in terms of building efficiencies into the government. And then, Commissioner, I appreciate it. And, Council Members, thank you for sharing my thoughts. I just urge us to be very careful and thoughtful, as we definitely are all here to realize that the employees of this government are the ones that provide the services day in and day out. And without the resources for them to carry on their work, then the citizens of our community won't be served. We can only cut so much. That's my message that I want to leave with. Eventually we have to help the administration administer and operate this government and find revenues to support it. And I think it starts with the balanced budget. So thank you for closing this gap, and we look forward to 2012. Council Member Martin. Just to thank you, Vice Mayor, just to closing, I know that I have been very vocal in the need to see this and to have this kind of information. I just really want to thank you and the whole team for bringing this in. And this is the type of nitty-gritty and really the detail, I think, that we want to see, and it helps us sort of be a partner in the process. I just really appreciate this level of detail. Thank you. Thank you. And, Vice Mayor, if I could close the summary real quickly, because I think it helps from our perspective what some of the next steps are, because our work isn't done. But as Ryan said, we have reduced the imbalance of $15 million down to less than $2 million. We project no reduction in the economic contingency fund, but we still have the goal of not dipping into the general fund balance of $2 million. So we continue to evaluate the end-of-the-year procurement, evaluate the revenue as the tax season closes. I asked Bill for every day, you know, what do we do today? How's that compared to last year this time? We continue the policy of no discretionary expenditures. And I'll give you an example. I brought my visual. This is travel, just the last two weeks, travel requests over the last couple of weeks that we're vetting through, determining what travel is mandated for the service, what's required by grants, and evaluating how we're expending those dollars and if they could be used in a more programmatic way. It's a lot of travel. and those are the kinds of things that we continue to look at and then continue with the hiring freeze and that kind of follows into fiscal year 12 in terms of how we've dealt with those vacancies. Thank you very much. There's one last question and then we'll go to item 39 on first reading of resolutions and then we'll continue with our agenda and finish by 5. Okay, Council Member Lawless. Just real quickly, it used to be the mindset in government as well as a lot of agencies that had grants or budgets that at the end of the year it was we need to spend it or we'll lose it. And, you know, so travel, people buy electronic equipment they didn't really need. You know, it was a use it or lose it mentality. And I want to applaud, and I think that's what we're talking about with discretionary spending, signing up for conferences, et cetera. And I really want to commend each employee and division, commissioners, the administration, in shifting that mindset of, well, it's in our budget. We've got to spend it by the end of the year and saying we can give it back to the general fund. And, you know, it's a culture change. and so that very quickly is what I just wanted to say about that and I think they've done that for the last couple of years and are continuing to do it and I do appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much Commissioner Driscoll and Mr. Barrow and Mr. O'Mara. We appreciate your work toward this. We'll continue our discussions. Now, if we could go back to the docket, please, and we've received several pieces of information about number 39, which is on for first reading of resolutions, which is actually still tabled. And this is the downtown Lexington purchase of downtown Lexington Corp purchase of service agreements. and I have Council Member Crosby. Do you want to hear first from, Renee is here off vacation. Shall we hear first from? I was going to make a motion, but from what I heard from the Chief of Staff earlier was that they need it until May 10th. If she's prepared to tell us something differently, I was going to make the motion that we just extend the table until May 10th, and I know that there are many concerns, particularly after getting even some of the handouts we've gotten today, that we could email them to the administration and that hopefully they would be able to come back on May 10th. Mine is strictly also at this point a timing concern with the fact that we have events getting ready to start, registration starting, but I have seen some other things on these handouts that I have some questions. about as well, but I don't know that now is the appropriate time since we're not having a presentation on it. So it's May 10th. Is that what they were requesting? I'm just worried about the timeline because May 12th would be our next meeting, and if we don't have a second reading, then we're looking at May 26th. Yes, May 10th is what we were requesting. Okay, I'll make a motion that we table, extend the table until May 10th and have a presentation by the administration regarding the PSA with the DLC for special events. So moved. Okay, at the committee of the whole work session on the 10th? That's correct. Okay, and does that work? That works perfectly. Thank you. Okay, very good. So is there any motion by Council Member Crosby and second by Council Member Blues to continue this as a table until May the 10th when it will come off the table? And there will be a presentation at the work session on this item. Okay. Okay. If there's no other discussion, are there questions? Did you have a question? Oh, yeah. Okay. Will you, all those in favor, just say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Okay, that motion passes. Thank you, and thank you for the additional information that you brought us about that item. Next, we have Councilmember Lane who will report on the General Government Committee report, which starts on page 29 of the packet. Thank you, Councilmember. We had the General Government Committee meeting on April 12th, and there were three items that we need to bring to the attention of the work session today. The first one was the Citizens Advocate Work Group Update, and we had asked for an opinion from the legal department as to whether or not the job duty of the Citizens Advocate could be combined with those in another position in government. And we received an opinion from Senior Attorney Glenda George, which essentially said the job duties of the citizen's advocate may be combined with another position in the government, but as long as that position was not incompatible with the office and the duties of the citizen's advocate. So what I would like to suggest here is that we bring this to the May 10th Council meeting for further discussion. This was by a motion made by Council Member Myers, and the vote on that was forwarded to by the committee in favor of sending that to the committee with the recommendation to hire a full-time citizens advocate. Do I hear a second? And did I understand you to say normally this would be reported out and go on the docket? Thursday, I believe. Is that not correct? This Thursday. I heard you say May 10th. The only reason I suggest you go on to the May 10th thing is I've been discussed by, you know, one of our work sessions is coming out of committee. I felt like it was an issue that needed to be addressed, but it's fine with me if you want to put it on the docket. We do not have official resolution drafted on this yet. So that would be another factor. This would be the time for discussion on this motion. Council Member Blues? Well, I think it's really premature to put this on the docket. This is a citizen's advocate question, and whether this ought to be a full-time position is one that the council needs to address in a serious manner. and if we put it on the docket for Thursday night, I think we're moving it along much too fast. And also I'm a little confused about the motion. I mean, is it... You seem to be saying two things, that the citizen's advocate position can be combined with with other duties, which would imply that it could be a part-time position, and yet at the same time moving it forward as a full-time position. So I'm confused by this, and I'd be very reluctant to put it on the docket until we've had an opportunity to give it some serious discussion at a work session. That was more or less my thinking, too. You know, the citizen advocate could be a full-time position only doing citizen advocate work, or it could be a full-time position doing citizen advocate work and other work that is not, you know, in conflict with the duties of the citizen advocate. So I think since this will be a budgetary item we're budgeting, I think it would be good to have more discussion of the item. but it did come out of committee as a full-time position for citizens and advocate. And, you know, it was supposed to be referred to the Cal meeting with the recommendation, and it was voted on four to two by the committee. So will you, we have a couple more people who want to speak on the motion. Will you clarify your motion? Okay, well, from the record here, Council Member Myers made a motion to refer out to the Cal a recommendation to hire a full-time citizens advocate. It was seconded by CM Ford, and the motion passed. So that would be the resolution. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, too, would ask for further clarity, and I see Council Member Myers is set to speak behind me. And I did second George's motion, which, as I recall, was simply to refer to the council of the whole that we hire, that we proceed in hiring a citizen's advocate in a full-time capacity, period. That's what I recall. And so I think Council Member Blues did distinguish the slight confusion. There were two things that Council Member Lange originally stated. He is correct, however, that there was discussion in the General Government Committee about whether it could be part-time or dual roles and all those things. But the motion, as I recall, and Council Member Lange, if you could follow me up, please, on Vice Mayor Gordon's direction, that your motion was to refer to the Committee of the Whole that we hire a full-time, appoint a full-time citizen's advocate. So I ask for clarification. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Ford, you're absolutely correct. That is what my motion was. And one of the reasons I want to go ahead and bring it out of committee is because, if you recall, before our restructure and we had the citizens advocate work group, and we also had a tight budget last year, the conversation, let me start back from the beginning. Right now, that office has two full-time FTEs in it. The discussion for the council was, do we go part-time with that position, do we go full-time? But there were a lot of discussion around the fact that in a tight budget, maybe we needed to decrease that office's budget to some degree. The conversation and the agreement that we had as a council was that we would eliminate the admin position in that office and maintain a full-time FTE for the citizen's advocate. In this committee, there's a work group that was set up. A couple different things were discussed. The work group brought back information but did not bring back a recommendation. And that's why I went ahead and made the motion because this thing has just been lavishing around in committee forever. It's been committee to death. The charter requires that we have a citizen's advocate. All the council members have responded to the vice mayor's request. I think it was actually a previous vice mayor maybe. requests for a person in their district to sit on the selection committee for the citizens advocate, but they cannot move forward because the council brought into the debate last year during the budget time this issue of full-time, half-time, duties being segregated out to part-time, maybe a full-time position, but part-time citizen advocate, part-time something different. What I wanted to do was get this out before the full council so we can have this discussion and move this thing forward so this committee can do its work and we can seat that office. The committee did vote, however, to pass this out with a recommendation to the full council that we move forward with the hiring process for one full-time citizen's advocate. Thank you. I might point out that if this motion passes, there will be opportunity also Thursday night when it's reported out to have further discussion. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. That was really going to be my point. We don't have time to fully discuss the pros and cons of this. My vote was to move it forward so that the whole council could consider it. And without going into the details, I think the committee was, at the very least, had differences of opinion about whether it needed to be full-time or part-time and how that might be accomplished. But I think that's a conversation that we need to have. and if we can have it at length on Thursday night, I would favor this motion. If not, I would want it to go back to the council of the whole. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and I agree with Council Member Kaye's comments. I would say that also if we're going to have this conversation on Thursday night, that along with that conversation, we also discussed the fact that the council had, I almost want to say in a gentleman's agreement, the council had agreed that if we were going to eliminate the assistance position, that the assistance advocate would remain full-time. So if the conversation is going to be about taking the advocate down to part-time, then we need to put back on the table having the full-time assistant. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak to the motion? Okay. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. That will be reported out Thursday night as a motion. Our next item, Vice Mayor, is the facilities use policy. And we have a recognition by a motion by Casey Crosby. Well, let me restate that. Yeah, we have a facilities use policy that's attached as part of our packet today on page 34, and we would like to put that on the docket for Thursday the 28th. And the only exception was that Casey Crossman made a motion to substitute the word periodic to the word annual review of the policy. And that was seconded by Council Member Myers. It passed unanimously and came out of committee unanimously for putting on the docket. Do I hear a second? Second. Council Member Kaye seconds. So the motion is to move forward the ordinance on pages 34 and 35 of the packet relating to facilities. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that motion will go forward. As 746, Bruce Shelley reported that the Internal Audit Board had earlier in the day unanimously approved bylaws that were recommended by the state auditor, and those are to be reviewed and approved by council. So that item wouldn't come in. And Councilman Cross.