Now we have a quorum, and it's 1 o'clock on May 15th, and this is a budget committee of the whole, while we work on the fiscal year 13 budget. Welcome. Today we're going to have report outs from our budget links, and the first one is the Finance, Social Services, and Partner Agencies link, and that will be reported by Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess we had a pretty easy go at this this year. As you can see on page one, the various entities that we involved ourselves with, primarily it was finance, social services, and outside agencies. but some of the outside agencies that we dug into a little deeper are listed there. We found actually no reason to make any adjustments at all to the Division of Finance or the Division of Social Services, except as they may touch some of the outside agencies. I might take you to page two. We have three recommendations. Recommendation one involves the Carnegie Center. In meeting with them, they needed a relatively small amount of money to fund a math tutoring. at the center itself, $5,250. We unanimously agreed that we would like to go ahead and see that done and would like to add $5,250, raising their funding from $4,9050 to $54,300. Item number two was a World Trade Center increase from $90,950 to $110,000, and used the additional funding of $19,050 for a part-time trade officer in the Lexington office, some program printing, a new computer for the Lexington office, and local mileage expenses for staff. As you're aware, they have two offices. They have one office in Lexington and they have one in Louisville, so there is some movement back and forth between those two offices. I believe when the World Trade Center was initially started in Lexington, and we were funding it for several years at $225,000. And Louisville jumped in and wanted to get into the game, and that's how we started getting down to lower numbers, but still $110,000 for what they do. And it's a whole bunch of little things. There's no big home runs in their operation, But they do a wonderful job, in my opinion, and it's kind of ironic. We have a World Trade Center building in Lexington down where the Hilton is, the other tower of that building footprint. rent. But they've moved over to the Phoenix building, and I'm sure some savings as far as they're concerned. And to be able to leverage more utilization all in one place, as we've done with downtown Lexington Corporation and DDA. And now on the third, this might be slightly controversial, but the Lyric Theater, we would like to increase their funding from $135,000 to $150,000. And the reason being was that at the time that we approved the $6 million bond for them to be able to renovate and build an addition and all the things that they've done at the Lyric Theater, we promised at that time two years of $150,000. We did $150,000 the first year. The second year, the mayor's office had applied a 10% decrease across the board on expense, and it moved them from $150,000 down to $135,000. My take and the take of the link was that we had made a commitment for $150,000 for two years, and we ought to keep up with that. So the recommendation is that we move another $15,000 into that funding for the Leary Theater. that's about all the fireworks that we had in those three issues. And I'd like to thank my council colleagues, Chuck Adlinger and Chris Ford. and if anybody's got any further questions or would like to hear from the other council participants, they just holler and we'll see what we can do. Council members, will you please log in if you have questions? Council member Farmer. And, Vice Mayor, this may be directed at you first. I don't know. Did we give links any direction on trying to find money in the budget, save money in the budget, spend more money in the budget, or did we just let them all just go forward to their own? We gave the questions as direction, and I think everyone knew we had a tight budget, but we did not say cut or add. Well, we have two LINCS reports today, and both of them add. Yes. I guess from previous work here, I thought we would try to, if we were going to add things, try to find things to cut to match that or more than match that in case we wanted to re-administer some funds somewhere else. But that was just an overall question. Thank you. I think it's a good question, and we'll certainly have to, I would think if the council decides to add expenditures, we will have to cut something or find revenue. I mean, that's, we've brought that up at a good time as we're starting our LINCS report outs. Well, I mean, and the suggestions are very good. The LINCS works very good. It's just we need to step back as a group and say, you know, where are we trying to get to? And is there another goal other than the one that the mayor specifically laid out through his budget address? Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. I've got a rebuttal, I guess. We talked about that ourselves, Councilman Farmer, and we thought that we were not talking about, A, a whole lot of money first, and, B, we're somewhat limited by what other groups, what other divisions within the government that we had any kind of level of control over. So if you've got some that are fatter than they need to be, we would be glad to go into the link that you're involved in and make up that. but finance and social services has done a pretty good job to begin with. If I may understand. And obviously that's a problem everybody has, and you can knock the ball back across the net any time you want to. Mr. Farmer, do you want to put the ball back across the net? I would just say that we're all in this together, and we just need to make a plan as a council where we want to get to when we're done. and I think we can tailor each of the link's answers accordingly, hopefully. It will not be easy. Last year wasn't easy, and this year is not going to be either. But I appreciate the work done. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. You're welcome. Are there any other questions? If not, I will ask a few. Council Member Beard, in your report, I believe I read that there are eight new agencies being funded, and I was not able to determine on the list on page 17 which ones were new. Can you help me understand that? I'm not sure I could either, but I think social services can. Okay. The aid, however, I do remember got no funding. At least that was at one point where we were. They were added, but there was no funding for that group. Is that correct? Welcome. If you don't mind to remind council members of your name, please. Sure. Good afternoon. Page 17 of your backup. It's a little tough to read in the backup, but there are some shaded agencies, and those are the new applicant agencies. They were Mission Lexington, the YMCA, the Carnegie Center. Carnegie Center was funded previously, but not with social services dollars. Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Urban League, Bluegrass Technology, Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky, Kentucky Pink Connection. And I think that was it for the funded agencies. There were also five agencies that had applied that hadn't previously applied that were not funded. So, Craig, I'm sorry, would you please say your last name? Bents. Bents. So we're working with black and white copies, most of us. So on page 17, you're saying that everything that's shaded through Kentucky Pink Connection is a newly funded agency? Right. All of the agencies where the line is shaded are new agencies that had applied. So then the last two, four, seven, what are the last seven, six of which are not funded? They're also shaded. The first is YMCA, which was funded for a different program up above, Faith in Action, CHES, Imani Family Life Center, Lexington Home Ownership Commission, which is a 501c3 of the Housing Authority, and Bluegrass Council of the Blind. So is there any meaning to the shading of those? Only that they were new agencies applying. They hadn't applied for partner agency funding in the past. Okay, thank you. And you might be the person to answer the question of item 2, Hope Center Recovery Program for Men, and item 15, Hope Center Recovery Program for Women. The women was not funded. The men was. What was the reason? We had, Hope Center had 10 applications this year. They each went forward to an objective review committee. Those committees reviewed the applications as well as hearing a 10-minute presentation from the applicant for each program. And that is just the way those committees had ranked them. They had ranked the recovery program for men at 93.33 points. and the other, the recovery program for women, came in at 86 points. So that's just where they ended up in the total application cycle. There were 41 total applications. Do you, in your evaluation then, when a program such as the Hope Center Recovery Program for Women is not funded, do you get any feedback as to the impact on the program if it's not funded? by us? We did not this year. That's something we could look at for the future to get additional information from the applicants, but this year we looked at the program on their face and reviewed them as objectively as possible and ranked them for funding. Okay. And then I'm not sure if there's anyone here who could answer a question about the Lyric Theater. This is not about our funding. But when we, for those of us who were on the council, we remember that we asked the Lyric Theater to start raising money. And I would like for someone, I don't know who the right person is, to find out how much money was raised the first year by the Lyric Theater in terms of their own fundraising. Does anybody know that? Council Member Ford, you're on their board. Thank you, Vice Mayor Gordon. And the council's designated to the Lyric Board. The Board of Directors for the Lyric meets monthly and has a meeting scheduled for the Tuesday of the month, which is next Tuesday. Looking at the financials that were presented at our last meeting on April 24th, total income this year of approximately $285,000, $135,000 of which was the management fee from urban county government and the rest reflects programmatic income and also fundraising sponsorship income to some of the highlights vice mayor is in council members 70,000 in sponsorship income 10,000 in grant income from the friends of the Lyrica supporting organization and the The rest of it was programmatic. The projected budget, revenue-wise, for this fiscal year, which operates on the same fiscal year, was $427,500. So the budgeted $427,500 and has brought in about $285,000 to date. Now fiscal year ends on June 30th. I will share with the members of the council that, as a board member, I'm also serving as chair of the board. as of last month and I look forward to carrying out that role for the duration of this calendar year. In regards to our budgetary projections for fiscal year 13, at our meeting next week, we will have a report from our executive director and our budget and audit committee, which will bring forth revenue projections. We're going to have great discussion, we believe, at our board meeting then. And from there, the executive director and the audit committee will go back and consider what was discussed by the entire board and also kind of match those revised revenue projections to programmatic expenses, and hopefully we'll adopt a budget the last week of June. So that's kind of where we stand financially, Vice Mayor. Okay. I appreciate that. Congratulations on your leadership role. and I'm sure that the Council will look forward to seeing those numbers as soon as you have them. Yes, Mayor. Now, Council Member Kay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I wanted to go back to the question that you asked about the funding for the Hope Center programs, and either I missed it or I misunderstood. My understanding was that these were programs that scored high, but a decision had been made about a cap on an individual agency, and that is the reason why they may have scored high, but they have not received any funding. Could you just elaborate on that? Sure, that's true, and I should have mentioned that. Hope Center ended up being the only agency that was subject to the cap this year because they had requested a total of about $1.5 million. The work group that did the reviews and did the funding recommendations put a cap of $666,000 on the awards, which was this year's funding for the Hope Center as well. So if you look down that list just by way of explanation, The first 10, the way the work group did this is the first 10 agencies received 85% of the funding that they requested. The next 10 agencies received 75% of the funding they requested. The next five, or agencies 21 through 25, received 65%. and then agencies 26 through 35 received half or 50% of the funding that they requested. So what we did in the case of Hope Center, they had item two, for example, the recovery program for men received 85% of the funding that was requested, and so on following that rule until they hit that cap, until they hit that $666,000, and then we cut it off from there. So that's why you see, even though they had some higher-ranked programs, the one you brought up, the recovery program for women, is in that tier where it could have been funded at 75%, but they reached their cap before it got to that point. They reached their $666,000 cap. Thank you. And could you, I don't know if you have these numbers to hand, but the percentage of all the funds that were available, the percentage of all the funds that were applied for, what percentage did the Hope Center apply for? What did they apply for? They applied for $1.5 million of the $1.75, so it was, what is that, 85% or so. So if they had been fully funded according to just the rankings, they would have absorbed some 65%, 75%, 85% of the funding. It was nearly a million. It was around 65%, if I remember correctly. And as it stands, they ended up receiving right around 39% or 40% of the funding. So they still received a good chunk of the total allocation, but not as much as they had requested. Thank you. So if I can just follow up with a comment, the Vice Mayor's question about the impact of failure to fund. First of all, we didn't fund any of these agencies at 100 percent. So nobody got everything they asked for. Some got significantly less and some got none for certain programs. So if we are concerned about the impact, then we need to look going forward, I think, at the whole issue of how adequately we fund our partner agencies and the ways in which we think about that funding and the formulas that we use. But thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Henson. Craig, I had a question for you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The cap was based upon what? How was that derived? The cap was derived from the maximum funding that any agency received in the current fiscal year. So Hope Center received $666,000 in fiscal year 12. So that was set at the cap as the cap for 13 as well. So they got the same amount of money as in fiscal year 11. Yes, ma'am. Or 12. 12, I'm sorry. But this was based upon programs, but when you totaled it up, they did not get any increase, but they stayed flat, really, in funding for the new fiscal year. They were awarded program dollars up to that cap according to the ranking. Okay. I just wanted to make sure we clarified that. Thank you. Councilmember Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. If you all will look at that page and look under item number six, and that's programs at the detention center for mental health and substance abuse services. and I raised a question in our meeting when we discussed this, but I need the administration to give me the answer if they could. Maybe not right at the moment, but sometime soon. We have a commissary and a telephone structure at the detention center. that we pull in hundreds of thousands of dollars. And historically, that money at one time or another just sits there and sits there and sits there. And if this is a program at the detention center that is of some value, why can we not fund the need that the Hope Center or Detention Center operation might have? out of that pot of money. And I'm sorry, Glenn, but it's probably going to be... Good afternoon. What I'll do is I'll get with Commissioner Ballard and get an actual breakdown of what that fee can and cannot pay. I think that would be something that would give you more of an understanding because some program-related opportunities cannot be paid for out of that fund. But I will get a complete breakdown of what it can and can't. I guess the thing that also needs to be assessed is what do you all say is the value of having that program at all. There's a lot of value. Well, I would think it would be, too. I'm just, what I'm trying to do is squeeze a little bit more money for the Hope Center because they're doing so many things on so many different fronts. And maybe it doesn't have to be all of it, but a contribution would help and would free up some other money maybe for some of the ones that got zeroed. Okay, I'll get that for you soon. Okay, very good. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. I know that during these tight times, hard decisions have to be made. And because I know of the Bluegrass Rape Crisis Center's situation pretty intimately, Because the money they use from LFUCG is matched for a federal grant, they had to apply under mental health and substance abuse. However, certainly the bulk of their programs are outreach to immigrant. They have the program on, you know, they do an enormous amount of violence prevention work. They have the trafficking programs. But because what they used the money for from LFUCG is match money for a federal grant that does the mental health and substance abuse, it seems that they were kind of caught in a sticky situation and were therefore raided and penalized, even though rather than looking at all the work they did, they didn't apply for 10 different programs, et cetera. So their allocation was cut in half. I think they came in at number 28. It's not a perfect system, and I applaud that we're trying to do something in a way that is more objective. But for some agencies, it puts them in a bind, and I'm sure they may not be the only ones. And I was wondering if somebody could speak to that. Commissioner Mills? Welcome. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. You're correct. We've had a lot of calls for agencies. We had one agency that didn't increase their request from last year and felt like they were penalized. This was the first year. We didn't put a cap on the number of programs that you could apply for. So, in fact, Bluegrass Rep Crisis could have applied for multiple programs if they desired to do so. We didn't put a cap on the amount of money that any one program could ask for. So the only way the rankings were done were by independent committees based on the service that was being offered, the value as they saw for the dollars they were asking for, the per-client service money. We did not figure in were they leveraging money with that. And I think we talked with you about that in the Social Service Committee. We would like to do that next year. That would be a good factor to put in there because if you're using our money to get more money, that's a good thing. But that was not a factor this year in the scoring. This was our first year, but there were no caps. There were not many guidelines to the agencies other than we're funding programs, apply for programs, and as much money as you need for that program. So those being the ground rules, we got lots of variances in the applications. And they did not ask for any increase. And they only asked for one program. And, again, it's because that's the program that they need the match money for. But in the orientation, we said apply for programs that you want funded, programs. And so some agencies applied for multiple programs. Some just applied for one. But the instruction was to apply for programs and how much money you need to fund those programs. I think there was a scoring bonus on there for agencies who didn't use more than 20 percent of urban county government money because we wanted to see a variety of a funding base from these agencies. We do want to help these agencies, but we don't want to be their primary source of funding. Yeah, and they certainly fall under that 20 percent. What's up? I mean, it seems like they hit all the marks except that that's the program that they need the match money for. But they did have the ability to apply for multiple programs and ask for more money if they chose to do so, and they did not, which was true of all the agencies. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I brought this up earlier in a previous meeting, but if you look at the 10-year history of our funding of social and community services and the arts, it's pretty clear that we have left these programs stagnant over 10 years. Our funding of social and community services in 2002 totaled about $1.7 million. and 10 years later we're at $1.9 million. So that's a $200,000 increase over 10 years. Arts and education in 2002 totaled $910,000 and in 2012 totals $870,000. So we're $40,000 less this year than we were 10 years ago. our budget has increased by more than 70 million dollars in 10 years and yet our commitment to our community to those who are less fortunate than we are and to the arts and the things that make a great place where people want to live is stagnant our commitment has has left us and so So I hope we as a council can look at the bigger picture of who is getting funding and who isn't. Because year after year saying, well, we're short of funds, we have to cut back on our partner agencies. We have to cut back on these folks who are helping the homeless, who are feeding the homeless, who are helping them find shelter, is not adequate. and I think our budget this year is about $18 million more than it was just two years ago. We have more money. We are just not spending it on the needy. We are spending it someplace else and I hope we as a council can re-examine our priorities about our partner agencies and this is the place where we do it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Just one historical note. You brought up the 10-year history And I know that councils in the past have made, in different years, an intentional decision not to increase partner agencies. Some of you have been around for those discussions to encourage partner agencies to bring in grants and do self-funding more. And so there was an intentional effort in some of those years. I would have to go back and look at what years, but that's part of that history. So just to say that as a historical note, not a right or wrong. If I might respond to that, though, but clearly we're spending an additional $70 million on somebody. I don't doubt it. Yes, I'm not debating that. I'm just saying the history of the discussion has been very different in the past. Council Member Henson. performances too and you know what do we get for our money and where should where are our needs in the community what needs are not being met and i think don't you think that's something the assessment will the needs assessment will bring i think the whole process thank you um council member henson i think the whole process will be a little more refined next year it was a good stab at this But I met today with the College of Social Work earlier, and they're going to bring students. We're going to do an inventory of needs assessments that exist in the community to try to look at where the main needs are. We're going to interface it with the agencies that applied. The second semester, they're going to go into focus groups and go into detail. They'll be bringing presentations to you all. And so that when we make funding decisions, maybe not in FY14, by FY15, we should have a pretty good roadmap to say these agencies should be prioritized over others. And I might make an editorial comment for Council Member Martin. Part of that extra money went to my department. We did get funding increases this year. So even though partner agencies lost, the Department of Social Services, we asked for additional positions, additional funds to pay rent and utilities for low-income people. And so some of that $9 million went to us, and we were very grateful to the LINCS Committee for that. Thank you. Thank you both for your time. Council Member Lawless. To Council Member Martin's point, again, going back to the Rape Crisis Center, In 1978, the Bluegrass Rape Crisis Center received almost exactly the same dollar amount that they are receiving this year. So that's over 30 years. and I think that the other programs that they had were for direct service and they had to use that money for direct service. Again, it's not looking at the big picture. I mean, I guess they could have applied for other things, but that's not what they needed the match money for. So their honesty, their being forthright, not asking for extra money, seems to, in this case, has penalized them greatly. And that concerns me, and I'm sure that there may be others in that situation that I'm unaware of. But this is crippling to that agency. Thank you. Are there any other questions, Councilmembers? Councilmember Ellinger and Councilmember Ford, did you have anything else to add to the link report? Okay, thank you very much, Councilmembers Beard, Ellinger, and Ford, for your report. And next we have the general government link report, Councilmember Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The General Government Budget Link, the members of that committee were myself, Doug Martin, and Kevin Stennett. And I'd like to also thank Scott Seymour for compiling a good part of the data for the meeting and for Jonathan Hollinger for helping us also in compiling and writing the final report. If you'll look at the overhead, and if you can go to page 20 of the report. Thank you. Could you slide that up? That's good. That's very good. That was the mayor's proposed budget. We're providing that to you sort of a baseline of what was originally proposed, and we did review each of those different areas of expenditure, and in some cases they had been cut, in some cases they were approximately the same as last year. There were very limited increases. The total budget was $24.6 million. Can you go to the next page, please? It says link recommendations at the top. Yes, thank you. And these are our recommendations. Could you slide that up just a little more on the page, please? Thank you. That's very good. And these were our recommendations. For the Commonwealth Attorney, we recommend adding $4,400 to cover the cost of parking for unpaid law interns. And they have a number of volunteers who are not paid, but the only thing they provide them is parking. And so we felt that to get the benefit of all these interns working there at no cost, that that expenditure was reasonable and justified. In the council office, we recommended to eliminate a $42,000 professional line item as professional fees. This funding was previously used to pay for professional services, including the council's temporary budget analyst. but we now have a full staff of council personnel, and we feel for the next fiscal year we will not have to outsource these services. The other item was to restore funding for the Neighborhood Development Fund program by eliminating budgeted expense reductions in the amount of $75,225. This amount was reduced last year and was carried over this year, and we felt that going two years without having an adequate neighborhood development fund would be inappropriate. And then we've added $7,000 for increased usage of the council office copier, where the usage is exceeding the estimate for the year, and we're adjusting that for fiscal 13. In the Area of Human Rights Commission, we're adding $50,000, and that is to cover the cost of their rent, which is going to be $15,000 more for the coming fiscal year, and to fund a new community outreach position. The Human Rights Commission has had a pretty heavy cut in their spendable income because a couple of years ago they had some carryover debt, which they're having to retire, which is cut into their available cash flow for the coming year, and it was the opinion of the committee to add that additional funding. And then in the Department of Planning, Preservation, and Development, we are recommending adding $68,000 to increase the corridor's maintenance funding to an amount of $118,000. Council Member Blues is the chair of that committee, and he felt that to not adequately fund where the corridor committee could actually do maintenance and work on the corridors would be, there would be no use to even have the committee and that was the consensus of our members. All right, and human resources, these are just other recommendations. We are asking for a review of the fee structure and subsidy of services provided to employees by the YMCA. That would be essentially an adjustment of our contract with the YMC for the coming fiscal year. The Human Rights Commission, we are recommending that we convert their payments to monthly payments where they in previous years have been on semi-annual or quarterly payments. And then for the Division of Computer Services, We're asking to improve the wireless services in the council chambers and throughout the government center with existing budgeted funds. These items would just be administrative. Things need to be done without additional cost. We can now go to the next page, please. Okay, here's now a summary of the changes. You might just darken that slightly if you could. Okay. Is that a bad copy or is that just bad lighting on that? There we go. I can't read that from here, but I've got my copy here. The adjustment in cost, there are some credits and some debits, so the total increase in the budget for these departments and partner agencies, et cetera, is $162,625. And you can see the increase is $4,400 for the Commonwealth Attorney, $40,225 for the Council Office, $68,000 for the Department of Planning, Preservation, and Development, and $50,000 for the Human Rights Commission. So that concludes my report, and I suppose we'll be open to any questions. Yes, Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Actually, there was one item where the committee wasn't on complete agreement, the link, and that was regarding the Corridors Commission. and I am a member of the Corridors Commission as well, the item is to put $118,000 of maintenance in the Corridors Commission budget. And my comments about this is that I think this is something that the city is supposed to be doing anyway. And we desperately need maintenance. And I have been advocating for maintenance of our Corridors trees since I came on the council. We plant trees, but we don't take care of them. And so I know at the airport, for example, we replaced those because they all died, because we didn't take care of them. But what I think we need, rather than give a maintenance budget to the Corridors Commission, which isn't our function, and I'll let our chairman address that, but we need to allocate personnel and a couple of watering trucks to Tim Query. So Tim, who is our arborist, can oversee the maintenance of these corridors projects. It's easy to have kids. It's harder to raise them. And so it's easy to plant trees in the ground. It's harder to raise them to maturity. And anyone who has seen Gratz Park or the Richmond Road corridor knows the value of a mature canopy. It creates value for the entire neighborhood, and it creates the kind of place where people want to be. So I think the Corridors Commission is enormously important for economic development so that Lexington is a beautiful place where people enjoy coming, both from tourists, but also for people who want to live here. And so my recommendation is that we allocate a budget to have a couple of personnel who can do other things in the off-season, but who basically go from place to place watering trees. And you desperately need that in the summer months. And that we use our watering trucks to do that. And I also recommend that we actually have a project fund for the Corridors Commission. I mean, we have larger budgets. The fact that we're in tight times is sort of a priority issue because we have $18 million more than we did two years ago. What we're not doing is we're not giving it to corridors. We're taking it from corridors and putting it someplace else. And so I think there's little reason to gather 20 people for two hours once a month to sit around a room and talk about money that we don't have. So we've seen from Greenville, North Carolina, what the enormous impact of a corridors program can be. And I think we have to make a commitment to the corridors commission. These folks are very talented. They're very dedicated. But we just have no funds to do projects. and it will pay off dividends for our community. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Just to follow up on Council Member Martin's comments, first let me say that as Chair of the Corridor's Commission, And on behalf of the Commission, I'm grateful that the link is recommending that our full request for maintenance, which was $118,000, will be recommended to the full Council. The irony is, as Council Member Martin says, is that maintenance is not part of the Corridors Commission mission. Our mission, by ordinance, is to review and assess the corridors along major roads, major and minor arterials, and make recommendations to the mayor regarding aesthetic qualities, landscaping, fencing, signage, litter, and so forth. So we did that. We made a recommendation to the administration. The maintenance function has been sort of grafted on to the commission, so we did request the money for maintenance, simply because if we don't do that, the trees, the shrubbery, and so forth that have been planted in previous years, are at risk of dying. And we don't have the funds, haven't been granted the funds to replace or to treat them, keep them alive. In FY12, for example, we had no budget allocation whatsoever. And FY11 funds, some that were left over, were not carried forward. We also asked for, from the administration, $467,000 for new projects. The administration did provide $150,000 for a project, that is for a study of the Versailles Road corridor, but that's not to the Corridors Commission at all. So the Corridors Commission was completely bypassed in that process. and was allocated for a study regarding which the Corridors Commission knew nothing. So Council Member Martin is correct. We have a commission. It has a purpose, but it is not adequately funded. And we have made some commitments. For example, we made a commitment, this is a small one, to Art in Motion, which, as you know, is a volunteer organization that has been instrumental in getting attractive and functional bus stops here and there throughout the city. we made a commitment of $5,000 for the, you know, for our motion, if and when we had the money. We still don't have it. So that's why I would endorse what Council Member Martin says. And again, I appreciate the link's support, but we as a city, we're not doing enough to support the Corridors Commission, and I don't understand why we're initiating the Corridors Project aside from, apart from, the Corridors Commission. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. and I guess I would like to say that there are many, many projects that are done throughout our city without any plans for maintenance. So I'm looking at the legacy trails and different things that we do, but there is maintenance involved with all of those projects, so we really do need a plan. I agree with Councilmember Blues. I disagree with him on the Forcells Road monies because that Forcells Road is a major corridor into our city. It is the route from Bluegrass Airport, from Keeneland, from Bluegrass Parkway. There's multiple, multiple other reasons as far as pedestrian traffic. The corridor, I have been on the council for four and a half years, and every year I have requested funds to look at for South Road. Finally, the mayor listened and put the money in the budget, and I would hope that I would have the council support to keep it there. I actually requested $250, but was given $150. and I think from folks I've talked to that would be sufficient to do a comprehensive study to really look at what upgrades for Shells Road needs to its sidewalks and curbing, bicycle paths and so forth. But I do agree with the points Council Member Blues have made and Council Member Martin as far as needing, you know, we plant trees. We're trying to make our city look beautiful. And it was. It was just terrible that those trees along the airport perished because we didn't water them. And if that was the reason. But anyway, I support that. If there was any way to include this in streets and roads budget, whatever we would need to do to maintain the work that's done. Thank you. You're welcome. Council members, do you have other questions? May I just make a closing comment just for a second? I have a few questions. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm just wanting other council members to weigh in. Commissioner Sally Hamilton, I have a question about the Human Rights Commission rent. Welcome. them. We have, under your guidance and leadership, been redoing all of our contracts for rent of LFUCG-owned buildings. Is the Human Rights Commission rent in that same group that you've been working on? Yes, it is. And it will be, we're preparing it now to come in front of the Council, and It will be on the June agenda. Okay, for fiscal year 13. 13. And so is this item, does this item gel with what you're preparing, or was there any conversation with your office about this rent? When we first looked at this thing, we did not know there was going to be any increase to the budget or not. So we were looking at just simply the O&M, the utilities and the operation and the maintenance, being in there. But then when the budget increase happens, we have adjusted what we're looking at for the Human Rights Commission and to charge them fair market value for their piece of property. that in turn, when it's repaid to us, will hopefully go to a fund to help all the properties be in better shape. Yes. Okay, thank you. I guess I would ask Mr. Lane then on that item why you chose, why your link chose to recommend this for the one group, the Human Rights Commission. Well, I think the reason is because we did get a recommendation from the General Services on the rent structure, and we did pass an ordinance by council that everybody would pay their operating expenses, and either some or all of their rent. And I think this is a really important thing that we do this, even if it ends up that we help reimburse part of the additional rent. Because if you have somebody that's occupying a space and they're not responsible for the cost of the utilities, repairs, maintenance, janitorial services, water usage, and things like that, as well as the amount of space that they have. It doesn't matter to them if it's 1,000 feet or 10,000 feet if they're not paying for it. So what we're trying to do is get the fair market value on this so that we can value what we're giving in a way of space to tenants and what they're paying for, and they will be motivated to operate as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible so that in the long haul it will be good for them and good for the government. And if we continue this process over the next year or so, we should be able to really analyze the exact needs of tenants because they're not going to keep extra space if they do have to pay a fee for it, and they will downsize to the appropriate size for their use. And that, in turn, would allow us maybe to consolidate some users in a building and have more efficiency in the buildings too. So that's some of the theory behind that. My question is not about charging fair market value. My question is, why did your link choose to cover $50,000 of the cost of the rent for the Human Rights Commission? We have many entities that rent space for us. Well, I mean, most of the people in this are either they're divisions of government, and we don't charge any divisions of our government that we actually control. So they're the only people that have independent budgets. I don't know that there's any others in there that I'm looking through here. All these are just regular divisions of our government. So they wouldn't be paying separate rents. Which division is the Human Rights Commission in? I think that's a state statute that says that's an independent agency, and we're required to provide funding for that under the state statute. I'm only curious about the rent, because we have, and maybe we'll see other links recommending subsidizing the rent. Since we have this new program of how we choose to rent and the agreements we're making, I was only curious about why you had recommended subsidizing. Well, this was the only outside-type agency that we have. The other thing that I would like to say is I feel that we have to treat these outside agencies on an equitable basis. There may be a few exceptions to that where somebody is actually contributing money for the operation of property that we have. For example, I think over in one of the adult centers, somebody is actually providing food in the space that we're providing. I think they're the only person that I know that's gotten free space, but they are providing food for people in that facility. I think we have to be equitable and treat everybody the same way and have the same policy. If we don't treat everybody the same and have the same policy, then we won't have a good management of our real estate. Another question I had. Did your link discuss money for the renovation of the conference room for the council? Yes, ma'am, we did, and that was a capital expenditure. and we felt there are several options available, and we'd sort of throw that back over into your belly wick. We could maybe have a committee meeting of the whole and decide what our options would be there, but we didn't allocate any funding for that. So you didn't look at how much it would cost to do that or discuss? Well, we got some numbers. I mean, the two options that were presented were, one, was to take the space behind us and do renovation, do a space on this floor, or to do renovation on the fourth floor for some type of conference facility. But because we were only three people on the committee, we felt that that's a bigger decision than we wanted to enter, and two, we bring it before council for discussion. During budget? You're talking about budget discussions? Well, yes, I guess that would be an option. Okay. And then one final question. On the funding for the professional services for the council, how much of that $42,000 was for other things? Did you look at a five-year or six-year perspective on that? Did you get that report? It was my understanding. We don't have a general ledger showing the exact expenses in there, but it was my understanding that approximately $25,000 was for outside services in the staff area to do budgeting and things like that. And I believe that the other portion of it was a one-time study or something that we did during the last year. We got some kind of consulting project we paid for. Maybe it was economic development analysis that was done, or we contributed to that. I'm not sure exactly what that cost was, but it was some one-time cost that was in that line item. So did your link look at five or six years' worth of expenditures out of that line item? No, we did not. I would be interested to do that, just to be sure before we cut it, that we're not cutting something that next year we'll regret. Okay. So thank you very much. Council Member Lawless. I would just like to say thank you for the increase to the Human Rights Commission. It is not a nonprofit organization, so they cannot use, and because of the confidential information, they can't use volunteers. They can't raise money. And that's a federal requirement for us to receive HUD and our community development block grant money that we have a Human Rights Commission staffed at a certain level. So thank you very much. Does anyone else have any more questions? My final question to you would be, you said that there would be no cost to the wireless services in the council chambers. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Our IT people said they were already budgeted for things like that, and they would be able to handle that without a problem. Thank you. Okay. And my closing, I just had a couple of closing thoughts based on some of the comments of our other council members. One is I wanted to mention that in our links we discussed the fact that after we had the problem out along Manowar Boulevard near the airport for trees in the corridor, is that, for example, the airport board agreed to water some of those trees for the Irvin County government. And there might be other opportunities where if we planted trees that businesses or even neighborhood associations along the corridor might agree to help us in watering the trees so that we can have a community effort on this. That would also save money, which would be good for everybody, the taxpayers and our budget. The other point that came up was the discussion about maintenance. And I would like to say that we do have a bad track record for funding for maintenance, particularly in many of our buildings. And, you know, our general government committee, you know, we oversee, you know, some of those issues. And I can tell you that we are underfunded on maintenance. And, of course, that comes back to haunt you because deferred maintenance sometimes will save you money in major repairs. and that's all of my comments and I wanted to thank my committee members for their help and we'll see you next year Council Member Lane, thank you and Council Member Martin and Council Member Stennett for serving on the general government link and Council Members, are there any final questions about these two reports before we look at our budget schedule? So it's on the back page of your packet. And so our next meeting is the budget link report out on this Thursday, May 17th. And it's going to be here in the chambers at 3 o'clock. And this will be Council Member Blues reporting out and Council Member Myers reporting out, Environmental quality and public safety. Okay. Very good. Yes? We had a couple unfinished pieces of business from our last meeting that we still have not received the information on. I didn't know if you or anybody else knew about the debt on the bonds we asked for from 2011. When were we going to get that list? Commissioner Driscoll? Our last minute was about the bonding and the debt, and we had unused bond proceeds, and this current fiscal year's budget will be reallocated. Right. The balances in the reallocated projects. Right. Okay. We can get that to you. I'm sorry that we haven't had that list, so we'll get that to you. Okay. But it's just those projects we reallocated last year. Correct. Right. And what their status are in this current fiscal year. Because you're asking us to reallocate again. Correct. different projects. Right. Just want to make sure we've done the ones we've said we're going to do. Gotcha. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Are there any other issues? If not, do I hear a motion to adjourn? I'll move. Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you very much.