Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone Is it gone? Gone Gone Gone Gone like a freight train Gone like yesterday Gone like a soldier in the Civil War Bang, bang Gone like a 59 Cadillac Like all the good things that ain't never coming back He's gone, gone, gone He's gone, gone, gone He's gone Gone like a freight train Gone like yesterday Gone like a soldier in the silver war My baby's gone like a 59 Cadillac. Rock on her good things. Well, she's gone. Long gone, done me wrong. Never coming back, my baby's gone. She's gone. Only at home, sitting alone. Packed her bags and now she's gone. Never done that, she's gone. I'm going to go. Last time I saw her it was turning colder But that was years ago Last I heard she had moved to Boulder But where she's now I don't know But there's something about this time of year That spins my head around Takes me back Makes me wonder What she's doing now Cause what she's doing now Is tearing me apart Filling up my mind and emptying my heart I can hear her call each time the cold wind blows And I wonder if she knows what she's doing now Just relax I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. Thank you. The first item on the agenda is the committee meeting summary. Do I have a motion to accept? So moved. We have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. You're in a second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? That passes. The mayor has walked in, and I think the mayor would like to introduce someone, did you say? Yes, Jack. Yes, Jack. Well, we are at that point. We're on item number two, the monthly financial report. Mayor Gray, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry for that little bit of confusion there. I appreciate you all allowing me to join you today. Jane normally gives this report, and I would like to introduce our commissioner, our Commissioner of Finance, Jane Driscoll. But first, I would like to share with you all that we have some good news today. Lexington, our great American city, is back in the black. We thank you, Council Member Farmer. But we are not out of the woods yet. And, as you all know well, we should not declare victory prematurely. We still have hurdles to clear. We still have a dark cloud hanging over us with the pension problem. Our pensions are hemorrhaging. You know all of this. We have a $17 million annual required contribution gap every year. So far, we've only put a Band-Aid on the problem with the bonding, even though it has been significant. So we're working on it, but it will require continued resolve like you've demonstrated, and most importantly, the political will to do the right thing. But it's still a dark, dark cloud over us. But despite these issues and these concerns, today we can declare that we are on the right path, that we have moved from recovery into a period of renewed strength and optimism. So I ask you as members of this committee and members of the Council to take just a minute to reflect and to take a modest measure of pride. You all know that there is powerful machinery, powerful machinery that is always at work against progress. It's often called business as usual, politics as usual, bureaucracy as usual, the powerful machinery of special interests and the status quo. But you have overcome it, and our city is the better for it. It took strong will. It took political will. It took backbone. And you deserve the credit. We have tackled some tough issues in 23 months. Today we can celebrate that. Now, I am not given to hyperbole or self-praise, but I will never forget the budget meetings a couple of years ago where Bill O'Mara, who's in the room today, Bill looked at me squarely and said, Mayor, it is going to take a lot of political will to fix these problems. So I want to thank the council for your encouragement and for your support and for your leadership. Our financial house is back in order. Now we have a chance to imagine investing in the future. And we have all worked too hard to get here, to just piddle away and fritter away this opportunity, these hard-earned dollars, to just fritter that opportunity away. So let's don't ever forget that it is all about building a great American city and remembering that when people feel good about their city, they will feel good about themselves. Now, I want to introduce Jane Driscoll, who has done an extraordinary job in her role as Finance Commissioner. And Council Member Farmer, you will be pleased. You will be just as pleased as punch, and I appreciate your smiling, to find out that the audited financial report is signed, sealed, and delivered and dated November the 15th, the earliest it has been delivered in 23 years. What would that be, Jane? 1989? 1988. 1988. the earliest since 1988. So you can go back to 1988 to find one that was delivered this soon. That is when there were seven accounting standards to abide by, and today there are 58. Now, all I'm going to say as I introduce Jane is, you know, considering history and this quarter-century mark of almost 25 years, Please, don't expect this high a hurdle to be reached again next year, but we'll work on it and we'll try hard. Thank you all very much. Let me introduce Jane Driscoll now. Thanks. Thank you, Mayor. I thought you were going to make a public plea to ask them to stay. I don't know. Well, we can do that. Welcome, Commissioner. He's already done that, so thank you. I'm sure he has, and we'll ask again, but I think it's probably too late. and the state's going to be the benefactor of your good work. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. It only happens with a team, so we've got several members of the finance team here today. I just wanted to first start out acknowledging someone you don't often see, and that's our Director of Accounting, Phyllis Cooper. She has done a lot of work to get us to this point today, and she deserves the recognition and her staff of being able to present you the actual CAFR, physically present you the CAFR today. So I do want to start out with that. But I also want to start out with a bit of humor. I'm sorry, Councilman Farmer. Well, no, it was just so funny. Rarely do I read a physical copy of a newspaper any longer, but it was Thanksgiving. You know, all the ads, had to get the physical newspaper. And so I was glancing through the paper and just happened to look at my horoscope for that day. And it said, whatever compels you to make up your mind about what to do or who to be is a positive force. So you've compelled me to be a positive force as the mayor talks about our finances at year end. So I couldn't resist that opportunity. I would like to take a few moments just to recap where we started. And when I started two years ago, we were operating with a deficit budget situation and a financial report that was not completed for the prior year. Today, again, we're able to talk about the CAFR that is completed before your break and an improved fiscal environment. Our goal was to have an honest assessment of the financial picture of LFUCG, and today we want to talk about our ability to begin to address long-term financial strategies. Month after month, you hear Bill, O'Mara, Ryan Barrow, and I talk about the challenges that we face as a government, And those include planning for future capital needs, large future obligations. The mayor talked about the pension as an example of that. And the process of identifying and incorporating financial practices that relate to particularly our fund balance and reserves. These would reflect credit rating agencies' characteristics for strong financial management. They are, as the mayor spoke about, we're making progress on these, but we certainly are not finished in how we need to move forward. We've addressed certain issues. For example, we've identified in the urban service district that we were out of balance, that the streetlights were living off other pieces of that fund. We are working on those cash flow analysis. What we'd like to tell you today is that Bill's bill, we call it, but the bill to collect what American Water did collect for us, we are still looking at, we still have, we think, about two months before we'll see a clear picture of those revenue trends for a lot of reasons. We started in September, so you have to give an opportunity for us to get through the process and the bumps in the road in that regard. And then we have two holiday months, basically, with November and December. So we still really need a couple of months to talk about that revenue trend. We were collecting about 98% with American Water, and we budgeted 90% knowing that we would probably look at a little bit less revenue coming in. So we still have those cash flow projections that we're working on, but we want to wait to really look at the revenue picture to finish those. We have, I think you see a result of an ending fund balance that's increased, partly due because of monthly financial meetings we have with agencies. We are looking at what the issues are early, trying to address those, making adjustments throughout the year. So we really feel like that contributed to where we find ourselves today. Anyway, with your support, we began moving towards recognizing the true cost of health insurance and being able to deal with that as we budget as opposed to end-of-year adjustments. And so collective bargaining is another example where we've actually realized those savings that we put in the budget. But also some other things that we've done is really talk about year-end management. I was speaking to the vice mayor earlier about historically at year end we just kind of carried forward budgets for expenditures if an agency still had some budget available. Well, that's not really a good financial practice. You need to analyze what is left and what is remaining in the agency's budget and only carry forward a very select few because we should be budgeting for the annual needs of an agency. And so we really tried to get the agencies were very cooperative in moving forward in doing that. So we were able to capture some dollars at year end that the agencies then in turn, you know, budget for those expenditures in the next year. So that really helped us. And, again, a good financial practice. So, again, I just, because I think this will be my last budget and finance committee, just want to thank you for, because without your support, we couldn't have enacted addressing these issues head on. So in our presentation today, we just want to give you an overview again of fiscal 212 year-end financial update, which will include the fund balance in the major funds, the general fund assignments, the general fund economic stabilization fund, and the general fund unassigned fund balance as we go through each of these. And then Ryan and Bill are going to do our regular monthly reports for you. So in terms of the 2012 year-end financial update, we were issued a clean opinion on November 15, 2012, for the year-end financial statements. We said in our presentation that today was a preliminary update. That's because we still have the single audit, yet to complete. That always follows the annual financial report. And our estimated completion date is the January or February time frame. The end of March is the deadline for the A-133 for most municipalities and counties. And so we anticipate, when we say preliminary, this is us talking to you about our year-end fund balance, things that we thought were of interest to you. But we do anticipate a formal auditor presentation in the January-February timeframe, and we'll get back with you as we work through the end of the A133. So when we talk about the fund balance and the major funds, we've addressed for you each fund. I can also reference the page in the CAFR if you want to make note so you can look at it at a later point to see where those numbers come from. But obviously in the urban service are components of refuge, street lights, and street cleaning. There is an unrestricted fund balance of $22.8 million. I'm sorry, it's page 34 of the CAFR. Last year that was at 20.4, and it's 63% of the urban service revenue for the year. The sanitary sewer fund, it's on page 44 of the CAFR. There are capital reserves of $56.2 million with an unrestricted fund balance of $4.8. The capital reserves fiscal year 11 were $49.1 million. The landfill fund, the unrestricted fund balance, $11.1 million. Again, page 44 of the CAFR. That compares to $8.6 million last year. It's 154% of the landfill revenue. Again, obviously that means we're taking in more money each year than our expenditures. We do have, obviously, some needs for the closure of the landfill and long-term maintenance. So we need to compare that to that level of reserves. The Water Quality Fund, which is a stormwater fund, has an unrestricted fund balance of $7.2 million. That's page 112 of the CAFR. That compares to $6.5 million last year. is 59% of the water quality revenue for this year. The general fund, as you know, last year we talked about the change in an accounting standard, GASB 54, that really changed the way that you reported fund balance, and there are new categories in those categories that we talked about last year, non-spendable, assigned, and unassigned. Just a little bit of a review. Non-spendable is legally or contractually required to remain intact. Examples of that would be inventory or prepaid expenses. It's $1.5 million. It was about almost exactly that same level last year. The assigned category, the definition amounts for a specific purpose that don't meet the criteria of a non-spinnable. There's also a restricted category, which we didn't have any in, or restricted. And an example of that would be the Economic Contingency Fund. There are lots more details in that assigned, but we'll talk about that in a minute. And then unassigned is the definition, excuse me, is resources that have not been assigned to any of the other categories. And it's basically we budget an amount for an ending fund balance during the budget, and that's that category that would be that unassigned category. Again, on the assigned, last year's assigned was $22 million, so we're comparing that to $39.5. And the unassigned last year was $560,000, and it's $3.3 million this year. So we want to talk about the general fund assignments because that's a large amount of dollars, $39.5 million. There's obviously more detail that goes to that $39 million. And in the annual financial report, you will see four categories. General government, $11.6 million. Capital projects at $7 million. These are all approximate amounts. Urban service transfer at $2.5 million. and economic stabilization at $18.5 million. So I thought I'd spend a little time to tell you what's in each category and speaking with the chair, and we can provide more detail after the meeting if you all would like that. The general government, $11.6 million. I might just in reference tell you last year it was $7.6 million. So again, it's growing. That includes the 27th payroll. I think you're all familiar with that 27th payroll number. That's about $4.5 million. There's a litigation reserve that I think that the law commissioner talked to about that offline, but it is for what it says, a litigation reserve for claims, potential claims. That's $3.5 million. There is the home match. We talked about how we felt like there would be an opportunity to include the home match in the year-end, so the $250,000 is included in general government. We've talked a lot about health care and the need to establish a reserve in the event that claims would exceed, we're self-insured, that claims would exceed our ability to pay. There's, again, a $250,000 health care reserve. There is a Bill O'Mara has talked to you about, when he talked about revenue, he talked about seeing a lot more requests for refunds in this economic climate. We've seen a significant increase. We always budget for some refunds, particularly in net profit area. So there's a million dollars of refund reserve. reserve, that will go out the door. We will have to repay those dollars in this fiscal year. There is a small amount, $45,000, a little over $45,000. I talked to the vice mayor about there are lots of little things that sort of were outstanding issues that hadn't been resolved over a number of years, and one of them was the LexTran and Explorium amounts that, in the conversion, as I understand it, the conversion of the systems, there was some issue about overpayments and bank accounts, et cetera. Well, LexTran, it's a separate issue. We can talk about it on a separate day, but we are resolving that issue, so we should get that repayment, but that agreement isn't complete. But the Explorium, we have worked with them extensively and are suggesting that the overpayments, they're going to work off providing services to LFUCG, different exhibits for the community. But we had about $90,000 of their money in a bank account. And so we've agreed to split that. $45,000 is going to go to our bottom line. $45,000 to them for an exhibit. They've done incredibly well this year at increasing their revenue and their outreach, and so we've reserved that $45,000 for the Explorium. And the last area in the general government is what we see as an opportunity, and I believe the mayor was referencing this as much as anything, The opportunity to, if there's another Bingham that comes to town or another 21C opportunity, that we have some fiscal resources for an economic development reserve, that we would set certain criteria, you know, leveraging additional dollars, being the last dollars in to make a significant project happen. And that criteria hasn't been set in stone, but that there be some money available in order for us to help those projects happen. And I like the characterization, the vice mayor, sort of like the UDAG money, but it's an opportunity to, it could be a loan. You know, there are lots of opportunities there, but that's $2 million. So that makes up your general government category. In capital projects, there are three components. Commissioner, let me interrupt you if you don't mind. Before we get to the other, let's see if we have some questions about that, because that was a lot of information you gave us there. It was, yes. Is there any council members that have questions at this point? I see none. We'll go ahead. Okay, great. I think a really important point is 7.6 of that was there last year for 27th payroll. and some other issues. So the difference is not as significant as it looks at the 11.6. The capital projects, there are three components. The first is the Energy Improvement Fund that by ordinance, a certain percent of energy savings goes into the Energy Improvement Fund. With that calculation this year, that was $229,800. You've heard me talk about how I think there should be a vehicle replacement fund for this government for our fleet. We have put $1 million in that fund. It's a little over $1 million we're proposing to start that reserve. However, there have been some recent issues that have come up with, in speaking with Commissioner Mason, with the fire fleet, the fire apparatus, particularly the ladder trucks, and that their last reserve ladder truck is now deemed that doesn't meet the specifics that it needs to meet. And I know those folks are here, along with the commissioner, if you have questions on that. we also have an opportunity, the manufacturer of all of our equipment has a ladder truck that is available, $700,000. It's about $200,000 off the normal price. It was a display model, and again, I don't know all the details, but it meets all of our specifications. And so we are suggesting that we spend that $700,000. It's a fire sale. No, I'm sorry. But it is available, and we have an opportunity to purchase that. Typically, when we order these apparatus, it takes a year for us to get them manufactured and delivered to us. So we think that even though we're suggesting building up this reserve, that this is an opportunity that we need to move forward with. So it would take a budget amendment to do that, which we are working on bringing forward to the council. And then the third category is another area which I talked to you about early on when there were lots of questions about capital projects, existing capital projects. Where's the money? Where's the budget? And I went through this process of telling you there were lots of capital projects, but there weren't budgets for all of them, and there were budgets for some, and they weren't completed. It took some time to go through that process, and we're still doing the final due diligence on about $5.6 million of capital projects. We think that we'll be able to complete that analysis and hopefully, during the budget process, have an opportunity to present you with some capital dollars and capital project suggestions for those. But we haven't completed that due diligence to this point, and so we need to reserve those dollars. But that's exciting to think that we have a good start potentially on a capital budget for next year. So that makes up the three components of the capital projects. The urban service transfer, $2.5 million. You might remember this amount. That is the amount that is needed to fill the gap for streetlight funding for this year. If we move forward, we're suggesting obviously we reserve the money, and this will be a one-year fix for the streetlight issue. We'll still need to balance that out through next year's budget process. We continue to finalize the franchise agreements that relate to the whole rate, but this does fill that need for the current year that we budgeted, the $2.5 million. And then the last is the economic stabilization, rainy day fund, however you'd like to characterize that. And we did a slide all of its own. It was, at the beginning of the year, approximately $15 million. There is an ordinance that dictates, if you will, the formula to add when you're going through year-end, the amount that you would add if there was budgeted carry-forward, or unassigned fund balance, basically. 25% of the unassigned fund balance less the budget carry forward and capital reserves. So we were able to add $3.5 million to the Economic Stabilization Fund, and I have the history of that fund if you're interested offline or we could email that to you, but that's significant that we're adding $3.5 to the Economic Stabilization Fund. And that leaves the unassigned category, the $3.3 million, as I spoke about earlier. We budgeted an unassigned fund balance of $1.8 million. This is an additional $1.5 million to that. I know it's an area the mayor listened through the whole UDAG presentation and heard a lot of needs that you valued as you went through that process. And so, again, that unassigned fund balance has increased, and that is $3.3 million in that fund. So again, one of your basic questions may be how do we get here? How do we get to the point where we were able to begin making these reserves and have a greater unassigned fund balance? We talked about how we managed through the budget this past year and some of the tools that we put into place for agencies, and quite frankly, some of it is weather-related, salt, for example. But our revenue was up, as we told you all along towards the end of the year. It ended up $9 million over the original budget, and then expenditures were down significantly to make up that difference. And when we talk about that and why it's important to reserve these dollars, in my opinion, is some of those expenditure savings are potentially nonrecurring. A perfect example is utilities. It was a mild winter. Natural gas prices were low. You know, we saved almost $2 million in that category. So if it's a cold winter, you're going to spend those dollars. Those prices go up. You won't have that again. And SALT, we talked about it during the year. We talked about the corrections medical contract. We saved almost $400,000 with the director going in and renegotiating for that medical contract. We saved almost $400,000 there. There were little things. There were large issues like utilities and little things like banking fees that we saved. If you recall, one of my first things I asked you for were additional banking fees. Well, we've gone in, we've analyzed that, we hired a consultant to help us go through that, and we've saved banking fees. So that's just an example of some of the areas of savings. So that's where we got to where we are, and we appreciate your time in letting us explain it. Again, we'll have another opportunity to go through the CAFR when we get the federal audit complete, And we're on schedule, Phyllis, right, for that as well? So any questions? Yes, we do. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you very much, Commissioner. And I just have a clarification question on your slide 7 about the general fund. And could you say one more time the difference between the non-spendable and the assigned? Yes, and I'll put in the definition of restricted because I skipped that because we didn't have any, but that will help you, I think. The non-spendable are legally or contractually required to remain intact. prepaid expenses, inventories, those kinds of expenses. Restricted represent resources that are constrained for specific purposes by external parties, constitutional provisions, or enabling legislations. Most of those we find in our other funds, things that are restricted for certain purposes. Assigned are amounts for a specific purpose that did not meet the criteria of legally contracted or for a specific purpose. And then unassigned are just those remaining that aren't assigned to any category. So is all of our general fund debt service in this non-spendable? A debt service is budgeted. Okay. So that's different. This is, yes, that's budgeted for. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman, members, Senate. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, thank you, and congratulations on this being your last meeting and moving off to bigger and better pastures. So we'll look forward to working with you on the state level, and maybe you can help find some more money to bring it back to our coffers. That's what I told the mayor. Yeah, so it's a good plan. Thank you. On the additional amount for the unassigned general fund balance, any thoughts or ideas, any other urgent needs, like the fire engine that we talked about briefly a few minutes ago, anything else out there that's looming that – I assume it will just stay that 1.5 until we find something? Yes. You all don't know of anything else out there? Well, I mean, I don't want to speak for the mayor. I think there are lots of needs out there, and that's, again, why we wanted to begin to build these reserves, because while we need flexibility, there are certainly endless needs in terms of the capital and maintenance side of the government. And so all these funds, no one was allowed to keep, like you mentioned corrections, that money that they saved there. Did they keep a piece of that money in their budget, or is this all the budgets pulled together to come up with these balances? All the budgets, all the general fund piece, and each fund pulled together. I just don't know if individual departments kept some of their surplus. Again, at year end, if there were specific, mostly capital projects, they would have been carried forward. But, again, operating, we're trying to get folks to think of an annual expenditure plan and plan for the capital expenditures and maintenance needs separately. Well, if I could, I will put a plug in for that 1.5. I'll go ahead and get the list. But for four years we've heard in the budget how critical, and now it's actually gone, is our fire training tower. It's something we should have done four years ago. If there's ever a need, I know that's a big price tag, But I know Commissioner has been beating the streets looking for a sponsor, and it's very hard to find someone to sponsor that level. But I will put that need out there and that ask because that's a worthy endeavor when we train our firefighters to protect our city. With two new classes coming, it's definitely top of one of the priority lists. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner, I can't thank you enough. You have given us, you and all the people that work with you have worked very hard to bring this to us today, and I've singularly appreciated it. Before, there were so many accounting standards and so much diligence, and when times were different than they are now. This report at this time of the year was a very important time for the council and administration to make decisions they've been wanting to make all year long. And I appreciate the mayor's counsel for us not to fritter this away, quote-unquote, because you'll move along and you'll do great things where you go. But the work you've done with your time here, and especially in the last few months under this compulsion to act, makes a great deal of difference to each one of us in the decisions we can make and the information we have. So I just wanted to thank you for the time and ability to work with you. The mayor has made some really great appointments, and yours is one of them. And the fact that your contract's been picked up to go to a bigger league speaks to that. But the information today means a lot to me, and I appreciate the time working with you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Any others? Vice Mayor Gordon. Just one final comment. I wanted publicly to thank you for getting us the CAFR by this meeting. I know that throughout the year I probably sounded like a broken record on that, but I especially appreciate your diligence in doing that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for the commissioner? Are you going to be bringing budget amendments forward? Is that what the... As we need to, yes. Okay. And like everybody else, we want to wish you all the best. Thank you. And I think you're going to be bringing up Ryan here, whose last day, I think, is today and starts in Frankfort tomorrow. I hope he doesn't get confused when he drives on. If you would, and I'd ask the chair this, just a point of personal privilege to, as we introduce the October financial report, just to publicly say how much I appreciate Brian and all that he helped me when I came aboard. and one of the nicest, hardworking individuals that I've ever had the opportunity to work with. And so, again, it takes a team effort for all of the things we've been able to accomplish. And so I just want to wish him well. Actually, we'll be a floor apart working for different entities in state government, but I'll have the opportunity to see him often still. So, again, Ryan, thank you, and I think Bill's going to start. So Bill gets to be our steady-as-you-go, Bill and Phyllis. So thank you. Welcome, Bill. Good afternoon. And I think I am the transition from last year to October financial update, which should be familiar with you as far as the format. We try to keep it somewhat similar, and this is a comparative unemployment rate showing the U.S., the Kentucky, our region, and then Fayette County. And as you can see, there is good news there at the bottom. Both the Lexington region and Fayette County, unemployment actually dropped. the Lexington MSA is at 6.1 and Lexington County is at 6.0. And that compares to 7.8 at the federal level and 8.4 at the state level. And then the next one is the rolling three-month average. It's the same information but just showing a little bit of seasonal smoothing to show that we are still on a bit of a roller coaster ride. It's not flatlined and it's not down there at the bottom where we want it to be at very low unemployment. But we are getting there, and the fact that we're consistently below both the state and the national average is good news for our local economy. The next are selected economic indicators. we talked about how unemployment rate is migrating down. The employment, we won't have a new employment number until the end of December. So when we come back in January, we will have that unemployment. It runs six months behind, so we'll have the employment number through June when we come back in January. The permits are up, both compared to the same time last year and prior month. And new business license is mixed. It is below same time last year, but higher than the previous month. Home sales are up, and unfortunately the foreclosures are still staying strong. So that backlog is still being worked through the foreclosure process. For the month of October, the first line is very encouraging. We took in $9.1 million in withholdings, our largest revenue category, compared to a budget of $8 million. That's a favorable variance of almost $1.2 million. The net profit, unfortunately, is soft and has shown softness for about five months now. We are under budget by $300,000. Insurance continues to outpace the budget, and the same thing with franchise fees. with the mild weather and usage, the franchise fees are below what our projected budget was. A better reflection, instead of just one month, is our four months year-to-date. And this is taking the July through October. And I would draw your attention to that top line. At first glance, it looks very favorable. You see the 1.1 million favorable. but if you remember, that's almost the exact same favorable variance that we experienced just in the month of October. Well, I'm here to tell you that it appears to be a timing variance, and so I really feel that it's going to be flattened out when I give you November numbers. If my instincts are true, we are basically flat revenue to budget for the four revenue streams. So the numbers don't show that. They show favorable variance. but I don't think the end of October is the time to project out what the year will be. So I'm just giving that bad news bill caveat there. This is what it looks like compared actual to actual. It does show that the economy is growing and that we are doing better than same time last year. It also reflects that we budgeted that because the favorable variances were not as strong on the prior slide as they are here. but we do have more people employed. We are taking slightly more net profit receipts. Insurance and franchise fees are slightly above the same time last year. And then finally, asked throughout this year just to give you monthly updates on code enforcement, nuisance abatement, and lien collections. These are the three categories, and the collections through October are $56,281. And at that point, I will pass the baton to our budget director, the one that raised the bar and is going to make it very difficult for whoever comes in to fill his shoes properly. But he's developed the department to where it never was before, and I personally am going to miss him. Bill, before you go, we do have a question for you. You had an exit strategy and it didn't work. I know. It was really nice. I hate to interrupt you because it was a great transition, but sorry. We can still bring you back here in a second. Paul had a question for you. Mr. Romero, if you could check your math on the lien collection, because I think the total year to date excludes October. I apologize. I'll get that updated. And now we'll get back to that tearful ending again. Okay, we'll bring Ryan. Okay, we actually have another person for you. Okay, Councilmember Stinnett. While you're up there, before you leave, any updates on the billing? I know Commissioner Driscoll mentioned it briefly, but our new LexServe bill, would that be something you may want to start incorporating into this report somehow, just to kind of give us an idea? If you wish. How many months do you need? The reason I hesitate, whenever you implement a brand-new billing cycle system, there is a rollout period and a stabilization period, and we're not out of that period yet. Okay. Fair enough. So I hesitate presenting numbers this early in the process. But later in the second half of the year, I'd be glad to. Well, even a year out maybe we can think down the road a little bit because I think those are very important numbers. They are. If this government ever decided to move other things to a fee-based bill, they would actually go on that bill, so that would have a lot of information to provide to us before we make some of those decisions, possibly next year on other issues like streetlights and on down the list, pensions. So I think that information is critical, but I appreciate you telling us that there is a phase of this whole system, so maybe a year out, but you'll keep us attuned if there's an emergency that we need to know about. I absolutely will. Thank you, sir. Thank you, and I think that's all. Thank you. Mr. Barrows, welcome. Thank you. I appreciate all the comments, and it's an honor to be here for this last meeting. I'm going to have some comments, I think, later, but I'd like to pass all the nice words along to my staff. I think, really, that was the core reason we were so successful. Well, wrapping it out, Bill talked about, again, the first four categories like we do every month, the big four revenue streams, and essentially he had given an $800,000 positive variance when you factor in those four categories. Now, keep in mind the buzzword that he and I throw out all the time, timing variation. So there is timing variation there. I'd like to point out the services category. Normally we say we're good, and we've talked about the timing variations in that category. Maybe we're just lucky this month because that's played out that the variance, the large variance that we've been seeing in that services category has dissipated slightly. I firmly believe, and we've said that as such in previous meetings, that the services category in general is strong. I think we're seeing a timing variance to the negative, and actually there's a little bit more revenue in that category, but we'd be hard-pressed to put an actual number in there, but we're just paying attention to that overall category. So with bills $800,000 and the timing variance to the negative in the big four category, we believe there's some positive variance in the services category due to some of the new initiatives that are happening specifically at the jail with some of the revenue generating that we've been able to implement in there, and it's been impressive to watch that out at that facility, and I think there's an upcoming presentation to talk about that. The balance of the categories is insignificant in terms of variance. Essentially, we're performing as budgeted as we project and as we expected with a little bit of positive variance in the other income category, but it is a de minimis category in terms of the overall general fund, but we are seeing some positive variance in that category. Not enough to impact the bottom line. So the $1.5 million variance is probably a little high when you factor in. There could be, I don't want to throw out a number, but there could be some positive or a little overstatement in the payroll holdings, as Bill talked about, due to timing variance. But we're performing as we expected in the revenue category, which is a positive. Now transferring over to the expenditure side, I want to talk about the personnel category. Almost every month last year, we had talked about we were performing above budget in that category. There's really two points that I want to mention in the personnel category. Overall, it's a positive story in the personnel category. We're performing below our budget. It is a large amount there, so I want to address that as well. Essentially, there's two major reasons and probably a number of minor reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is there is some savings in public safety category. As council recalls, through the budgeting process, while safety was a priority, there was an increase in both fire and police in terms of number of budgeted employees in both of those divisions. There's been some delays in hiring. I think it's just the normal process that we go through here, but it didn't necessarily match up for when the revenue was put into place. So there is some positive story. There's some positive variance in the personnel category. Another caveat, which we are working on this morning to be able to validate for you, is that monthly the supplement for health insurance has not been booked. So the actual year-to-date personnel expenditure is understated by that amount of money, and we're working on getting that. As you recall, we've changed our process in health care substantially, so we have to change some accounting processes. But the supplement has not been booked in that category thus far, which is a testament to how well the new structured process is working. There hasn't been the second piece, which we've experienced in previous years, where we've actually had to supplement to the tune of millions of dollars. We haven't had to do that this year, but we haven't also implemented the supplement that Council approved, and there would be roughly four months of that expenditure that would need to be stated in the actual year to date. The operating category seems to be dead on this month. We budget that based on historical spend, so we're trending exactly where we have in previous years. Debt services are always going to end the year with what we budgeted, and the balance of the operating expenditure accounts seem to be debt on budget. So we do have a positive variance overall in revenue, although we're very close to the projections, and we do have a positive variance to budget on the expenditure side, really dedicated or due to the personnel category. Any questions for Mr. Barrow? Yes, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have any questions. I just want to thank you very much, Ryan, for your service to our government. And I think you and Jane have been a terrific team, along with the other members of the team. And just wish you well as you go on to Frankfort and help us out over there. Thank you, Mary. Remember, Bill's the last man standing. So thank you for everything you've done. Thank you very much. Council Member Lawless. I too want to thank you very, very much for your outstanding service. I'm sorry to see you leave, but I hope it will be greener pastures. And if not, you can come back. And the same with Commissioner Driscoll and the rest of the team. You all have been incredible and truly appreciated. Anybody else? Mr. Vice Chair Lane. Yes, I too would say thanks for a job well done. You've been a shining example of a good government employee, and we appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And that takes care of the second item. And the third item is the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Mr. Schoeninger, I think if you would start. I think Council Member Stinnett had requested a few questions, and you had answered those questions in a memo. And after that, I think I'd ask Council Member Kay, if you would, kind of just update us where we stand right now with the Homeless Task Force because you wanted us to wait on moving this forward until we got that report back. So after he gets done, I'd like to hear from you if you don't mind. Thank you. Mr. Schoeniger? Thank you, Councilmember. The last time this issue was discussed, Councilmember Stanton did ask a few questions, and hopefully I've attempted to answer them. Hopefully I got the questions down properly. I don't know if the answers are correct, but hopefully I got at least the questions down. Yes, initially, the role of the housing authority, the waiting list that the housing authority has for their programs, how much has the FOG spent on affordable housing, and then finally, how many affordable housing units are there in Fayette County. I'll attempt to address the first two questions. Austin Sims of the Housing Authority had provided the information from the housing authority, and that's in Appendix A in the packet. there are 4,133 housing units and of that 1,300 are conventional public housing units and 2,600 are what's called the housing choice voucher which is the Section 8 housing and then he had 200 other affordable housing units and to be honest with you if you ask what defines those other 200 I don't know I apologize He also indicated that there were 2,376 families on the public housing waiting list at this time, and then 316 families on the voucher waiting list. Regarding the third question, how much has LaFog spent on affordable housing programs? Since 2005, we've spent $37.8 million on affordable housing programs, either locally our own, our local dollars, or primarily federal dollars through the HUD program. There were at least five HUD programs that we've utilized. Community Development Block Grant Program, which appears on Appendix B. The Home Investment Partnership Program, which appears on Appendix C. the Emergency Shelter Grant Program, which is now called the Emergency Solution Grant, which is Appendix E, and the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, which is an Appendix C. And then the local funds are the general fund, Fund 1101, primarily through partner agencies, and then the Tenant Relocation Fund, which is Fund 1104. Or, important to note on the latter, there's been money, $50,000 budget for the last three years, that have not been expended in that fund. And then you also asked how many affordable housing units there are in Fayette County. I got this latter thing from the response to this question from the Kentucky Housing Corporation, and there were over 7,600 affordable housing units built in Fayette County. And there's also a corresponding map to those housing units. If you had any questions, I'd be happy to try to address them. Thank you, Ms. Schoeniger. Mr. Stinnett, do you have any follow-up to that? Okay, thank you. and Council Member Kaye, if you would give us a little preview of what to expect here for this and where you all stand right now because you had asked us to hold this issue until you came back. Yes, thank you, Chair. Thanks for the opportunity for addressing this once again. If I can, I'd like to ask all of the people in the audience who are either with Build who came because of this affordable housing issue simply to raise your hands? I didn't think it was all about the budget. Although I'm sure you got yourself an education. I want to thank you all for coming and for your continued interest in this issue. My interest in asking this committee to hold any further movement on this was, as I stated before, to give the Mayor's Commission on Homelessness an opportunity to address housing in a broader perspective and to see how this particular proposal for an affordable housing trust fund fits into the larger context. The Commission is now about halfway through, a little bit more than halfway through with its work, and just yesterday a first draft was sent out to the members of the Commission. It's not complete and it's very rough, but it begins to lay out some of the ways in which we think the community needs to address this very complex issue. The draft includes a section about affordable housing, and I think it's fair to say that in addition to a preliminary recommendation, recommendation. I want to be very clear before I even say this, but I want to be clear that the Commission as a body has not had an opportunity to review the draft, and when it was sent out, it was very clearly labeled as all contingent, that nothing in it is set until a Commission has had an opportunity to fully review it. Having said all of that, the draft does include a recommendation to consider the Affordable Housing Trust Fund as a part of a larger strategy for addressing housing that includes the homeless population. I think it's also fair to say that one of the themes that runs through the entire set of recommendations is that if we can do a better job of providing not only affordable housing but adequate housing for many of the people who are either at risk of homelessness or who find themselves in a condition of homelessness. If we can do a better job of providing adequate housing for those people, we can significantly reduce the numbers of people who are homeless and the numbers of people who are going to find themselves in a homeless situation. So housing is one of the key parts of what we'll be addressing. Given all of that, I would ask that if members of this committee have additional questions about the actual detailed information that's been provided, that they express those at this time and that this issue be kept in this committee until the commission has had an opportunity to report. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Kaye. Is there any council members who would like to talk about this issue? And before I open up to the public, I see Council Member Lawless. One question I have for Council Member Kaye. I know there is a deadline somewhere in March by which there's a window there by which the insurance tax or whatever kind of funding would have to be passed. Will the commission be, will that report be available before that window? Yes, we fully expect our report to be available in the middle of January. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. First, I also want to thank Paul Schoeniger. I appreciate the research on affordable housing, and these are some numbers that we didn't have. I think it paints a little bit different picture than what we've been hearing in terms of availability and what's out there. So thank you, Paul, for that work. Secondly, Council Member Kay, you mentioned how this issue ties in with the Homeless Commission's work. As part of your work, do you anticipate coming back to this council and saying these are how many units we need, or this is how much money we think would address the problem? And are you also, as a commission, trying to give us a number on how many homeless there are in Fayette County? Because obviously through our work over the last couple, we've heard two or three different numbers on that as well. So I'll give you time to respond to that. Yeah, let me start at the end. We've done a lot of work to get a much better and clearer picture of the status of homelessness in this community. The numbers are not always easy to get, and some of the numbers are not as solid as they look. I think everybody who works with the issue of homelessness understands that there are reasons why that's true, but that is the case. What we've been trying to do and what we reflect in this draft is a better approximation of the total number of homeless and also a better understanding of what the categories of homelessness are. And I think that's going to be one of the larger messages to the community, starting with the council, is that the face of homelessness is quite diverse and the difficulties faced by those diverse aspects of the homeless population require different kinds of approaches. I've already said that housing is one of the key issues, but it's becoming clear, at least to me, that there are a series of places, or I'll just say places, a series of ways in which if we can intervene at a particular moment, we can prevent people from getting into homelessness. If we intervene at a particular moment, we can prevent people who have been homeless from becoming chronically homeless. So that will be a good, I think, a good portion of the set of recommendations. I can't speak for the Commission, obviously, but the draft has a lot of data in it. And as much as possible, the recommendations that come out of the Commission, I believe, will be aimed first at this council with some specific things that this council can do, and then maybe not second, but at least in the same way, to the broader community, because I think it's clear that while many people are working on this issue, there are ways in which the resources could be used more effectively. There are ways in which there are resources that may not be being used at all that could be used effectively. So the report will be, I believe, comprehensive in that way, but I can't predict yet exactly what the details will be. Fair enough, and I appreciate that response because I do think one issue is how many units do we really need to solve not just that problem but in general in Fayette County, as well as how much money is adequate that we put towards it because the last seven budgets in this community has put $37 million towards this issue of affordable housing. who's to say that's enough who's to say it's not enough i mean that's what i'm trying to get to in my logical thinking of this how do we really make an impact is it dollars we need or and you alluded to this a little bit or is it restructuring of some of the programs that are out there and maybe making them more effective because one big area of concern in this community and i've not found one organization that has done it adequately but it's follow-up on the on the experience of reoccurrence. Because once we get someone in a home, how long do they stay in that home? Are the same people coming back through the system and finding out the reasons why that reoccurrence keeps happening? Are organizations doing good with the money we're giving them and keeping that person? No one's following up and seeing how long that person actually stays there once you get them to qualify for a home. So those are a lot of questions out there that I'm trying to get answers to and figure out a way to measure our success. Mr. Chair, if I can respond. Certainly. I think you'll be pleased with the information that's in the report that specifically addresses the question of how we can most effectively intervene and how we can keep people who we provide services to from needing those services on an ongoing basis. I would also like to say that we may not have as complete information about the numbers of people who actually need services and the numbers of adequate housing that we have available. But I believe that I can say with fair assurance, given what I've seen so far, that we have plenty of need and that if we don't begin to address that need, it will only increase. And so I know that's not an adequate response for some people, but if you look at the numbers of people on the waiting list, the numbers of people who we know are inadequately housed, we could institute a significant program tomorrow and stay on it for a decade and still know that we hadn't addressed the issue fully. So I think the question of do we need it is going to be answered very easily. Thank you. Thank you. Any further, Mr. Stinnett? Dr. Blues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And this is a question for Councilmember Kay. We are keeping the Affordable Housing Trust Fund report in committee. Is it right to assume that the report of your commission will address and respond to the analysis and recommendations of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund task force, which, as you know, since you were a part of it, did a considerable amount of work on this issue? I think it's fair to say that that issue will be addressed and that the recommendations made by the Affordable Housing Trust Fund will be a part of the report. I can't predict exactly how at this point, but there's no question that it will be a significant part of what we address. Right now it's in this first draft that I've mentioned, which the Commission has just had an opportunity to look at. We meet tomorrow. I'll know a lot more at the end of tomorrow afternoon how the Commission responds to that draft. Right now there's, I don't know, roughly 30 pages of, without counting, appendices that have just a lot of factual information in them. So there's a lot for them to digest. But I expect, under any circumstance, that a good part of what you will see coming out of that commission will be a discussion of the question of affordable housing and how their recommendations will either be consistent with or will supplement what the Affordable Housing Trust Fund task force has recommended. I appreciate that, and I thank you. So I know you're faced with a very daunting task, and I appreciate the fact that you're addressing it in a systematic way and are moving expeditiously to a report and not letting this thing fester and linger. So thanks again. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lawless? I've already spoken if Council Member Ford wants to go ahead of me. Well, I was going to suggest that, but you're up unless Council Member Ford is. Okay. I just want to also point out that the Affordable Housing Trust Fund issue isn't just about homelessness. It's about workforce housing. And as we see the slide about increased home foreclosures, that has left a lot of people in situations where their house has been foreclosed, often due to a health problem or the banking issues, et cetera, that never dreamed that they would be in that situation. And then they can't, because their credit is so bad, they can't find an apartment even if they can afford the monthly payment. So I think we need to also just clarify that this is also designed to a path for home ownership for people as well as workforce housing. It is not just about homeless. Not that that's not important, but it isn't just a homeless issue. And so thank you. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Committee, for allowing me to speak. Just a few quick points I would like to make. I think now looking at hindsight, this perhaps was a wise decision of the committee on behalf of the council to keep this issue in the Budget and Finance Committee where it is now to allow our colleague, Council Member Kay, and the Homelessness Commission that the mayor has assembled to do its work. I'm hopeful that when their findings come out in January, And I guess this is a question for either Councilmember Kaye or for the Chair, is that the issue before the Budget Committee will remain intact. Surely the committee will take into account what the Homelessness Commission comes back with. But the issue in committee right now, after years of study right now, is whether or not we increase the insurance premium tax by one-half percent to generate $2 million of revenue at an annual estimated household cost of $15 with a five-year sunset, a governing board, and an annual review process. And the reason that my understanding that this issue is in budget is just because of that, because of the financial implications. And so that's what I would implore, that we remain steadfast on being able to take everything into account but being able to segregate and distinguish the issue of the trust fund itself, whether we create the financial mechanisms to do so. The only other point that I would make, and again, I thank Paul and I thank Council Member Stenner from bringing up these issues to a lot of community to study it. The need is there. When I look at Paul's memo, and it talks a lot about the fact that we spent a lot of money, a lot of federal money, but of course federal money is just the money that we send to Washington, a portion of which we get back. But we spent a lot of money in the last few years, close to $40 million, The Housing Authority, just being one of the service providers, manages a lot of units. They have a daunting task there. But it says, in addition, the Housing Authority has 2,376 families on the public waiting list and 316 families on the voucher waiting list. In closing, Mr. Chair and committee, I think the question really goes from I haven't heard anybody to date refute the need. Irregardless of how much we've spent and we need to spend, nobody has refuted the need for additional resources. So again, I thank you guys for keeping this issue and committing upon the delivery of the Homelessness Commission's report. I hope we keep that in mind because when you look at close to 3,000 families still in need, with the existing resource we have now, there is no level of optimal performance or reform or efficiency gains that we could come up with that could provide some assistance to these families. The need is too great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. And from my standpoint as the chair and whoever is the chair for the next term, I would expect that we would get from the report from the commission, from the homeless commission, hopefully in January so you could report at the budget meeting in January at the end of the month, which would be when we would be able to hear it. Because we do have a short timeline. I think if it is going to be the insurance premium that it's going to raise, I think the deadline is about mid-March, so that's kind of what we're working under at this point. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I think that everyone has brought up really good points. I do think there is a need for quality, affordable housing. and I think about the effectiveness of what we have. I think we do have to be responsible. We do have to look at what we're doing now and how that works, and if it's not working, then we need to do something different. So I guess is the homeless, Council Member Kay, Is the Homeless Commission looking at other cities, maybe what other cities have done to really address chronic homelessness? Yes. There's been a fair amount of research about what other cities have done, and there will be information about best practices in other places. Good. And some of that will be reflected in the report, I expect. And because I guess I think back from working with individuals with disabilities, which includes a lot of, I believe, a lot of people that are homeless. They're not all, but many of them are homeless for a reason, due to mental health, drug or alcohol abuse, or intellectual challenges. So I worked in support of employment. So my job was to make sure that if that person had employment, that they did what they needed to do to be a good employee, to show up for work every day, be clean, and do their job duties, abide by the rules of the company they were working for and so forth. And if there were issues, I would step in and help address them. So I kind of, I don't, you know, like a supported living almost is what I'm thinking for chronic homelessness. So I don't know if that has come up in any of your research or the commission's research, But I don't know. I've got two reasons that I have kind of pulled back on the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. I know we were left to identify the task force was left to identify strictly the funding source, which we did. But I think the picture is much, much bigger than that. So if we have funds and we just throw it out there, you know, I don't see how that's being effective or irresponsible. But if the funds are needed and we send it out there in a responsible manner to really address the issues, then it would be worth sending the money. Another issue I had was with developers or folks willing to take these dollars and turn it into affordable housing in some way. Do we have agencies? Do we have developers? Who do we have that would be willing to take on that responsibility? And I know you and I, Council Member Kay, have talked about that. But I appreciate your work. And one thing I admire about this council completely is our ability to really dig into things and do what's right. So thank you. Thank you. Mr. K., did you want to answer? Okay. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one other thing that I do want to add on. I have a question. In what context or proportion will the Homelessness Commission's findings have on the ultimate decision that this committee and ultimately the council will have? And this is the reason I say that. I have all the confidence in Council Member Kay, former Council Member Hensley, and the rest of the commission. that's going to bring a report in early 2013. But I also have a lot of confidence and accept the findings of the original commission in 2008. I also have a lot of confidence in all the long work that the council has done in this report in 2011. And so I guess my question is, I'm hoping that we will take the Homelessness Commission's findings findings in regards to their consideration of the trust fund in the general context of the former two reports that have been brought to us, and then also the many voices that are here today and will continue to speak on this issue. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Any further comments on this? At this point, I would like to open it up to the public who have signed up. I'm sorry, Mr. Farmer. I have you on the list. Thank you. I was just going to also have a way of follow-up. Since a very specific portion of today's packet deals with the actions and the work of the Housing Authority, could we have them become part of this conversation at some point? Well, I saw Mr. Maloney stand up when that was brought. Did you want to speak on that, Mr. Maloney? Because I don't see Mr. Sims here. Is there anybody that... We probably didn't ask him to come. It would be my guess. He was invited. Oh, was he? Okay. But, Mr. Maloney, you stood up, so I didn't know if you might have something you wanted to add to this. I didn't mean to roust you out of your seat. So what was your question again? I guess my question was, if you look at today's packet and look at the resources that are available and have been used and administered by the Housing Authority, wouldn't we want them to be part of this conversation in this forum or in this venue? They are. They're involved with this. I mean, they have already started a workforce with the people they live with now. Their goal is to get the people out of the housing as quickly as possible on their own and try to help people that need affordable housing or some kind of delivery. The problem is there's some issues on criminals that we have to be very careful with. So I don't want anybody to get the hopes up that you're going to be able to put somebody in housing authority immediately because we have to follow some of the federal laws. But Austin Sims and them will be glad to be on this, and Tina Colwood, too. She's the chairman of it. Well, I just think it would be wise for us to have the complete picture before we're asked to act. I'd be glad to bring that up to the next board meeting. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that's important. Thank you. And I believe he was. You did invite them. Thank you. At this point, I'd like to open it up to the general public. And I'm going to have a hard time with a couple of these names, but the first one, Adam Jones, I'll do just fine with. And as he walks up, you know, in this day of knowing what goes on in the world instantaneously, it looks like we might have a new football coach here at UK. Mark Stoops from Florida State might be our new football coach, according to the new information coming across the wires. Mr. Jones, welcome. Thank you. It's Adam Jones. I live at 909 Somerville Drive. If you ask, give your name and your address in three minutes, please, unless you have other people who are going to give their time. Okay. I just wanted to come forward and reiterate that this issue, I've been here four years, coming here four years with BUILD, and when we began it has always been about people I know that need an affordable rent and I want to remind the council that it's not only homeless folks as was mentioned that need these rents that are affordable but it's my constituents and my congregation 50% of our congregation is looking for housing especially with the job market being a little more difficult these days for folks that are going through temp services I just want to tell you from front-line experience that the housing need is not a question. I think the previous two studies done in the past four years will tell you that if you want to review them. And I think that the need, if anything, has only gotten worse and grown. I think David Christensen brought that to bear the last time we were together on the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. He said that the number of renter households paying over half their income for rent has gone from 7,000 to 10. And so I think that the need is not a question at all in my mind as to whether or not there are people that need more affordable housing, more quality affordable housing. I also want to tell you that there is a large, large community support. I represent the largest public gathering every year. This year was over 1,500 folks that came informed, that knew what we were going to talk about. Councilman Kay, Councilman Blues were there, and Councilman Ford was there as well. And over 1,500 citizens came and supported these councilpersons in their work for an affordable housing trust fund that's funded. Build itself represents over 20 congregations. And I have, again, dear friends. My friend Junior is here with me today. He needs a lower rent. And he is responsible with his funds. He's responsible with his budget at the end of every month. He is crunching pennies. And he doesn't mind me telling you that. He told me himself. But I just wanted to bring the need to bear again. The need is not a question, and I hope that you will find as you look at the homeless report and look at the other reports and all the work that's been done for four years up to this point, national experts brought in, numerous persons that have come up to this podium and spoke about their need for affordable housing. I hope that will be considered as we move forward on this issue. Thank you. Thank you. The next person, Yoshia Tojami. I'm going to give up my time. Okay. The next one I can't read very well, but it looks like Getz is the last name. Okay. My name is Catherine Goetz. I live at 2151 Hume Road in Lexington. Almost every day when I pick up my newspaper, I read something about the revitalization of downtown Lexington. Let's just picture for a moment that that comes about sometime in the foreseeable future. And we're inviting new people to Lexington and potential new businesses, and they had been shown around the city and seen the wonderful things we'd been able to do. And then, let's say, someone walks out the front of this building and goes a few blocks north, maybe to 6th Street or 7th Street, and takes either a left or a right, and looks at some of the housing there. I think those people would be getting a very different view of Lexington. That's one thought. While you're pondering that, think about making an appointment with Derek Paulson, your planning commissioner, who came to us from EKU, where he was a criminal justice professor. He did research there, which showed that maintenance of buildings helps to make for a safer neighborhood. Have a chat with him. Thank you. Thank you. Ann Garaghty? Hello. I'm not strongly active in build. If you would, give your address to, please, Ms. Gary. I'm sorry. I live at 325 Glendover Road. Thank you. I am an adjunct to Build, but I've been following their work, and I've been following the work of the Homeless Commission. I recognize that the mayor opened this meeting with good comments on the fund balance progress for our city and how that's going to enable us to become a great American city. And I think we also, in that same vein, will become a great American city when we adopt strategies to comprehensively deal with our homeless and workforce housing issues. I have become aware that homelessness and housing issues are not just a downtown problem. I see bicycle riders on Nicholasville Road. I gave a man $20 yesterday sitting outside Target. I know I've seen places where people sleep in cardboard boxes that aren't downtown. And so it is not something we can hide or we can categorize. It is all of us. So I just really want to say that I think that in addition to solving the individual needs of people, that we as a city and a community will thrive when we address this comprehensively. Thank you. That's the end of the list I have. Is there anybody else who would like to speak on this issue? Seeing none, thank you so much. Oh, I'm sorry. I see someone standing up. If you would just give your name and your address, please. You have three minutes. My name is Sister Iris Thedden, and I right now live in Kirk-Levington. I went through the experience of not being able to find anything that was affordable. I belonged to a religious community. They said that they would pick up what they could of my rent. I am semi-retired. I do not get that much of an income. I spent over a month and a half with three realtors looking for places. The places we found were run down. They were in unsafe neighborhoods. And I honestly wondered, I have a puppy, and I thought we would live in a pup tent. That's to the point. There's some humor in that. But the humor was the stress and the anxiety of having everything packed in my house and having no place to go that was within affordable means. Where I am is affordable for this year, possibly. I don't know for the next year. And my ministry is here. I've been in Kentucky for 23 years. And so I think I've experienced some of what it means to find affordable housing. Because as soon as something came open for rent, that would be within my means. It was already rented because of the foreclosures that were going on. People snap them up right away. And so I think we have to take seriously what people are going through and to realize you all have homes. We all have homes. But what about the people who don't or people who live where some landlords do nothing and who live in unsafe neighborhoods where there are break-ins, I think we have to take this and pass it. And I appreciate your listening. Thank you. Thank you, Sister. Anybody else who would like to speak? Seeing none, I want to thank you all for coming. Did you want to speak? Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Vera Thomas. I live at 1645 Raleigh Road, apartment 102. And I've just moved to Lexington. It'll be a year December 29th. I've experienced homelessness myself as a single mother after my divorce with a child. And the thing is, it's not just homeless people living on the streets. You're also looking at what is called the hidden homeless, people that are living with other people. I have a niece who just recently went through that. She's a single mother. She works hard. She ended up getting laid off from her job. She has two children, and her rent was over $800 a month. She could no longer afford it, so she kind of moved from pillar to post up until just recently. She was able to find another place, but it's not adequate enough because she needs a three-bedroom. But she moved into a two-bedroom because she could afford it. This is a serious issue, a very serious issue. And if you're just looking at homeless people that are living on the street, that is a misnomer. I am suggesting that you also want to seriously consider those that are living from pillar to post, those that are living with other relatives or other friends and in crowded situations. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anybody else? I want to thank you all for coming out, and we will have this on the January docket for the budget and finance, and we'll either take a vote to move forward at that meeting or in the February meeting. The next item on the agenda will be items referred to committee, and I think Vice Chair Lane wants to speak on the financial efficiency measures. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. An ordinance addressing cost accounting and best practices in government was referred to this committee out of the work session. I'd like to ask that we schedule that for our first meeting in 2013. That's the first item. I don't think we have to vote on that. The point I would like to make, just very shortly, is that we, as a council, approved putting in new software in 2005, and that's essentially seven years later. And our current accounting system is really not very effective as far as allowing us to ascertain what it costs to operate the government, what the cost of services are. and so I would hope that the focus on this ordinance is to improve our accounting system. I don't think we will be able to operate the government more effectively if we don't have better financial information to work from and that applies from the standpoint of the administration of our government and from a policy standpoint I don't think we can effectively evaluate if we have the right policies in place to provide the services that are necessary for our constituents. And I would just close by saying that we are spending about $500 million a year through our accounting system. That includes the general fund and the special funds and grants and other monies that come through the government. If we were able to save one-half of 1 percent through better operations, that amounts to $2.5 million a year or $25 million over the 10-year period. And I think it would be very likely that we could figure out how to save one-half of 1 percent. So thank you for that. That's all I have for you. Mr. Schonger. There was one other thing I was going to mention, is that if any member of the council or the public would like to ask somebody to speak to this issue, I would invite them to get them to come to the meeting in January. Thank you. Mr. Schonger, put that on, if you would, for the January meeting. And if you would go down where we are on each one of these items in committee, and I'll just go ahead and talk about the procurement task force. I've met with Mr. Slayton, and we're organizing that and reinstituting that. So those two will be taken care of. The Solid Waste Task Force met last month, and I think Council Member Standard has scheduled another meeting for the end of January. Okay. The activity-based costing is an issue that Council Member Lane put into committee back last year. I think that that might be rolled up into at least part of what rolled up into the financial efficiencies measures. Maybe not. And then the Affordable Housing Trust Fund is the item that was addressed today and will be addressed in the coming year as well. Thank you. Is there anything else to come before this committee? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. We stand adjourned. Thank you.