Music Thank you. We've got a long agenda. It looks like it's going to take a while. If we would take our seats, please. Thank you. First item on my agenda is the August 27, 2013, committee summary. Do I have a motion to accept that? Move approved. We've got a motion to approve. We have a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes. The next item is our monthly financial report. Commissioner? Do you think so? No. Are we having a fund balance discussion? We'll do our quick monthly report, and then we'll spend the majority on the fund balance discussion. For those who are concerned about that. I'll try to behave myself. Thank you, Chair. This is the financial update. It's for today, but it's for the first two months of the fiscal year. The first slide is looking at comparative unemployment rates. And as you can see from the bump up and bump down, we're on the good side of that curve. The problem is we can't seem to string three or four months of the same together. But for comparison, the August unemployment rate for Kentucky is 8.4 compared to the month before of 8.5. The United States average is 7.3 in August compared to 7.4 in the month of July. The Lexington MSA, the regional area, is at 6.2, and it was 6.6 in July. And Fayette County itself is now sitting at 6.1. compared to 6.4 in July. So all of the comparisons went down August over July. The next one is just a smoothing of a running three months, so those spikes just kind of smooth out, but it's there to show you that the trend is going down, but still with the bumps up and down. the next are some of the economic indicators that we like to follow we just talked about unemployment and it is a good either compared to same time last year or the previous month and the fayette county permits we don't have that going on we actually were above year over year last month in July, but we are now below the same time last year in August and the prior month. So permits have become soft in the month of August. The new business license are basically flat, but home sales are up both year over year and about flat for the previous month. And what we hoped was going to be a spike in foreclosures in July does look like that. We're back down into the 50 range, and that's favorable both prior month and month over month. If you look at the month of August, we have too many negatives. All four of the major revenue streams are below the monthly budget. The fourth one, I'll talk in each one of the presentations, showing that there is some timing difference on the franchise fees. We are converting. This is the first year that all the utilities will be paying us monthly, and we tried to smooth out the monthly budgets to reflect those monthly payments, but they are inconsistently coming in. Sometimes we're getting it monthly and sometimes we're not. I expect that variance to smooth out as the year goes on. However, that's a timing difference. We are seeing that the actual franchise payments are a little less than what we anticipated in our base budget. In the year-to-date, we do still have some negatives. Employee withholdings are 2% below the two-month budget. Net profits are down. The insurance shows that positive trend that we've seen for the better part of a year, and that timing difference is showing up in the franchise fees. The comparisons to this time this year and last year, as well as year over year, give pretty much the same message, that employee withholdings are a little lower than anticipated, and the others are kind of varying back and forth. The next slide is the report of nuisance abatement and lien collections, which takes us into total revenues where Melissa Luker will explain. Okay, Bill's talked about the big four, so we'll skip on down. If you look, other licenses and permits, we have a favorable variance there. That goes along with the home sales being increased. That's our deed tax fee and our registration fee for alarms. So that's that variance. The services, we have another variance of $385,000. That's due to bed fees at the detention center. Those are continuing to stay positive for us and bring in more than what we have budgeted. And then the other income is the next largest variance down there at the bottom, and that's due to penalties of interest and miscellaneous income, which is various income accounts throughout different divisions that we have. In total, our revenue is $1 million behind where we have budgeted for the year, but this is just two months into the fiscal year, so nothing to panic about yet. Now we'll look at the expense side. on the personnel, we're running a little bit behind our budget. It's only a 1.5% variance, so this is fairly good for right now. Our operating, you see we have a $1.6 million favorable variance. This is in various operating accounts, vehicle, equipment, and fuel, operating supplies, professional services, just various operating accounts. The difference in the partner agencies is due to timing, just when the payments are made, that will work itself out. And then on the operating capital expenditures, once again, that's the timing. We're just purchasing more of our capital earlier in the fiscal year than what we had laid out through the budget. Shouldn't be a problem. Expenses are running a favorable variance of about $1.4 million. If you net that with the revenue, we're at a net gain of $400,000 for the first two months of the fiscal year. This next slide is just for reference. This is how we compare this calendar year to the prior calendar year, and this is our revenue. And then this is our expenses calendar year to previous calendar year. You can see it looks like we're spending a lot more in 2013 than we did in 2012. That's because our budget is higher, so we have higher budgeted expenses. So if anybody has any questions. Council members, do you have any questions? If you do, please log in. Otherwise, we will move to the main topic of the day. Does anybody have questions for Commissioner or Budget Director? Seeing none, we will move to our fund balance. Drum roll, please. Thank you, Chair. As we've had previous conversations, the request was to come forward with a preliminary fund balance by October 1st. And this is preliminary, so all the numbers are rounded, not exact, because they may shift some, but we feel that we're in the ballpark with these numbers presenting to you today. And thank you for getting this on time. Like you said, we appreciate that. And I picked up on some messages with previous conversations that the Council had really expressed some interest in being involved in the reporting of fund balance in the CAFR, specifically on how to assign fund balance. So this is what we're doing today, is sharing that conversation with council, and this is a reporting function. This is how we will present the 6-30-2013 financial results in our consolidated annual financial report. Separate from that and after that would be discussions on actually how to spend fund balance, what to approve as a budget amendment. Any of those actions can happen any time later, but in order for us to meet our scheduled publication of the CAFR, we need to have this discussion today on how to present final fund balance in the financial statements. So the good news is we had a culmination of all the good things that can happen in an operation happen last year. We exceeded revenue. We had less expenses than budget in personnel, less expenses budgeted in operating, and some of the approved uses of fund balance were not completely spent in FY13, which gave us where our revenues taken in exceeded expenses spent by $10.4 million. To explain that, we've put FY13 as proposed or recommended to be reported in the CAFR on the first column. The second column shows how it was presented in last year's CAFR with a difference column. So our total that is reported in the CAFR is all of the general fund funds. That's at $54.5 million. We have about $1.1 million of reserved that cannot be considered general service fund. We need to back those out. And then we have an additional $1.4 million of unspendable. That's a definition in the financial world that is already prepaid. So those monies have already been spent. So what you're really looking at is a fund balance for the general fund of $51.975, just about $52 million. That compares to last year's $41.5, and that's where that difference of $10.4 million comes from. The difference between revenues taken in, expenses spent, that would be the increase in your fund balance from last year to this year. So how would we report those? Well, at the top, I've brought that balance forward. So under the 2013 column, we just talked about the $51,975. and we first look at ordinance-driven allocations of the fund balance. The first one would be the economic contingency, and the balance in the economic contingency at June 30 is $18.8 million. Per council direction, there needs to be an additional $1.372 million put in there from the recalculation of the 2012. And then the additional calculation from the activity in 2013 would result in another $1,379,500. So if you sum all those together, that would be a total economic contingency for June 30, 2013 of right at $21.5 million. That's an increase of $3.1 million over last year. The other two ordinance-driven fund balance reserves are for the 27th payroll. That needs to be increased a little over $920,000 to come to a balance of $5,458,000. And we have the energy improvement, which needs to go up $229,000 to come to a balance of approximately $460,000. If you accept those ordinance-driven reserves, that would leave a subtotal from our starting point at $24.476 million. So I brought that total forward to the next page. That's where we start. And we would like to talk about what we think are prudent financial planning, which are the contingency category. These are things that may occur or may not occur in the following year. but are enough on the horizon that we think we need to plan for them. So we're proposing a litigation reserve to be increased by $2 million over the base of last year from $3.5 to $5.5. We recommend a health insurance reserve that was standing at $1 million to raise that $1 million to a total of $2 million. And I believe there might have been discussions in the previous meeting in regards to that. But that is basically where the employer is taking on some of the risk of both the health cost and the claim results. We only have about seven months of history with our current plans, and we really don't have enough to project out what's really going to happen. So we wanted to share the fixed cost with the variable cost between the employer and the employee, and that's why we think it should be raised $1 million. Then a new reserve that we're recommending for this year, we renegotiated the police and fire pension. The projections during the negotiations was that it would be $20 million a year. We do not have the actuary report. We'll get that by the end of the month. And so whatever the actuary tables and that 15 levers discussion we have earlier in the year might give us, that's what we'll have to do for our pension contribution. Well, we hired a lot of new people last year. We authorized more people this year. And so we really don't know what that actuary report will do with the full benefits of the pension reform. So we're asking to put $2 million in a contingency in case that actuary report comes in at more than $20 million. It may not. That's something that may occur, may not occur, but for us to plan for. If you agree with those recommendations of the 5.5 or litigation, $2 million for health insurance and $2 million for pension, that would bring the subtotal down to just under $15 million, $14,976,300. So I brought that number over. And at this point, I just wanted to remind you of what I just said. I'm here today to talk about how to report fund balance. not the details of how to spend fund balance. That would be the next presentation. So we can do the next allocation one of two ways. We can say, let's spend $12.5 million on non-recurring uses that the government has. Then if that's adopted, then that would leave an unassigned fund balance of $2,476,300. We can approach this the opposite way. We can have a discussion of what do we want our unassigned fund balance to be and then subtract that from the 14976, and that would give you the amount that would be for non-recurring uses to be spent in FY14. This presentation assumed the first option. let's assume that's a 12.5 that the council wishes to apply toward infrastructure and delayed maintenance and purchases. That would leave an unassigned balance of 2.476. So what I'm asking for you to discuss with me today, this is nothing more but those slides all on one, is an agreement, is an endorsement, is a concurrence that these highlighted numbers are appropriate for our reporting of fund balance assignments, those things that we may do but we are not committed to do nor approved to do. It's a matter of how to present our fund balance to the public. So I'm asking for discussion about the 2013 additional calculation to the economic contingency, the proposed litigation, health insurance, and pension contingency reserves, and then either a discussion on what we want unassigned fund balance to be or the assigned nonrecurring uses. Either one will back into the second number, and we will have enough information in order to proceed to report our financial statements. Thank you, Commissioner. I guess at this point I have a list of council members. What we talked about, and I think Council Member Ford was the one who brought it up, is we wanted to look at the council request before we would look at the administrative request, administration request, I think, wasn't that the conversation we had? That's correct, Mr. Chair. That was the basis of the original discussion that we had at the last budget. meeting and i guess the ones that you brought forward so far that would be the administration request would be the 5.5 the two and the two that's correct and then the 12.5 we we have we have a list of things for consideration just like you have a list of consideration i guess what i was was suggesting that if council decides what that number is then you would know how much that you would want to allocate uh but but but it's it's the council's choice on how they want to to discuss fund balance well i'll open up for questions i see there's a list here councilmember farmer thank you for this report i appreciate it very much and the form that's taken and the information that's in it mr chair certainly would be admissible to try to make motions on some of this at this point in time i think that is um this is the time to be doing that yes sir all right now and i guess My only issue is do we go through all of the, because we received a lot of requests from the administration, a lot of requests from council members. Do we want to go through all those, or do we want to go straight to motions, I guess? And that's kind of where I'd like to get some guidance from the council. I was, I mean. Yes, sir? Excuse me, if I could try just to make a clarification, and then I'll yield to whatever council wishes. I'm feeling pretty clear. Okay. But go ahead. Well, motions for approving spending are different from agreement to reporting in the CAFR. I agree and understand, and hopefully we can accommodate all needs before this meeting is done. Okay. All right. But they still kind of have the same. We still are going to hold that as a placeholder for that number, so it will still lower that amount. So however we decide, we won't be spending that money. We'll be holding it in that area. Council Member Farmer, did you want to? I'll just have a little bit more. Okay, certainly. I think the important pages that I'm going to refer to for our discussion right now are pages 22 and 23 of our packet, which up there were his pages 5 and 6, which I guess I might be looking at slightly different, and I'll make a motion, and if that fails, that's fine, and if we move on, that's fine. I just believe that the Council has been a lot of interest in the Economic Contingency Fund and then the recalculation of it, which those two figures are there. I think we have a responsibility to the government to make sure that the funding part of the 27th payroll happens. And the energy improvement part of this is legislation that just passed in the last couple of years and does bind us in to spend those dollars. And as you turn to page 6, I think, and this could become the sticky, wicked part of it, is whether we all agree or not on the amount and or need for litigation reserve of $5.5 million, the health insurance and the pension contributions of $2 million each, although I think ample work has been done to show that we need those funds set aside for those uses. So if we were to allocate these at this point, and that's the motion I would make. My motion would be to allocate the things on page 22 and 23 of the packet that would in essence drop the balance if you were down to that $14,976,300 by putting money aside for our economic contingency, our 27th payroll, the energy improvement, litigation, health, insurance, and pension reserves of different forms. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second by Vice Mayor Gordon. We'll open it all up for discussion. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Council Member Farmer, for making the motion so we can discuss this. I would actually amend it and add to it. If we could go to slide, page 10 of his presentation, which is what he just said, but it's the summary of everything, looking at the bird's-eye view. I think this is what the administration is asking us to send to the auditors for reporting purposes. I think you stopped at the 14.976 there under the yellow. But I think the next two need to be part of the motion because they leave. That's the funds we'll actually discuss individually after this reporting piece is done. Then we can get into how we're going to spend 12.5 and 2.476 if we agree ultimately on keeping that in fund balance and then spending 12.5. So I would add the last two for reporting only to the auditors, assignments for non-reincurring uses of 12.5 and the unassigned fund balance. You take that as a friendly amendment? He'll accept that as a friendly amendment. Okay. Thank you. So our motion is referring to the page 10 in what's blacked out little rectangle there. Any other questions, discussions on this? Councilmember Lane Massadi. Oh, I'm sorry. I think that's for speaking next. I'll take this. You took me off. That's right. You want me? Council Member Lane, in the deciding. Okay. My question is I didn't see the total revenue for fiscal year 13 nor the total expenditures. Did I miss that somewhere in that information you put up there? No, sir. We're talking about fund balance, which is after total revenue and expenses. But I did start with our revenues exceeded expenses of 10.4, and to show how that revenue statement ties to the balance sheet, I don't know how to do the pointer on this. But anyway, it's the very last line, the 51,975, and the change from last year to this year is that 10.4. That's how much the balance increased through the activity of 2013. Well, for fiscal year 12, our revenue was $283 million. Our expenses were $300 million, and we had a deficit of $16.9 million. And then we borrowed $37 million for operating expenses, I guess. So we ended up with $20 million surplus. I'm just curious, for the fiscal year 13, did we borrow money for fiscal year 13? How much do we bond and put into operational income? Council Member Lane, I am not going to do this justice, but if you'll bear with me. To be in compliance with financial reporting, we do both governmental as well as fiduciary and other such. And the numbers that you're talking about is the total enterprise. That's the total government included. And it's full accrual, and it includes proceeds from debt as well as depreciation and that type of thing, the more traditional financial statement that you would find in private industry. What we're talking about is not on page 30 of last year's CAFR, but the governmental funds, which are found on page 34. and we're talking about only the general fund, which is a component of the grand total of our enterprise, but has a whole different set of reporting requirements and does not include debt proceeds, does not include depreciation, does not include, and it does include, it includes some but not others. so the numbers that you quoted aren't necessarily comparable to the presentation and just the general fund that we're talking about today is the point I'm trying to make probably not very well I understand what you're saying here's my concern and the reason I'm asking is that our general fund has been structurally out of balance for the last well, I guess that's four years we have operated with more expenditure than we had revenue. We borrowed money to fund that. A lot of that went into the pension funds. Correct. But that was an operating expense because pensions are paid every year. It's not a one-time expenditure. I'm merely asking for the fiscal year 13. Our revenue was budgeted at $290.9 million. and our expenditures were budgeted at $290.3 million, and we had about a $700,000 surplus budgeted, $665,000 precisely. So I'm just trying to figure out, if that was our budget, how did we end up with so much surplus? I mean, it seems like a lot of surplus based on the budget we had. Right. The 10.4 resulted in all of these factors. We exceeded our revenue budget. We spent less than the budget for personnel. We spent less than budget for operating. And we spent less than what was budget amended out of fund balance. So we spent less and took in a little bit more. And we didn't have to borrow any money at all then? No, sir, I didn't say that. We were authorized to issue a bond for paving, 13.64, something like that. And that was for operating purposes or non-operating? That's considered capital, 10-year life. All right. Okay. All right. Well, when do you think the CAFRA will be coming out? Are we close to getting that? Pardon me? The CAFRA for the fiscal year entering? We have a publication date before the end of November. I think it's in time for the November Budget and Finance Committee. Is it? Okay. Sure. We did bond, but it got moved through the capital project funds. So it's a separate column than the general fund in the CAFR. Does that make sense? Right. Yeah, my only thought. Last year, the pension bond came through the general fund and got pushed through the operating expenses and transferred over to the pension. Okay. The only reason I'm bringing this issue up is that I don't mind spending surplus money if we have surplus money to spend. But I think I would really like to see the audited financial statement and look at the numbers before we go ahead and allocate all the money and spend it. And then, you know, we don't even have the audited report to refer to before spending the budget. That's the budget surplus we're dealing with. We are planning for the same publication date that we had last year. Okay. At this point. Okay. We're on schedule. Thank you. Your time's up, Council Member Lane. I have Council Member Mastadi. This is now on the motion. And does anybody else want to speak on the motion? Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And thank you, Bill, for your report here. It's very helpful and very concise. I only have one question for, I think it's slide 8, because it's page 25 of ours. It may be slide 8. No, it's the FY 2013 preliminary fund balance discussion. I'm sorry, it says 8 on our page. I'm not sure what it is. 10. Try 10. Yes, thank you. The increase in litigation reserve, $2 million increase, can you tell me why there's an increase there? And don't we have insurance that covers some of this at a certain point or not? If you could just explain that to me. Well, I think that's just a matter of looking at the different litigation that we have pending and where the funding sources are and then planning prudently to look and see what may happen but what may not happen, but just to be well placed in case things do come due for the government. I don't disagree. I just wondered, when does insurance kick in on something like that? Do we have a certain threshold that we reach and then an insurance carrier would come in at that point? How does this work? Council Member Massadi, if okay, I'm going to answer you in kind of a 30,000-foot way because some of this we'd probably want to go into closed session and talk about because of some of the litigation that goes on. But let me say that on the litigation reserve, there are some things that are covered by our self-insurance fund, but things like wage and hour claims, and I think we've talked openly about the firefighter training incentive case. that would not be a self-insurance case should we have to pay damages on that. So that's why that litigation reserve, that's just one of an example of some of the cases that would not be covered by our current self-insurance fund. That's what I wanted to know. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Anybody else that want to speak on Council Member Farmer's motion? Council Member Lawless. This is a question that influences the motion. I'm wondering if the shutdown of federal government and not knowing how long that's going to last, if we need to consider that as we're moving forward. Council Member Lawless, my crystal ball is really, really fuzzy there. I do know I got a copy of an email, a communication went out after 10.30 last night from the Department of Justice saying that they have enough funds to continue servicing their grants and programs through October 4th. After that, then certain things will be suspended. Other things will still continue. Of course, all of our reporting requirements and everything to them continue, whether there's anyone there to read them or receive them or not. That's just one example. The one thing about local government in Kentucky is we don't have a lot of federal money compared to the $297 million budget. Federal money is not a major funding source. But where it is coming in, of course, is a major impact. So COPS grants, any of those things would be on a case-by-case basis as this political situation unfolds. Thank you. And I know it's not the majority of our income, but it is to be prudent as we're moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. Bill, so the total balance after contingencies per Council Member Farmer's motion is 14.976,300, correct? Correct. And so can you tell me the justification for why you divided it between the 12.5 and the 2.476? Yes, ma'am. Was it just random or did you? It was not random. I put a lot of thought into it, actually. Yeah, so I'm just curious how you got to divide it that way. Well, we have two choices as I see them. This is my perspective. But we could put the remainder, the whole 14.976, as unassigned fund balance. There's nothing wrong with that. It could be done. And not speak to the general public or the investing public that we have any plans to do anything with those funds at all. I didn't feel like that that was a true reflection of where this government was. I felt that there was a desire to address deferred maintenance and infrastructure and that there was an intent, a predictable intent, to use some of that balance. Now, how much of that balance is for open discussion. I personally didn't want to have a fund balance below a 2-5-ish number. And so you plug in then the 12.5. It comes to 2476. It could be 2478. It could be 3.78. Whatever that unassigned, it would come out of the current pool of unassigned nonrecurring uses. So you designated the 2.5 and unassigned just because that's what you feel comfortable leaving alone in case of other budgetary constraints going forward. We have intents and can foresee these things. There are other things around the corner that could happen in January or tomorrow that we did not see. An overturned fire truck, we did not foresee that coming. The need to hire X person and salaries are not there, but we want that position anyway. Any of those things within the general fund would be uses of fund balance, and so we need a fund balance. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Any further discussion on this motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, that passed unanimously. Now we'll get back to questions. Council Member Stinnett? Council Member Scutchfield? Thank you, Chair. I think I'm taking a look at our fund balance, and the thing that keeps on coming out to me is that we're making budgets, and we're adding taxes, and we're adding franchise fees, and we're having money left over, and this is not a service to our constituents. And it has me concerned that we keep on having large amounts, and we're not spending them in the areas we think we are, and yet we're still increasing taxes. So I don't really have a question. I'm concerned what type of message we're giving people. I'd be glad to respond if you would like. Okay. As far as increased taxes, fund balance is an unpredictable, increase or decrease and so to have recurring expenses we need to have recurring revenues So predictable revenue streams that are matched up then with with recurring expenses So that is a separate discussion in my financial world then how to use one-time monies One year you may have a two million dollar fund balance another year You may have 12-5 to have discretion to use so it's that unpredictability of fund balance that that is hard and not financially prudent to use for recurring salaries and programmatic expenses. How to be more predictable on how much fund balance? I think there's several things that we can do, several things that we've already started doing, and that is an emphasis on comparison to actual and not comparing to last year's budget. And we're meeting monthly with divisional directors and produce a report, and we discuss variances to budget to actual, not to budget. Second thing is to up the game on doing monthly budgets. That's a very common thing to do in the private sector. It's not common in the public sector. Most public sectors run a budget to say, what is your year-to-date as a percentage of your total budget compared to 1-12, 2-12, 3-12? That assumes that all your expenses are predictable throughout the year. Some of our expenses are. Some of our expenses aren't. And we're only into the second year of trying to develop actual monthly budgets that aren't just a smooth 1-12 of every month. And we're trying to get more information from these monthly meetings to better predict what those monthly budget variances are going to be and embed them in the budget to match up with actual. The third thing I think we need to do is, I really hesitate bringing this up, but introduce and have a dialogue with council on personnel budgeting. I know that there's history there. I know that there's emotion on that issue. But personnel budgeting needs to be discussed, and we need to have an overview discussion on how we approach that and get comfortable from the council's side and the administration's side on how to budget that. That is the single largest expense that we have. And there's multiple, I'm going to use the word, personnel lapse characteristics. I'll take that word back now. I'm not supposed to use it in this chamber. but there is turnover in an operation that has over 3,000 employees. There are people coming and going at all times. So we know that that's going to happen. To totally budget 100% of your personnel cost when you know you're not going to really spend that ever is over-budgeting that. So coming up with a way to parse out the different characteristics of a personnel budget, We have timing of when new hires come in. When there are major classes, that makes a big difference. We predict that the class will start in X month and put the budget in there. It really starts at another time. That totally has been over or under budgeted. So a lot of discussion on how to better budget for personnel, I think, would be very beneficial for future budgets. And then pension payments. That was a big hit. And it's been very erratic. We're trying now to have a sustainable and predictable payment. And so all those things, I think, will increase our budgetary accuracy. Thank you. So to get on the right page here, at this point we're looking at the discussion of the $12.5 million is where we would be right now. Yes, sir. And I think that's where Council, and when we decided to look at this in this meeting, we were going to have the Council make their request before the administration, because I think the administration has provided the request that you would like to have here, and I think at this point we want to look at Council recommendations, and we have quite a few. And I guess as the Chair, I'd like to know how you all want to go about, do we want to go back through each one of those? Because that's going to be a pretty arduous task. Not that I'm not opposed to that, but is there any other way we can do it? I'm not sure. Council Member Ford, you're next on the list. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to start by saying how thankful and how impressed I am of Commissioner O'Meara and the administration and his finance team for turning around in quick order the financial information that has been requested of this council. And I look forward to this routine going in future fiscal years. And I also want to echo that as we stand here now, we've been talking about fund balance for the last six weeks. Appreciative and supportive of the motions brought forward by Council Member Farmer and Council Member Stenet. I agree wholeheartedly with the action that we just took on the ordinance mandated and the other contingencies. If we can go back to the slide, though, and this goes to what you were saying, Chairman Ellinger. That slide right there. And, Bill, if you would come forward, I have just a question, not necessarily to nitpick, but it really symbolizes the whole discussion we've been having in regards to council projects. And after I make this statement, I perhaps won't say anything else until called upon. But we're at 12-5 recommended assignments, non-recurring. Those are recommendations from the administration. Is that 12-5, not recommendations that we will hear about later from the administration? I was trying to go in order and come last. But our recommendations do not equal 12-5. Okay. Here's the question that I'll ask. on the docket, on the council docket as we speak, is an ordinance related to council-related projects. And I want to give a timeline of that. And it hasn't been the best timeline, but it appears things are working well now. We were encouraged to wait for a fiscal year 13 number. Today is August 1. We have that number. But I want to ask, Bill, was there not a recognition or why, perhaps, is the ordinance that is on consideration has not passed, but where does that play in? Because the ordinance was read on August 29th, 3.75. It was amended on September 12th, 2.25. Tabled on September 26th, 2.25. Scheduled for second read October 10th at 2 1⁄4. The question is, where does the proposed capital project, where does that play into this discussion? Why is it not recognized at all in this discussion? Well, first of all, it hasn't gotten second reading, so it is not at ordinance level. So that would be why it is not listed under ordinances, because we do not have an ordinance at this point. Second of all, it is quite appropriate for you all to have the discussion and the dialogue as to whether you want to take that approach or a different one, and there's capacity in that 12-5 to allocate however council wishes. You can do it however council wishes. That is a spending decision separate from a reporting decision. What we have reported is that there's an intent, a predictable intent, for approximately, it doesn't have to be, 12-5 to be spent on non-recurring uses. Very good. And thank you for that clarification again as I'm learning reporting versus spending. And I don't want to delve you into the legislation before the council, but just for discussion purposes, If the council moved to give second reading and approve the ordinance that's on the docket at two and a quarter, would it then be considered under the reporting, which is 12.5 nonrecurring uses? I would have to check with the CPA. The ordinance was not in effect at June 30, and this is a reporting as of June 30, so I would have to consult with him on whether it would show up in next year rather than this year's report. But irregardless of whether it reports this year or next year, you were basically saying that the 12.5 would be reflective and encompass the 2.25 if it were to pass the council because it's nonrecurring, one-time usage. It can. Thank you, Bill. This is a good discussion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, that would subtract 12.5 minus the 2.25 to make that number a 10.25. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. I want to first address the question of what our understanding is and what the public's understanding is of what we're doing. I am particularly bothered by the notion that this is somehow a surplus and we have extra funds that kind of came out of the sky, I guess, from the public's perception, and that now we're trying to figure out how to spend it. I look at it differently. It seems to me that what we did was we budgeted a certain amount of money and we spent a certain amount of money and we have some left over. But in my mind, that means that there are many things that we would have included in the budget that were needs of this community and this government that never got funded. So when I look at what is now this fund balance, what I think about is the things that did not get into the budget initially. This is not extra spending. This is not taking the money and figuring out how we're going to use it. It's looking at the needs that we've had, the needs that we considered when we budgeted last year that did not make it into the budget. So I think about repairs, replacement, infrastructure, the kinds of things that we know if we had had more money, we would have put it in the budget and we might have saved ourselves some money. So, for example, if our fleet is aging, in particular, let's say the police fleet, and we know that it costs us more now to repair those old vehicles than it would if we could buy some new ones, it seems to me we ought to invest in new vehicles and save ourselves money in the long run. Similarly, if we have repairs to buildings and we know that it's costing us more money over time to patch them up, we ought to either replace them or do the repairs. So that's the kind of thing I'll be looking at when we think about how we want to use this money. But I think it's most important to let especially the public know that this is not about, in some sense, money that nobody thought about or figured on, et cetera. This is a result of effective budgeting and efficient government, which leaves us with funds that we can now determine how best to use for the public good. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. O'Mara and company and staff for preparing this and getting us to this point. I know this is the reporting piece, and we'll dive into the allocation piece here coming up. But I want to put to bed, and I hate to rehash fiscal year 2012 anymore, so hopefully we can put it to bed today in the surplus discussion. But over the last several weeks, as Councilman Ford alluded to, and I wasn't going to say anything, but you did bring up a good point. You know, when we started talking about council allocation, that discussion back in April when we originally created a list that we have before us today was put on hold. And before April, the council made some wise decisions that were not reported in the paper for whatever reason. They were not mentioned Thursday in the editorial that we all read about that, again, was inaccurate. But we did some wise decisions prior to getting to $14.976 million left. And those were putting money in health care to keep rates lower. That's that $1 million from FY12. Ending brownouts. Buying a fire engine when we needed it. Addressing streetlights, which was a public safety issue, across our community. So we did the right things. And then when Council Member Ford and others brought forward the notion to let's get to the council list now, there was negative press given to that. And I appreciate, Council Member Ford, for you taking the leadership role. But I also want to allude to what Council Member Kaye said. We need to proceed with caution. That $2.25 million is on a docket that could theoretically come out of the $12.5 million. It could also come out of the $2.476 million. There's no reason to say we have to leave it at that number. We could raise that fund balance to $4 million, which is what I technically would like to see and call it something different. But that's for our discussion coming up. That money is still in play. I think we need to address the needs of our district that were not addressed in the budget and were not addressed back in April. This is an old discussion. This is not a new fund balance that jumped out of the sky in August. I promise you that. and talking about public perception, that's what wasn't explained. It wasn't explained what we did good back in April. It's never been reported, I guess, because it doesn't sell papers probably. It doesn't sound good out there that we did the right thing. And also, on top of that, we put $1.3 million extra into a contingency fund that can only be used in budgeting purposes during our budget discussions, not as a rainy day fund. It's not meant for that. It's meant to smooth revenues. So those things weren't mentioned. And I feel like before we close FY12, they need to be said because good things were done with public safety, with savings. Before we even get to our district needs, we put those first because that's the right thing we did and it's the right thing to do. So I hope council keeps an open mind as we go through our list, but also keeps a cautious mind. Let's spend it on things that are needed today, things that are costing the 7%, 8%, 9% interest if we don't fix them today. Because next year we know those costs will jump because of inflation and other things going on in the economy. Let's spend those things we can save money today on, too. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to echo what's been said, and having sat on this council now for almost five years, We went through, for years before that, so many problems that we didn't have the funds to address that were left unaddressed and have ended up costing us more. You know, building maintenance, sleep, you know, using old equipment, et cetera, that costs more. So this isn't about money fell out of the sky. It's about there were very prudent budgeting and very careful slimming of and cutting costs in this government. So these things have gone unaddressed. The wise budgeting, the wise spending, and the careful spending is why we are here today. It's not like there's money that fell out of the sky, and now we're trying, oh, you know, we've got extra money. How fast can we spend it? That's not the issue. And I think many of the things on these lists are things that are infrastructure issues that will cost more if we put them off and would have been done over the last few years had we not been in the Great Recession. So thank you. Thank you. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Chair. I guess I'm just going to go ahead and jump on the bandwagon. I want to state that loudly and clearly that, in my opinion, it's a great disservice to each and one of our constituents if we don't look at some of these proposals that have been left aside. It's almost like when you have the furnace and you don't change the filter every year. In 14 years, you have to buy the new furnace. And to look at this as some kind of a money-grab, knee-jerk, or slush fund reaction to look at these projects I think is terrible. And I have, in my opinion, I absolutely make no apologies for seeking help for those in my district. And I think that's why we were all elected to do so. And I think we will do so prudently and definitively, and we'll make a decision, as we did, which Council Member Ford alluded to and enhanced in it, shutting, closing the brownouts and doing some things that were necessary that were not in the previous budget. But I think that we do have an obligation to our constituents. And again, I make no apologies for doing that, and that's why we were elected. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And before Vice Mayor Gorton, I'll recognize her. We were having a sidebar here. It looks like between the administration and Council's request, we probably have close to $50 million worth of requests. And in order to go through the process, I think, and decide if we're going to spend it, how we're going to do that, I think we need to have a system. And I think Vice Mayor has an idea for that. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I did want to say, in relation to all those council members who have spoken about the, I guess, the council capital fund, I was glad to see that many of you did put on the list capital projects in your districts. I think that was a good thing that they were added to this list. What I was going to say is that in years past, and I don't remember what years it was, we had this dilemma. It would have been the years when we had the large fund balance, looking at Bill O'Mara, and it might have been 2003 or 2004. One year we had a straight-out $17 million fund balance. And what we did was we sent the list that was compiled with everything that council members had sent in, and we could include the administration requests, and then we asked council members to go back and rank them 1 through 50 or whatever. And that's the order in which we discussed them. Do you remember that, Council Member Massadi? and it worked pretty well because it allowed council members to rank order for purposes of future discussion. Then we had the discussion based on that rank. My feeling is it's going to be near impossible to take this list and merge with it the administration list or take the administration list separately after that and have anything less than about a four-hour discussion. So it's merely a suggestion that we perhaps decide ourselves to rank order them and that be the rank order for discussion. Council Member Kaye. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to kind of follow up. I agree with the vice mayor. I think that we need some kind of a process for sorting out, first on an individual basis and then on a collective basis, the way in which we want to kind of approach the decision-making. I would simply suggest perhaps a tweak on that. If we took the total amount and each council member essentially allocated in $100,000 increments or whatever across the list, we would get the same kind of result. We would see what comes up to the top and what does not, and then we would start with the items that receive the most money as opposed to a simple rank ordering. There are other ways to do that, but I think we need to have a way to give individual council members first a chance to weigh in and then see what that means about the way in which, as a body, we want to address this question. Otherwise, I agree. It's not obvious to me how in full session we can do that. Thank you, Chair. Could you explain that a little deeper? I'm not sure when you meant the 100,000. So does it say everybody has a fictitious $100,000 and you get to kind of spend it? What you think is most important, you spend down to zero to know where you rank? So it's a slight refinement on setting a simple rank order. What it says is here's something, and not only do I think it's the most important, but I think it gets a million dollars. It needs it, and that's what I would give it. If I've only got $12 million to allocate, I've got $11 million left. So I have to essentially weight my choices, not just indicate what the choice is. It's just, and there are other, as I say, there are other ways to approach it. That's one way that I think offers more information to Council about basically a starting point. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. I will mention I'm not a member of this committee, but I have some concerns about how we go about this. And I want to be sure that it's not a complete division of council requests, administrative requests, because the last time I looked, we were pretty much on the same team. And I think it's important that we look at the projects, how they rank, and how we need to spend money on one-time projects. And Jonathan has put together a list for you, and I think he shared that with you. And everything is here under topics rather than these are council, these are administration. And I think you'll see there's a tremendous amount of overlapping. And so in our discussion, I think we need to put a combined list together like this so when we talk about these things, we're not talking one or the other because we can't do justice by doing it that way. And so I'd like to suggest, as Council Member Kaye says, We have to exercise some concern here and some caution that we don't just start adding things together and say, okay, here's the way it goes. And do we have that list handy? Yeah. Take a look at that. And I think you all have this. It's by categories. and it is hard to see, but you'll see that on the far right-hand column, we have the source of those requests, which is mingled with administration and counsel. So this seems like to me to be an appropriate way to look at this, And I'd like to suggest that we be careful to do it that way so we don't start with one category and then go to the other category. The other question I have, Mr. Chair, is when should this discussion take place? Should it be in committee or should it be in a work session or full council? And what is the object of this particular committee to make decisions? Thank you. And to answer your question about when it's going to take place, I think sooner than later. And it's just a matter of do we do it the next budget finance or do we do a council the whole meeting? Because I think it's going to take a considerable amount of time to go through this list. And that's why I'm trying to come up with a system that we can kind of process, that we can give ample amount of time to each one but not spend three days going through this list, because I could see it taking a long time doing this. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Chair. I was going to mention one of the comments on Council Member Clark's comments. I think we should start with this list and go through it because it is grouped correctly in the categories that help us understand the bigger picture and also allow each person who's responsible for the recommendation to give a couple brief comments of why they feel that should be a part of it and then work our way through the whole list so everyone has the same opportunity to present their case for that item. I know parks is the biggest majority of this list, so we may want to accomplish as much as we can today of the individual other categories before we get to the parks. But I think giving each person, the administration and council, an opportunity to say why they feel that way, because some of them are overlapped. I know Council Member Farmer and I both have health insurance reserve. That's already been done, so you can take that off the list. So a lot of us have that up there. So we can go ahead and take those off. So we can narrow it down pretty quickly today, and when we get to those other categories, after each person can explain why the rationale behind it, then we can come back and rank them or whatever after we have an opportunity to explain and narrow the list down. So I'll make that motion. Second. Yeah, could you... Chatterbox is over there. The motion is to use this list, go through it today, and then come back after we narrow it down, because some things can be taken off today, and then go back and rank them if we want to choose to do it that way or however way we choose after we've heard from everyone and their recommendations on this list and why it's on there. And we're going to keep it very short on each explanation. Yeah, but I think giving everyone a fair time to explain. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes. Okay. And before we get to the list, Council Member Henson. I don't have a hard copy of the list, and I was hoping I could get one. I think, Jennifer, do you have copies there for everybody? Yeah, I can get them. Thank you. Well, we have 50 minutes here. Let's begin. We'll start with the first one, which is the economic contingency allocation. And we had three different requests. Now, I guess this list, Jonathan, prior to it, had the individual who put on. This one, you did it without the individual who requested this. Okay, mine doesn't. Yeah, ours doesn't. Yeah, mine doesn't, but yours does. Okay, I'll just look at that list up there. Okay, let's start with the economic contingency allocation. And we have three requests, 2.5, 3, and 4 million. And I guess we'll start with the administration at 2.5, and you have 10 seconds. Go. Thank you. I have a history of the Economic Contingency Fund with a graph for reference. I can pass that out at some other time for reference. It starts at 1996 and goes to 2013. If they would pull that up, I would show that to you. and it shows the history of starting out in 1997, and we were at 2.7% of revenue with a $4 million economic contingency. And 10 years later, we were at 2.6% with the ordinance. At that time, the ordinance was amended to put $50,000 a month plus the 25%. At that point, the dollars going into the economic contingency started to increase. And we got up to 5.3% in 2009. It was suspended in 2010 and 2011, and no dollars were put into economic contingency. And so we slipped to almost 5% of revenue. The past two years, we did have fund balance. It grew $4 million in 2012, and now you have indicated $3 million this year. That would bring us to 7.4% of revenues. We recommended an additional 2.5, which would kind of make up for those two years of abatement that we didn't put anything in there, and it would bring the percent of revenue to 8.3%. Thank you. A little more than 10 seconds. That was not bad. You're getting better. That's good. Could you put the list back on there, please? The Vice Mayor has agreed to the 2.5. Council Member Henson? I was just going to panficate. Should we motion? I would make a motion that we do 2.5 million into the economic contingency fund. I'm sorry, point of order? Yes, Council Member Kay. I thought we were going to go through the list and have everybody explain. I think that's the better option. Before we make any motion, let's let everybody go through. And Vice Mayor, I think you wanted to comment. I did want to comment. My $4 million was based on what several council members had wanted to do earlier with the fund balance, And I would go along with having heard Commissioner O'Mara's explanation of bringing us up to 8.3 percent of revenue, that we change my $4 million to $2.5 million, and maybe we can get to one number for that item. Council Member Henson, does that work for you to switch your number from 3 to 2.5? Yes, I think that it is. I also had a question about the ordinance states 5% of the general fund revenue. Is that correct? That's our goal, is to get to 10%. Right, but the ordinance states 5%? No, the ordinance says a quarter percent of your surplus plus $50,000 per month for $600,000 total. That's what we take out. Okay, thank you. So we want a motion to make that number 2.5. Vice Mayor? I don't think I need a motion to make my number 2.5. I'm just making it 2.5. Okay. We'll put the economic contingency at 2.5. The next issue is other revenues, and we'll start with the debt reduction. Vice Mayor. Thank you very much. I have been concerned for quite some time that we have gone above our, well, let me go back. For many years, we've been recommended to keep our debt at about 10%, and I think we were hovering up around 12%. Is that correct, Commissioner? 12% debt, and it does concern me, since this is taxpayer dollars, that we bring our debt down. And so I am recommending that we put $4.1 million into debt reduction, and I realize that some of our bonds we may not be able to. They all have different dates and they all have different rules. But to look at putting a large chunk of money in to bring our debt down closer to 10%. Thank you. The next one is the Economic Development Fund, and that's the administration. And, Mayor, you have ten seconds. I was going to say happily. Happily. I'll try to do it quickly, though. Next week, actually, the consultant that the council approved making an investment of $15,000, Eric Schreiner, will be he's being scheduled to come to town for perhaps a workshop can be worked out with the council members to discuss the summary the report that he's executed that he's developed which has done benchmarking lexington other cities in terms of jobs development initiatives and I believe you all got a copy of a summary that is designed to illustrate some of the key points or the headlines of what Eric Schreiner is going to be presenting. The Lexington Jobs Fund, is that? Yeah, that's it. Right. Okay. Right, right. And I think, you know, just observing you all's conversation here today, it's a challenging conversation. It's a healthy discussion. It's certainly a better one than we're seeing in Washington. And for that, I don't know if you'll suspect that you're like me when you go down the street. People often will say it's good to see our city, the council, the administration, our city working together. I just want to thank you all for that. If there's any questions on it, I think Eric is scheduled to be here either next Tuesday or Wednesday, but Jamie and Sally, we're going to get with you all to try to schedule that. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. I don't see any questions. The next one is the fund balance reserve. Council Member Farmer. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And I'll make my comments brief and let Council Member Stenet pick up on them because this is a discussion about having or articulating the difference between an economic contingency fund and a true rainy day fund because the contingency fund is used under certain circumstances at certain times of distress or need. And I think the idea behind this line item, and I think, Council Member Stenis, is to lay a fund aside that we could truly call a rainy day fund and use in an easier capacity while not keeping the funds in our checking account balance, so to speak. So my figure for that was $3 million, and I will just leave the conversation to Council Member Stenis. Council Member Stenis. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Chair. You know, again, it's a whole different concept than what an economic contingency fund is. I think we need to understand the difference. The contingency fund is used as a revenue-softening fund for budget purposes, whereas what I think should be called and have its own line item in the budget and in PeopleSoft roll over each year is a true rainy day fund for during the budget year, when a fire engine breaks, when a roof leaks, whatever it may be, furnaces, a consultant for water company negotiations, whatever it may be. But I think it should be kept there and labeled as such and not be part of the general fund balance, but a true rainy day fund, and we can add to it from year to year as well. So that's what the $4 million was for. Thank you, Chair. That's kind of a rainy, rainy day fund? It's a true rainy day fund. The one thing we could do is we can always re-look at how we define the rainy day economic contingency fund and look at that on if we do actually are able to go obtain the funds, because as it is right now, it's very restrictive, and I think you want to be less restrictive. The next, does anybody have any questions at this point? Councilman or Clark? Can I add, even though I'm not listed as one of those, this is kind of an overarching comment. In looking at everybody's request and including everybody on the council, the administration, everybody, I went back through the list and made my own list of where I thought the most important things that we should fund. And by doing that, I eliminated some of my own. So I want to mention simply that in this particular category, I did include the health insurance reserve, which is coming up. And also my very first priority was debt reduction. I only included $1.5 million as a suggestion. It's less than most of you. But I just wanted to say that was number one for me. And I will make some of those other comments in some of these other categories. Thank you. I have a question for Councilmember Farmer and Councilmember Stenet about the fund balance reserve, rainy day reserve. In the past, if a fire engine broke, we would look to our fund balance. Is this just a second, kind of like a second fund balance in a way that it would be used for similar things that we might use our fund balance? I'm not sure. If I may, Mr. Chair, I mean, certainly. Councilman Farmer? I think some of this is, to a certain degree, semantics. kind of going back to your conversation about how much debt we have and we should serve us. We want to have an economic contingency fund and have it serve us up to a 10% total of our expenditure. But we can only use those funds under very specific and directed times and places. The idea behind this would be that if you just leave the funds in so-called fund balance, that to me is like leaving several payments in your checking account knowing they're going to come out over a period of months or years. And I think you need the takeaway from this that, yes, we're reserving funds for some contingencies that we may not have anticipated at the beginning of the budget cycle, but we don't want to put the money so far away that we can't get to it. So it may just be a semantic thing between this. So it could be that we might choose to raise the ending fund balance to keep more money in the fund. I'm trying to see if there would be different expenditures from this fund versus the fund balance. All right. Council Member Stenet, and then we're going to have to keep moving. Yeah, I'll quickly make the distinction. And, Bill, may I correct me if I'm wrong? The rainy day reserve account would be for one-time expenditures only during that budget year. They wouldn't be for personnel, whereas technically you could use fund balance dollars to hire someone this year, as long as we account for it in future years potentially, or you could use fund balance across the board, and it wouldn't necessarily roll over and stay in that account and call a rainy day reserve account. It would disappear, like 12 disappeared into 2013 to fund. This would stay the same, so if we didn't spend any four minutes, it would roll over to the next year, same as the health care reserve. Okay, that explains it. It's just a more formal way to, using semantics, to make sure it's going to be there. And we commit to keeping something around versus spending it all through a budget year. So it would come with an ordinance that stated how it could be spent. Well, eight votes on council can spend anything. Thank you. Any further discussion on this? Council Member Lawless, very brief, please. I agree 100%, and this is what I've said all along, is if you own a house, You want to have a savings account for the roof leaking, not all your money in long-term investment that you can't touch. So thank you. Okay. I have Council Member Henson and Beard. Did you all want to talk on this? Council Member Beard. Just that when we talk about our target on debt, we need to not be satisfied with getting it to 10 percent because we may need to issue debt again sometime that we don't know about. So our target ought to be something more like 7.5% or 8%, which allows us some latitude without getting everybody up in arms about it to issue bonds when we need it and sometimes unanticipated. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stenet. Well, since we're talking about debt real quick, I want to chime in three points. One, keep in mind, bond debt is very different from credit card or loan debt that we all have at home or in the private sector. Bond debt, it cannot be retired early. Some of it has a 10-year guarantee you have to keep those bonds out there. And if we do retire early, you have to pay a penalty. So it's not as easy as saying, let's go retire it. Secondly, we've refinanced a lot of bonds to lower rates, 2% to 4% interest, whereas some of this cash could be spent on things that are costing 6%, 7%, 8% more or percent interest. So you've got to make the use of the money wisely in terms of the interest rates. And, again, some of the bonds can't be paid down on purpose. We also, the third point is, in a couple years, Bill O'Meara, I know we can have a whole presentation on this, but we're going to have huge sums of debt dropping off, not to mention we may have some going back on. And we have a $15 million bond this year that we're going to issue, so it doesn't make sense paying down bonds but issuing more necessarily. Thank you. Thank you. Now to the next one. It would be, we talked about the rainy day. And the health insurance, I think we've already discussed that one. And we talked about the litigation reserves. I think we can move on to the other non-reoccurring proposals. And the one on that, we have the administration, the pension contribution, if you'd like to discuss that. Okay, we did do that. Thank you. The Affordable Care Act. Thank you. The administration feels like we need an Affordable Care Act expert to help us, guide us through the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which will go fully into effect next year. That's very complicated, and we are going to have to see how that's going to affect our current cafeteria plan. So we're asking for money for that. And will you also speak on the water franchise negotiator? Yes. We have a 20-year-old water franchise that expires in May of 2015. We've used outside assistance with our other franchise negotiations. That's been very helpful, and we feel like this one is complicated, and we could use some outside help. Thank you. The Southland Drive Commercial Corridor Study. Councilman Clark. Yeah, that's me. This is eventually going to be something that's important that we need to do, and this is in my district. but I'm going to just ask that be eliminated for the discussion. Thank you. Thank you. And if anybody wants to follow suit with Council Member Clark, we would appreciate that. Public art match grant, Council Member Farmer. Well, I won't follow suit completely. I would just say that there's a lot of interest in public art in our city, and I had placed the idea of a match grant in there, and I used just a placeholder figure of a half a million dollars for purposes of our discussion. I would lower it to $100,000 because I think there's great interest in the opportunity for creativity to be expressed on the streets and byways of our city. And just to begin with, $100,000 in a match grant, I think, would be a good start. Thank you. The Facilities HVAC Projects Administration. Commissioner? Thank you, Chair. The Facilities HVAC Project, $350,000. And then the third one down is roofing projects. These were dollars that were not funded in the original budget. We have needs all over the campuses, and we felt that these pool dollars would be necessary and would be savings in the long run to address what Council Member Kay addressed. So we ask that these be put into the request. And while I have you there, could you talk about the old courthouse too, please? yes this this is uh for planning for programmatic planning to to come up with what we will do with the iconic courthouse that's there in the center of our town it's a schematic architectural design structural engineering market study real estate historic preservation and environmental so it would be what do we do with that structure that is 100 years old in our midst. Jeff, did you want to speak? Briefly, so what this would allow us to do is really get started, which is that it's clear in studying the courthouse over the last year that there is a solution to it, but it's a chicken and egg, which is we've got to find the institutional long-term tenant that can then pay the rent to keep the courthouse open. at the same time raise the capital to do it, and we can do that through leveraging historic tax credits, new markets tax credits, other forms of financing. So it's doable, and what this would allow us to do is to actually have the serious conversation with prospective tenants. And we're starting to have those conceptual conversations, but this would allow us to jumpstart that by doing a little bit of schematic design, some structural work, and hanging a real number on what we think the total project is going to be. Right now I have a very round number. It's in the $11 million, $12 million range, but this would allow us to get real serious about what we're trying to do with it. Thank you. Council Member Clark, you have two on here for facilities repair and upgrades and also fleet upgrades. Thank you. Very quickly, we ask for some estimates on what our needs were in both facilities and in fleet replacement. And so the $1 million is basically half of what the report came out. So I'm recommending $1 million for both facilities upgrades and repairs and also for fleet replacement. And the facilities would be roofing, HVAC, and all the other facilities repair that improve efficiency. It will eventually save us money in the long run. I don't think there's any question about that. The deferred maintenance is growing. I think we're going to be sorry if we don't do some of these things. I think a million dollars is most appropriate. Fleet replacement is the same. Our fleet is getting old. We need to replace that. And so my figure of a million dollars there is, I think, is half of what the report has come back that our needs are really out. While I'm speaking, I'd also like to say that on the list that I put together, ignoring my own requests and trying to put everything together in some kind of priority, I added the old courthouse for $250,000, and I think that the old courthouse is either going to be an eyesore or it's going to be a major attraction, and I think we just can't let the city center contain a negative. Thank you. Thank you. I think the administration, did you not have something in here about fleet upgrades? I don't see it on this list, but I thought you all did have. We've asked for specific dollars for fire vehicles and for police vehicles. Oh, it's under public safety. Right, right. And if I could just address the facilities, we might have a capacity issue as far as enough time and management to get a million dollars worth of repairs done. The 400 and the 350 was what we felt was manageable for this fiscal year. so say that the number that you the the one where was the number you were looking at if you go up to where we were under facilities right yes sir and and we recommended 350 for hvac projects and 400 for uh roofing projects that'd be a total of 750 i was relating that to the million dollars council member clark recommended for and then what was the the under the public safety the Police vehicles, what was the number? That 1.25 million? Police was 1.25, and I have statistics. That would be about 25 marked vehicles, 11 unmarked, which would be hybrid. An unmarked interceptor, a patrol wagon refurbished would be what that 1.25 would be. And then the 1.75 for fire trucks would be two engines and two EMS units. And Council Member Stennett had a million in there, so we'll note that. Vice Mayor. A quick question of Council Member Clark. Given what Commissioner O'Mara said about management of getting that much in terms of projects done, would you be willing to change your million to $750,000 to go with his HVAC and his roofing? I think that would be correct. That would be appropriate. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. And now we are into the parks, and there's about 50 here, so we're going to have to go pretty quick. And if you would, I'll recognize you, and if you would just go through the ones that you put down there. So, Council Member Lawless, you're first on the list. If you would go through the ones that you have on the list, I'd appreciate it, starting with the aquatic climbing wall. And then go down to the ones that you address, please. Okay. Thank you. And very quick on each one. I'll be quick. Most of them are for the Woodland Pool and the Woodland Park. There's also a need for repaving the driveway at the Carver Center. um most of these things are things that have been left undone for a long time there the liner and the woodland pool swim lane is leaking and desperately needs to be repaired the playground equipment at woodland park which is an extremely highly used urban park is in horrible shape And so those are the items I put in there. I don't have the list with just my name. I'm having trouble seeing this going through it. And these were things that I talked to Parks about, about the needs in the third district parks. And I'd also like to pass this out very quickly. I will say the individual budget requests that we did when we passed the budget, the third district is the only district that put in anything in for late budget items that were not funded and thousands of dollars went to a lot of parks. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Quickly. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Starting with the backstop at River Hill Park, I think Council Member Akers and I might have something worked out on that, so we don't have to do that one. The walking trail at, and let me say this, the things for the rest of my parks I was going to look at including into that either $250 or $150 that the council was looking at doing, but since that might not happen and the discussion was going to happen today, I wanted to include those things into this discussion. So that's why they're here. Walking trail at Berry Hill Park. Then also the ball fields when we decided to do the Senior Citizen Center at Idle on our park. I wanted to make sure that those ball fields were done. Move the playground at Berry Hill. You've heard about that back before also. And then with the new things that are happening at Berry Hill Park, we need to rehab the bathhouse to get rid of the showers and then make that useful year-round. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. I have been trying to narrow my list as everybody's been speaking. So I can either narrow the list or I see that other Council members have just asked for park infrastructure funds in a blanketed amount. And so I would just like to ask, does it, I guess, do the specific park improvements, are those important to name and identify versus? I think so. Okay. All right. Well, here's the ones that I have quickly removed so that we can, I guess, expedite it as best we can. The benches in Meadowthorpe Park walking path. The picnic shelter in Masterson Station Park playground. Repainting the community building at Metathorpe. Replacing the ceiling at Whitney Young Park with drywall. There was two different options, either the drop ceiling or drywall, so we're going to go with the cheaper drop ceiling and remove the $19,000 from drywall. And then the walking path at Metathorpe Park removed as well. Okay, so for justification of the others or explanation of the others, The second district has experienced a 57% population increase in the decade between 2000 and 2010, compared to about 13% in Lexington. The park's development and improvement has not kept up with this population growth. For specific numbers, more than 6,000 units of housing have been built in the district since 2000 as well. So we are lacking. The last time that a park was built in the district was 1999, and most were in the 70s, 50s, 40s. So that is basically the justification for all of my park requests. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. Mine start with the Cardinal Run North shared. That's a walking trail. I put that in because we have a facility on the north side of town, 127 acres. that we've had it was given to the city it's been sitting there for quite a while it has no use at the moment and with this is a fairly large investment but it would mean a significant increase in the trails that we have available especially on the north side of town I include that not because I think it is infrastructure but I think it is investment in the future we want to look at that. The second thing is simply an ADA improvement to Castlewood. I think that's something that we just should be doing. We should have done already, and it never got in the budget. Finally, I'm sorry, the East End Splash Pad. This is both a recreation and a health issue. People may know that people use the thoroughbred park, stream, pool, etc. for wading and bathing and is not treated water it's a health hazard there is no nothing like it near it that's a part of town that is grossly underserved by the park system so I think that's something that deserves a high priority and then the final item the woodland pool of aquatic climbing wall was included in councilmember lawless's list so it can be taken off of mine Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've brought forth just three projects that are going to provide direct benefit to the East End, to downtown, and to the West End. First, starting off with a request for $67,500 for the Charles Young Park expansion. This is primarily for what's known as the Ann Street footprint. When I was a staffer back in 2006-2007, this government acquired about a dozen houses that sat on that plot of land. That land has been vacant until now. In the fiscal year 14 budget, we've appropriated $50,000 to construct a parking lot, and Parks is going to go ahead with that. This $67,000 would also allow some amenities such as seating, some additional landscape. It could perhaps allow for a bus shelter or other things to attract folks to that area. Charles Young Park is very visible for Midland Avenue. 15,000 cars travel and are exposed to that park every day. I think it's an improvement. The next one is the Douglas Park expansion. This is an area of town that has gotten a lot of attention here lately. It has great support from Faith-based, the local school system, and a strong neighborhood association. This was one of the first projects that I visited with Jerry Hancock when I was elected in 2011. And it calls for expansions of the athletic fields in the very remote rear of the park as far as a walking trail. And as evidenced by Imani Baptist Church, there is an audience. And we could definitely use their foot traffic to help bring safety to Douglas Park. Last but not least, it's $150,000 for window replacement. I think approximately 20 windows that face the south side of the Dunbar Community Center. That center sits adjacent to the revitalized Russell Community Center, and those windows are in deplorable shape. More importantly, we send city employees to that building each and every day. This will be a wise investment. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Councilman Stinnett. Thank you, Chair. I just have one project under the parks request, and that's to replace the walking trail that was removed when we closed Constitution Pool and took the pool out. The trail also came out, a piece of it. So no good deed goes unpunished. We need to put the section of the trail back that goes by where the old pool was, and that's $30,000. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Administration. Commissioner Mills and I have a request in the administration also. and that is that we have $300,000 for the idle hour. This is the building of the new field that we must move and the playground. We could amend the bond issue to do this, but we're asking for fund balance because we would like to hold that entire $5 million because we think we will be ready to bid this before we come and do the budget again. Thank you. Council Member Stinn has a question. CAO Hamilton, on the $5 million, so therefore our total budget was $15 million to build a new senior center. If we keep the full $5 million and not use any of it for land purchasing and allow you to start the construction, will you still ask for a full $10 million next year since our land costs are much lower than we anticipated? I am not ready to give you a figure yet, but I'm hoping that it's going to be below that. Well, I mean, I guess when you, the $5 million, I would anticipate since we didn't have to buy land to use that money. That's right. To get Adelire moving now and get improvements versus using more in my fund balance discussion. Because you already have the $5 million, right? Yes, sir, I do. So why not just go ahead and use that on Adelire? I have to. Okay, go ahead. We can use part of the $5 million. It will have to be through a budget amendment because the $5 million was for land and preparation. So this is site development. It's actually park. So we can use the $5 million but with a budget amendment of $300,000. So it's an either-or. What Ms. Hamilton is asking for is $300,000 from fund balance so that that $5 million can go directly for that design and structure-related cost. Yeah, it's six, half, dozen. The money's already there, though, and we're waiting for this discussion. The finalized may take a little more time, and if you already have the money, why not go ahead? And I think there's a lot of grumbling up here that would agree with Council Member Stinnett on using that money that way. That's fine. We just need to move fast in order for that movement of the field now so that it's ready for when the season comes. Yeah, I think go ahead and do that and bring a budget amendment to us. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I believe I have three items on this list, the first one being the solar lighting at Cross Keys Park. And this is more of a, for those of you that aren't familiar with the park, it's a passive park. There's a pond there. recently was given grant funds to restore the pond, to dredge it out and improve the water quality. This side of the park, there are no street lights, and we looked into a possible security light in different options probably about a year ago, and Parks recommended the solar lighting and got the estimate. The security lighting would cost us a monthly fee for electricity, but other than maintenance, this would be low cost, not an ongoing cost. Well, the neighbors in the area certainly want it to deter drug activity, and squatters living in the park. And then next, basketball goals were removed from one of the basketball courts at Valley Park due to complaints from the neighbors. So I would reduce this amount to $80,000, and that would be to repurpose, take down the existing basketball posts that are still there and turn it into a parking lot. And I have pictures I can show you of the number of cars that were down there last night just parked everywhere. It was jammed packed. So there's definitely a need for more parking in that park. And maybe that is all. The other one I have is listed under another category. So I think that's it. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The $1.1 million on this list would be to complete the Legacy Trail. As you know, we've been trying to work on the Legacy Trail for a number of years. It's used not only by people all over Fayette County, it's used by people from outside Fayette County. The detail of this $1.1 million has been given to me by folks in the administration, and I can email that to you, and it tells which parts cost how much, totaling $1.1 million. This crosses multiple council districts. I think it would be a great thing to get it finished up. Thank you. Councilman Beard. Oops. Thank you, Chair. Due to the fact I have four lists here, and they seem to change, including one of them that says I made no requests whatsoever, and that's totally inaccurate. I'm sorry. Most of my requests involve parks. Jerry, could I ask you to... The first item is $80,000 for Meadowbrook Park for repair and replace trail and a school route. Yes, sir. That's an asphalt trail that's horribly deteriorated. It's underwater. Every time we get half an inch of rain, it's been eroded. It's awful. It needs to be totally replaced. That's been a problem for six or eight years. It's about 800 feet long. We would intend to make it a boardwalk rather than asphalt so the water would drain more effectively in the future. Okay. Second request involved picnic pods for Bellow Woods, Kirk Levington, Veterans Park, Meadowbrook, Wildwood, and Zandale. $21,000. I would like to double that, and you can place them where you need them in relationship. You might end up with three in Veterans Park and only one somewhere else, but it will give you a significant number of pods to be able to flesh out what we already have. Excellent idea. If that's okay with you. Terrific. Yes, sir. Okay. And the last one that's on here, which I pretty well have scrubbed, is the resurfacing of Lansdowne Drive from New Circle Overpass to Reynolds Road. That was $182,000, and as I say, I'm pulling away from that in favor of the other parks' initiatives that they need. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Schettfield. I'm sorry. Okay, go ahead. Okay, basically, I included repaving the Jacobson Park. Obviously, there's a lot of parks that need a lot of things, but Jacobson Park, because it is so used, it's one of the largest used parks, I think, in the city, bringing both people within the city and outside of the city for activities. The number that I think we were provided is 125,000. Is that? Sorry, Jerry. That's quite all right. I don't mind doing this at all. That's just for phase one of Jacobson. To do the whole park would be two or three times that much, but that would get the worst places in the curves where the edges are most badly deteriorated. That would be phase one. Okay, thank you. And if you've been out there recently, it's in pretty poor shape right now. It's dangerous for running, walking, and biking, quite honestly, in the same way that Masterson was. Right. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Soddy? Thank you, Chair. I have one item. It's for the Shiltoe Park Bridge. There's a walking bridge that has been on that property for, I think, now five years that was brought there to span the creek in Wellington Park and to serve as a wetlands bridge for when schools come and they do their nature and conservancy projects. The cost is $90,000. The bridge, like I said, has been in the middle of a field adjacent to the Woman's Garden and been sitting there for the past five years unused. So I'd like to have it moved and put over the stream where it's supposed to be. And that's $90,000. Thank you. Council Member Farmer had $1 million for park infrastructure. And you have three seconds left to finish. Three seconds of your time. I was just trying to lead by example and just say let's have an overarching number. You all have given individual numbers. Very usable. I was just trying to give a bigger number for all. Thank you. Thank you. And now we'll move to, and we have about 10 minutes. We need to finish up the last few items here. Then we'll have to discuss the process we're going to do, and we're going to meet again to make motions. Council Member Clark. You skipped me on parks, I think. I'm sorry. Council Member Clark. No big deal. I have just put, there have been several possible projects in my district, But I have just included only Southland Park, and there are several things going on there. And so I just put a total amount, and I think it would be best just to have that total amount and let Jerry make the decisions how he spends it for both the pool and the park. Thank you. Thank you. And if we could, Jennifer and Stacy, if you could make a master list because we've taken some, we've combined some, and then we can decide how we're going to do a rating system or a process after we go through everything. Next item is going to be public safety. And Council Member Myers, you had the bulletproof vest and also the air tanks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In just talking to police and fire, we want to get on a system for replacing our air tanks and our bulletproof vest. I see the administration has sort of a duplicate request for air tanks, so we can combine that one, I guess. And that's it. And the administration had $40,000 for that, so would you be amenable for their number then at $40,000? Absolutely. Commissioner, did you want to speak on this, on the air tanks for public safety? Well, $40,000 do. The administration has a $40,000 request, and I have $100,000. $40,000 is what we were asking for. Thank you. And while you're there, could you also talk about the kitchen floor and the engine replacement? The kitchen floor, we just got bids in this week, and I think we're going to go with $400,000 on that. Okay, $400,000 for that. And then also you have the fire engine replacement. That was $1.75,000. Yes, sir. Yes. And Council Member Stennett, you have a million on there, but they're asking for $1.75,000. He's in agreement with that. And then also with the recruit outfits. Yes, the 140. Yes, that's what we need on that. And then we talked about the vehicles already, I think. Police vehicles, yes. Okay, the next item would be the social services. Hold on, Chair. Yes, Councilman. I thought he corrected and said $2 million, but I think it should be $2 million. Because we could possibly get another ambulance, is that right? What now? Another ambulance? Commissioner, could you come back, please? If it was $2 million for fire, that would be pretty close to getting us another ambulance from the 175. So are you changing that number from 1.75 to $2 million? Yes, sir. Are you both? Vice Mayor has a question. Is that a replacement ambulance or an additional add-on ambulance? That would be a replacement. It would replace one of the old ones. Because we just added one. Thank you. Yes. And is the administration, once your number changed, then to $2 million instead of $1.75 million? Sure. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Okay. Whatever. Okay. Council Member Lawless. So are you saying that a new ambulance is only $275,000? I'm sorry? That gets us real close on an ambulance. I think the figures that we've gotten in recent vids. The figures that we use when we replace an ambulance is both the truck and upgrading the equipment. Right. We have just recently in the fiscal year 2014 budget got monies to replace the Hart Monarch, a $30,000 hit. And if we are able to buy two or three ambulances at once, we will be able to get that many. We'll get some breaks from our vendors. Okay, thank you. I mean, if we were going to put it in there, another $50,000. Thank you. The senior citizens fit up, Council Member Meyers. Oh, Council Member Henson, I'm sorry. Gentlemen, I think Council Member Henson. Commissioner. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Mason. Mason. I remember at one point talking about a strategic plan for replacing the apparatuses. Has that ever been done? We have a plan in writing that we can present at some point. We've worked with the General Services Fleet folks looking at both fire and police as we go forward. Because I know, you know, as being a member of the Public Safety Link for the past three years and a chair this past year, I felt like we had a good plan in place for both police and fire as far as providing their needs for apparatuses and whatever. But maybe I was wrong. No, we've got a plan in writing that we could present. It's pretty detailed. and this gets us well along the way towards implementing a lot of that and catching up on the last few years. Yeah, I would like to see something that shows where we want to be or where we need to be and where we are. Okay. Thank you. Councilman Myers, you have the next two. Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the seated sentence and center fit up, this would be for computers, the computer lab and tables and different things like that once we get the building built. That's $200,000. And then secondly, technology upgrades for building inspection, code enforcement, zoning enforcement, engineering. The Sela software package, this would allow them to buy, I believe it's 40 iPads that they can interface with out in the field. So when they're doing their work, it would directly interface back in with their database. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Henson, then Prove Waller Avenue Traffic Engineering. Yes, sir. This is an intersection that has been, I've had a plan drawing from engineering for quite some time. It's on the commissioner planning list, has been as unfunded for quite some time. The intersection, if you're familiar with it, is not accessible. Anyone that comes walking down the sidewalk comes off the curb cut and goes through the crosswalk, runs into a median. So it's right at where one of our major hospitals is, and this is also in the 3rd District. Thank you. Council Member Sadi. Thank you, Chair. This is the Reynolds Road roundabout that I was asking for some caution lights and just some better markings because that roundabout, people still seem to have difficulty negotiating that, and that would be $26,000. Thank you. Thank you. Now, transportation. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. This is about bike lane striping and signage pretty much in locations all over the city. it would allow us to expand the safety of those folks who ride their bicycles all over town. Thank you. I like that idea. Councilman Farmer. I'll be brief on both of these. First is, as we stated here, is a curb, gutter, and sidewalk match grant for a million dollars. This plays off the success we used to have with our sidewalk replacement for residential, and it plays off of comments made by Councilmember Lawless about places where curbs and gutters need to be replaced. Again, this would be aimed at residential match grant opportunity for those changes. And then just an omnibus one on down there, hopefully to throw some more money at the resurfacing opportunity, which we've all been very blessed to have a lot of streets resurfaced this year, but what that does is make other folks realize that their street needs to be resurfaced, so an opportunity exists there. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Stenet. This is for the Manowar, to get started on the Manowar redesign for improving the traffic flow and widening. It affects 11 different council members for this road project. It's one that's way overdue. It's over 120-something percent overcapacity as it is. The last time we looked at this was in 2007. It's been in the budget a couple times, but I'm asking for it to fund it once and for all so we can get ahead of the game. Thank you. Thank you. the administration on the pothole patcher? This is a pothole patcher, new technology, and that it can be done with very few crew members, be used all year round, and extend the useful life of our roads and is a cheaper solution than resurfacing. Thank you. Council Member Beer. I'm sorry, I thought I was finished the first time around. I have to find out which list I need to look at. Okay, we'll come back to you. Council Member, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had asked for $1.149 million to resurface a portion of Man-O-War based on all of our discussions about how we never have enough money to resurface Man-O-War. I would like to remove that and go ahead and put my name as a support with Council Member Stenet's Man of War design for traffic improvement widening and become a co-sponsor of that. And then after that, we can resurface it. Thank you. I skip by mistake. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. This is the last one on my list. There is an iconic bus shelter in the Gardenside neighborhood that I've been working for four years with the group for design and funding to restore the bus shelter to its original state. We do have some funds available. The balance is $45,000. Thank you. Council Member Sadi? You have two. Why don't you do the last two that you have here? Sure. Thank you. In reference to the water quality, we can probably take that out of the stormwater fee. It's only $20,000, so I'll omit that. Now, the resurfacing, I've had several requests from neighborhoods throughout the 9th District who were not on the resurfacing initially, and I realized I was looking at the $2.25 million and using that as kind of a guide, but it's probably going to be about $1 million. So I would scratch the $114 million and put in $1 million for resurfacing to finish up roads in the 9th District. I like when you subtract that. I'm not sure about your addition there, though. Council Member Akers. Thank you. I had a request from citizens in the Spur-Greendale Road area. There is a railroad crossing there that is quite disturbing and lots of noise pollution. There are approximately 467 houses in the neighborhoods surrounding this railroad crossing. We've talked to the railroads. They are not willing to put up any kind of sound barrier. So we did talk to streets and roads, I believe, and the cost is approximately $46,000 to build such. Thank you. Councilman Beard, did you have anything else? No. When I picked up the additional things for parks, I scrubbed this out. Okay. Thank you. That goes through the list. Now we need to come up with a system. Councilmember Stenet. I was going to make a motion to have a special budget and finance meeting, or I'm sorry, committee of the whole, Cal meeting, on October 10th at 4 p.m. before our council meeting when the second reading of the ordinance of the council request is up for reading. I think that's a good idea. I know Council Member Gorton, because I was going to make the same suggestion, I think we have two confirmations. Two confirmation hearings we'll also need to have that day. If we could do those at 3 o'clock, if that would work for everyone. And do this at 4. And do this at 4. In October 10th at 4 o'clock for Special Committee of the Whole meeting. We have a motion and a second by Council Member Myers. Any discussion? Council Member Henson. There's a Neighborhood Parks Task Force meeting that day at 4 o'clock. We have what? A Neighborhood Parks Task Force meeting. It's on the calendar. we can reschedule. Thank you. Any other discussion? Vice Mayor? Just a quick question going back to our process. How will we rank these then to bring to the committee? I would ask the staff to get a list to us and then we'll do a ranking from however many there are, one to 50, one being the best and 50 being the worst. and whoever has the lowest number will be the first one that goes. And they'll get that back to you probably by next Tuesday so that it gives enough time to prepare. Would that be enough time by next Thursday? Or do you need it sooner? I'm sorry? Okay. Okay, any further discussion on the motion? All those? Vice Mayor? I'm so sorry. The packet for the 10th will go out tomorrow or Thursday, correct? Does that time to get it out and get it ranked and get it back? I don't think so. I don't think we can do it in that time frame. I think the packet for the 10th will go out next Monday. Isn't it 10th or Thursday? The 10th or Thursday. Okay. Okay. Okay. So if we could get it in by Friday at 5 o'clock, our ranking. Yes. Council Member Scutchfield? That's fine. We were just, the discussion over here is, what about us kind of voting up and down the concept behind them, and then we can play with number figures? Well, I think that's what we'll do. Okay. Yeah, we'll rank them, and it'll be probably the concept, and then we'll still do a number. Council Member Ford. Mr. Chair, this has been most helpful, I think, for allowing us to vocalize the projects. But from what I see, and I still don't have enough information, I feel unfair to rank information on what I just heard, 30-minute infomercials about these projects. I would support what Council Member Scutchfield just said, which is typically what we do with the budget process is just vote up or down. the validity of the project. We're still going to go through each project, but we'll just the ranking we'll just put on who's going to be the first one we talk and who's going to be the last one we're going to talk about is how the ranking will be set up. We'll still talk on every one. I'll follow your lead. So if everybody gets a number one, that'd be the first one that we'll talk about at the October 10th meeting. Any other further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, that passes. Move adjourned. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, we are adjourned. Thank you.