# Special Committee of the Whole (COW) - October 22, 2013 > Auto-transcribed civic record · October 22, 2013 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3147 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3147?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2013-10-22 - **Last revised**: July 16, 2026 - **Length**: 24,273 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council met on October 22, 2013, at 11:30 a.m. in the Council Chambers, with Vice Mayor Gorton presiding. The council considered 17 agenda items and took 23 votes during the session. Nine members of the public provided comments. The council approved the majority of items on the agenda, including multiple capital projects focused on parks and infrastructure improvements. Approved projects included restoration of a bus shelter and sign at the Gardenside Shopping Center on Alexandria Drive, kitchen floor improvements at the Division of Community Corrections facility, and several trail and park enhancements such as the Legacy Trail, Constitution Park Trail replacement, and Berry Hill Park walking trail. The council also approved funding for ADA improvements at Castlewood Park, expansion of Charles Young Park and Douglas Park, repurposing of a basketball court at Valley Park, a pothole patcher, and restroom facilities at Masters and Station Park. Additional approved items included a Manowar Road traffic improvement design study and bike lane striping and signage work. The Wellington Park Bridge project was also approved. One item was withdrawn from consideration: the proposal to purchase iPads for Building Inspection, Code Enforcement, Zoning Enforcement, and Engineering departments through the Accela system. The council denied the request for police recruit outfits. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on October 22, 2013: * Beard * Ellinger * Henson * Kay * Lawless * Lane * Massadi * Myers * Scutchfield * Stinnett * Ford * Akers * Clark * Romero No members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions **Fund Balance Allocations** The body assigned $3,082,000 to unassigned fund balance for purchase orders. Motion by Ford, seconded by Ellinger. Roll call vote: 14 ayes, 0 nays. Passed. [timestamp: 01:24:21] The body assigned $1,500,000 unassigned fund balance for budgeted fund balance. Motion by Lawless, seconded by Ford. Roll call vote: 14 ayes, 0 nays. Passed. [timestamp: 01:26:13] The body approved an additional $825,000 for pension contingency fund. Motion by Lawless, seconded by Kaye. Roll call vote: 12 ayes, 1 nay (Clark), 1 abstention. Passed. [timestamp: 01:39:43] **Budget Adjustments** The body reduced allocation for bus shelter restoration from $45,000 to $33,500. Motion by Henson, seconded by Ellinger. Roll call vote: 14 ayes, 0 nays. Passed. [timestamp: 02:03:03] The body removed item 11 (pothole patcher) from allocation. Motion by Akers, seconded by Myers. Roll call vote: 11 ayes, 3 nays (Akers, Clark, Romero). Passed. [timestamp: 03:01:11] **Item Removals** Multiple items were removed by voice vote: item 57 (sandblast and repaint Woodland Pool) [timestamp: 02:04:08], item 33 (parks infrastructure) [timestamp: 02:04:38], item 32 (parks infrastructure) [timestamp: 02:05:39], item 34 (parks infrastructure) [timestamp: 02:05:39], item 65 (resurfacing 9th District) [timestamp: 02:05:08], item 41 (Medebo Park repair and trail) [timestamp: 02:06:41], item 46 (playground renovation at Woodland Park) [timestamp: 02:07:12], item 49 (playground renovation at Woodland Park) [timestamp: 02:08:21], and item 42 (Affordable Care expert) by Administration [timestamp: 02:10:39]. **Capital Projects Approved** The body approved $30,000 to replace Constitution Park Trail (Stinnett/Lane, 14-0) [timestamp: 02:12:49], $250,000 for Manowar Road design study (Stinnett/Lane, 14-0) [timestamp: 02:19:15], $80,510 for bike lane striping and signage (Kay/Ellinger, 14-0) [timestamp: 02:27:37], $100,000 for ADA improvements at Castlewood Park (Kay/Ford, 14-0) [timestamp: 02:28:22], $67,500 for Charles Young Park expansion (Ford/Myers, 14-0) [timestamp: 02:29:28], $80,000 to repurpose basketball court at Valley Park (Henson/Myers, 14-0) [timestamp: 02:32:11], and $250,000 for design and construction of restrooms at Masters and Station Park (Akers/Myers, 12 ayes, 2 nays: Clark, Romero) [timestamp: 02:57:54]. **Failed Motion** The body rejected $140,000 for police recruit outfits. Motion by Stinnett, seconded by Akers. Roll call vote: 1 aye (Stinnett), 13 nays. Failed. [timestamp: 02:54:32] **Procedural Motion** The body voted to recess and return after work session. Motion by Ford, seconded by Massadi. Roll call vote: 14 ayes, 0 nays. Passed. [timestamp: 03:06:48] ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included appropriations and contracts for various capital projects and equipment purchases: **Transportation and Infrastructure** - Restore bus shelter and sign on Alexandria Drive in Gardenside Shopping Center: $33,500 - Pothole patcher equipment: $325,000 - Manowar Road traffic improvement design study: $250,000 - Bike lane striping and signage throughout the county: $80,510 **Parks and Recreation** - Design and construction of public restrooms at Masters and Station Park: $250,000 - ADA improvements at Castlewood Park Therapeutic Camp: $100,000 - Charles Young Park expansion: $67,500 - Repurpose basketball court at Valley Park for parking: $80,000 - Constitution Park Trail replacement: $30,000 **Public Safety** - Police recruit outfits for November class: $140,000 ## Public Comment Nine speakers addressed the council on various financial and budgeting matters during the public comment period. **Fund Balance and Audit Timing** Massadi expressed concern about making fund balance decisions before receiving the final audit, urging the council to wait until November to avoid repeating past mistakes [timestamp: 01:31:03]. Kay agreed with delaying allocation until after the audit but supported early information sharing to inform planning [timestamp: 01:37:00]. Clark asked why fund balance couldn't be added directly to revenue for the next budget cycle to involve council earlier in planning [timestamp: 01:02:14]. **Pension Funding** Stinnett questioned the sustainability of annual $3 million pension contributions and urged the council to get actuarial projections before committing funds [timestamp: 01:27:54]. Lawless argued that approving the $825,000 pension contingency would help expedite the audit process and avoid delays [timestamp: 01:35:16]. **Financial Controls and Reporting** Lane critiqued the city's weak financial control and delayed reporting, comparing it to being lost at sea without a compass [timestamp: 01:48:23]. Akers requested a detailed list of all $3.1 million in encumbrances to ensure transparency and accountability [timestamp: 01:19:19]. Myers proposed requiring a report on actual project costs to ensure leftover funds are accounted for and reallocated appropriately [timestamp: 01:35:23]. **Equity in Funding** Scutchfield noted that some council members had not received funding for their districts and urged the council to provide an opportunity for equitable distribution [timestamp: 02:56:09]. ## Contested Items The October 22, 2013 meeting included three significant areas of disagreement among council members. **Timing of Fund Balance Decisions** Council members engaged in a heated discussion about the appropriate timing for fund balance allocations. The central dispute concerned whether the council should proceed with making fund balance decisions before receiving the final audit report. Some members expressed concerns about making financial decisions based on incomplete data, while others advocated for moving forward with the allocations. The debate reflected broader questions about fiscal prudence and the proper sequencing of budget decisions. **Pension Contingency Funding** The council voted on a motion to approve an additional $825,000 for pension contingency funding. The motion passed with a vote of 12-1, indicating substantial but not unanimous support. The single dissenting council member cited the lack of actuarial data as the reason for voting against the allocation. This split vote demonstrated disagreement over whether sufficient information was available to justify the additional pension contingency expenditure. **Use of Asset Forfeiture Funds** A procedural dispute arose regarding the appropriate funding source for police equipment and supplies. Council members debated whether police recruit outfits and bulletproof vests should be funded from asset forfeiture revenues rather than from the fund balance. A motion to amend the budget to reflect this alternative funding approach was introduced but ultimately failed. The disagreement centered on how to allocate existing revenue sources and which funding mechanisms were most appropriate for specific police department expenditures. ## Review Projects [timestamp: 00:08:53] The Council reviewed fund balance allocations, project rankings, and new financial information from the administration. The discussion involved speakers O'Meara, Massadi, Stinnett, Lane, and Kay. The administration presented updated financial information addressing three key areas: - GASB 54 reporting changes - Encumbrances - Pension contingencies The Council examined the fund balance allocations and project rankings in light of this new financial data. The agenda item was approved. ## Restore bus shelter and sign on Alexandria Drive in Gardenside Shopping Center Council approved an appropriation to restore the bus shelter and sign on Alexandria Drive in the Gardenside Shopping Center [timestamp: 02:03:03]. The council approved a reduced allocation of $33,500 for this project. The reduction reflected a donation of $6,000 in labor that was contributed by Dixon Electric, which lowered the overall cost of the restoration work. Key speakers on this item included Henson and Ellinger. The appropriation was approved by council. ## Kitchen floor at Division of Community Corrections (jail) The Council considered an appropriation for a kitchen floor project at the Division of Community Corrections facility. [timestamp: 00:02:10] Key speakers on this item included Henson and Lane. The Council approved $400,000 for the kitchen floor project. The appropriation passed with no opposition. ## iPads for Building Inspection, Code Enforcement, Zoning Enforcement, and Engineering [timestamp: 00:02:10] This agenda item proposed an appropriation of $31,900 for iPads to be used by the Building Inspection, Code Enforcement, Zoning Enforcement, and Engineering departments through the Accela system. The motion was withdrawn by the sponsor and seconded by the council. No further discussion or debate was recorded regarding this appropriation request. **Outcome:** Withdrawn ## Legacy Trail Council approved $600,000 for the Legacy Trail during this agenda item. [timestamp: 00:02:10] Key speakers Ellinger and Lawless participated in the discussion. An amendment was proposed to redirect distillery bond proceeds toward the project, but this amendment failed. Following the failed amendment, Council proceeded to approve the $600,000 appropriation for the Legacy Trail. ## Constitution Park Trail replacement The council approved an appropriation of $30,000 to replace a trail section at Constitution Park that was damaged during pool construction. [timestamp: 02:12:49] Key speakers on this item included Stinnett and Lane. The council voted to approve the funding for the trail replacement project. ## Manowar Road traffic improvement design study Council approved a $250,000 appropriation to fund a design study for traffic improvements along Manowar Road [timestamp: 02:19:15]. Key speakers on this item included Stinnett and Lane. The council voted to approve the funding for the design study, which will examine potential traffic improvement options for the Manowar Road corridor. ## Bike lane striping and signage The council considered an appropriation for bike lane striping and signage during this agenda item. [timestamp: 02:27:37] **Outcome** The council approved $80,510 for bike lane striping and signage across the county. **Key Details** An important clarification was made during discussion: the approved funding applies only to local roads, not county roads or state highways. **Speakers** Kay and Ellinger were the key speakers on this agenda item. ## ADA improvements at Castlewood Park [timestamp: 02:28:22] The council considered an appropriation for accessibility improvements at Castlewood Park Therapeutic Camp. Kay and Ford were the key speakers on this agenda item. The council approved $100,000 in funding to improve accessibility at the facility. The appropriation was approved. ## Charles Young Park expansion The council approved an appropriation of $67,500 for the expansion of Charles Young Park, specifically for the acquisition of one acre of land. [timestamp: 02:29:28] Key speakers on this item included Ford and Myers. The council voted to approve the funding for this park expansion project. ## Repurpose basketball court at Valley Park The council considered an appropriation to repurpose an existing basketball court at Valley Park into parking space. [timestamp: 02:32:11] **Key Speakers** Henson and Myers were the primary speakers on this agenda item. **Action Taken** The council approved $80,000 in funding for the repurposing project. **Rationale** The repurposing was driven by neighborhood complaints regarding the basketball court. **Outcome** The appropriation was approved. ## Pothole patcher The council addressed a $325,000 allocation for a pothole patcher during this agenda item [timestamp: 03:01:11]. Key speakers on this matter included Hamilton, Akers, and Myers. The council voted to remove the $325,000 allocation from the current budget. Rather than proceeding with the pothole patcher contract at this time, the council decided to defer this item and address it during the next budget cycle. The item was approved as presented. ## Wellington Park Bridge The council discussed and approved an appropriation for the Wellington Park Bridge project. [timestamp: 02:39:45] Key speakers in this discussion included Massadi and Mason. The discussion touched on budget prioritization, with council members weighing the bridge project against other potential expenditures, specifically considering whether resources should be directed toward bulletproof vests or park improvements. This reflected broader questions about how to allocate available funds across different municipal needs. The council voted to approve the Wellington Park Bridge project. ## Berry Hill Park walking trail Council approved an appropriation of $82,000 to build a walking trail at Berry Hill Park to connect with existing trail systems. [timestamp: 02:41:20] The discussion involved council members Myers and Lawless. The project was approved by the council. ## Douglas Park expansion Council approved an appropriation of $149,050 for the expansion of Douglas Park to enhance safety and community use. [timestamp: 02:42:22] Key speakers on this agenda item included Ford and Myers. The appropriation was approved by Council. ## Police recruit outfits The council considered a $140,000 appropriation for police recruit outfits during this agenda item [timestamp: 02:54:32]. Key speakers Stinnett and Akers participated in the discussion of this allocation request. The council ultimately rejected the appropriation. Concerns were raised about the proposed use of asset forfeiture funds for this purchase, as well as objections to the budget process that had been followed in presenting this item. The motion to approve the $140,000 allocation for police recruit outfits was denied. ## Masters and Station Park restrooms [timestamp: 02:57:54] Council approved a $250,000 appropriation for the design and construction of public restrooms at Masters and Station Park. The discussion involved council members Akers and Myers. The appropriation was approved by council. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Assign $3,082,000 to unassigned fund balance for purchase orders - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Assign $1,500,000 unassigned fund balance for budgeted fund balance - **Motion** — passed (12-1): Approve additional $825,000 for pension contingency fund - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Reduce allocation for bus shelter restoration from $45,000 to $33,500 - **Motion** — passed: Remove item 57 (sandblast and repaint Woodland Pool) from list - **Motion** — passed: Remove item 33 (parks infrastructure) from list - **Motion** — passed: Remove item 65 (resurfacing 9th District) from list - **Motion** — passed: Remove item 41 (Medebo Park repair and trail) from list - **Motion** — passed: Remove item 42 (Affordable Care expert) from list - **Motion** — passed: Remove item 46 (playground renovation at Woodland Park) from list - **Motion** — passed: Remove item 49 (playground renovation at Woodland Park) from list - **Motion** — passed: Remove item 32 (parks infrastructure) from list - **Motion** — passed: Remove item 34 (parks infrastructure) from list - **Motion** — passed (11-3): Remove item 11 (pothole patcher) from allocation - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Approve $30,000 to replace Constitution Park Trail - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Approve $250,000 for Manowar Road design study - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Approve $80,510 for bike lane striping and signage - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Approve $100,000 for ADA improvements at Castlewood Park - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Approve $67,500 for Charles Young Park expansion - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Approve $80,000 to repurpose basketball court at Valley Park - **Motion** — failed (1-13): Approve $140,000 for police recruit outfits - **Motion** — passed (12-2): Approve $250,000 for design and construction of restrooms at Masters and Station Park - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Recess meeting and return after work session --- ## Full transcript My place to impart, one day some girl's gonna break your heart And ooh, ain't no pain like from the opposite sack Gonna hurt bad, but don't take it out on the net, son Throughout life people will make you mad Disrespect you and treat you bad Let God deal with the things they do Cause hate in your heart will consume you too Always tell the truth, say your prayers, hold doors Pull out chairs, easy on the sweat You're living proof that dreams come true I love you and I'm here for you Just the two of us, we can make it if we try. Just me and you, just me and you. Just the two of us, just the two of us. Building vessels in the sky. Just the two of us, we went down. Can't I hold us down? Just the two of us, just the two of us. Hold my hand, hold my hand. Just the two of us Just the two of us We're building castles in the sky Just the two of us You and I Taking on the world, taking on the world Just the two of us Just me and you I'm always here for you Look over your shoulder, I'll be there Whatever you need, just call on me We gonna rise, we gonna shine I'll hit that ball anytime You and I True that, true that Thank you. All right. Good morning, everyone. It is a little after 1130, and today is October 22nd. We have a quorum for our special committee of the whole to discuss the fund balance. And you have in your packet the table of motions from October 15th, which was our previous meeting. You have the summary of fund balance allocations to this point, and you have the project rankings again. Now, since you've gotten the packet, there's some new information, and so I would like to take the privilege of the chair and go ahead and call on Commissioner O'Meara to update us a little bit. I think, Council Members, you got an e-mail last night from Mr. O'Meara, and there have been various and sundry conversations since then, so we'll hear this first. Welcome. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I did send out an e-mail last night. Yesterday was a busy day in my world. in getting clarification on GASB 54. And I'm learning to have a negative reaction to that as much as Sally Hamilton does with my experience with it. But to remind you, GASB 54 is a relatively new pronouncement that dictates how fund balance is presented and defined in our annual financial report. And we spent some time with our CPA trying to understand how that is properly done. I had quite an extensive conversation with he and our director of accounting, Phyllis Cooper, trying to make sure that we did understand how that was supposed to be presented. And I walked away from that conversation confident that I did understand how it was supposed to be implemented and administered. And so my understanding was that encumbrances, those contracts that have been committed but not yet spent, which have always been part of fund balance as a reserve, that with the implementation of this new reporting, they were relegated to a disclosure footnote, and that was the requirement of the GASB 54 for encumbrances. And that statement is correct. That is the significant change with GASB 54. We then talked to him about whether that was good reporting, and we would like to assign it anyway. And he explained that that was not appropriate under GASB 54. Where I did not understand, I took that to mean that it was not appropriate to be reported on any line in the presentation of fund balance. And after further conversation with him, it was clarified that he was talking about assigned, committed, reserved, everything above the unassigned category. So that was a significant misunderstanding on my part. and I presented that as the correct way and presented you all an unassigned fund balance that did not take into consideration the encumbrances because I understood that that was the proper way to present. After the final presentation of the CAFR was drafted last week and to be presented to the accountants, both staff in budgeting and accounting, questioned it one more time. I spoke with our partner in charge yesterday morning. We had several conversations back and forth until the clarification was made. And at that point, I decided to come forward with a recommended change. I feel that it is financially prudent and that it is the best reflection on the government. If when an informed investor reads the disclosure footnote that says $3.1 million is in encumbrances, that they also look over to the unassigned fund balance and see that it is sufficient to cover those expenses. So the recommendation is instead of the 2.5, which I thought was in addition to anything needed for encumbrances, I am recommending today that we reconsider that 2.5 and that it should be 4.6. That's 3.1 to cover the reported encumbrances that will appear in the CAFR, as well as the 1.5 budgeted fund balance at the beginning of the year. In addition to that issue, also last week, there was a confidential actuary report delivered on both of our pension plans that has not been presented or discussed or acted upon by police and fire, so it is on their agenda for the November meeting. but I would recommend that the $2 million that we suggested and you all had approved to be a contingency for pension, that we asked $2 million contingency for the pension, be raised to $2.825 million. So the net of those two recommendations is we're asking for an additional $3 million to shift. $825,000 would shift up to the contingency line, and the unassigned would go from $2.5 to $4.6. That's approximately a $293 million change. So instead of having $12 million in that assigned category, we're recommending that that be $9 million. Do you have any of this on a slide? So that council members can actually look at the numbers? Sure. Do you have any? This is our recommendation, budgeted fund balance of $1.5 million. and we inside here call them purchase order rolls. The appropriate name is encumbrances in the financial statements. 3.1, that equals the 4.6. And that would be as of June 30, 2013, which is the period that we're reporting on our financial statements. Council members, I trust if you have questions, you'll log in. and I hope that, Commissioner, that we can have, in particular, a discussion about the purchase orders, which are always, year in, year out, year in, year out, going to be something that we have to take into account. So thank you for your presentation. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I was wondering if we can put up on the projector, if this is accurate, the fund balance allocation summary that's dated October 22, 2013, that has the beginning fund balance at 14-9, and then at the very end it has the remaining unassigned. Do we have that sheet? Maybe that would help, Vice Mayor. The sheet that was passed out to us in reference to the fund balance allocation summary, do we have that? I think that may help. Is this the one dated October 22nd? Yes, ma'am. Okay. I suspect that Jonathan has that to put up. It's yours, Jonathan. No, you want the single sheet. That's it. Okay. That's it. That's it. That's it. Okay. Can you get it so that it's a little bigger, please? Please just go down. That's good and big. We have that vice mayor. There you go. You're getting there. A better idea. And the other recommendations. So is it possible to get that just a tiny bit smaller so we can see the whole thing? or maybe council members don't really need it. The top part is what we've already voted to allocate, correct? There we go. Thank you. And is that what you wanted? Yes, thank you. Did you have a question about it? Okay, not yet. All right. Does anyone else have a question? I guess since I see no questions, I'll take the opportunity to ask mine about purchase orders. Commissioner, the encumbrances of $3.1 million include purchase orders and grant match. Is that correct or not? It's purchase orders. Only. That's the purchase orders. So this $3.1 million is purchase orders that were encumbered before July 1st. Is that correct? That's where the government said, we're going to contract with you. Here's what we'll pay you. And they have not been spent. And the work had not been completed. Okay. All right. Now, what we do is go through all of the open purchase orders and close many of them, because it may be the practice that has $1,000 for the project. The project is done at $850, and yet that purchase order is not closed out. It's just sitting there, so it's taking up $150 of expense, but it's not intended nor will be spent. We go through a process of trying to close all of those. We also find purchase orders that may be two or three years old where someone said, I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it, and yet nothing has been done. We close those. So we're trying to show the total of what is in process that was an approved expenditure in 2013, but needs to be finished out in 2014. And of that 3.1, 1.6 of it is the radio project. Okay. And when does this happen? Can you tell me about the timing of this? Because it would seem to me that when a project's finished, that's when it would be reviewed to see if there's money left over. Or does it all happen at the end of the fiscal year? Well, each division is responsible for closing their purchase orders when a project is finished. We have an annual review to see where we are on that at the end of the financial year, after June 30th. Okay. Actually, there's two processes. There's one that is the responsibility of the person who is spending the money and opening that purchase order. It's their responsibility to close it when the project is complete. We then do another review from the finance side of all of them at the end of June 30, which is actually in July. Okay, so what is the, for lack of a better term, what's the quality control that we have in place for divisions closing out their purchase orders in a timely fashion? Do you know what I'm saying? I don't know if the mindset is that we don't need to do it until the end of the year, so the divisions wait, Or is there some kind of system during the year where someone, and I don't know if it would be in accounting or where, has a quality control over every division to get those done in a timely way? I would have to defer to our director of purchasing to accurately answer that question. And I know that from a division director's point of view, we would close POs because we needed to use that extra money in order to do the next project or the next demand of our operating. So that there is, I didn't mean to infer that people just open them and leave them open all the time. There is a constant flow, and there are lots of purchase orders completed and closed out, freeing up those dollars then for what other purchases are needed in the second half of the year, the next month of the year, that type of thing. There is this final quality control at the end of the year. If there's something in between those two, I would check with him and get back with you. I think it's important to know because purchase orders are every year. This is not new. It is not new. No. What is new is the differences in how to report it. Well, and if you recall at the last meeting, Connie Underwood brought up purchase orders, and we were told that they were all built in already into the budget. That's correct. That is a correct statement. Now we're talking about 2014, and we did do a budget amendment in order to roll those POs. And I made my comments, I think it was two weeks ago, based on my understanding of the conversation with the CPA and how GASB 54 is supposed to be implemented. And I used the example that they roll every year, and so you have 3.1 this year, you're probably going to have 3.1 next year, and so there's this constant churn, a repetitiveness, but that if we wanted to take the conservative approach, we could increase that, but we can't. It was my understanding it could not be for purchase orders. The clarification I got yesterday was I took that limitation to mean encompassing all fund balance when he was telling me about the assigned and above. So I misinterpreted. I was conveying that to you because at that time that was what I understood the implementation of GASB 54 was. Okay. I appreciate that. My time is up, so I just would simply ask Connie, who worked in budgeting for umpteen years, if she has any comment about purchase orders. Thank you. And you all have to forgive me if my voice is a little rough today. The one thing that I did want to say to your earlier question about closing purchase orders, since our new system went in place, the fact that we're actually really reviewing them and closing them by year-end is a huge change from historically what we did. Prior to bringing in this system, we had purchase orders that had been open for 10, 15 years that just kept sitting there on the books because no one was really reviewing to close. So the fact that at the end of a fiscal year we know we're not rolling forward anything we shouldn't is a real positive change in our system that we really needed, and the new system sort of forced that on us, whether our division directors wanted it or not in some instances. The other thing, I'm thrilled that we're going to address the purchase order issue. I had some real concerns about not making sure that we had sufficient unreserved dollars to cover those. And while the CAFR may report it a certain way budgetarily, I think it's important that you account for what you've planned to spend. And we had changed the 2014 budget to increase our expenditures without any money to cover them, essentially. If we weren't going to leave it in unreserved and we weren't going to change our revenue stream, we were unbalanced at that point. And this move will balance up the 2014 budget and makes me very happy. So that was really what I wanted to say. Thank you. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Bill, I wanted to ask a couple questions before I follow up with a couple comments. On the $1.5 million unassigned fund balance, that's in addition to the $1.5 million in the budget, right? No, sir. That is the budget. I just want to make that clear. That's how we get the $4.6 million. The $4.6 million is the sum of the $3.1 million encumbrances and the budgeted fund balance to begin the year of $1.5 million. Right, so the 2.476 we originally wanted to keep at the beginning of these discussions is gone. It's replaced by this 4.6. Right, but it's in there. It's in there. That's where I'm getting to. The 2.476 that we originally wanted to keep in fund balance after we allocated it is in that number. Yes, it's not in addition to. And it will stay as a fund balance item, not as a PO item. That's what I'm trying to get to. No, sir, I don't think that's interesting. So you're going to spend the $2.476 on the purchase orders. So there is no fund balance at the end of the day besides the $1.5 left. Besides the $1.5, there is not. So it's not $1.5 plus the $2.5. That is not. Okay, I just want to make sure we're on the same page and we're clear on that. On the pension issue, additional funding, I know you got the report back last week. We supported the pension negotiations. We supported putting $20 million in the budget. In June, we added another $3 million to the $20 million to get for FY13. Now we want to be asked again to add another $3 million to FY2014 for pension. So help me understand, is the pension $20 million a year, or are we way off on that, and we're going to have to find $3 million each year? Because the problem is, as you know, I'm speaking to the choir, it's hard to find $3 million extra each year. and if this is the trend that got us in trouble with a pension to begin with so what is the real number have we looked ahead i know i asked this question back in june when are we really going to know in terms of budgeting how much we put in there i know the law says a minimum of 20 million based on the agreement but for two years in a row now we're six million over so what's how are we going to predict this going forward and not get back into the same shape because if we didn't have a fund balance, what will we do? Council Member Stinnett, I have many of those same questions to discuss with the actuary. I have not had that conversation, and the actuary has not been presented to the board yet for discussion. So I would ask if we could come back with more information after that board meeting and after that actuarial report is discussed. Well, I'm comfortable with that. As long as we can get a better sense of what the real number is, we need to be put into the pension. Hopefully with the changes in benefits, maybe that number will be going down. Maybe that prediction is high the first couple years are going to go down. I don't know, but I think we need to have that discussion sometime in November before we go on Christmas break because having $3 million extra each year is not going to happen, and we need to figure out how to budget it better. So thank you for that. And on another note, on this whole issue, back in June, I know Vice Mayor Gordon was there, Council Member Ellinger, and a couple other of us met on the 5th floor with Mr. Emmons and our CAO about how to best do the fund balance discussion. And those of us who have been on council in the years past know we never have this discussion ever until November. The reason being is that's when we got back our CAFR, the audited numbers. And Mr. Mayor warned us back in June if we start down this path October 1st, this very thing could happen each and every year. And the auditor hadn't even got their hands on our numbers yet either. It could change again. So I would hope that we don't do any, if we make decisions today to continue down this path. We don't do any budget amendments. We don't spend any dime of this money until we get that audit back in November. We can hire ahead and do the plan. I don't mind that. I'm in agreement. If we want to do the plan, let's do the plan. But let's not execute until we make sure these are real numbers out there. And in the future, I think we need to change our process back to the old way and do it when we get the audit back. Then let's start talking dollars because this has put a great deal of hardship on some of these projects and has pitted against some other very worthy projects that we haven't even discussed yet. It puts us all in a very difficult situation, and this is why we were warned as a council when we made the decision, October 1st, October 1st, this is the exact situation we were warned about. So, Mr. Mayor, thank you. I have a lot of respect for you coming to the mic and giving us this information, because what's important today is we get it right. Not who's right or wrong, but what's important is we get it right, and I think this is the right path we take. I think the council's job today is to figure out do we want to go back through the list and look at these projects, So we just want to continue on with the remaining dollars and get the plan in place and move forward. I think that's the next topic of discussion, I'm sure. But thank you all for coming forward with this new information. And hopefully going forward we can learn from this and maybe change our process back to November when we have a real audit in front of us to discuss fund balance going forward. Thank you all. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I agree with a lot of what Council Member Stenet said, but also remember that part of this number we're discussing is from 12. It's not from 13. And so we have those audited numbers back. Secondly, I would just like to say, Mr. O'Meara, if you can come up just for a second. You were having a conversation with the Vice Mayor a few minutes ago about what happens to POs and how long they're sort of open at different times. We started meeting today with law and with revenue because what I would like to see us do is put together an ordinance or a resolution that requires once these POs, once these projects are completed, that the accounting is completed within a timely fashion. I'm not sure what that is yet. But that the council gets a report back what the end cost was for the project. So let me ask you first, what happens if we have a PO? These different projects we have on this list, a lot of these are just estimates, and we understand that. So, for example, the trail I have on here for $82,000, if at the end of the day it only costs $75,000, what happens to the remaining $7,000? that was budgeted for that project. I didn't catch the trail of $82,000? Yes, I just use that as an example. But any of these projects in here or purchases in here, at the end of the day, if they come back less than what we've budgeted, what happens to that dollar amount? And when do we find out what happens to it? Well, let me answer in two levels. First of all, you have the approved amount to spend. Let's say it's $82,000. Then you go and get bids or requests for proposals. Let's say it comes in at $80,000. Well, now $80,000 is the expected cost. Then you go through the actual cost, and it actually costs $78,000. So the number has moved from the time you originally estimated to a firm project number to an actual number. And so then what happens at the conclusion, the PO would be closed, and depending on the type of expense, if it was an operating expense, it would be there to be used for whatever operating expenses occur throughout the year. If it was a capital expense, then you have to ask to move it from Project A, which is complete, to Project B through council action. So it's the type of expense depends on the aftermath after it's finished. Do you see what I mean? Yes. What I'd like to see happen is that when that project's completed, that the council, whether it's through budget and finance, regular reporting, they would get the number back that says this is the actual expenditure that took place so that if there's $7,000 left over, then the council understands where that's at and it can make a decision what to do with that rather than just leave it wherever it lies, if that makes sense. So you're asking for the council to manage the operational expenses? No, I'm asking that if the council approves a capital expenditure and it doesn't equal that amount at the end of the day, that we know what happens to that money and it does not be left there to be used however. because if you look at how much money we have here, whether we start with $12 million or $9 million or whatever it is, potentially there could be a million dollars left over when all these projects are completed. And there needs to be an accounting of that million dollars and then what happens to it moving forward. Okay. Now, in that scenario, June 30 arrives, the projects are complete, that million dollars is in fund balance at the end of the year. Right. But looking at the fact that we have many more projects that we want to do, than what we have money for. If these projects are done, say, in March, then that million dollars would be left to figure out what to do with, and we may be able to get more projects done during the construction season or whatever. And so I think a business wouldn't just let that million dollars sit out there and float until the end of the year. It would look at how to allocate that million dollars. And so I just wanted the council to know that we're working with purchasing and law to come up with something to bring back to you to see what we can do in that area. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. A couple comments and then a question. I agree with most of what's been said about the procedure for addressing purchase orders. We need better information. We need a better procedure for capturing those funds that we know we have available to us. Secondly, I think the question of the timing of the fund balance discussion is appropriate. I agree with Council Member Stinnett. We should not be beginning to have the conversation about exactly how to allocate those funds until we know what we have. But I would add an additional comment that that, in my mind, that does not mean that we don't get any information about the likely scope and scale of that fund balance. So in the past, Council members have complained that we don't know anything and then we get a big number. It seems to me that we have a good idea about what's likely and that that would be information that would be useful for the council to have in their thinking, but that we not begin the actual allocation process, if we have money left over, until we have the audited account. And then finally, Mr. O'Mara, I want to make sure that I understand one thing about what's happening now. perhaps like other people i have a hard time distinguishing between what's bookkeeping and what's real money it seems to me what you've told us today is that a change in the way in which the actual accounting has to be reported means that for budgeting purposes on a one-time basis we're now moving funds that we did not used to have to account for from 2013 into the 2014 budget. And that, no. So help me understand. I will try. And obviously, I had difficulty understanding, or I wouldn't be standing here today. So let me give it my best shot. But you've made a very pertinent observation that I think is good to look at. You have the reporting or the bookkeeping rules, and you have budgeting rules, which are very, very important within the governmental setting because that's authorization to spend. Over here in the bookkeeping rules, we used to bookkeep fund balance covers. We're going to put away the fund balance first to cover any encumbrances. We always roll them into the next year. and there was no... I'm sorry, I need to interrupt you. When you say we always roll them into... Maybe this is where my confusion comes. Sure. You account for them, but you roll them into the next year. Does that mean that they become a part of that next fiscal year budget? Correct. We passed a 2013 budget. Okay. That was X amount. And then we came up and said, we need to finish these projects that we've already committed to. They're not part of this 2013 budget. So we're going to add it on to the 2013 budget to now have a combined, revised, or amended 2013 budget, which is now $3.1 million more. So at that point, if there were $2 million on account of four purchase orders, that would become part of the fund balance for that year, and that would be rolled over into the budget of the next year. That's what we've been doing. That's what we've been doing. Okay. So we added the expense. No worries, mate. there's a reserve and fund balance to cover it. And that's the world that I lived in and Connie lived in and we all lived in until GASB 54 came. And this conversation said, no, we're just going to put it as a footnote disclosure. So then that takes care of the requirements for the reporting rules. We still have the budget world we have to live in. How do we cover these committed expenses into the next year if we don't have fund balance to cover them. Well, the explanation I heard and I embraced because I thought that it was my understanding of the new rules, it's because it happens every year and everybody knows that you roll this year, but you're going to have things you don't finish at the end of the year and that's going to cover next year, and so it's self-perpetuating. But that wasn't a clear understanding. GASB said don't worry about it. but financial managers and our budgeting system says you need to worry about it. You need to cover it. I hope I clarified instead of confused more. So now the fund balance from 2013 is covering those obligations rather than putting it in the 2014 budget. Because we put them in the 2014 budget, the fund balance is paying for them. Okay. Does that help me? Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, and I think that was a very good explanation, the difference between bookkeeping, accounting, and budgeting, and depreciation, et cetera. But I think Council Member Kay's question was you did a great job of clarifying that. And I agree with what Council Member Stenet said. I think we have been hasty, and I've been somewhat uncomfortable with these kinds of expenditures at this time without waiting another month, because it's not like if we don't allocate it today on November 1st, it's not going to be there. but we'll know more about it if we wait until November. And it is very complex. And you're talking about thousands of projects from $50,000, maybe $25,000 to several million dollars in many divisions of our government. And so I thank you for your explanations and for, you know, I appreciate how your understanding from the new rules, et cetera, got crossed. But for me, I think that just like at the end of our late items for FY15 were, I think, or FY14 were made in haste at the end of the budget process, the late council items, because we didn't have all this concluded. So that's my two cents, and I think we need to look at what we're spending and what we're doing. But we're talking about it's not like your budget at home. Spent too much on electric, but next year I'll spend my. So thank you very much. Council Member Massadi. Thank you. Mr. Romero, would you mind coming up again, please? I really do sense your frustration, and I appreciate your explanations. I think I understand what is happening a little more clearly, and I think there's frustration on our part, too, because we've sat through, I don't know, a month or so of meetings trying to determine what projects to allocate as far as what has priorities and what doesn't. What I don't want to do is go forward unless we know specifically what numbers we have are correct and what we can allocate these numbers to and what projects are with them. So just if you would guide me through, our fund balance last year as of June 30th was $689,315, correct? According to our budget and brief. Can you speak up a little while, please? According to our budget and brief, it looks like our summary of budgeted revenue and appropriations, the fund balance of June 30th last year was approximately $689,315. Is that correct? I don't believe so. I think you're reading the budgeted year-end balance for 2014, the year we're in right now. You're right. You're right. Okay. So that's what we're budgeting to have in our fund balance at the end of all our year, basically revenues versus expenditures. We're saying that's what we hope to have left. So you are adding, we are now going to add a total of 3,100 on top of that. However, you have said that 1,600 was already encumbered because of the radios. Do we know what the other 1,500, or 1,500, I'm sorry, is for? We have a list we could give to you. Okay. And that basically you would say that's a guesstimate or is that pretty specific? Well, those are the open purchase orders. Now, if the project comes in at $1,005,000 instead of $1,006,000, then there would be $100,000, which I think was the point that Council Member Myers was making. Okay. If the project comes in at $1,650,000, then they have to come back to Council and need an additional $50,000 authorization. So back to this information sheet that I have, we have right now total funds available of $298,711 approximately. Is that correct? $298,711,000? I'm sorry. We don't have a balance of $298,000. No, ma'am. And we're adding this $1,500 as an unassigned fund balance in addition to this. If you look at the sheet of paper you had, and you're looking at ending fund balance of $600,000 and some odd, go all the way to the top, and budgeted beginning fund balance is $1.5 million. That's where this number comes from that we're talking about. Does that help? Right. In addition to the $297 million, and that comes out the $298,711. Okay. Okay. I'm just trying to get all this information, these two different sheets, and have them in my mind where we are now. And I'm not exactly sure how we're going to proceed, Vice Mayor. I guess this is for discussion. Are we going to look at all these items that we've already okayed and go through those again, or are we going to just? We'll figure it out. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Lane. Thank you Vice Mayor. I think that today's meeting sort of reiterates the fact that our accounting system for the city is not very good and leaves a lot to be desired. And I'm not singing out any individual on this. I think the administration of the government has to be responsible for the quality of our accounting system. But we have had expenditures for the last five years that have exceeded our revenue, so we've had a structurally imbalanced budget for that period of time. That means we've been spending more money to operate this city than we're getting from the taxpayers. That's not a good situation to be in. And the issue about the cost for the pension funds, I mean, this is not the first time that we've been advised that we've underestimated, you know, what the accrual should be for the pension funds. This makes me concerned, too, because we, you know, did have new legislation that revised the way the pension funds would be paid and funded, and it looks like we're under the estimates that were given at that time. I feel that this should be the number one priority. We end our fiscal year on June 30th, so of this year, June 30th, 2013, is when the fiscal year ended. And here it is, October. We're not expected to get our financial statement for the year ending until November, which that's about four months, a third of a year before we even have our numbers. And here we are close to having those numbers. And then there are questions about how things were accrued and all that. And when you're spending as much money as we are, like $500 million going through the government, you need to accrue all the expenses that you've incurred and provide to pay those in your statement. And then when the final bills come in, those accruals will be adjusted. And that is appropriate accounting for whether it should be handled from my perspective. But I do worry about this because, and I've said this once before, it's like if you're in a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and you don't have a compass, you don't know where you're headed. And when we have weak financial control over the government and our financials are delayed and given to the council and to the people that operate the government, that's the same approach as being in the middle of the Atlantic without a compass. We don't know where we're going, where we need to make revisions, how our costs are running, and we get these surprises at the last minute. So I think my strong statement would be this needs to be the top priority of the administration, is to revamp our accounting system and get it to where it's providing meaningful data that we can use to evaluate the operation of the government, to evaluate the cost of providing the services that we provide. But thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. I think Connie moved up to say something in response to comments. A little response and a little overall idea. I really appreciated Council Member Kay's mentioning that and maybe a thought for the future. I don't think getting information early is necessarily a problem. The overall numbers of what revenues are going to look like and expenses are going to look like haven't changed for several weeks now, not in any significant manner. I think that the difference is the idea of at what point in time you decide to make a movement forward. I think council having information so they have an idea of what might be coming is excellent. I think an early planning process in which you determine when it's all final, what is our plan going to be, so that you can do an expedient turnaround in making allocations from any money that's left is also a good idea. I think the difference may be at what point in time you make your final decision for the future, and having that wait until after the audit comes in is actually an excellent idea. The idea might be that you could have your list in order in advance with some idea of what might happen, and then maybe by the time you went on break in December, you could have gotten most of what you were going to do finalized, and when you came back in January, you'd be ready to move forward. So I think that the timing of when you actually make those allocations might move forward to, like, November when the audit comes in. But I don't think it's a problem making plans for what might happen, and you generally have a pretty good idea. The purchase orders have been there for a while. The only difference is we don't get the information from the actuarials until later. But we know that every year, and we can make adjustments to our estimates and our plans based on that. So I don't think getting information early or planning early is a bad idea. I think maybe we might want to push forward a little on our execution date. That was all I wanted to say. Okay, I appreciate that. And actually, that is sort of one of the things I've been thinking about. For those of you who have been here a while, you'll remember the reason we did this is because a couple years ago, we did not get our audit until I think it was January. and then we got into fund balance on top of the budget, the new budget and the fund balance. Do you remember this? And so we didn't, as a council, we spoke and said we didn't like that. We didn't like having the fund balance discussion on top of the budgeting for the next year discussion, so we voted to move this process up. And, Connie, I appreciate that perspective because that's kind of what we've been doing is planning. And, you know, the idea that the decisions we've made are a plan, but we would not have to authorize them to go forward and be expended until we get the final audit. And I think that the council spoke loud and clear that we need the final audit before January, before we go on our break, because we don't want to get back in that other situation again. So we could look at this as our planning. I mean, it seems to me in answer to Council Member Massadi, the council will need to take a vote on the things under other recommendations so that we can give the administration the assurance and ourselves the assurance of the money for purchase orders, the unassigned fund balance number, whether we want to do the pension. You know, we need a motion for that. I think those things all need to be approved officially by this council. And I guess I would ask, are there any other questions of everybody that we have here before we go ahead and take any more action? Council Member Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I do agree with your position on that. I think it would be very helpful where we have $3.1 million in incumbents that are listed, just a summary number there. I think it would be helpful to have a complete listing of what each of the incumbents is and the amount of it so that the Council could take a look at it. I think it would be informative to the taxpayers also. Thank you. I wonder how soon we could get that. I think I heard you say most of it's radios. If we can get that number, I think, Council Members, would you like to see that number? We have somebody working on it right now. Oh, can they? But I don't know whether it's a 10-minute or a 2-hour. Okay, whether it's 1 o'clock or 2 o'clock. But we're working on it now. Okay. Okay, you're working on the list of what encumbrances are in that $3.1 million. Is that correct? Okay, so I think that's an excellent point. Council Member Scutchfield. I want to clarify. So you have somebody working on this list that equals this $3.1 million right now, How do we know for sure it's 3.1? Well, it's the sum of everything that we rolled. It is the support for the budget amendment that the council was presented and passed already, and it is part of the work papers for the auditor that would be part of the consolidated annual financial report. I guess I'm wondering, before we do anything, I want to see this number because you tell us it's 3.1, but you don't have a list prepared right now to show us. And so before I myself will vote on anything or would like to vote on anything, I'd like to see concrete numbers. Okay. I guess I will ask a follow-up to that. If we've already passed the budget amendment, then someone somewhere has a list. So are they bringing the list? They're trying to get it in a presentation format so that it can be presented. I mean, the list is available. We're just trying to get it so that we can show it up to you. Okay. It doesn't have to be fancy. Okay. I think council members just would like the numbers and what it is, like how much for radios, et cetera. Councilmember Lane. to restructure all the data, recalculate everything, and put it in a new format so it can go into our certified accounting report. And that is one of the reasons it takes so much time. Is that an accurate statement that I'm making or not? The first part I agree with. We have a general ledger, and then we have to format it appropriately to be in compliance with all the financial reporting rules. for the CAFR. Is it the reason it's the end of October before we get the results out? That is not the main driver. The main driver is we are a parent government of a lot of other entities like, I've gone blank, health department, airport, maybe library. I'm not, anyway. We have to wait for them to do their financials and to have their auditors review it in order for it to be folded into our total reporting. We also wait for actuarial reports so that we know our total liabilities for pensions and risk, that type of thing. So there are other pieces of information that we wait for, and we're doing things not linearly but in parallel. So we're formatting all the data that we have while we're also waiting for this other information. Another thing that takes time is for our grants people to get all of their final reports that are due June 30 and in the right format to report to the grant agency so that we know our total grant match, our expense, and our revenues. I know that takes some time as well. All of those things are going on simultaneously. one of those is formatting the data to be presented in the format of the CAFRN. If we modify it in the way we do some of the reports we have for just the city government portion, not all of the affiliated entities, can we get a faster report than we're getting now? I mean, things like the fund balance, I find that sort of hard to believe, Because the affiliated entities, they don't affect our fund balance at all. They just send their own report in. I'm talking about a fund balance for the general fund. I don't believe I'm qualified to answer that question off the cuff. I would have to confer with our staff. Just so you know, Council Members, I understand that the administration will have the list in about five minutes, but Connie Underwood also has gone to get her list, which she has. Councilmember Clark. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm going to ask a bigger question, and I think I asked this a long time ago out of my naive understanding of the budget process. What I wonder about, and this is, well, it's kind of off the wall, So what I'm wondering about is why, I mean, it certainly is a lot of fun to go through all these figures. Why is it not possible to take a fund balance and simply add it to the amount of money, the amount of revenue that we have to spend for the next budget cycle? Rather than saying, okay, we're going to spend all this. say this amount of money, whatever it is, once we come to that figure in November, December, whatever. In January, we start the process. We take this amount of money and we simply add it to the revenues that we're going to have to spend for the next budget. And then the council then becomes involved at the beginning of that process rather than the end of the process so that we can talk about some of these things as our needs for our districts or for the city as a whole. Is that just... Commissioner, could you tell me that I'm absolutely crazy to suggest something? Go ahead, if you feel so compelled. Let me organize my thoughts. The first assumption is that we have excess fund balance, and that is a true statement for this year. It's not necessarily a true statement every year. The second part is that it is not considered good governance to use fund balance for repeating operating expenses, salaries, utility lights, that type of thing. So one would not want to incorporate that as revenue for operating and salaries and that type of thing. So I think your suggestion, if I could rephrase it, would be if Council wishes to take a portion of fund balance, because other parts of fund balance need to be for ordinance-driven assignments as well as contingencies. but we're really talking about this afterwards assigned portion, that could be cash capital. And so when you're working on your capital projects for the next year, you can decide how much is paid by cash, how much is paid by bonding. That is one way to do it. Okay, thank you. Does anyone else have questions? or any comments. I think we're expecting our list momentarily. Council, do you need any more information on the pension contingency? Oh, I'm sorry, Councilmember Ford. I can defer to you if you're done, Vice Mayor. You had a thought. No, it's okay. I'm trying to just help us move forward. So please go ahead. Very good. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I want to thank Commissioner O'Meara and his team for this information. I know that it's risen the level of anxiety amongst council members, and rightfully so. This is very important work. But I have a question in regards to the list that's forthcoming, and I also have a question, Vice Mayor, as to where we are at this very moment, having dedicated, rightfully so, an hour to this discussion, because the information that the commissioner has brought us definitely has us at a different point of where we expect it to be in regards to what is available for priority and allocation. So my question is twofold. One is would it still not be prudent for us per the agenda to still proceed with our project rankings with the estimation as it is right now that the remaining unassigned fund balance is 1.153. And then secondly, my question is, of the information that is coming, forthcoming, and I look forward to seeing it as well in regards to the PO rollover, is it for informational purposes only or is there anything at all that the council can take action on those numbers once they're presented? I'll ask for the latter of Commissioner O'Meara. Yes. Is it just a matter of reporting and confirmation as rightfully requested by the council? I saw it as an information request. I think so, too. The budget amendments have already been approved by council, and so the authorization to spend has been given to the division managers. I agree. but I agree as well, but for the purpose of transparency and if but for a loan that it was requested by this council, I do agree with your consent to bring it forward. With that said, Vice Mayor, would it be appropriate for us to proceed on with our rankings, or what do you advise? Well, my sense is that the administration is coming to us. Perhaps since we've already passed the budget amendments, we don't need to have a vote on the $3.1 million. I would ask the commissioner if we need a vote on that in order to make it fit with GASB. But we do need to have some sort of decision about the $1.5 million and the $825,000 pension numbers. Is that correct, commissioner? Or do you not want us to weigh in on that? No, no, no. I mean, we could go ahead and spend some more money. The will of the council prevails. But the only thing I was reticent about is, yes, we are asking for council action to endorse the recommendation of an additional $825,000 for the pension contingency. Council had already told us to go forward with a $2 million pension contingency. We're asking for that. We're also asking for Council to endorse the recommendation of a $4.6 million unassigned fund balance so that we can put that into the CAFR and have that total section completed. So the further conversation of what to do with the remaining $1,53300, if you agree with that number, can occur at any time because we already have that as assigned projects in our reporting function. Does that help clarify? Yes, that does. So you would like the Council to weigh in on the $3.1 million plus the $1.5 million as the unassigned fund balance. Yes. So I think I see the list. There's the list of the 3.1 rule. And do you have copies for the council members? Oh, okay. So let me just ask, they're getting individual copies of this since this is very difficult to read. This is the list that includes the purchase orders, correct? And it does not look like it's 3.1 million. and it looks like it's 3.08 or 6. Somewhere around there. We rounded to 3.1. You can go with the 3.081. Okay. I would rather not use the cents. Okay. But we could go with the 3.081. Or is that a 6? I'm so sorry. They're reading it to me. 3081363.64. Okay, so Councilmembers, it looks like we have copies coming. And in answer to Councilmember Ford's question about how to proceed and can we attend to the $1.1533 million? I'm sorry, if I can make a clarification. I'm sorry to interrupt. The 3.1 number is correct. The 3081 is in General Fund 1101, but in the CAFR, the General Services Fund is a total of four funds, a one, three, four, or something. There's another 20,000 of rolled POs in those other funds. But not the general fund. But in our CAFR, it includes all of those under general. But in our fund balance, we've only been discussing general fund, correct? We did. So the numbers. Because we took it out in the reserved. That's their fund balance. We can take it out of there. I can work with that. I mean, I was under the impression we were dealing only with the general fund. So this is the general fund. We were dealing with the general fund, and when I talked about reporting in the CAFR, I'm talking about all of them combined. I understand, and you would need the council to approve a certain number for the other funds, but that money would presumably come from the other funds. Is that correct? Not from the general fund. Hi. Hi, Phyllis. The unassigned fund balance that will be reported in the CAFR, we would like it to be 4.6. Including all funds? It is all funds. So what I'm asking is for this council's purpose of dealing with the money that might be left in the fund balance, can we go ahead and make an unassigned fund balance of 4.6, 3.081 of which is from the general fund, and the rest of which is from those other funds? We pulled out the non-general general fund fund balance and put it in committed. So you need to include it in this calculation. I guess I need to understand this better. Are we saying that this $3.1 million includes purchase orders from outside the general fund? Correct. And so why would we pay for them with general fund money if they're not in the general fund? Are they funds that have their own source of revenue, or what are they? It's $20,000. I, let me... Yeah, if there's a fund balance in those funds, why would we spend it out of the general fund to pay for purchase orders and other funds? Am I misunderstanding something? Pardon me. I think if you approve the 3081, we will get back with CPAs and make sure the clarification of what you're talking about. Okay. I think Council would probably like to know that. And is everything else on this list from the general fund? Okay. All right. Now we've got another list of folks to speak. Council Member Massadi. Mr. O'Mara, I hope I don't confuse myself and the rest of the Council any further. And I know we've talked about this $3.1 million. If we knew this was encumbered through these purchase orders, Why did we not take it off the top of the fund balance from the get-go? We did prior to GASB 54. The rules changed. We're no longer allowed to do that off the top, which is what we used to do. And that's where my confusion arose because I thought that their explanation was it was not included in any of the fund balance. That is an incorrect understanding. It cannot be in a signed, committed, or reserved. If you want to have it in the unassigned, you can choose to. GASB does not require you to. However, good financial management says those funds should be there and should support the budget amendment that is put into 2014. I see. So it's a matter of? Where. Where. I guess that's the answer. Right. Okay. That's what I need to know. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have the list yet for individual council members to see copies? We could ask someone to run up and make copies at our floor. Thank you, Jessica. Will you make a copy for each council member, please? Oh, here they come. It looks like they're coming. Thank you. I know there were council members who didn't want to do any motions on this until they saw what was on the list. Thank you, Melissa. We appreciate that. And if we can just have a moment while Councilmembers receive this list and take a look at it. Thank you. Thank you. Someone could... Are there any questions? Council members, I have two council members on the list to speak. And I guess I would like, if it's okay with you all, to take specific questions about this list of purchase orders first. Is that all right, Council Member Ford and Council Member Lawless? And then we'll come right straight to you. So if you have a question about the list, will you please raise your hand? Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Is this one budget cycle we're dealing with, or could this be something from 2006 or 2005 that's been brought forward and brought forward and brought forward? This is what was open at June 30, 2013. Now, we went through that to cull out dead projects. There could be a project here that has a life cycle greater than 12 months, but no, there's nothing from 2006 and that kind of thing. No. Okay, that's fine. Thank you. Okay, Council Member Akers has a question about the list. Does anyone else? Okay, Council Member Akers. Hi, Bill. It's okay. There are several purchase orders open for $10,000 to various homeowners associations or neighborhood associations, some of them not identified, just blank neighborhood associations. Do you know where those neighborhood match grants or why there's a lot of money left? I don't think I can talk to a line item. Our director of purchasing is here. Would you know? Who would know? I believe they're a grant match, but I don't know what name. I could look at the PO and tell you for sure if we got some detail on it, but as I understand it, it was grant match. I think last year we inadvertently closed some of those grant match POs, then we had to come back and reissue them, so we wanted to make sure we didn't do that this year. But they're grant match of some sort. Neighborhood Action Match grant. Yeah, I don't know. Ten thousand. Irene's here, but yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay, does anyone else have a question about the list? I'll just ask my one just to be sure I understand. The $406,000-some for Detroit salt, would that be because we didn't purchase salt? We contracted for it but didn't purchase it? That is SALT. That had a purchase order but would be delivered to us this year. It was not delivered last year. Okay, and the radios are the 1.597 million. Is that correct? Yes? Yes. Okay, thank you. Okay, I don't think there are any other questions about this list. So, Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Based on the recommendation of the administration, the encumbrances in the previous action that we've taken related to those, I move that we assign $3,082,000, $3.082 million for fund balance encumbrances. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Councilmember Ford and a second by Councilmember Ellinger to assign to the unassigned fund balance, correct? $3.082 million to cover these purchase orders from the general fund. Is that correct? That's correct. All right. Now, if you want to discuss the motion, let me know. Council Member Lawless. Just to clarify, the 3.8 whatever and 24 cents was general fund. There was a small amount that came from other funds, and that also needs to be included in the recommended fund balance encumbrances. Is that correct? I'm going to clarify with the CPA. I think if we get the 3082, I will talk to him about whether the 20,000 is still remaining to be done or not. Okay. Okay. Council Member Lane. Commissioner, just a quick question. Would it not be probable that every item on this list was either a budgeted item already approved by council or a resolution to spend the money approved by council already? That's exactly correct. All these have been approved. That is correct. So essentially this is not asking to spend this money, but rather this is just money that's been accrued from an accounting standpoint, and I don't know that we necessarily need to approve an accrual. I mean, I don't mind voting for it, but that's my perception. They would like us to put it in the unassigned fund balance, I believe. Correct. That's all we're doing is where is it reported in fund balance. Correct. And my thinking is if we do that by motion and give it official approval, it carries some weight. Other questions about the motion? I see none. All right. All those in favor of placing $3.82 million to the unassigned fund balance for purchase orders, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? And then if... Okay. That motion... There should be 14 votes. So that passes 14-0. All right. Thank you for your motion, Mr. Ford. Now, do we have any other motions? Council Member Lawless? I move that we put $1.5 million unassigned fund balance. We approve that. Second. All right. I have a motion by Council Member Lawless, second by Council Member Ford, to place into the unassigned fund balance category $1.5 million for the budgeted fund balance. Is there any discussion? Council Member Beard. Just what the detail on the $1.5 million is, if you refresh my memory. There isn't any detail, correct? It gives us a fund balance. It was the approved beginning fund balance in the 2014 budget. Okay. It's a budgeted number. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else have a comment about the motion? Okay. I see none. So all those in favor of placing into the unassigned fund balance $1.5 million for budgeted fund balance, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, that motion passed unanimously. Now, if I understand correctly, that gets us an unassigned fund balance, Commissioner, of $4.582 million. And you will bring to Council the non-general fund purchase orders, if needed, that need to be in the unassigned fund balance, if you need that. Okay. Do I hear any other motions? Council Member Lawless. I move that we place an additional $825,000 in the pension contingency fund. So moved. Do I hear a second? A second for purposes of discussion. Okay. Council Member Lawless moved and Council Member Kaye seconded. Motion to place an additional $825,000 into the pension contingency. Discussion. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Mayor, when were the findings that you referred to that showed additional contribution need to be shared with the Pension Board? It is the second Wednesday of November. is their standing monthly meeting. And they're to have that on the docket as well as the actuaries there to discuss it. And how soon could you get the council the information I talked about earlier, a projection out by the auditors on what our future contributions may or may not be going forward? Or a better process, I guess, an indication of, you know, because not every year we're going to have fund balance. So what happens then? So trying to get ahead of the game for budgeting purposes, when can that information get to council? I really need to attend that meeting and hear the actuaries' discussion as well as have conversations with them. I really need to go through that education process and that information process to answer your question. Fair enough. So if we wait to approve this extra allocation, I know we've already done $2 million, would that until mid-November towards the end of November, would that be an issue going forward? Because obviously we're leaving $1.5 million in fund balance. We could always take it from that worst-case scenario later on in the budget year. It's not my recommendation. I understand. So I would not recommend that. Well, I know you're trying to be financially prudent, But I also think I'd like to have that information and see what the auditors say at that meeting and two weeks. I'd feel more comfortable in terms of the amounts we're committing because we just did $23 million back in June. And now we're doing another. I guess I would say that I'm trying to prepare the government for the obligation in FY14. You're asking me for a better process to project beyond 2014. So I don't see where the 825 is connected to the future projections. Well, I'm trying to see where you've got the 825. Okay. And we haven't seen that publicly yet. No, I don't have it publicly divulged. So I'd like to wait to see it publicly in two weeks at that meeting. Thank you. All right. Other comments about the motion? Council Member Kay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Bill, getting your exercise this morning. That's good. It's afternoon now. I second the motion for purposes of discussion. I may end up voting with many other people against it, but for the moment, because I think the question about more information is a good one, what would be the total unassigned fund balance in this category if we add the 825? Or is this the only money that's being placed into the unassigned fund balance? 4.6 is the only amount going to unassigned. If you leave an additional $825,000 to decide later to allocate it, that would be fine. Okay, so I was really asking about this is additional pension contingency. Yes, you are. What contingency do we now have, if any? $2 million is what was presented and you all endorsed 1st of October for a pension contingency. And then so the rationale, I presume, that's going to come forward is that from an accounting, whatever perspective, that $2 million may not be adequate? Correct. I am projecting at this moment that the actuarial report will say that we need $22.825 million to cover the employer contribution for this fiscal year. Okay. Thank you. So I think given that understanding, as I said, I seconded it for purposes of discussion. I think we have the information we need. I'll call the question. All right. We had a couple more people on to speak, but Council Member Kay has asked to call the question. So there's not yet a second. Now there is a second. All those in favor of calling the question, please say aye. All those opposed? No. Let's have a hand count. All those in favor of calling the question, please raise your hand. Aye. Five. All those opposed to calling the question? Seven, eight, nine. So that motion fails. Now, we have two more council members who wanted to speak, and I've lost my list. Let's see. If you want to put the voting up, we can say how we voted for your electronics, but we don't have the... Can you, Stacy, can you put the electronic voting up and let... Some people didn't have the ability to... It should be up now. Okay, some of us don't have the voting logos up. So, yes, please vote again. And if you'll record my vote, please, as a nay. I've had a request to put it on the screen. Is that possible? It's a different computer. Okay. We need, do we have any other votes? Two more votes? Can you please register my vote? I don't have a screen to vote. So. Did you have the ability to register my vote? No. Okay. Thank you. Now, Council Member Lawless. Just briefly, what we've been saying here today is get this in, get our audit approved, get all this done, and get it to us as quickly as possible. And this is one of the things that, by approving, we give the administration the ability to get the information to the CPAs and to get the information back as quickly as possible to us, so our final audit. So it sounds to me like Commissioner Romero has a very pretty sound information that this is the number needed to get to the auditors. Is that correct? Give or take 49 cents. The best information available is what I'm using. So if we go with it and nobody has a crystal ball, but this is the best information, and on one hand we say hurry up and get us these audits back, and on the other hand we stall the process by not approving this. So for that reason I made the motion and I will support it. Thank you. And I guess, Council Member Lawless, based on your question, it might be helpful for Council to know if we don't need this 825 and we voted today for the contingency, you can come back to us and we can change it, correct? Or is this going to the auditors? This is going to the auditors, but let me remind Council that this is a reporting of an intent. It is not a commitment of an expense. So the statement that is being made is that the council is identifying part of fund balance for these intentions. We still have to come to council for a budget amendment in order to have the authority to spend the dollars. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Which is why it's a contingency fund rather than an allocation. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Okay. Sorry, Commissioner, I've got one more question for you. Here's my question. It has to do with the amount budgeted. For the fiscal year 2014, how much do we have budgeted for the pension fund payments? $20 million. And so we're accruing another $2 million, $85,000. If that runs up, we'll have that money in reserve to pay the additional premium. Now, we had a $2,000 overrun for fiscal year 13, as I recall, and we approved a special $2 million for that. And at the time, it was indicated there was a calculation error because this was the first year and there was some error in the calculation. But do you feel that the $2 million amount is going to be ongoing on a year-after-year basis rather than just for two years? Well, that's very close to the same question that Council Member Stinnett asked me. And I would really like to review the current actuary report and talk to the actuaries about it to be better informed before answering that question. All right. Well, my concern is that we need to have a structurally balanced budget. And I think the mayor had said we're not going to borrow any more money to be funding pension funds. And so it appears on the long haul we're going to be spending more than we thought we were. We need to start addressing that early on rather than waiting until the next budget to address it. So I guess that's a good point. Will you look at that actual report if you could give us feedback on that so we would be able to be thinking about that? Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We still have a motion on the floor. or does anyone else wish to speak to it? So the motion is to place $825,000 additional money into the pension contingency. All those in favor, please say aye and log in. All those opposed? I think we have 13 council members in the room, so that motion passes 12 to 1. So Mr. O'Mara, council has approved that to go into the contingency. Now, so we have dealt with those three items, and I wonder, Connie, would you want to... Connie Underwood just has brought up, as of today, 10-22-13, a summary of revenues and appropriations, just so you might see a quick update, and then we can go forward. Council Member Ellinger has graciously said that we can run into his budget and finance time a little bit, if you want to continue. Connie? Okay. Each of you should be getting a sheet of paper that Connie has brought, a summary of revenue and appropriations. Would you mind to just go over that? Yes. The first column was what you adopted with the original budget. I believe Council Member Masati was bringing that up earlier, where there are $297 million in adopted revenues. We've counted on $1.5 million for a total available of $298.7 million. We had adopted budget of $298 million in expenses, and our budgeted ending fund balance was $669.315. I brought this up because there seemed to be a little confusion about the $1.5 million and where that played into the situation. This is our 2014 budget. Our 2014 amended, I pulled this maybe last week. Our revenues have changed slightly, probably because you did ad valorem adjustments at ad valorem time. And our expenditures have changed primarily because we rolled those purchase orders forward. Instead of $298 million, they're now $301. I plugged in this scenario, and I thought you were doing 4-5 even, and apparently you did 4-5-8-2. This is what happens when you're going on the fly. I was trying to listen and talk at the same time. So I put $4.5 million in fund balance that rolls over, and apparently it's 4-5-8-2. So our ending fund balance currently for the 2014 budget is $443,000 essentially, because you're going to add $82,000 to my $341,174. The $4.5 million, $4582,000 that you just voted on, does give you a budgetary cushion for next year based on this. Now, I think there may be some other budget amendments from fund balance. that are coming. Is that correct? There's a big one. There's a big one still yet to come. So you might want to consider that as you go through. But this is where you stand roughly today. Do we know how big? I don't want to muddy the waters, but it is coming. And how soon. Thank you, Connie. we can keep talking about fund balance for it ever the amount of the PO roles at the time that the budget amendment was passed 3.1 million that was passed by council and that became the PO rolls that went into the amended column that she has. And then at the very late hour, there was a $900,000 invoice that was related to the $1.6 million that was rolled for the police radios that showed that it was invoiced and the work was performed by June 30. So we have overstated the PO rolls by the $900,000, and so we have budgeted $3.1 based on the information we had when it was presented. We prepared a $900,000 budget amendment that would then amend it back to the $2.1. The 3.1 is currently what is in our CAFR because that was the PO roll that was approved and action taken. And that is the reason we used that number in our presentation to you today. Because we're talking about what happened at June 30. Connie has accurately shown what has happened as of 10, 20-something. Two different periods of time. Okay. Council members, do you have any questions? Do you want to ask? Go ahead and ask. I think there's some clarification that is needed just about what you just said. When we were preparing yesterday the $4.6 million recommendation, we looked at it two different ways. We looked at it as of June 30, which is what I presented to you. The three, now I've even forgotten, 3.1 plus 1.5, excuse me. We also looked at it as of October to make sure that that 4.6 recommendation was valid for the point in time that we are now. What she's going to show you is all the PL rolls, all the budget amendments that have been passed to date, all the budget amendments that are in the pipeline to be presented to you. that 4.6 our calculation came up a little higher than what Connie has presented to you but you have you start off with a budgeted fund balance of 1.5 as council member Massadi was reading the ended budgeted fund balance is less than that that means 810,000 was budgeted to be used in and during FY14 that's your first number there. Our year-to-date budget amendments that have been passed by Council is another $165,000. We have grant match of $924,000 that is coming, and we had the PO roll of the 3-1. Now that is $20,000 different if you take out the other. And then this $900,000 that is related to the accrual back for part of the role that we had already done and committed, that equals $4.1 million. For a fund balance, to have a fund balance of $500,000, you would get $4,604,325. So we felt that the $4.6 was what we were going to recommend to you because it was very concise and explainable as of June 30. It is also appropriate for this point in time into 2014. Do you perchance have copies of this for Council members? We can certainly print them off. Or can we send someone up to make copies now? Thank you. Are there any questions? Council members? Yes. Council Member Akers. So this $900,000 correction, that basically pays for the PO rolls that were rolled over already in the 800 and the 165? It's reducing the 3.1 to 2.2. You see the PO rolls, 3.1? Mm-hmm. And so we added as an expense. We're placing that down to two. Okay. Based on, and that's what I was going to, I started thinking too. So this list that you provided earlier of all the open POs, these were open as of June 30th. So to date, some of these have probably been closed, correct? Yes. And so that's what this 900,000 sort of accounts for that? No. No. It was a good assumption, but in this case, that's not correct. Of course. We do the evaluation of the PO rolls before we open up the books again to start 2014. So it's a very intense, that last week of July, the first week of July when we're going through all this. All of the 1.6 million, 1.57, whatever it was, of the police radios was outstanding. We brought to you a budget amendment. You all added, you approved that, you added it as an expense to 2014. It went into our calculation for preparing the footnote disclosure for the CAFR. Then, as a late item in preparation of the CAFR, there was an invoice received. It was dated June 30. The work was done by June 30. So that expense, instead of being charged to 2014, was accrued back to 2013. I see. At that point, we have overexpensed the PO rolls into 2014. I see. Same dollars. It's a matter of which bucket you record them in. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Sketchfield. You're welcome. When was this received, this $900, this payment that we needed that was June 30th dated? When was the invoice received? I don't know. I have to ask. I think the problem that I'm seeing is, or that I see right now, one of the problems, we're getting bills how far past the date. When we work on a fiscal year, don't we need to receive things in a timely manner in order to budget year to year? And I'm just, between our finance and our budgeting, I'm not seeing things working together real well. And we're talking about taxpayers' money, and I'm just, I think we seem like we're really not gelling really well right now. Well, I apologize, Councilmember. I don't think I've explained this sufficiently. This is a contract that has been let by the government, approved by council. The work is being performed. We're trying to close the books and open it up for business so that we're not down for a long time. So we identify everything at that point in time put into this budget amendment to make sure there's the authorization for that work to be paid for in 2014. So we've done it very quickly. We've accounted for the taxpayer's money that was approved by council. We've moved it so that the person doing the work doesn't have to wait for approvals to get their work paid for. And so we feel that we've been doing it timely. Then we did find a material invoice, $900,000 is considered material, that we did not know about when we prepared this budget amendment. And therefore accrued it properly to, we still paid it, it was still approved by council. We put it in 2013 since the work was completed by June 30. and so now we're going to correct the budget amendment. We don't want to spend the money twice. We don't want the authorization to be there twice. Okay, and I get how we are not keeping track of it and having this number before now. I mean, we should know what we paid for 2013. We should know what might be outstanding going into 2014. And I just have a real, maybe it's, you know, obviously my background is not accounting, but we're looking at it where we have these outstanding debts or we have these debts that have been paid. How we don't know about it when we're trying to come up with a fund balance three months after we've closed the books, that's what I'm concerned about. I don't know the... Connie's jumped up. Maybe she has an answer. I don't know if I can help with it. Obviously, both the budgetary world and the actual world is fluid, and sometimes we issue purchase orders for projects that are going to take a lot longer than a fiscal year to do. So you won't know what the final thing is necessarily when we close the books in June. A fire aerial truck used to cost a million dollars, and it takes at least a year to build. So you may issue your purchase order for the million dollars, and as you go along you figure out things you should have added or changed to it, and by the end it's not a million dollars. It can go either way. But shouldn't we know at that close of June 30th what has been spent and what we've budgeted to be spent that hasn't been? And we do. And we should have had this number of what was outstanding well before now. And I'll have to apologize for muddying the waters, because they had, in their scenario, the 900,000, They knew that they had $924,000 in grant match to deal with, but they also knew they had $900,000 coming from this reduction in cost. In their scenario here, they let those wash each other out. So you won't have a change to my sheet that I just gave you. Well, it would be $24,055 based on the things that aren't in yet that are to come. I knew it was big. You have already seen the grant match side of the budget amendment last week. And it gets second reading this week. And the other $900,000 for this change of the purchase order is coming. The purchase order was what it was at the point in time that they had to pull these numbers to send it for the CAFR. Since then, we found out it's not what we thought it was. luckily it's 900,000 and we can help cover our grant match with it so it won't change materially what I just gave you based on what they've given us here I was concerned because I hadn't seen this and I knew something was coming and I didn't realize that they had two parts to it but it is fluid and it does change and that's why they come back to you and say well, this is different than we thought it was, and it can go either way. I don't know if that helps or hurts. Okay. Thank you, Connie. Council Member Lawless. I'm sorry to keep chiming in here, but I was an accountant in my first career, and then I dealt with grants for 30 years with agencies, et cetera, that had different fiscal years. For instance, the grant may have had a fiscal year, a calendar year, or a federal fiscal year, or a June 30, July 1 to June 30. So basically what they're saying is on the last day of the fiscal year, they have to, bam, cut it off. If you'll notice on the list, a lot of those were $10,000 POs for neighborhoods, And those were, I'm going to guess, the action grants that several places got. I know one of the projects, and they don't get paid until they have completed the project. So I know there's one in my district that was there, and it's finished and completed, going to be totally completed tomorrow. and that was the piggy bank bus shelter. So the 924,055 grant match is very close in the big picture of life to the 900,000 purchase order roll corrections. Does that make sense if I'm explaining that incorrectly? But it's so complicated because they can't say, oh, I mean, they have to cut it off on that last day of our fiscal year, even though they know that it's outstanding. Yeah, so it is complicated if you haven't lived that world. So, anyway, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was just wondering if at all we were going to be able to get to the review of the project rankings. I know we've had a lot of discussion brought forth by the administration. But I was just wondering, Vice Mayor and Mr. Chair, if we were going to have time to review those projects per the agenda. Yes, I think we will. Council Member Ellinger has graciously given us some of his budget and finance time, And I think that the next thing we'll do is, if it suits, is find out if anyone wants to remove any more items from our list. And then I know Council Member Henson sent us all an email about reducing the amount of one of the items we've already approved. So that's where I'm thinking we will go. If we could, let's see, Jonathan, do you have the total? Is everybody ready to move on? Did you want to, Council Member Akers, did you have another question for Commissioner before we move on? Well, I would like to ask Sally a question. In light of the new information and new numbers that we have, I just wonder if there's anything on the list that's already been funded of the administration's requests. Are there any of those that you would consider reducing or revising or reconsidering as we move forward with the rest of our list? Okay. Here I go. And those have all been voted on by council. That's what you're asking is that group that have been voted on? Yes. Okay, because I think our next process is to ask council members if they want to remove items, and Council Member Henson also has a motion, just FYI. Which one would you like to do first? Would you like me to answer, or would you like me to wait? You're welcome to answer, but right now we're going to deal with Council Member Henson's motion. Why don't we wait, and then I'll come up. Okay. Does that suit you okay? All right. Everybody's good. Council Member Henson emailed council members, and she may have copied the administration. I don't remember for sure, but back on item number 14, the bus shelter, Council Member Henson, did you want to talk about that and then bring your motion? Yes, Vice Mayor. There was a considerable amount of concern from council members regarding restoring the bus shelter slash sign in the Gardenside Shopping Center. So what I did was go back to Yvette Hurt with Arts in Motion, and we re-looked at the proposal, And I actually had a considerable error in my request because it included a $6,000 labor donation from Dixon Electric that they are donating the labor cost of the electricity, which is the largest portion of this project. So I move to reduce the amount from $45,000 to $33,500. Okay. So we have a motion by Council Member Henson, second by Council Member Ellinger, on number 14 on our list to reduce that amount to $33,500. Is that correct? $33,500. Is there any discussion? I see none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. Council members, if you'll please log your vote. That motion passed 14-0. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I really want to thank you publicly, Council Member Henson, because you went back and reviewed this based on all of the discussion and the close vote, and I appreciate your finding out new information and bringing it to us. So that actually raises the amount of money by $12,000, correct? that's, well, it lowers what we've spent. Okay. Now, the first question is, council members, to you, do you want to remove any items that are still remaining on the list? I'm not talking about what we've already approved. I'm talking about 19 through 66 minus the ones we've already taken off. So, Council Member Lawless. Yes, I'm trying to see here. It's way down there, as most of mine are. Fifty-seven sandblast and repaint woodland pool for $100,000. That can wait another year. Okay, so, Council Members, if you'll remove number 57. And talk to Council Member Farmer, and he, number 33, for $100,000 parks infrastructure. It's a million. Oh, I'm sorry, I can't see this grant very well. the million dollars for the park infrastructure. Number 33? Yes. Council Member Farmer wants that removed? That was what he conveyed to me. Okay, so Council, if you'll remove 33. Anything else, Council Member Lawless? That's all for right now. All right, Council Member Masati. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'd like to remove number 65. 65 was the million dollars resurfacing in the 9th District. Thank you very much. Yes, and Vice Mayor, if I remember from last week's meeting, I thought Council Member Farmer had also taken off number, I have it down as he's taken off number 32 as well and number 34. That was from the meeting last week that I recall I could be wrong. I don't think he officially removed them. I think he said to the council, if we decide not to do those, it's okay. Okay. So I don't know. He must have told you specifically, Council Member Lawless, to remove number 33. Yes, and I told him that I would speak to the other two. Okay. All right. Thank you. So did you want to do anything with those? Are there any others to remove? Could we have a recap of the? Yes. What just now got removed was number 33, number 57, number 65. Are there others? Councilmember Beard. Remove number 41, Medebo Park, repair, replace, and trail. Councilmember Beard wishes to remove number 41. Are there others? Councilmember Lane. I made a note that Councilmember Farmer also mentioned 32 and 34 to delete, but have they been deleted already or no? They have not. Did he ask you specifically to remove them? No, but he was sitting here and said that, but he didn't ask me specifically. So that's fine. Okay. Thank you. Are there others? Council Member Myers? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I will go ahead and take number 46 off the list. Thank you. Number 46, the $60,000 expenditure. All right, remove that. Are there others? I will ask, does the administration have any they want to remove from the ones that haven't been discussed yet? No. I thought I'd give you a chance to. if you want to remove some of the ones we haven't discussed. Our comment is more related to those that we've already approved. Oh, okay. Any others? Council Member Lawless. Yes, the playground renovation at Woodland Park. Which number? Number 49 for $100,000. and I'd also like to say that that's very needed. The playground equipment at Berry Hill and the playground equipment at Shiltoe and Jacobson all are in bad shape and Woodland Park is an extremely used urban park. It does need some help, but they were not ranked. And I think that we, as a council and as a government for years, while we were making new subdivisions, et cetera, the infrastructure in the older areas was grossly neglected. And I'd like for us as a body not to continue that, like Constitution Park trail replacement. I know Council Member Stennett, we've been talking about that forever, and Berry Hill. and then there were a lot of projects that were approved as late items for parks and new parks with large amounts of money. So that's just my two cents. Thank you. So I imagine you'll be lobbying for that to be put in our next budget, perhaps. I see Director Hancock out there, so maybe you can later talk to him. Well, I mean, I think that we need to take care of what we've got instead of letting it fall apart while we create new things that we have to maintain. Okay. Are there others to be removed? I'll just go through. Yes. The administration would like to remove number 42, the Affordable Care expert, and talking with Benji Mars, I think we can insert this in the budget next year. We have the time. Great. So we'd like to do that. Thank you. 42. All right. Let's just recap. We've just removed number 33, number 41, number 42, number 46, number 49, number 57, and number 65. All right. Very good. Now, Council, according to what we've been doing, the next step would be to start with number 19. And if I understand, Jonathan, do you have our updated number? Yes. So the remaining unassigned funds, and this takes into account all the motions we made today, is 1.1828 million, correct? Any questions about that number, folks? Did that take care of Peggy's motion to decrease the cost of the shelter? All right. 1.1828 hundred. So does it suit to go ahead and start at number 19? Is that what you all would like to do for just a few minutes, and then we'll give it back to Council Member Ellinger for budget and finance? I'm seeing heads shaking. Okay, let's roll on with our list. Number 19, Council Member Stennett, this is your issue. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This was the piece of the trail that was torn out when the pool was approved by Council to be removed last year. It was inadvertently torn out, and we're just asking funding to put it back the way it was before the pool was torn out. Second. Did you know you made a motion? So the motion is to allocate $30,000 to replace the Constitution Park Trail where the pool was removed. And there was a second, I believe, by, there were several seconds. Council Member Lane. Okay. Discussion? I see none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And log in, please. Your vote. All right. That passed 14-0. The next item is Council Member Stennett, and I tagged on. If you would tell us about that. The quick background, 2007 was the last time we took a study and looked at Manowar, and the next step was to hire a consultant to come and actually give us design estimates. because right now 11 of us in this room, districts, run through Manowar. It's our biggest asset in terms of roads, in fact, kind of that we own. And the money would be used to get a design estimate and the critical points that need to be phased in because obviously we would never be able to afford to do Manowar all at once. Second. But it gives us the opportunity to begin that process and get a real number for next year's budget and beyond to figure out how we're going to tackle this road going forward. And I would put in there it's already 120% overcapacity. from original design back in 1985. Second. Second. I heard a motion by Council Member Stennett, second by Council Member Lane, to allocate $250,000 to the Mann Award design for traffic improvement. And I see we have discussion. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a question as to would the design be for the entire roadway? Yes. The study would look at the entire length of Manowar and figure out what those critical points are to begin with in terms of widening our improvements and what type of improvements that could be made because obviously it's going to be different in different areas of Manowar. But they would look at the entire length of the road. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Clark. Thank you. I think it's a good proposal. My question is, why can't that be done in-house by our folks in traffic engineering and whatever? I'm not sure who I'm asking that question to. Well, I think Commissioner Paulson can answer that. We do have good expertise in-house, but this is something well beyond our scope of work in terms of you've seen every zone change. We have independent traffic engineers coming in. There's a great deal of design engineering work that has to go into some of these. Yeah, I think this is, I think, Council Member Stendens is correct. We do have very good people, but I think when it comes to cost estimates, we traditionally go outside for the expertise on bringing these kinds of costs in. This is a very large project, and I think we'd really like to bring in someone who could give a very complete full cost estimate. Is the $250,000 appropriate? It should work. It should get us a cost. It will not get us designed, but it should get us a cost estimate that will be able to tell us where, and again, I think, as Council Member Stenet mentioned, where along there do we need to do what. I think we do have a 2007 study that shows some improvements, and we do have a long range within the MPO. There are a few. I think there's an estimate in one or two sections, but they're a little bit old. And I think we need to look at what currently we need to do. What reports have been done to date, I mean, in terms of traffic volume and those kinds of things? The last one that I know of is the 2007 study. 2007. All right. Thank you very much. Council Member Akers. Eric, don't go. So from the 2007 study, what, if any, improvements or projects have been completed as a result of that study? Hold on. Paper. Paper. The 2007. I know, it's not mine. I borrowed it from Bob Baird, so don't worry. I'm not changing. looking at some of the recommended projects there are a few that we are working on that deal with right lanes at some of the intersections but these dealt with kind of smaller projects I think what we're talking about is looking at it a little bit bigger there was only one recommendation for widening it between Richmond Road and I-75 the cost estimate that I've seen now and this is actually the 2007 estimate is $13 million The most recent that I just got from Max Conyers is about $10 million more than that. So I think those are some of the things we need to look at even in five years. The prices are going up. And that price that Max got me actually included multi-use trail on the side, kind of a sidewalk multi-use trail as well. So there's things like that we need to deal with. The other estimate that we'd have to factor into this is we do have curbs and sidewalks along that. And so that's going to be a bit more expensive than just going right, just adding an extra lane in the right-of-way. Well, that's my concern is that knowing that it would have to be broken down into stages and phases and that we wouldn't. I mean, if we do a study now and spend $250,000 to look at the entire road, knowing that we won't do even a quarter or half of that in the next decade, that the prices will change, that the traffic patterns will change, the populations in certain parts of the city may change. And so in 10 years, I mean, should we look at one section of Man of War first and then do the repairs needed in that section before looking at all of it and making a long-range plan when it's all going to change anyway? I think what we would get out of the study is kind of would give us that, though. I think what you're looking at is where do we need to focus first. I think from this 2007 study, one of the things that we recognize is, And in this, it kind of details where the changes in use on alumni have come since it was first built in 88. And the largest increase is that from I-75 to Richmond Road. But there's also large increases out by Nicholasville Road. So I think what we would get is where do we need to put the priority on? How do we go about getting those estimates? And we need those estimates to put them in the NPO to get those in the TIP so that we can start to get that funding. So those kinds of things have to be done before we do it. So to get those good, to get it funded, we need estimates. And this will help us figure out where. I mean, I think there are certain areas on the man of war that are much more, that are bigger priorities. And this will help us figure out where those priorities are in terms of phasing. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Derek, and I'm not even sure where I've heard this. I've heard it on several occasions over the years, that there is ultimately to be a tie-in to citation by Man of War. Citation. I think that is a proposal of citation. There's a couple different proposals of citation, one in different directions. At this point, I'm not sure where those are, but I can say this. they're not in no they may be in the 2030 plan which is the very long range plan but i have not seen them uh in a shorter term plan i don't need to worry about a long range plan thank you council member stinnett thank you i just want to follow up on councilman acre's point is in 2007 the next step was this 250 it was put into the budget then we went into uh changed administrations and then the economy hit and it was never revisited. So this was actually the next step from the 07. I agree with you. I don't want to study something and just sit there. We have to figure out where our clogs in the road are and what we can actually manage because even $10 million is a huge project for this government, not to mention $20 or $30 million. So this will give us a leg going forward. And to Council Member Beard's point, in 07 they looked at that. You can't go through Calumet Farm unless you want to start subdividing it. So that's where the connection would be made. And Kingland, right there. All right. Any other question or comment about the motion? Okay. The motion on the floor is to allocate $250,000 to design for man-of-war traffic improvement widening. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? We. Okay, that motion passes 14-0. Number 21 is bike lane striping. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This is a relatively small amount of money. It has a large impact on the ability of especially the biking community to have increased safety. There's many places around town that need striping and signage. This would allow us to move forward on that. but this has been a request in the past that's not been funded, so I would move to approve this request. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Kay moved. Council Member Ellinger seconded to allocate $80,510 to bike lane striping and signage throughout the county. Any discussion? Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Kay, is this just for city roads, or would this also be on state arteries like downtown Euclid? That is an excellent question, which I hope our commissioner can answer. All right, so while you were asking that, others were saying, where is this for? I am not sure where the request was made for, but there are a host of different projects where we could bike lane striping would be necessary. But what I'm not sure of is where the 80,000 510 came from at this point. Unfortunately, I can't help you. I think the question was, do you know if they're state roads or non-state roads? Yeah, these are all our roads or are these some of these? I would assume. I think it would be a combination. But we've had a very good working relationship with the state on some of those in terms of bike lanes. But I would think it's a whole lot easier for us to do it on. Honestly, unfortunately, I'm not sure which roads are included in this $80,000 request. This goes back to the bus shelter argument. Lexington should be paying for the bus shelter. I'm not sure we should be paying for the state roads when they have money budgeted to do the striping and lanes and everything. I assume they would re-stripe their own bike lanes that they put on the road. Generally, they do. It's a request that we make to them. So I'm going to assume that they would be local roads, but I'm not sure where the 80,000 510 came from. It's from us. It's generally for our local roads. I'd like to support it as long as we agree it's only for local roads. We can easily make it for local roads. We have more than enough roads that we need to put bike lanes on, so I don't think that will be an issue. Okay. Thank you. So if this passes, I think the sentiment is that we would like the state to pay for their roads. It would be much easier for us to do it on local road zone limit because we don't have to go through the state process. We can just go out and do it as opposed to any other time we work with state roads, we have to go to District 7 and get their approval. Okay. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Derek, I think you answered my question, but we do have a plan of various roads throughout Fayette County. We do, and actually yesterday we met to discuss kind of a plan that we are working on for connecting trails and bike lanes throughout, kind of going for kind of a future plan. but what we're going to be doing is combining multiple plans we already have in terms of bike lanes and bike trails to kind of come forward with one steady plan. But we do have currently quite a few roads that are in our plan prioritized for bike lanes. So we have a, again, we don't have much of a shortage for roads that we could stripe. Okay. Do you have any idea how many, like, can you give us a perspective of how many miles can be done with $80,000? Like, I wouldn't think it's real costly, but. I can't give you one right off the top of my head. I know there's a couple different conversion rates, but I can get one to you today. Okay. And maybe while we're here, I'll talk to Keith. I'll see if I can get something really quickly. Or Keith could. Keith, I'll try to email him really quickly and see if I can get one while we're here. Thank you. Okay. Just FYI, we're going to end at 2 o'clock so we can go on and have some budget and finance committee. So are these questions? Let's see. Council Member Lawless, you had a question about the motion. I just wanted to know if there were specific places. And it's more than, I mean, the expense, because there are a lot of bike lanes I've dealt with, a lot of times it's far more complicated than just paying for the striping. It's removing maybe traffic or parking on one side of the road, et cetera. But I fully support this. And if there are, it's such a specific amount, I just was curious as to where that came from. but I certainly support it. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I am also supportive of bike safety and more biking in our community, but I am curious which roads were included, how many roads, where they are, and where, like if Commissioner Paulson isn't familiar with where this came from, I'm curious where it came from, the 80,000 510. So, I think I can address that. There's a bike head committee that has had a number of these projects that they've been trying to get funded. They aggregated those and gave me the number. I apologize. I don't have the details that they sent me, but it basically came from that committee. Essentially, roads that have already been identified that need this that they've not been able to fund. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I see no other questions. All those in favor of the motion to allocate $80,510 to bike lane, striping, and signage, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? If you'll log your vote, that'll help the Granicus. And that motion passes 14-0. Number 22 is also Council Member Kay. Thank you. And this, again, this is a request that has been pending from Parks. This is an ADA improvement. It's something that we really do need to do to make that park accessible, and that's the reason I put it on the agenda here, and I move approval. Second. All right. The motion by Council Member Kay, second by Council Member Ford, is to allocate $100,000 to improve Castlewood Park Therapeutic Camp ADA requirements. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? And if you'll log your vote, please. That motion passes. A couple more people need to vote. All right. Has everyone voted? We're missing. There we go. That motion passed 14-0. Number 23, Councilmember Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This project is for the Charles Young Park expansion. It is particularly for one acre track of land known as the former Ann Street. On October 9th, I delivered to you guys a proposal that included this project. This project is consistent with both the East End Small Area Plan and also the Charles Young Center Redevelopment Task Force. I kindly move for approval. Council Member Ford moves. Council Member Myers seconds, allocating $67,500 to the Charles Young Park expansion. Are there questions? I see none. All those in favor, please say aye. Anyone opposed? Will you log your vote, please? We have one person who hasn't voted, and it's not me this time. That motion passes 14-0. Okay, number 24 is Council Member Henson. Yes. This is an existing basketball court that the Nets were removed several years ago, and it has remained just that with the basketball goals still standing, but the Nets actually, due to neighbors complaining about noise from the basketball court, I remember way back when this was first constructed, I complained because it was too close to the playground. But they ignored my, at the time I was just, I wasn't on the council. I was a member of the Valley Recreation Activity Board. And they put the basketball court there. and then the neighbors were complaining about the noise of the constant balls bouncing and language that accompanies it. So I would like this. There is a need for additional parking at Valley Park. It's a heavily used park. And originally this amount was reduced from $120 to $80, so I will move approval. Okay. Okay, and so Council Member Henson moved. Council Member Myers seconded $80,000 allocation to repurpose the existing basketball court at Valley Park. Discussion. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We couldn't just get two nets and put them on there and save us $80,000? Well, we actually have thought about that. But there is another basketball court there, and we felt this would be the best use. for this particular area because of the need for parking, and people are parking in the grass. So you're going to just take out the basketball? The post, and then it will be reconfigured for parking. Okay, thank you. All right, Council Member Lawless. No, you're off. Okay, all right. All those in favor of allocating this $80,000 to Valley Park Basketball Court, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? and if you'll log your vote, please. Okay, there we go, that passed 14-0. Number 25, Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a real concern about this Wellington Park Bridge and the fact that it's going to go ahead of bulletproof vests. I've not asked for one park item for my district, but I can't in good conscience put a bridge in front of a bulletproof vest unless Commissioner Mason could come to the podium and speak to that. If we're going to have police officers out there without vests, to me that's a priority. Are you suggesting moving an item up the list? Well, I want to see what Commissioner Mason has to say. If he feels that they do have the $100,000 in there in his budget for the vests. Council members, since Council rated this list and put them in order and has not allowed other items to be moved up, are you supportive of this? We're actually on your item, Council Member Sides. We are, but as I said, I have a real concern about talking about a park bridge as opposed to bulletproof vests. How about we put your item down after bulletproof vests? Would you want to do that? That's fine. I mean, I'm just trying to preserve the process that the council agreed to in the beginning. I understand what you're saying, but I think I wanted to bring him up because there are other park improvements, too. And to me, a bulletproof vest takes precedence over a park. You know, we're talking about safety here. I just wanted an answer. Can you just answer the question of what is the need for the bulletproof vest, and we won't discuss the item. Absolutely. The need is, according to the contract, bulletproof vests are only good for five years. They have a schedule to replace them, and it's also woven into the request from the administration about police recruit outfits. So it's kind of a two-fold thing. It's hard to separate because the new recruits coming in, there's a package of purchasing equipment and supplies for them that include vests. So police has made a recent purchase of some vests that are due to expire, and I'll try and get some specific information about the remaining list. Okay, that would be helpful. So number 28 is inclusive of the uniforms and the vests? Is that what you're saying, Commissioner? Package together. 28 is, so they're one in the same. That will include the vests for the new recruits, the amount. Number 28 includes the number 35? That's what I'm asking. No, that would be separate. But number 28, that dollar figure includes vests for the new recruits. So these are new vests, and then you're replacing the old vests, which is number 35. The other request was from Councilman Myers. Right. So, George, maybe you could just give me that. That is not in their budget, and these are replacement vests, not new vests. Is that right? Commissioner is, I think, finding out what this difference is, and then we're going to go back to number 25. Thank you. Yeah. And did you find out the answer? Yeah. No. I would give the answer, Council Member Myers, are 28 and 35. 35, Vice Mayor, thank you for letting me speak. I called the Commissioner to see if there's anything that I could put on the list that could help them out, and that's where it came to them. So you don't know if they're one and the same? They're not the same. Okay. Can you explain, Commissioner, a little better what those two are, the difference? Well, the administration request for number 28, is that what you're talking about? 28 and 35. Number 28 is all of the equipment and supplies the new recruits need. Their uniforms, their winter uniforms for an upcoming class. It includes their belts, their gun, the taser, their boots, handcuffs, and vests. Is this a class that's budgeted but hasn't been started? Correct. So the outfits and uniforms weren't included in the budget? Is that correct? They typically would purchase that through asset forfeiture monies, which have been diminishing because, in part, the slowness of the federal system approving when cases have been resolved. And the Marshal Service has also been keeping back a higher percentage of asset forfeiture monies. And then $35,000 is extra vests. 35, as Councilman Myers said, he called one day and said, if I was to put money in, what would it be for? Does that clarify that, Councilman? So that's replacement, not extra, in addition. Those are replacement vests. They would be replacements. They would fall into the replacement schedule. Yes, and so what I'll do is go ahead and switch. I'll put the bulletproof vest replacements for number 25 and then put 25. Well, I think Council will have to vote to do that. All right. I mean, you could move yours down if you want. That's fine. I'll move mine down. This is how the council rated all of these. Did you have a comment about that, Council Member Stenner? Well, I was just going to ask Commissioner Mason. So you're saying there's no money left in the asset forfeiture? There's money there. This was an administration decision when we were looking at fund balance of how to apportion money. Right. So if we don't approve it, you have the money still. I believe so. Because we wouldn't budget a class and not have money for a uniform. Right. So then the vest, I mean, to me, I mean, customer society brings up a good point. You're saying we don't have money in the budget to replace our bulletproof vest. No, this was additional. Yes. Okay. So we do have money to replace it. Yes. This would just help you maybe spend money in other areas? In other areas, sure. that's a big difference because if these are critical needs i think that's what she's asking these are critical needs that if we don't do this these things don't happen there's a that's a whole different argument versus if this helps you pad the budget a little bit and do other things and i don't think that was a criteria when we were looking no i'm not saying it's a criteria but that's just how it's it's perceived up here i mean we're looking at critical mass at this point right we don't want to put that off and not fund our police recruits and best if it's a critical need today, we have to do it. I understand. Thank you. Okay. There's a lot of buzz up here to go on with the list. I'll keep the bridge in force, please. I will keep my number 25. Do you have a motion? No, I didn't move. Did you move? So moved. So, that motion is about number 25 for the Wellington Park Bridge, and as I understand it would be moved from another place. It's an open field that was supposed to be put over a stream in the rest of the park, I guess, about five years ago, which is lying in an open field. And I heard a second. Any discussion? Council Member Lawless, did you hear on? No, now that I heard Commissioner Mason's. All right. I see no one else. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? And if you could log your vote in, please, and then I'll ask Jonathan and Connie if they'll give us a total because we're about to stop. That passed 14-0. Okay, so the remaining money is $484,790. So $484,790. I've had a couple. Council Member Ellinger, are you one of the ones I heard to ask to go to the red line or not? I'm fine. You're okay? All right. Number 26 is Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This allows us to put a walking trail in at Berry Hill Park that will tie into some of the other trail systems that we have going around 8th District. So moved. So that motion to allocate $82,000 to Berry Hill Park walking trail. And I heard several seconds. Council Member Lawless seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And if you log in, anyone opposed? All right. Number that passes by 14-0. Number 27, Douglas Park Expansion, Councilmember Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This project is also listed beginning on page 10 of the packet that I submitted to you guys on August 9th. This was one of the first projects that I met with Parks Director Jerry Hancock when I took office in early 2011, and I based that in large part because of my involvement in that park as a parent and as a coach. This project was also highlighted. We've had some issues in regards to crime and violence in Douglas Park. The enhancements of Douglas Park will be an asset to the West End. I kindly move for approval. Second. Council Member Myers, Beard, Acres, all seconded your motion. is there any discussion that motion is to allocate $149,050 to Douglas Park expansion all those in favor please say aye and is anyone opposed and if you'll log your vote in please and I think that was unanimous if 14-0 and then number 28 back to the police recruit class commissioner. Did I understand that you, I guess I'd like to know if the discussion we heard up here, you do or you don't have that money in the budget for that $140,000. It's not in the budget. It would be coming out of asset forfeiture money if they had that available. And so I think one of the questions from Council Member Stenet was, do you have the money in there like in the past to do this? I believe they do. I don't know. I've sent a text and haven't gotten a reply back yet. Any motions on it? Do you want us to remove it? Council Member Stenet. Which class would this be for? The one in the spring? No, the one coming up in November. November. November. Well, okay. I'm making a motion to approve it. And, of course, he's always honest with their money, and if they want to return it back, they can return it back if they do find asset forfeiture. So move. I don't want to delay the class. Do I hear a second? Second. Okay. And I think, just to clarify what you just said, they can't give us back asset forfeiture money, but you could pay for it out of that perhaps, and then you'd give this back. Yes. Okay. All right. The motion on the floor is to allocate $140,000 to police recruit outfits for the November recruit class discussion, and there's a good bit. Commissioner, you might want to stick close to the podium. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to be sure that we're clear that if asset forfeiture money is sufficient, that that is being used first before the money that we have just agreed to allocate out of the fund. Second. Second. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Did you move to amend? Was that what I heard? Did I hear a motion somewhere about that? No. Okay. Council Member Lawless. Well, I would like to see an accounting of how the asset forfeiture money is being used. And so I guess I'd like to make a motion that the police recruit outfits and the bulletproof vest replacements be taken out of that money and that we are given an accounting of how that money is spent. Second. Now, we have a motion and a second. And, Commissioner, can you, somewhere in my mind, I'm thinking police, the asset forfeitures only can be used for things that aren't in a normal budget. Is that correct? Correct. There are one-time purchases allowed periodically. That is audited by the Department of Justice. So can the bulletproof vests qualify for police? asset forfeiture? It can. Okay, great. So the motion is to amend the motion. Was your motion to amend the motion on the floor? The motion on the floor was to approve $140,000 for police recruit outfits. And amended the motion to make sure that that asset forfeiture monies be used for this as well as the bulletproofness, and we get an accounting of how those asset forfeiture monies are spent. I heard Council Member Myers second it. So the motion is to amend the original motion to pay for number 28 and number 35 out of asset forfeitures and to as well get an accounting of how those funds are spent. Because my understanding is if we approve this and put it in the budget, the asset forfeiture money cannot be used for this. Okay. Council Member Myers, do you want to speak to the amendment? I'm in agreement with the amendment. Pardon me? I'm in agreement with the amendment. Okay. Council Member Akers. Commissioner, when will the class be completed? When will they be ready to work? They're starting November 4th. It's an approximately 32-week academy. There needs to be load time in ordering a lot of their gear, but whatever 32 weeks is, eight months. Do they get their outfits and all of their gear at the beginning, at the middle, at the end? Some of it goes along. The uniforms and the vests and the guns, the guns would come up front, but the vests and things, those are later in the process. Some of it is up front, the range wear that they do have, the PT gear, some of that. But the more expensive things are towards the end, the actual uniforms and the vests. So what I'm hearing is that you have funds in asset forfeiture, that these would sort of be backup monies in the event there's not enough in asset forfeiture. But we're also leaving money allocated in fund balance. So my question is, why do we need to spend $140,000 right now on police recruit outfits? I'm not convinced we do. Thank you. You're welcome. Council Member Kay. Commissioner, thank you. Do we have a rough idea of the funds that are available in the asset forfeiture account at this point and what demands there will be on them when time comes to buy these uniforms? I have not gotten an answer yet on the asset forfeiture balance. In the past year, the scale, what kind of money are we talking about in asset forfeiture in the previous fiscal year? I think the balance is $600,000 to $800,000 usually is kind of a level that it runs at. But sometimes it does dip below that. It fluctuates depending on what contingent needs come up that need to be spent on. So that's the balance in the fund that's roughly in the present time? I think that's typically what it usually runs at. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I wanted to comment on this because, again, when we go through the budget process and as a chair of the Public Safety Link, we ask each division director, is there anything that you need that's not in this budget? And they say, no, we're good. And I know that our police department is one of the most efficient run departments, if not the most efficient in this government. And we have already allocated, I think, one and a quarter million for vehicles. And so I just feel like this is an item that should have been budgeted. I believe it probably was budgeted, and I won't support it. Not that I don't support the police, but I just feel like our budget process is a good thing, and there's other items on this list that I think we have neglected for a long time. So thank you. Council Member Beard. If, in fact, we don't come up with enough asset forfeiture money, I'm sure that we'll find whatever will be needed to get them their vests, If that's in February or March or April, whenever it might be, we'll find the money somehow. And so I wouldn't support this at this point. Okay. No one else is on the list to speak. The amendment on the floor is to fund 28 and 35 out of asset, to ask them to fund it out of asset forfeitures. All those in favor, please say aye. and on the amendment? Your amendment? That's what we're voting on right now. So if you'll log your vote in, please. What? No, we're at, notice I rephrased it and said we're asking them to take it out of asset forfeiture, which I think was your motion. I don't want to just deny all of this. Yes, Chancellor Mayer. Just for clarification, I believe that an amendment is saying if we allocate the money, then we're saying it must come first from asset forfeiture and we want an accounting. The question of whether we approve that remains as the part of the main motion. Is that what you wanted, Mr. Lawless? I did, but now I realize that, in hanging through this, if we pass the amendment or the original resolution, asset forfeiture money cannot be used because it would be in our budget. And if it's budgeted, then the asset forfeiture money cannot be used. So I'm going to vote against the amendment and then against the original motion, and we will come up with the money if there's not enough asset forfeiture money. Do you want to remove your amendment? I'll withdraw the motion, yes. Does the seconder withdraw the motion? Okay. Yes, ma'am. So the amendment's been withdrawn. So the motion on the floor is to fund number 28, $140,000 for recruit outfits out of the fund balance. So we need to clear the screen. Well, if you can erase the screen. And Council Member Stenet, would you want to clarify? There was some discussion up here. I think you suggested that it be paid for first out of the asset forfeiture, but we can't mandate that. So do you? Okay. All right. Now, is this our new screen? Okay, there we go. All those in favor, please say aye and log your vote, please. Okay, do we have one more? That motion failed 1 to 13, and we've come to our red line. Can you give us our updated total, Jonathan? 253,740. 253,740. Council Member, what is your pleasure? Do you want to schedule another meeting, leave that in the fund balance, keep going with the list next meeting at another meeting? Work session? Work session. We could do it in budget and finance. Council Member Myers has suggested that if we would go one beyond the red, that might take care of it. Do you want to go ahead, Council Member Akers? Yes, please. Council Member Scutchfield has a question. I just wanted to make one mention right now because we've gone through, and most of us up here have gotten something approved so far. We do have a council member that had brought some items up that has not had any money distributed to her district, and I just wanted to, I guess, speak to the council about giving an opportunity to that council member to provide for her district. Is it down the list? Yes. Well, council would need to decide to move that up. I mean. Well, we have, as it, Akers, Council Member Akers and Council Member Lawless have not had any items for their, that they have brought forward approved. So how about that we, Council Member Lawless does have an item that we go ahead and take care of number 30 and then we stop. Would that work? So do you want to speak to number 30, Councilmember Akers? I would love to. Thank you. As anyone who has visited Masters and Station Park knows, there are no public restrooms. There's a dog park. Parks and Rec installed a playground last year, and there's naturalist activities. There's the equestrian area. There's LISA. There's international soccer in the front of the park, and there are no public restrooms. So I would like to move that we approve $250,000 for design and construction of bathrooms at Masters and Station Park. Okay. Council Member Myers seconded that. Is there discussion of allocating $250,000 to the Masters and Station restrooms? I see none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? And if you'll log in your vote, please. We need a few more, about three to be exact. Okay, who has not voted? Okay, there we go. Vice Mayor, I think we're broke now. There we go. That passes 12 to 2. And, Jonathan, I'm thinking there is about $3,740, and I don't think we want to have another meeting over that. Correct? So, Council Member Stennett. Yeah. I know CAO Hamilton, you were at the mic earlier, and you never got a chance to come back and say if there's any items we've already approved that you may want us to change. Are we not going to have her give us that? I think that's up to the council. I mean, if there was something on there, if not, then we're done. I would like to hear it. Move to adjourn. Okay. Council Member Ellinger, just out of respect to you, where are you with your time? Well, I had scheduled at 2 o'clock, so we're 22 minutes beyond that, and we already gave up an hour, so I think we need to go ahead and get to the budget and finance. we can get to this, and I think we'd probably put the rest of the money to $3,000 in fund balance, and we'd be done. Second. So your motion is to keep the rest of the money in the fund balance. All right. All those in favor, that's... Oh, hold on. Discussion. I'm sorry. Excuse me, Council Member Stenet. Well, again, our CO was at the mic earlier, and she sat down to give us an opportunity to dispense with something else, so I think we should hear her out before we end the meeting. Okay. How about we attend to the motion that was just made, and then we'll hear from the CAO. It could be more. If she reduces any of those funds, we could have more money to get back into the fund. This is true. If she reduces the requests, we may have more money. The motion on the floor, however, okay, it's been removed. Council Member Myers, did you remove your second? All right. Ms. Hamilton, CAO. Thank you very much. The first thing I'd like to talk about is the pothole patcher. We thought when we first came with the fund balance, we thought this was a very good idea, and we still do. However, we talked with Albert Miller today, and considering some of the adjustments we had to make to the fund balance, We think that this $325,000, with the Council's concurrence, this $325,000, we could wait until the budget, and we would address this pothole patcher in the budget. We think we have found a good thing to help us, but we think that could be in the budget, and therefore we would suggest that that $325,000 be put at the bottom line. So, thank you so much. So, Council, you've already approved this. Does anyone want to make a motion? Make a motion to remove it. Okay. Council Member Akers moved to remove item number 11 from allocation, and Council Member Myers seconded it. Is there discussion? Council prepared. Well, the situation with the potholes is going to rear its ugly head in January, February, and March, and we won't be through the budget at that point. So if we go past April somewhere along the line, we either should have already filled those potholes or we can wait until next year, one of the two. So that needs to be taken into consideration by all. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak to the motion? Council Member Lawless. I'm just curious, what is the pothole patcher again? Is it a different type of? It's a different type. It is a piece of equipment that one person can sit on and basically fill these potholes. We think it will be a very economic and efficient way of doing that. But we will continue to, as Council Member Beard has said, to address our potholes. We have to continue that. And there are certainly a lot of potholes in not only my district, but I'm sure quite a few others. And the current method, they sink and redo them. So I'm wondering if this is cost effective. or if it's something we want to look at at a different time, but okay. Anyone else wish to speak to the motion? Okay, I see no one. The motion on the floor is to remove from allocation number 11 the pothole patcher for $325,000. Please log your vote. I want it now. We can patch. One more vote. Council Member Massadi. Thank you. That motion passes 11 to 3. So, Jonathan and Connie, in your list, if you'll remove, just put that as a non-allocation, and that 325 is back in the fund balance. So did you have others to remove? Yes, ma'am. It was a suggestion for an alteration. The administration feels very strongly that we have two areas that we've looked at here. One of them is the Economic Development Contingency Fund, and we had suggested that we put $2.5 million in there. The second one was the Economic Development Revolving Loan Fund, and that one is down at the end of this list that we didn't get to today. We feel that they both sort of get us to where everybody wants to go, to this council and to where the administration and the citizens want to go, and that's to the future in two different ways. What we'd like to suggest is that you think about taking the $2.5 million in the economic development contingency, and you lower that by a million dollars. So we would be putting in this extra, the thing that led the top. Rather than $2.5, we'd be putting in $1.5 there, and we would move that other million dollars to the Economic Development Revolving Loan Fund. I know that there's been a lot of trepidation with how are you going to spend that and how are you going to work that economic development fund. It would not be that money is not going to be touched. Nothing is going to be done with that money until we would bring back to the council a defined proposal and method of how this would accomplish. And those are the two things, the pothole patcher and this change, that we would like you to consider. Thank you. All right. Thank you, CAO Hamilton. Now, I see no one on our list to speak. Okay, now we have a couple. Council Member Ford. Well, Council Member Ellinger, you know, we have 30 minutes left for our budget and finance meeting, and did you want to say something? Yeah, we've eaten. You know, it said 2 o'clock. We went to 2.30. I think that was pretty lenient. But if we're going to have an agenda, we need to probably do it, and I would like to at least go through it. I can go through it as quick as possible if we want to come back to this, but I think. Recess and come after work session. Yeah, I think that might be the best way to do it. Okay. Okay, we could do that. Council Member Ford, did you pull your name off or are you still on? No, ma'am. I think the suggestion is we go into a recess and then come back after work session to discuss this. Okay. Okay. I see a lot of heads shaking yes. Do I hear a motion to recess this meeting and come back after the work session? So moved. Okay. Motion by Kay, second by Masadi. I'm so sorry. It takes about three minutes to reset the DVD. Okay, three minutes to budget and finance. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Right. We are recessed until after the work session. Thank you.