# Budget Committee of the Whole - May 29, 2012 > Auto-transcribed civic record · May 29, 2012 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2536 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2536?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2012-05-29 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 6,576 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 FY 13 Budget Committee of the Whole met on May 29, 2012, at 1:00 p.m., with the Vice Mayor presiding. The committee addressed three agenda items during the session. One motion was voted on and approved, while two items were presented for informational purposes. The committee heard two public comments during the meeting. The approved item included General Services Link, presented by Kay. Two informational presentations were also provided: the FY 13 Council Budget Schedule and Other Business matters. ## Attendance The following 24 individuals were present at the meeting on May 29, 2012: - Steve Kay - KC Crosbie - Diane Lawless - Jane Driskell - Richard Maloney - Melissa Lueker - Linda Gorton - Tyler Scott - Scott Seymour - Stacey Maynard - Jennifer Benningfield - Paul Schoninger - Connie Undemeod - Jamshid Baradaran - Dave Loney - Jerry Hancock - Mike Fields - Tracey Thurman - Ryan Barrow - Elizabeth McGee - Leah Boggs - Andrea James - Jason Nehmer - Sally Hamilton No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The meeting concluded with a motion for adjournment, which passed by voice vote [timestamp: 0:48:27]. There were no recorded objections to the adjournment. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed several financial matters related to Parks Administration and fleet management: **Revenue Amendment** An amendment was approved to increase projected revenue from golf by $152,894.00 to fund Parks Administration maintenance. **Committee Referrals** Two matters were referred to the General Government Committee for further consideration: - Fleet right-sizing - Updating of CAO Policy #3 **Vehicle Replacement Fund** The meeting established an annual vehicle replacement fund to begin in fiscal year 2014. ## Public Comment Two speakers addressed the council regarding skate park development during the public comment period. **Skate Park Community Member** [timestamp: 0:00:00] A youth participant spoke in support of a new skate park project. The speaker shared personal testimony about how the current skate park has positively impacted their life. They expressed enthusiasm for plans to build a new, larger facility featuring bigger ramps. The speaker emphasized the importance of having a legal, centralized space dedicated to skating and encouraged community members to participate in fundraising efforts to support the project. **Elizabeth Chatterton** [timestamp: 0:03:45] Elizabeth Chatterton, a staff member in the 8th District Council Office and member of Friends of the Skate Park, introduced the nonprofit organization and described its mission. She explained that the group is working to raise private funds for a new skate park through community events and fundraising initiatives. ## Contested Items **Deferred Maintenance Across City Departments** Council members engaged in a heated discussion regarding the accumulation of deferred maintenance across multiple city departments, including facilities, fleet, and parks. The core disagreement centered on the city's approach to postponing maintenance costs. Multiple council members expressed frustration, emphasizing that delaying these expenses would only increase long-term financial burdens. The discussion reflected strong consensus among council members that the current strategy was unsustainable. The outcome of this debate was agreement on the need for a formal, long-term capital maintenance plan to address the issue systematically. **Mowing and Maintenance Funding Cuts** Council Member Stennett raised significant concerns about a $200,000 reduction in the mowing budget over a five-year period. This funding cut had resulted in visible consequences, with complaints about neglected parks and trails throughout the city. Stennett's position was that maintenance funding should be protected and preserved, particularly when new projects are being funded. He called for the adoption of a formal policy to ensure that maintenance dollars are not sacrificed in favor of new initiatives. This dispute highlighted the tension between funding new capital projects and maintaining existing city assets. ## General Services Link — Kay (1-10) [timestamp: 00:08:16] Councilmember Steve Kay presented the findings and recommendations of the General Services Link, which examined three major service areas: Facilities, Fleet Management, and Parks and Recreation. **Key Issues Identified** The presentation highlighted several significant challenges across the reviewed departments: - **Deferred Maintenance**: Accumulated maintenance needs requiring attention across facilities - **Fleet Aging**: Vehicles in the city fleet approaching the end of their operational life - **Capital Planning**: Need for a long-term capital maintenance strategy to address ongoing infrastructure needs **Recommendations** The committee proposed structural reforms to address these issues while maintaining fiscal responsibility: - **Vehicle Replacement Fund**: Establishment of a dedicated fund to systematically replace aging fleet vehicles - **Revenue Allocation for Parks**: Improved mechanisms for allocating revenue to Parks and Recreation services - **Budget Approach**: Recommended no net change to the overall budget while implementing the proposed structural reforms **Outcome** The General Services Link presentation and its recommendations were approved. The committee's approach balanced the need to address deferred maintenance and fleet replacement with fiscal constraints by proposing structural reforms rather than budget increases. ## Other Business During this agenda item, council members discussed systemic deferred maintenance issues affecting multiple city departments. [timestamp: 0:23:50] **Concerns Raised** Council members identified deferred maintenance as a widespread problem spanning facilities, fleet, and parks departments. They emphasized the critical need for a long-term strategic plan to address capital maintenance needs and prevent future financial crises resulting from neglected infrastructure. A key concern highlighted during the discussion was the importance of separating maintenance funding from new project funding. Council members stressed that conflating these two budget categories has contributed to the current maintenance backlog. **Key Participants** The discussion involved Council Member Martin, Council Member Henson, and Council Member Stennett. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action taken. The discussion served to raise awareness among council members about the systemic nature of deferred maintenance and the need for strategic planning to address these issues going forward. ## FY 13 Council Budget Schedule (11) [timestamp: 0:34:45] The meeting concluded with a review of the fiscal year 2013 council budget schedule. Key speakers Stacey Maynard, Connie Undemeod, and Commissioner Driskell discussed the timeline and deadlines for the budget process. The finance team presented several important deadlines for council members and stakeholders: * May 30 deadline for links recommendations * June 1 deadline for council member recommendations * Public hearing on the mayor's proposed budget (specific date not provided in materials) The discussion also covered the upcoming release of late items and revenue updates that would be provided to the council as part of the budget review process. The outcome of this agenda item was informational, with no formal action taken. The purpose was to ensure all council members understood the schedule and deadlines for submitting budget recommendations and to inform them of when additional financial information would be available for their review. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Adjournment of the meeting --- ## Full transcript But it'd be pretty thick to have a new park. It's changed a lot of kids' lives. Like, I mean, you can understand, like, some kids, you know, you can let them, like, wrong path, so to speak. But, I mean, with skating, like, that's an outlet. So, a lot of people come out to the park and enjoy themselves. That's excellent. So, how's the culture out here in the community? A good night-type knit group? Yeah. Well, everybody's got their own Everybody's got their own cliques, so to speak. Everybody rollerblades, just skateboards, bikes, scooters, whatever. But everybody's just here to have fun. Everybody's friends regardless. We all go hang out outside of the park. There's no controversy, so to speak. Sure. So what will the new skate park mean to you when we get that built? New skate park? Yeah. Hopefully bigger ramps because, I mean, I've been coming here since the beginning, and honestly, I jumped off the roof into the park before. Okay. I mean, that's just how big things can be, you know? Okay. It's like the park in Louisville. That's a good example of, like, bigger ramps and bigger things happening because I've got friends that skate that park all the time, and it's like you see some of this stuff, and it's incredible. Like, I mean, some of the bikers getting, like, 10 feet air out of, like, the 13 foot, that's ridiculous. I just want that to be able to happen in my town. Okay. All right. I was a little younger when the park actually opened, So I missed the whole initial fundraising and organizing and all that. But because people before us had put in hard work and got this park here, it really opened up a whole lot of opportunities for me. Okay. So what has it meant to you to be able to do? I watched you earlier. What has it meant to do some of the stunts that you do now because the park is here? Well, really, it's a really introspective sort of thing. You can kind of get inside of your head and just have a good time. I mean, without it, you're still going to have people doing the same stuff, but now they have a nice centralized legal place to do it. Right. And it's offered myself and a lot of other people really good opportunities. Okay. So what will the new skate park mean to you? Oh, more room. You know, it's nice to be able to have the opportunity to get in and help organize things. So, you know, maybe a little bit of input into what comes out of it. Sure. You know, have a nice place for, you know, kids that are just getting into it. A nice new place, a modern place to get into and sort of, you know, really see what they can do. Now, we're here to talk about the Friends of the Skate Park organization. Can you talk a little bit about the organization and what they do? Yeah, Friends of Skate Park, we're a nonprofit group. We realized when we started talking about building a skate park that it was going to take private funding from the community. So we formed a non-profit organization, and we have hosted a couple of fundraisers. We have several more in the works, and we're just out to raise money to build a skate park through the private community. So what we really need at this point in time is for the entire skate community to come around this organization and help us raise funds through the hosting fundraisers, whether it's a car wash, whether it's some type of a skate competition. We need the skate community to help us accomplish this rather large and ambitious goal, We know we can do it with the help of the community. who is involved, particularly Elizabeth Chatterton, and she's a member of the Friends of the Skate Park, also works in the 8th District Council Office. If you'll watch the screen, we'll put up contact information for both my office and Friends of the Skate Park. We hope you'll join us in building the new skate park. Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. meeting and today is May 29th and we have our final budget link report out which is our general services link and so I'll go ahead and turn it over to Councilmember Kaye who chaired that link councilmember Kaye Thank You vice mayor I I want to start by thanking Councilmember Crosby and Lawless, who served on the committee, and the commissioner and directors and all of their support staff who worked with us in developing an understanding of what their budget looks like, how to approach it, and the recommendations that we have. I'm going to go briefly through the report that you've already had in your packet and then open the floor for questions and comments. I think, as most people know, within general services, there's facilities and fleet management and parks and recreation. I'll take those one at a time. Starting with facilities, one of the things that Council asked the facilities management people to do is do an assessment of the actual cost of tenants of all of the buildings that we own, and people either lease or rent or use kind of at their discretion sometimes. And that process has been mostly completed, and we now have a much better idea about the actual costs to us of the people who rent our buildings. Another issue that came before Council and is still pending is the transfer of the parking authority, transfer of the garages to the parking authority. and their assessment and our recommendation is that that transfer would be beneficial and it will free up resources within general services, other kinds of resources. The largest issue for facilities is deferred maintenance, and this is a theme that's going to run through most of my report. essentially the bottom line is that we are way behind in terms of maintenance of our own buildings this cannot can't go on indefinitely and eventually i think we're going to have to recognize that we've been getting some services we essentially haven't been paying for we've been deferring costs so that's one of the major findings within facilities and one of the recommendations when I get to it will be that we take a closer look at that and how to correct that situation. Under fleet, the major piece of work that they've been doing has to do with the CAO policy number three regarding vehicle usage, and they're also working on right-sizing recommendation so that we have a better, first of all, a better handle on how our fleet is actually being used and ways that we could modify that usage to save funds. The big issue here, as with facilities, is the question of maintenance and replacement. The fleet management was asked for a six-year capital improvement program for vehicles. The total need is $15.6 million. They received no replacement funding in FY11 or FY12 and received half a million dollars in FY13. So the bottom line for facilities for fleet is similar to the one for facilities. We're basically building up a deficit. We can't go on indefinitely. This is a serious issue that I think has to be addressed by Council. Turning to parks, we were pleased that the parks department has made a series of of significant adjustments in both aquatics and Golfmaster plan, and we believe that they are moving in the right direction. There were a couple of items that were not addressed correctly within the budget that we saw. The extended school program is an enterprise fund that is self-supporting, and there were $180,000 allocated to that, and that and $75,000 for park patrol, which was inadvertently not included in the budget. Both of those will be included in late item list. For our recommendations for fiscal year 13, refer fleet right sizing to the general government committee. We want Council to be looking at that along with the administration. Refer updating of the CAO policy number three also to the general government committee. Starting in fiscal year 2014, have an annual commitment in the budget for a vehicle replacement fund. and in fiscal year 2013 increased the projected revenue from golf by $152,894, with that projected increase in revenue being allocated to the Parks Administration budget to increase the money they spend on other programs and maintenance needs. This amount is the difference between the revenue projected in the mayor's budget and the amount that is now projected with new operating procedures within parks. And finally, we were asked, in addition to looking at the specifics overall in the budget, to look more deeply at the question of golf and the level of support that we provide for golf. So we have an explanation of where we came out. The first paragraph that you have before you basically lays out the percentage that Parks takes up in the budget. They have a $19.8 million proposed expenditure. That's 7% of the total budget, third largest expenditure in government behind public safety and non-departmental. Projected income from Parks and Recs, approximately $4 million. So the general fund allocation is $15.8. if you look at well, okay, let me back up a second. The total recommendation from our committee, just to make it clear, is that there'd be no net changes in the overall budget. So we're not adding or subtracting any funds. So now the level of support for golf. On the following page, there is attached a spreadsheet of a sample, and I want to emphasize this. This is a sample of other revenue earning programs and events provided by parks. What it gives is a rough view of the extent that programs are supported. And before we look at that, I want to explain more about what rough view means. First of all, there is not enough data to provide a full apples-to-apples comparison of costs versus usage. For example, golf is easy to count. We know how many rounds of golf we play, and it's easy to be accurate. If you compare that to something like the usage of our trails, we don't have numbers. We don't know how many people get on the trails. We don't know how frequently they use it. And we could get that information, but it would be very expensive to gather that information. So there's a difference there. There are activities that have spectators, and we don't count them. When people go to watch people playing basketball or some of these other sports, they aren't counted. We're only counting the people who actually participate. within golf and aquatics we can count the rounds but we do not know how many unique users we have so there may be you know to pick a figure that's not right 10,000 rounds of golf it might be that there are 5,000 golfers each of whom played two rounds or there might be 1,000 golfers each of whom played 10 rounds we don't know that we don't know how many unique users there are With team sports, we do know how many users, and we multiply the number of users times the number of games, and we get a rough idea of what it costs us per use. But again, it's rough. So given all of that, I would say that what the sheet provides you with is a very rough look at how much we really allocate for these various activities, roughly what it costs per participant or per event, and that's pretty much it. But given that, it's a lot more information than we've ever had before about the way in which the costs are allocated across the various parks and rec programs. And our conclusion is that in this context, with the projected increase in revenue that we have included in the budget, we conclude that the support provider for golf is not disproportionate to the support provider for other programs. Having said all of that, I will take questions, comments. Thank you very much, Council Member Kay. And I also want to thank Council Members Lawless and Crosby, who I believe served on that link. Thank you for your work. And, Council Members, do you have questions? If you do, please log in. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Cade, the parks and recreation program costs that was provided on the chart in the packet, who prepared this? Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec. Because I have a real hard time understanding these numbers. Sorry. So as far as these numbers go, are you counting other leagues that use our facilities? No. Those are strictly parks programs, not the franchise leagues. So you don't, for example, Cardinal Run is near me. Right. So that's run by Southwest, is that right? Southwest. There's actually two franchise leagues there, and then we run one. So these numbers will only reflect the league that we run there. Okay. Do we have revenue from those other uses? From the franchise leagues? Uh-huh. Yes, we get financial reports from them every year. I didn't bring those today, but we do. But we count the revenue, but not the uses. Yeah, we also get the usage from those, yeah. Right, but we didn't count them on this sheet. Correct. Okay. So it's broader than just the numbers you have here, because I find it impossible to think that there are only 4,800 separate uses of baseball because I've been to a field on a weekend where there's 4,800 people there that day. The franchise numbers would blow those numbers out of the water. Those are strictly parks and recreation baseball programs. So this may not be a very accurate representation of the true usage of our facilities. That's correct. Yes, sir. And since we are charging a fee for that, we take care of that facility. No. Now, the franchise leagues, as of a year and a half ago, were tasked with their own maintenance. So they mow? They mow, they line, they throw down grit. Yeah. Now, big-ticket items, we still try to take care of them, roofs, foundations, things like that. But they take care of the fields themselves. Okay. Okay. But as far as the number of uses, is the operating budget and the revenue that's on here, does that reflect the revenue from these franchises? There is no revenue for the city from the franchise leagues. They're self-supporting. But they don't pay us any money to use it then? That's correct. They pay a dollar for the use of their concession stand. I'm sorry. I'm not understanding. They do pay us or they don't pay us? They pay us $1 a year. They pay us $1 a year. So it's a nominal lease for that. I get that. That's okay. I'm not criticizing that at all. No, that's fine. But as I look at these numbers, I want to try to understand how they filled out. So the true number of people that use these other things is vastly larger. Absolutely. In addition to what Councilman Kay said, I think the takeaway from these numbers is that if we were able to get those numbers that you're asking for, these numbers would be a lot more, it would be significantly more per patron or per use. These numbers don't include utilities. They don't include the administrative people, staff assistants, administrative assistants. They don't include deputy directors, superintendents, and they also don't include planning and design or maintenance. Yeah, I think it's a good attempt to try to get this down, but it's only a partial picture, and I think you would probably agree with that. Absolutely. It's a start. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess I have a question probably not related to parks, but I have a big concern about the liabilities we're running with fleet and facilities, and we see it across government. We've seen it with fire and replacing their apparatuses. Sally, I guess I think across government we probably need a strategic plan for replacing vehicles and maintaining properties because eventually it's going to catch up with us if we don't have some sort of strategy to correct this. So I didn't know if that was something you had thought about. Yes, ma'am. I think you make an excellent point. And when it was referred to the study of the fleet, which I think you referred to general government, we are now, as far as the fleet is concerned, we're trying to examine all aspects of that fleet and be able to come to you all with a recommendation of how we would handle that fleet, Not just buy, but other ways that we deal with this besides just spend more money. And this will be what we will come to you in late fall with. I feel like that we have made some good improvements with the parking authority taking over the garages. And I know that we now have an inventory of the properties we own, and we're trying to sell some of those. But I just, you know, and I've also seen it in traffic engineering with replacing traffic signals. There is not what really needs to be replaced, the demands not being made. And so I think across government we need some sort of strategic plan on how we don't one day end up with needing to replace everything. We agree with you. Todd Long. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Hamilton. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a quick follow-up. And, Commissioner, just it is so frustrating to me. This is my fourth year on council. And every year, every budget year, I've talked about the need for a long-term capital maintenance program. And every year, I said, oh, we're working on it. And the fact is it's never going to happen because there's too much to do, I think, for administrations to really look that far down the road. I think what Council Member Henson may be talking about, and I saw me if I misstate this in any way, is that we need to have a formal function in the budget process for determining how much maintenance we need within a 10-year plan or a 20-year plan or something like that so that it doesn't get pushed out for new projects. We're finding that on the Corridors Commission is that year after year after year, the maintenance has gotten pushed out in order to spend that money on new projects. And so we find like Tate's Creek Golf Course, for example, needs maintenance. We have all these fire departments who need maintenance. Their roofs need maintenance. Yet we don't segregate a part of our budget so that we know that this is our maintenance piece that we need to go forward and that we don't dip into our maintenance piece because that has longer-term consequences. And so I think it's going to be up to the council, us the council, to legislate some mechanism so that in the budget process there is a formal maintenance piece that is part of a larger plan that we know that we're on track to maintain what we got. So I don't know how to do that because I keep raising it every time during budget season and it never gets done. And to your same point, Council Member Martin, I think we also want to bring back to you the use of some of these buildings, of how they are being used. And because I think that affects how much maintenance we're going to really put into some of these buildings, because we find that maybe not all of them are being used to their extent, which are major policy decisions. but i think you're exactly right yeah it's easier to build a building it's harder to maintain it and you know when it's time to have a new new roof by god you need a new roof so councilmember kate i'm sorry to comment here but it's an important issue and it's it is sort of germane it is important and councilmember kate also wanted to thank you vice mayor well um i agree with councilmember martin except i believe that we have been given that information we have it in this year's budget. We have a projected, let me find it here, facilities, the need for facilities at the moment, they've got a plan, it's an $8 million plan, but no money has been allocated in the mayor's budget. And our judgment was that we're not going to, in one year, find $8 million to actually meet what needs to be done in terms of maintenance. So we have asked that we take another look at the usage of buildings, which we need to do. And then I agree with you. What we want is a plan going forward that says this is not a savings. We're just fooling ourselves. We're not saving money here. This is just a postponed cost. And the longer we postpone it, the greater that cost becomes. So it's one of the ways. It's true of building maintenance. It's true of fleet. It's one of the ways in which we defer costs and increase those costs to government. So I, along with you, am interested in having both a plan and a commitment from the council and the mayor that we begin to address this issue before it, along with some other things, begins to balloon out of reach. Thank you. You're welcome. And just thinking back a number of years, and Councilmember Farmer will remember, However, when we had money, we did have a capital improvement plan, and we were able to allocate some money toward facilities. And, of course, that's the big if and the big situation is we had money back then. And so I think if we can get a plan, we could at least allocate a little something every year. so we don't get so much farther behind. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I was going to add another component to this conversation on maintenance that right before I got on Council, Council Member Farmer, you'll once again remember this. And, Vice Mayor, we got rid of our property management division and embedded it within parks. Well, what that's done is it sucked some of the maintenance funds that Council Member Martin alluded to dry. And our mowing budget, Council Member McCoy, I didn't see anything in here about the mowing budget. Did you all have the conversation on those dollars? Is there enough in there? Because I know in the last three years it's dropped $200,000 for the whole city in parks budget. Did you all have any conversation about the need for mowing? Because that's one of the biggest complaints we get. It's our right-of-ways, our parks, our trails, and they can't keep up because we keep cutting their budget. Did we have a conversation on that piece? We had a brief conversation. Our understanding is that there are now funds adequate for mowing. Is that correct? Jerry Hancock is here, Division of Parks. Director, welcome. Thank you. We struggle in the spring depending on how much rain we have. This year, spring came very early. We got our usual start. To your question, we're a couple hundred thousand dollars lower than we have been. and we've implemented some efficiencies. I'm pleased that you all are discussing a flat budget, which for us is a positive thing. If the budget passes as it is, we will have some cushion available to address emergency spring mowing, but the budget is not going to be what it was four or five years ago. And, you know, in that last five years, I'll remind my colleagues, you know, we have two parcels that we've inherited, Browhill Park that we're mowing now, Corner Run North, which we've yet to do anything with. And I want to name some other ones, if I recall, that we've taken over in neighborhoods because we've either torn down a house or we've done things like that that we didn't budget in the stormwater budget for the maintenance. So now the parks have got the maintenance dollars, and yet we've cut them $200,000 in the last five years. How many homes have we bought in the last five years? a significant amount in this community. So, you know, this problem keeps you in its head every year, every year, every year. And we keep cutting other parks programs, the fun mowing. And we've got to get away from that practice. And the commissioner, if there's any way going forward, you can work with our CAO until we get a commissioner of environmental quality and really sit down and see who's going to take over maintenance and where those dollars are going to come from when we buy a home for stormwater or we build a new trail. Well, let's have a policy, an ordinance that says here's where maintenance dollars are going to come from. It's nice to build new buildings and parks, but again, as Councilman Martin said, maintenance has to come from somewhere for the buildings and the land. Love to see it. Thank you, Jerry. I appreciate it. Thank you. Before you sit down, since Councilmember Stenup mentioned Heisel Farm, is anything being mowed out there other than the archery facility? We're mowing some equestrian trails, and we're having an agreement with an adjacent neighbor to mow for hay the vast majority of the property out there at no cost to us. So we're not spending a lot of money maintaining it outside of the archery range. Okay, thank you. Are there other questions for Council Member Kaye or Commissioner Hamilton? Council Member Farmer? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I was going to direct first a comment to Council Member Kaye and his link for doing such good work, and I appreciate the report that they've given today. Vice Mayor, my second question may be beyond the realm of the two people that you outlined. I'm just wondering, do we have a line score for all five links combined in terms of what their totals are in relation to the mayor's proposed budget and what the links are proposing in summation? It's my understanding, and Ms. Maynard can confirm this, that there is a list coming. She is saying to me there's a list on its way. It's on its way into the chamber. Okay. Thank you very much. Yes. Did you have anything else, Council Member Farmer? Okay. Are there any other questions for Council Member Kay or Commissioner Hamilton? If not, thank you very much for your report, Councilmember K. And this list is supposed to appear any time for discussion because this ends our links report outs. All links have reported out. And so while we're waiting for this list, which we'll look over, if you'll turn to the back page of your packet. Today, looking at the schedule, today begins our discussion of any LINCS items. And then today at 3 o'clock before the work session, we have the public hearing of the mayor's proposed budget. And then tomorrow, May the 30th at 5 o'clock p.m. is the deadline for links recommendations. If there's something that came out of your link, that needs to go on the list. And then council members' recommendations for the budget deadline is June 1st. That's Friday at 5 o'clock p.m. So, Council Members, if you have any items, if you will please email them to myself, Council Member Ellinger, Stacy Maynard, and Connie Underwood. We'll get them in the queue. And thanks to Jen, we have an updated compiled list of items which have come from the Council links. and we'll take a minute to look at this and go through it. Ms. Underwood, would you or Stacey want to work through this top to bottom? We have quite a crew of budget folks. Helping us with this. I thought it might be a good idea just one by one to go down through, since this is our first look at this. so we have two lists council members the council links recommendations which is the numbers includes the numbers from each link and then the links recommendations the verbal or the text which does not include today's presentation of the general services link, which Council Member Kaye just reported. So it hasn't made it onto the written list yet. So, Connie, would you want to just run us through? Okay. I didn't realize we were going to talk about them today. Well, we're just going to review. You know, we don't have any of the late items from the mayor's office yet, But we ended the budget presentation for the mayor's proposed budget. It has $1.7 million in budgeted ending fund balance for 2013, which will be our starting point for any of these late items. So the finance, social services, and outside agencies link had three items that were financial, and my list is just the financial items, not the non-financial ones. They recommend giving some money to the Carnegie, $5,250 for math tutoring. They want to increase the World Trade Center allocation by $19,050. And this was for a part-time trade officer, some printing, a new computer, and some mileage. And for the Lyric Theater, $15,000 to bring it up to the original agreement amount. So the total allocation that the Finance, Social Services, and Outside Agencies Committee was proposing was an increase to the budget of $39,300. For the General Government Committee, they had recommended six items. The first was an increase to the Commonwealth Attorney's Office for law interns to receive parking at $4,400. In the Council Office, they were proposing to eliminate their professional services funds at $42,000. Another item for the Council Office was to restore the NDF dollars to each Council member at a total of $75,225 and an additional $7,000 for the copier usage in the Council Office. For the Human Rights Commission, they were recommending $50,000 to fund a community outreach position. And for planning, preservation, and development, $150,000 for the corridors program. And the general government recommendations totaled $244,625. dollars. For environmental quality and public works, there were two items on their list there. One was for streets and roads to reduce the SALT budget at $25,000. And my subtotal is wrong there, I see, as I'm looking at it. The other was for the Valley View Theory, and I put this on here because I don't remember if there was a motion, but I do remember the talk that it was a new item and the new item should come from Link's recommendations, and that's $25,000. So the net on that would actually be a negative $175,000 reduction to the budget. I need to correct my subtotal. Public safety had three items for their link committee. One was to revise the mining and quarrying ordinance to be revenue neutral. The other was for code enforcement and $125,000 to provide funds for nuisance abatement so that they would have $200,000 in total for next year, and for corrections to provide funds to hire an assistant director. And I had $109,840 for that. So the subtotal for public safety was $234,840. And the last one that we just did was General Services Parks, where they're proposing to increase golf revenue by $152,894 and apply that to their maintenance cost by a like amount. So the general services financial recommendations were net zero. And the total on that was on the back, I thought. It looks like an empty page. We know it's more than zero. It's like $300 and some odd thousand dollars. Now, Connie, is that a net change to the budget? Yes. Okay. And that was about? It was a little over $300, like $375 maybe. Mm-hmm. Okay. That would be an increase to the budget or a reduction of your budgeted fund balance. Mm-hmm. I appreciate your doing that on such speedy notice, And I think it helps to look at this and get any questions before we start making changes next week. So we have a few council members in the queue. So, Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Connie, thank you very much for putting this together and literally running down. So we appreciate that. How is this fund balance holding up? The fund balance hasn't changed from the time they proposed it, but we don't have any of the mayor's late items that are corrections to the budget to know where it's going to land after we see those. Well, I guess what I'm understanding is, is this the fund balance at the end of 13 or the end of 12? Yes, that's the projected fund balance at the end of 13. What's the fund balance at the end of 12? Where is that holding up? The proposed carryover is $1.5 million. That's what's budgeted in the 2013 budget. Is that holding up at this point? I can't answer that question. And the reason I can't is that while revenues, you know, when I did my original report were very good, there are a lot of things and expenditures that have to be covered by those increases in revenue. So that's really a standstill. Fortunately, Commissioner Driscoll is hiding in the back. Commissioner, can you join us for a second? Welcome, Commissioner Driscoll. I'm a big fan. Thank you, Commissioner. How are we doing? I was hiding, really, but I'm doing fine. Thank you. We have our last report to you. We did examine the overexpenditures that we have in personnel, but we have an uptick in revenue as well. So we're still examining the most recent months' results. but I mean it would be a guess at this point we will be bringing you better numbers next week when we do the when we look at the revenue because we are examining the expenditure side currently so we don't know yet no but we wouldn't I mean it would typically go through an analysis at this point in time okay I guess it's important to get the straight poop so I appreciate it Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Henson. Don't know, you don't know. That's right. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to clarify the total council link recommendations. It's rounded off 550,000. I totaled all of these, if that's correct. I didn't know if I missed something. Well, all right. I like my number better, but you may be correct because I have an error in one of my formulas here. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure. And we can, you know, when Connie has a chance to add and subtract, we'll get a definite number. Council Member Stennett. I was going to ask, similar to what Councilman Martin asked, Connie, when do you expect the late items from the mayor's office this week? Yes, I believe it comes in. Yeah, I just didn't want to wait until next Thursday and get them. I'd like to have them ahead of time. Well, when we get them, we'll go ahead and send them as well. We'll be sending the list Friday so that it will be distributed. And then you said you were going to include this current fiscal year estimation? I was saying when we do the revenue estimate next week, we'll give you the latest information that we have at that point on current year as well. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner, while you're at the microphone, I know Connie and I have had a lot of discussions about what exactly late items are, and I wondered if you could go through, for example, errors. are included and things that the council has voted on but they haven't yet been spent correct and is there anything else the other items that come directly to mind would be the reallocated bond proceeds we included those last year on the late item list errors omissions the, as you said, council action, bond proceeds. We're actually reviewing the final list over the next couple of days. All right. Very good. Thank you very much. Council Member Myers. Public safety. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to just bring one point of clarification. The $200,000 that the Public Safety Link recommended for the code enforcement, if you'll remember the chart that we put up during our presentation, with the exception of 2010, code enforcement has collected more than that $200,000 every year for, I think, the last at least five years. So that's more or less a budget amendment for those of you who want to know that information because that money is collected, but it goes back into the general fund instead of back into their office for use. So it's not like we're taking $200,000 out of the general fund. We're just making sure that when they collect their revenue, that's where it goes. But we're going to do it up front. Unfortunately, for our purposes, the $200,000 in revenue has already been recognized, and only $75,000 was put in for expenses. So that's why I had $175,000. Right. But just going forward, people understand. Yes, it is a wash. It's a wash. Thank you. But it would need to be reflected on another expenditure. Right now, yes. Yes. Thank you. And I do want to mention, obviously, if, you know, Council's talked before about having a structurally balanced budget, and in carrying over $1.5 million, one of the things you've got is a non-structurally balanced budget. And that $1.7 million that's sitting in 2013's proposed ending includes the $1.5 million. So I just wanted to bring that out again because I know that's been an issue that's been discussed in the past. Very good. Thank you. Council members, do you have any other questions about these documents? So what we'll be doing is having the mayor's public hearing today. We have our deadlines for links, recommendations, and individual council member recommendations this week. And then Friday, the commissioner said she would be emailing out the late items list. Is that correct? Will that come by email? Okay. So that will be the late item list. and then on Thursday of next week, the 7th, we'll be looking at a revenue update. Commissioner, I guess I'm speaking with you now. A revenue update so we get our last, final, best revenue outlook. and we'll review the mayor's late item list, review the links, and review the council member recommendations. So are there any questions about the way forward, the schedule forward? We're getting there, aren't we? If not, is there any other business? We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor, say aye. Anybody opposed? We are adjourned, and I thank the folks who got us the list.