# Budget Committee of the Whole (COW) - May 28, 2013 > Auto-transcribed civic record · May 28, 2013 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3006 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3006?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2013-05-28 - **Last revised**: July 16, 2026 - **Length**: 5,401 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 Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council met on May 28, 2013, at 1:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers, with the Vice Mayor presiding. The council addressed three agenda items during the session, including an informational discussion of Budget Link Reports, consideration of a Finance and Social Services recommendation regarding Explorium Loan Forgiveness, and review of a Code for America Funding Recommendation. One motion was voted on during the meeting, which resulted in approval of the Explorium Loan Forgiveness item. The Code for America Funding Recommendation was deferred for further consideration at a later date. The council also heard four public comments from members of the community during the session. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on May 28, 2013: - Connie - Council Member Ellinger - Council Member Henson - Council Member Lawless - Council Member Farmer - Council Member Akers - Council Member Clark - Council Member Massadi - Council Member Myers - Council Member Beard - Council Member Kay No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The Council approved a finance and social services recommendation regarding Explorium loan forgiveness and service agreement [timestamp: 0:39:04]. Council Member Beard moved for approval. The motion passed by voice vote. **Condition:** The written agreement must be signed by the Explorium board by June 11th for implementation. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included five financial actions affecting various city funds and departments: **Loan Forgiveness** The council approved forgiveness of a $91,812 loan to Explorium of Lexington over three years. This action includes an annual expense of $38,850 to support 24 events per year. **General Fund Appropriations** Two appropriations were added to the general fund: - $75,000 for streets and roads painting and striping supplies - $20,000 transfer from the 2013 bond fund to the Coroner's Office for vehicle replacement **Bond Fund Increases** The council approved two bond fund increases: - $1,000,000 increase to the PDR bond fund for land purchases through the General Services District - $100,000 increase to the golf cart bond fund for Piccadome and Tates Creek cart replacements through the General Services District These actions totaled approximately $1,287,812 in financial commitments and adjustments across multiple city funds and departments. ## Public Comment Council members raised several questions regarding the proposed budget and capital projects during the meeting. **Code for America Funding** Council Member Clark sought clarification on why Code for America was not recommended for funding [timestamp: 0:17:49]. Clark requested a presentation to better understand the project and its bondability. **Capital Fund Bond Requirements** Council Member Lawless asked for clarification on capital project funding thresholds [timestamp: 0:12:16]. Specifically, Lawless inquired whether capital projects in the $25,000 council member fund must each individually total $25,000, or if the combined total of multiple projects could equal that amount. **General Services Funding** Council Member Akers raised a question about budget responsibility [timestamp: 0:25:20]. Akers asked who is responsible for identifying $200,000 in general services funding, noting the significant increase in that fund. **Explorium Agreement** Council Member Kay requested additional details regarding the Explorium agreement [timestamp: 0:35:51]. Kay asked for clarification on how the $91,812 loan forgiveness works, including specifics about the annual expense and the value of services involved. ## Contested Items **Explorium Loan Forgiveness Agreement** The council approved a recommendation regarding an Explorium loan forgiveness agreement, though the vote was split. The primary concern centered on whether the Explorium board would accept the written agreement terms. Council members required confirmation of the board's acceptance by June 11th to proceed; without this confirmation, the approval would be reversed. This conditional approval reflected uncertainty about the agreement's viability pending external acceptance. **Code for America Funding** Council members engaged in a heated discussion about Code for America funding. The discussion revealed confusion among council members regarding the project's purpose and its bondability—whether the project could be financed through bonds. Due to the lack of clarity, the council decided to request a formal presentation on the Code for America project. This presentation was intended to provide clarification on the project's objectives and financial structure before proceeding further. ## Discussion of Budget Link Reports The Budget Committee of the Whole reviewed recommendations from various budget links during this discussion [timestamp: 00:00]. **Budget Areas Reviewed** The committee examined recommendations from the following budget links: - General Government - Environmental Quality and Public Works - General Services and Planning - Finance and Social Services **Key Financial Recommendations** The following financial adjustments were recommended: - Transfer of $20,000 from the 2013 bond fund to the general fund for a coroner vehicle replacement - Addition of $75,000 to the general fund for street painting and striping - Increase of $1 million to the PDR (Purchase of Development Rights) bond fund - Increase of $100,000 to the golf cart bond fund **Participants** The discussion involved Connie and Council Members Ellinger, Henson, Lawless, and Akers. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with the committee reviewing and discussing the budget link recommendations presented. ## Finance and Social Services Recommendation: Explorium Loan Forgiveness [timestamp: 00:27:25] Council Member Beard presented a proposal to forgive $91,812 of a loan owed to LFUCG by the Explorium over a three-year period. The forgiveness would be contingent upon the Explorium providing 24 events per year for five years. The proposal aimed to formalize an existing arrangement that had previously been made verbally. Under the new terms, the Explorium would be required to sign a written contract documenting the agreement and its conditions. Bill O'Meara participated in the discussion of this agenda item alongside Council Member Beard. The council approved the proposal with one condition: the Explorium must sign the agreement by June 11th. This deadline was established to ensure timely execution of the formal contract and to solidify the terms of the loan forgiveness arrangement. ## Code for America Funding Recommendation [timestamp: 00:17:49] The council discussed a $180,000 Code for America funding recommendation that had been rejected. Council Member Clark questioned the basis for the rejection, noting concerns about lack of clarity regarding project scope and bondability. The council determined that additional information was needed to properly evaluate the proposal. Rather than making a final decision at this meeting, the committee agreed to request a presentation from the administration to clarify the proposal details. The presentation was scheduled for June 4th, allowing staff time to prepare a more comprehensive explanation of the Code for America funding initiative, including specifics on project scope and how the funding would be structured from a bonding perspective. The matter was deferred pending this additional presentation and clarification. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — approved: Approval of the finance and social services recommendation regarding Explorium loan forgiveness and service agreement --- ## Full transcript Each have a packet in front of you with links, recommendations, and then you should have in your packet partner agencies listing. And then you should have the document that is the professional services by fund and division. And at the end of your packet, you'll have a finance and social services link recommendation page that is different from the one that was brought to us last week. So we'll kind of work our way through this. And Connie, I guess I would just ask the partner agencies and the professional services services are simply for council member information correct okay very good all right let's work our way through and Connie has taken these council link recommendations and put them all in the chart as you all asked for and come up with a balance. Do you want to talk just a minute about that, please, Connie? What that represents? Hello. So one of the things I set out to do was to take the LINCS recommendations and put them on one master list so that you would have one list to look down and review when you're making the This list has both current financial and possibly future non-financials all on the same list because I just kept all the LINC recommendations together. If you would prefer for the day you make decisions, I can separate the two. There weren't very many current financial recommendations in the Council LINC process, And that's why I left them together for this. I've included in there what fund for the ones that actually impact the 2014 year. I've included what fund they impact and a total for each link for how much change to the FY 2014 budget the link had recommended. Do you mind to just work through the financial ones only, please? When we do this on the Tuesday you make your final decisions, this list will start with the administrative late item list in a similar format and carry on to the links list as we go through. So you'll see a similar format when we get to that. The first item that we had that had an impact on the 2014 budget was from the General Government link. And the General Government link was recommending that the Code for America partnership funds of $180,000 in 2014 bond funds not be included in next year's budget. That's number eight on your list. The general government link also recommended that $180,000 be placed in the 2014 bond fund to allow $12,000 in capital money for each council member's cost center. And the last item that that link had was to add $20,000 to the current budget of $18,000, to trade in a Taurus for the coroner and purchase for them a van that met their current needs. So the total for that link, the only impact was for the 2013 bond fund where we were adding $20,000. And I should have included $20,000 from the general fund because that's where it's coming from. I'll make myself a note. And it would be $20,000 to the general fund as well. That'll move to the column to the left. Yes. The social services link, I didn't have a financial impact for 2014 from them. Specifically, there's still discussion about Explorium and exactly what we're going to do about them. But I believe the decision was we would make that decision later on in the year when fund balance is reported out. And correct me if I'm wrong about that, because I was very unclear after all the discussions took place. Yes, it was somewhat unclear, and I think at the end we've got an amended finance and social services report. That's true, and I have not seen that yet. I think many people haven't seen it, and we'll let them report out. So there will be more to come on that a little later on in the meeting. The public safety link didn't have anything that specifically impacted the 2014 budget. They had a lot of recommendations about different things they want to see happen next year, but none of them actually impacted the budget that I saw. The environmental quality and public works link had three items. Two of them were for Water Quality Management Fund, the desire to carry forward the Idalauer project money and the Anniston project money. The Idalauer is $475,000, and the Anniston is $455,000 for a total of $930,000. In addition, there was an allocation for streets and roads to include an additional $75,000 for painting and striping of asphalt, and that is a general fund impact. The general services and planning link, the first item that they had was to put in place another million dollars in PDR bond funds. So that impacted the general services district by $70,400 in debt service and increase the bond fund by a million dollars for land purchases for PDR. In addition, they wanted to increase from $300,000 to $400,000 the golf cart bond money so that the Piccadome and Tates Creek golf carts were fully replaced, and that would be $24,000 for the General Services District and $100,000 for the 2014 bond fund. Can you help us understand how $24,000 fits there? It's debt payment. So that will add $100,000 to the bond fund? Okay. Okay, so, Council Members, that's the $100,000 will show up in the bond fund column, correct? Yes. For 2014. Okay, thank you. The other item they had was for the Downtown Arts Center. They had $6,000 for equipment that they needed to purchase. and I don't know why I have $100,000 there. Maybe that $100,000 in the bond fund is the golf cart. I must have put it in the wrong place. That means scratched out, that $100,000. Yes, it does and moved. Thank you. So the total remains $1.1 million for the bond fund as the impact for general services and $100,400 for the general fund. Okay. Are there any questions for Connie about those items? We're up and running, so if you have a question, please log in. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. When we had the discussion about the $12,000 for the capital projects and the total was $180,000, and one of the discussions said that we couldn't bond it, but if we move that from $12,000 to $25,000, is there a change there, I was told, or maybe you emailed? If it moved from $12,000 to $25,000, I think it would meet the qualifications for bonding. If each individual project has to bond? The project has to meet capital bonding qualifications, and the first gateway is $25,000 in cost. And the next gateway is what is it you're looking to do. Is what you're looking to do capital in nature? And if the project met both of those, then it would be okay. So minimally, you're going to have to probably start with $25,000 per council member if you want it to stay in the bond fund. And if you're not interested in doing $25,000, the other option would be to move it to a general fund expense and leave it at $180,000. Okay. I just want to get that clarification. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I had a question about the PDR, and this may have already been discussed, and I apologize if I missed it. but I was just curious of when we would know whether or not the federal match is available. Council Member Clark, we heard some information in the link. I think you can speak. Yes, we talked to Billy Van Pelt about that, Peggy, and he assured us that he had talked to the feds about that, and they were very confident that extra money would be available. We've had some conversations since the report out, and I still think that's the case, but we don't know for sure. Okay. Thank you. I think he would have to contact and say we do have the extra million to get a realistic answer for us. Okay. Thank you. And his, if I can just add to that, his comment was that other cities are not able right now to put money in, so they're not getting the match money. So he feels that there is money available. Okay. Council Member Lawless. This is back to the capital fund bond for each council office. would if we put the $25,000 per office in there, would that mean that those capital projects would have to be $25,000 each? I mean, for instance, if there were two projects in a district that were not a total of $25,000, would that matter? The project would have to be, each project that you did would have to be $25,000. I mean, that could be done in an eye blink. And you would need to put in place some rules about choosing projects and how you went about it. But in order to meet capital. Yeah, I understood that. I said no, if it was the total or per project. Okay, thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So that takes us back through the end of all the recommendations, and then you've got one, two, three, four pages of printout of the individual, actual and original and amended. Then there's another page about, I guess this was the updated link part. Yes, Council Member Beard, I think, will give us a report on that finance and social services. Okay, so in the universe of things we're discussing are the link report outs, and then I guess at some point the mayor's late item list would come along. It'll come next Thursday. Just before Christmas. And then we get our updated revenue estimate at the same time. and there was another item we get. Next Thursday you'll have a revenue update. You'll have the administration's late items, and the individual council members have until this Friday to turn in their, your all's individual request, and you should have that on Thursday to see as well. So at Thursday at the night meeting or Thursday? It's at 3, I believe. Thursday a week. At 3 p.m. Not yet. Not this Thursday, but next Thursday. You'll have all that. And the Tuesday after that is when you make your decisions. Thank you. For sure. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Akers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Connie, I just want to clarify. So on number 21, the corner, we're moving the 20 from the 2013 bond fund, $20,000, to general services, which would change the balance at the total balance under general services would be $120,400. Total for all links would be $195,400 and then zero under 2013 bond fund. The $20,000 for general government link, I need to add $20,000 as an expense to the general fund because that's who's sending it over to add to the $18,000. So when you look at your budget document, you'll have another $20,000 sitting in the general fund as a transfer, and you'll have $20,000 that shows up in the 2013 bond fund as the addition. Okay. So we increase the general services side and link changes by 20, but also keep the $20,000 in the bond fund. Yes. Okay. And then maybe I missed this during presentations, and I apologize, But there's $75,000 additionally requested for streets and roads. Can someone speak to that and refresh my memory? This just was a recommendation of the link itself, and it had to do with them having the materials to go out and paint and stripe and do things, especially at a district level, if you will. They don't have the supplies to do things. Throughout the year, not just our paving that's happening now. No, you know, it's like when you have additional curbs painted yellow or markings on the street, or if it's hot, there's a type of application that you do during winter months that's different during the summer. Okay. I think our link kind of felt from a district perspective that it was important money to add to them because a lot of us have individual traffic-related problems that marking can help take care of. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm not sure if this is the appropriate time or not, but under the general government, we were talking about the council office. I had mentioned this previously. We discussed the possibility of having a part-time, full-time budget analyst. Would this be the time to discuss that? That would be, if it's coming from an individual council member, it could get added to that list, and that deadline's a week from Friday. Or is it this Friday, Connie? It's this Friday, isn't it? This Friday is the deadline for individuals, yes. Unless the link goes back and makes a recommendation. I know we had discussed that pretty extensively when we had our budget retreat, and I didn't know what would be the appropriate time to bring it up or if Councilman Allinger. It did not come out of the link. It didn't come out of the link at all. Correct. So I think at this point, if someone wants to add it, it will come either from an individual council member or a link. Okay. Thank you. And those will need to be in the end of this week. Councilmember Clark. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I would like to ask Chuck if he could explain a bit about Code for America and why that was not a good recommendation. I tried to look it up today and try to find out more about it. It wasn't very clear. And I think that's kind of one of the reasons why the link was not in favor of us, because we didn't really see the clear picture of what they were trying for us to bring forward. But we did include there, if they wanted to do a presentation and bring it forward, then we would be willing to accept that part of it. But at this point, we didn't see by what they presented really what we were going to be spending $180,000 for. Yeah, I can understand that. I had a hard time trying to figure out what they would be doing for Lexington. But I suspect there is a motive here somewhere, and I would like to have more information if we could ask the administration to yes. And that's why we put in there that second part of it. We weren't recommending at the time but said if they wanted to come and do a presentation, that we were willing to look at that and the whole council could then decide if they want to do that. And I think the CAO also raised her hand and would like to speak to it. Yeah, I'd like to recommend that, Chuck. I think they're ready to make a presentation. I mean, I don't know that they're ready right this second, but they would be happy to make a presentation. Oh, I'm sorry. There he is. Well, here we are. I'll let him do it. Yes, sir. Council Member Clark, we're preparing a presentation now. I don't know exactly what the timing is on this. I know you have a deadline to make changes to your recommendations, so I'd like to do it soon. I don't know when that first opportunity will come. Maybe I can get some guidance from the Council on that. Would, Council Members, could we do it on the June 6th meeting? We have the revenue update, review the mayor's late items, links, and Council Member recommendations. and the actual day that we're going to work on proposed recommendations to make any changes is the 11th. So what would you think about the 6th? Would that work? There's a busy schedule that day, so if we could do it. I see people shaking their heads no, but can you tell me why? Work session on Tuesday. Okay, so during our, let me go back, on the 6th, we have a budget meeting. You say it. Yes, it is. At 3 o'clock, we have a committee of the whole for budget, and we have the revenue update, the mayor's slate items, links, and council member recommendations. is there any reason it could not be done during that meeting? Other than that, that's a pretty full meeting right there. But, yeah. Vice Mayor, is there any way we could do it at a work session? It would be next week. The work session is available Tuesday. The 4th? The presentation tomorrow. Yeah. Can you bring it tomorrow? We can. We'll bring something, and if we have to supplement it later, we can do that. Vice Mayor, I'd like to add that in looking at this, looking at Code for America, it was very interesting, and I thought there was obviously some merit there, but I did not quite understand how it was going to apply to Lexington, and that was my question. That's why I think the presentation would be very informative. Yep, I agree. I think it would help clarify. Okay, thank you. We'll do that on the 4th. And then are there others? Well, we've got Council Member Lawless, and then I'll ask if there are other things that Council Members want to see a presentation on that are in the budget recommendations. Council Member Lawless? I'd just like to add on the Code for America, there was also some questions about it being general fund or bonding, and would it be bondable? So those would be questions. I assume you're going to talk about that in your presentation. Yeah, we'll address that when they make their presentation. Council Member Clark, did that answer everything for you? Okay. And Council Member Lawless? That was okay. Are there any other questions about what we've covered? Any other items that you'd like to clarify through a presentation? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Do you know how much time Council Members will have to go over their recommendations? Their own personal ones. On the 6th is when we'll kind of vet through the list, and then no decisions will be made until the 11th. So I would think revenue update, maybe Mr. O'Mara, 10 minutes. And then mayor's late items will probably require. Maybe a little longer. I was just asking, and apparently the list isn't huge, and most of them are items that the Lynx have heard already in their process. So for some of you, they won't be new items. Of course, your list from Lynx is not very long. No. I haven't seen any of the individuals, so I can't tell you that. I mean, I don't see any problem that day of having an hour and a half or two hours of that meeting, maybe. Being just the individuals? Okay. Thank you. Now, anything else, Councilmembers? Are there any other items you want to hear more about that are being recommended by the links? No? Okay. Connie, thank you very much, and I'm guessing when you get the updated list, you'll email it out. Yes. You've been working very hard getting us lots of information. Thank you so much. Yeah, Council Member Farmer was teasing me. I don't have the ability to make a PDF here, and I do at home. So there was a lot of things that I had sent that I hadn't heard from, and so I sort of thought maybe because you couldn't pull it up and see it might have been part of the issue. So I went through and I sent back out items that I had done in a PDF file that you could read on your portable things. I also went through and answered Council Member Stenet's question some, hopefully. I updated the handout that you had in your links that had graphs and historical by-division information across funds and added a little block that let you know if that particular division currently had bond funds outstanding. And I thought that was sort of helpful when you were looking not only how much money did they receive across funds over time, but did they have bond funds as well. We appreciate all your hard work. Thank you so much. Council Member Akers. Thank you. And this is just a question, I guess, as a new council member, what the process is. when we are increasing general services fund by almost $200,000, whose responsibility is it, I suppose, to find that $200,000 within the budget? Is it up to the link? Is it up to all of council? Do we send it back to the mayor and they make the cuts? Or how does it work when we... Normally, all of the above. Some links, sometimes a link will find the money. sometimes not and when it goes back to usually Connie will you'll do your magic on the budget itself and she'll plug in the expenditures and she'll take down the fund balance yes in prior years sometimes the mayor's budget to you has had a projected ending fund balance of $100,000 or less, which left very little leeway for council members to make changes without making adjustments to the budget. This was not the case this year. I believe it was $1.2 million sitting in general fund alone in their projected ending fund balance, which gave council links a little more leeway to make adjustments without the angst of trying to figure out where on earth you were going to cut it from if you made that adjustment. So you had a lot more leeway this year than you've had in some prior years about finding the money. Okay. Does that answer the question? Yes. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Let's move then to the finance and social services recommendation, which is the back page of the packet. And I'll recognize Council Member Beard. Just to get everybody on the same page from last week, the large concern we had concerned the Explorium, some monies that we were holding for them, and some monies that they owe us. I assume everybody has a copy of what I have in front of me. I think Willie passed those out earlier this morning. What is proposed is that the 91,812 A93 be remitted to Explorium over a three-year span of time. and then, and this is subject to an agreement being crafted, that the Explorium would furnish programming for 24 LFUCG events per year, be coordinated with parks to supplement active parks programming for children and families. and it would be a five-year. There is a minor error right there. It says one-tenth is really one-fifth because it's going to be a five-year agreement and I think we probably ought to have those match. So it would be five years that we would each year actually be able to write off, I guess, for lack of a better term, 38,850.04 per year, and we would be clear with the Explorium at that point. And so there's going to have to be some discussion, I think, with the Explorium. And, Bill, did you have some discussion? Yes, sir. I did talk to the director, not with the board, about the concept that the administration was going to put forward to the council. So this is not a surprise. They did think that it was a workable solution. The 24 events would not be where they don't charge for general admission, so we would not be reducing their revenues. It would be roadshows that would go to parks, events, Friday night flicks or whatever, that it would be value-added to the programs that we have in place. And this does solve your issue about having this outstanding lump of money that you didn't want to write off at least over one year. I believe so. The key is a written agreement. And if that written agreement says they have to perform in order for the forgiveness to occur, then it does not get forgiven until the services are performed. So that's pretty much the decision that has to be made is whether we would accept that if, in fact, the agreement satisfies your all's needs and requirements. Thank you. So, Mr. O'Meara, so the current agreement is not in writing, is that correct? It's a verbal agreement. Right. And so this would replace that verbal agreement with a written agreement? Correct. Okay. All right. I will, is that, does that finish your report? Yes, that's correct. I'll take some comments and questions. Council Member Farmer. Thank you. And just by way of follow-up, does this proposed agreement, is it similar to the verbal one that's been in use? You might want to stay at the podium. Sure. Or pull up a chair. The discussion was that over a two- to three-year period, the Explorium would be able to furnish Lexington, Fed, Urban County Government with like-kind services. Right. and as those services were delivered at a retail price, then we would expense them against the loan so that the loan would be paid off with like-kind services. That was the discussion that we had had with them before. What neither party realized was how many years it would take for that arrangement to come to fruition. We were thinking two to three years, not ten years. And so the council, both in the link as well as in the council of the whole, asked for us to come back with a different proposal. And from my interest, from the finance side, is that once we say we're going to forgive it, we have to take that expense at that time. So if there is a cause and effect in order for that forgiveness to occur, the 24 events, then whether they're dollar for dollar or five to one, whatever it turns out to be, then that agreement comes to fruition at the end of each year, and that's when the forgiveness or the expense occurs on LFUCG books. So what we said we're going to do is what we're doing? Well, not exactly. We propose dollar for dollar. Okay. We're not proposing dollar for dollar. Twenty-four events is not going to equal one-fifth of the two hundred and, or hundred and ninety-four thousand. So who drew this up, then? Bill O'Meara. I've met him. He's a nice guy. Well, I see your pride of authorship, by the way. With discussion with the director. With the current director of the Explorium. That's correct. As a proposal to the chairman of the Lynx. To the Lynx. Yes, sir. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Bill, just doing some quick figuring here. has there been some thought of taking the $91,000 and giving that back to them in five-year increments and just simply subtract that from the difference? And that way, rather than having to come up with $40,000 in kind, it would be more like, well, a little more than half that. any thought of that rather than just giving them $30,000 and then making them come up with $40,000? Let me see if I can explain it. The total owed is $286,000. It's at the top of this handout. I understand that. Of that, $91,000 has been paid to us in cash because we have control of the cash. So they still owe us $194,000. If we give them the cash, we have to expense that. So it doesn't reduce what they owe. It increases what they owe. When we release the cash, we expense it. And then when they do the 24 events, that is a like-kind service to release the remaining balance. Only it's not a dollar for dollar. It's more like $3 to one. We would be releasing $3 to their $1 of in-kind service. Does that help clarify? Yes. So I simply question whether they can come up with $40,000 in in-kind service. We're not asking them to. We're asking them to participate in 24 events. Whatever that's worth, we will expense one-fifth of their remaining balance. Okay. That answers my question. Thank you, sir. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Right up until this last question, I thought I understood exactly what was happening, but now I'm not sure I do. The total amount, which is the 286, is that what they need? Basically one-fifth of that total is what will be expensed each year if they provide the services? It's actually, the way it's been proposed is we release the $91,000, a third, a third, a third. So they get $30,000, $30,000, $31,000. We expense $30,000, $30,000, $31,000. In addition to that, we expense one-fifth of the remaining loan balance of $194,000. So I think that's about $38,000. So the first three years you're expensing in the $68,000. The last two years it's $38,000. Okay. So one, again, I thought I had an easy way to understand this. I'm going to see if it's true. One way to understand this is that each year they will provide these 24 events. Essentially, on average, we'll be expensing out roughly $50,000. Correct? Okay, so the value to us of the 24 events is roughly $2,000 an event, which seems to me actually quite reasonable given the kind of services they provide. So I think I now do understand. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. I think that clarified it for a lot of us. Are there other questions or comments? So if there's no objection, this recommendation would go on the list, Connie, just like all the others, and come up for when the whole list is discussed. I just wanted to check and see, would 2013 be the first year of this five-year agreement, or does it start 2014? 2014, thank you. So it will be starting in 2014. Okay. All right. Vice Mayor? Yes. I do think we probably ought to start having some more extensive discussion with them on whether they're willing to sign this agreement. Is that something you would be doing, Mr. O'Meara, who would be having the conversations with the Explorium? I would be glad to take the lead, and then we would get along together. But as I said, I compiled this proposal with discussions with the director. I'm not sure at what extent she's had discussions with her board. Well, I just want to be sure that that doesn't fall apart subsequent to our conversations today or in the next time. It seems to me we would need some definitive answer by June 11th. Yes. So that we can either include it as a proposal in the budget or not. Exactly. Correct? I'd be glad to convey that. Okay. Does that work? That's fine. I didn't want to have that hung out there, and then we have to reverse our field and go in another direction. Okay. Okay. Well, and I guess, I mean, if the Explorium is not interested in that particular agreement, something different would need to be proposed. Probably. It would probably be what would happen, but, you know, I don't think we'd be willing to do anything except what has been proposed and what the bill has worked out. Okay. All right. So you'll let us know. Thank you. Okay. Council members, are there any other questions, comments, anything at all about the information we've received? Connie will update the chart and get it back out to us. Thursday is when any further LINCS recommendations are due in. And they're due in to, let's see, Connie, Councilmember Ellinger, myself, and were you on that list, Stacy and Paul? When you send them out, just copy all of us. And then Friday is when individual Councilmember requests are due. Okay. Pardon me? She'll take them earlier, tomorrow. And then Connie will get that list coordinated and ready for us. Is there anything else? We have a motion to adjourn in a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Anyone opposed? All right, we're adjourned. Thank you very much.