# Environmental Quality Committee - January 28, 2014 > Auto-transcribed civic record · January 28, 2014 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3218 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3218?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2014-01-28 - **Last revised**: July 15, 2026 - **Length**: 6,270 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 Environmental Quality Committee met on January 28, 2014 at 11:00 a.m., with Stinnett presiding. During the meeting, the committee addressed five agenda items, including approval of the November 12, 2013 committee summary and consideration of several informational reports. The committee took five motions and votes and heard three public comments. The meeting covered the Keep Lexington Beautiful Annual Report, a Waste Management Audit Follow up, and Monthly Financials, while Items Referred were deferred to a future meeting. ## Attendance **Present:** Stinnett, Mossotti, Gorton, Akers, Farmer, Scutchfield, Clarke, Henson, and Lane **Absent:** Myers **Late:** None ## Votes and Decisions The committee took five votes during the January 28, 2014 meeting, all of which passed by voice vote. **Approval of November 12, 2013 Meeting Summary** [timestamp: 00:03:31] A motion by Gorton, seconded by Clarke, to approve the November 12, 2013 meeting summary passed by voice vote. **Division of Water Quality Change Order Process** [timestamp: 00:03:31] A motion by Mossotti, seconded by Scutchfield, to support the Division of Water Quality recommendation on the change order process for remedial measures only passed by voice vote. **Removal of Division of Water Quality Construction Process** [timestamp: 00:41:00] A motion by Myers, seconded by Scutchfield, to remove the Division of Water Quality Construction Process from committee passed by voice vote. **Removal of Annual Report on Public Education Effectiveness** [timestamp: 00:43:05] A motion by Farmer, seconded by Ruskay, to remove the annual report on public education effectiveness from committee passed by voice vote. **Removal of Waste Management Audit Follow-up** [timestamp: 00:44:10] A motion by Myers, seconded by Scutchfield, to remove the waste management audit follow-up from committee passed by voice vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included an amendment to the Sanitary Sewer Operating Fund totaling $6.8 million. This correction addressed intergovernmental revenue within the fund. ## Public Comment Three presentations were made during the public comment period: **Keep Lexington Beautiful 2013 Annual Report** [timestamp: 00:04:03] Pendergast presented the annual report for Keep Lexington Beautiful, detailing the organization's 2013 activities. Key initiatives included litter prevention efforts, participation in the Great American Cleanup, and stream cleanups conducted on Richmond Road. Pendergast highlighted a successful pilot program at Picadone Golf Course that achieved a 60% reduction in cigarette litter through the distribution of pocket ashtrays and canisters. **Waste Management Audit Follow-up** [timestamp: 00:19:27] Sally presented the Management Action Plan Progress Report addressing follow-up items from a waste management audit. The report noted improvements in purchasing policies and employee communication. However, Sally identified ongoing concerns requiring attention, including incorrect budget charges and incomplete dissemination of policies across the organization. The presentation emphasized the need to strengthen internal controls to address these deficiencies. **Monthly Financials** [timestamp: 00:35:36] O'Mara provided a financial update highlighting a significant correction in the Sanitary Sewer Operating Fund. The presentation identified that $6.8 million in intergovernmental revenue had been incorrectly booked and needed to be moved to the Construction Fund. O'Mara also indicated that revenue collection rates were being verified to ensure accuracy in financial reporting. ## Appointments David Elson was appointed to the Keep Lexington Beautiful Commission. ## Contested Items **Communication and Internal Controls in Waste Management** A heated discussion emerged regarding communication and internal controls within the Waste Management department. Council members expressed significant concerns about poor communication between management and frontline staff, identifying this as a critical operational issue. The primary disagreement centered on the need for direct engagement between leadership and frontline workers, as well as the effectiveness of policy dissemination throughout the department. Council members emphasized that improved communication channels were essential, particularly in the context of recent leadership changes that had created additional uncertainty among staff. Multiple council members raised references to these communication gaps during the meeting, indicating this was a widespread concern rather than an isolated complaint. The discussion highlighted that frontline staff were not adequately informed about new policies and management decisions, creating potential gaps in operational consistency and employee understanding. While the specific outcome of this discussion is not detailed in the meeting record, the sustained focus on this issue by multiple council members suggests it was identified as a priority area requiring attention and remediation by Waste Management leadership. ## November 12, 2013 Committee Summary The committee reviewed and approved the meeting summary from November 12, 2013 [timestamp: 00:03:31]. The approval proceeded without dissent, and no committee members requested corrections or additions to the summary. Key participants in this agenda item included Gorton and Clarke. **Outcome:** The November 12, 2013 Committee Summary was approved as presented. ## Keep Lexington Beautiful Annual Report Jim Pendergast presented the 2013 annual report for Keep Lexington Beautiful [timestamp: 00:04:03], detailing the organization's accomplishments across litter prevention, beautification, and community involvement initiatives. **Key Accomplishments** The report highlighted several significant achievements during the year: * A 60% reduction in cigarette litter at Picadone Golf Course * A $5,000 grant awarded to the Friends of Wolf Run for stream cleanup efforts **Presentation and Outcome** This agenda item was presented as an informational report with no formal debate or concerns raised. The presentation served to inform the meeting attendees of Keep Lexington Beautiful's activities and impact during 2013. ## Waste Management Audit Follow up Sally presented a follow-up audit report on waste management procedures [timestamp: 00:19:27]. The presentation confirmed that progress had been made in addressing findings from a prior audit. **Areas of Improvement** The follow-up audit documented positive developments in two key areas: - Improved purchasing procedures - Enhanced policy communication **Remaining Issues** Despite the progress noted, the audit identified several issues that remained unresolved: - Incorrect budget charges - Incomplete W-2 reporting **Outcome** The presentation was informational in nature, providing the group with an update on the status of previously identified audit findings and the current state of waste management practices and procedures. ## Monthly Financials O'Mara provided a financial update during this agenda item [timestamp: 00:35:36]. The presentation included a correction to the Sanitary Sewer Operating Fund, indicating that adjustments were necessary to the fund's financial records. A key focus of the update was revenue collection rates, which O'Mara indicated are currently under review for accuracy. The verification of these collection rates is pending, suggesting that the final figures may be subject to change pending completion of the review process. This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action or debate recorded. ## Items Referred [timestamp: 00:38:50] The committee reviewed several pending items during this agenda section. Key speakers included Farmer, Myers, Scutchfield, and Henson. The following matters were discussed: * **Consolidated Greenways responsibility** — reviewed by the committee * **U.K. game day** — discussed as a pending item * **Bulky item collection** — addressed during the review * **Distillery district update** — presented to the committee Several items were removed from the committee's purview during this discussion. However, the distillery district update remained pending and was not resolved at this meeting. The outcome of this agenda item was deferred, meaning the committee did not reach final conclusions on all matters and will address them at a future meeting. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the November 12, 2013 meeting summary - **Motion** — passed: Motion to support the Division of Water Quality recommendation on the change order process for remedial measures only - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove the Division of Water Quality Construction Process from committee - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove the annual report on public education effectiveness from committee - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove the waste management audit follow-up from committee --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. This is the Environmental Quality Committee meeting of the Council. This is January 28th, 11 a.m. Welcome. First item on our agenda is the summary from the November 12th meeting. Is there any motions to approve? Second. A motion and a second. Any discussion, additions, deletions, corrections? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Next item on the agenda is an annual report update from Keep Lexington Beautiful. Welcome, sir. Good morning. I'm Jim Pendergast. I'm chair of Keep Lexington Beautiful. I'm also general manager of the Thoroughbred Center on Parris Pike. We appreciate the opportunity this morning to update you all on Keep Lexington Beautiful's activities for 2013. If I can get this to work. It's not working. I'll do it for you. Okay. Go ahead and advance it, please. As I'm sure all of you know, the mission statement for KOB is to engage individuals, businesses, and organizations within Fayette County to take personal responsibility for improving our environment. I want to give you an update on our commission members. David Elson is our newest member. He is with the YMCA in downtown, and he was appointed to the commission in October. He and Connie Miller serve the community at large. George Ely and Blake Eames are the Neighborhood Association representatives. Peggy Henson, as you know, is the council representative. Mark York is our executive director and the Division of Environmental Policy rep. Lieutenant Chris Snelli is with the Division of Police. David Jarvis represents the Division of Code Enforcement. I represent the equine agriculture industry. Our food and beverage position is vacant right now. Unfortunately, Farley Schalk, who was with Pepsi, passed away in November, and he will be greatly missed. He was really a force for KLB and did a tremendous job, so we're really sorry to lose him, and we need to replace him on that spot. Patricia Knight is with Visit Lex, and she represents the tourism division. Amy Soner is with Bluegrass Greensource, and Angela Poe with Transylvania University represents the education area. As you probably know, with the ordinance that created Keep Lexington Beautiful, there were three priorities, litter prevention, beautification, and community involvement, and waste reduction. And I believe that's actually four priorities disguised as three. for 2013 we focused a lot on litter prevention we had the community appearance index which is required by keep america beautiful we conduct that annually in march and this year we we surveyed 50 sites those sites were all around lexington they were a half a mile to a mile in length and we scored the litter on a scale of one to four, with one being the lowest amount and four being the highest. And you can see that we've got a three-year trend on there. The amount of litter has been reduced from 2011 when we did our first survey. You see it going up a little bit in 2013, but keep in mind that it's a subjective rating and we have different people doing it each year. so I wouldn't necessarily assume that there's more litter just by that one year. And you can see a map here. This is a portion of the area that we surveyed. It shows some of the streets that are highlighted that were part of the survey. Cigarette litter was a big priority for us. 38% of all roadway litter is cigarette litter. This year we were able to receive a grant from Keep America Beautiful for $1,000, and we used that with a pilot program at Picadone Golf Course. We supplied them with pocket ashtrays and auto ashtrays and some canisters to put around the golf course to try to reduce the cigarette litter. And what we were able to see is that over the year we achieved a 60% reduction in cigarette litter on that golf course. So we want to try to do some more pilot projects like that. see if we can clean up some more cigarette litter around Lexington. KLB was instrumental in an ordinance change that allowed, and Peggy Henson on the council was primarily responsible with KLB for getting this done, but the law was changed, the ordinance was changed so that civil citations can be issued for littering. That helps because it's a lot easier from an administrative standpoint to handle these citations. In addition, the general public can report littering from vehicles to the sheriff's office, and the sheriff's office will send out letters warning the people that have violated that ordinance that they could be fined up to $500 if they're actually cited. Under the beautification and community involvement priority, We have the Great American Cleanup of 2013. KLB was involved in 48 events. There were 3,005 volunteers who collected a total of 7,202 pounds of litter. They cleaned up 30 1⁄2 miles of streets and roads, and 35 acres of parks were also cleaned during those events. Here are some pictures of some of our Great American Cleanup activities. The one on the top left is Tate's Creek Middle School's cleanup. On the top right is Lexington Women's Garden. And at the bottom is Clark Equipment's cleanup. We also had some more activity on Richmond Road. As you all are aware, I'm sure in 2012 we received a grant from Lowe's for $20,000. And we conducted a project on Richmond Road, a cleanup of a stream along the road there. In 2012, we cleaned up 84 tons of honeysuckle. One and a half tons of trash was removed, and 180 of trees and shrubs were planted. In 2013, we did a follow-up. We had 40 volunteers who removed five tons of trash and provided maintenance for the trees and shrubs. And of those volunteers, a good portion of those were from the minorities in agriculture from the University of Kentucky. And if you remember, they were honored by the council and recognized back in December. There are some pictures from the Richmond Road cleanup. Also under the beautification and community involvement, KLB was able to award a $5,000 grant to the Friends of Wolf Run. They conducted a stream cleanup project there. There were 37 volunteers that picked up 275 pounds of litter, and 30 trees were planted along the stream. In the area of waste production, KOB co-sponsors America's Recycle Day, which is a paper shred event. At that event on Old Frankfurt Pike, we had 570 cars come through. 27,000 pounds of paper were shredded and recycled, and 1,100 pounds of cardboard were collected at that event. To put a value on this from the community standpoint, of the 52 events that Keep Lexington Beautiful was involved in, the value of the volunteers totaled $99,231. We received in-kind donations of $3,950, private donations of $10,250, and in addition, there were government costs for the efforts of KLB that amounted to $11,150. So the cost-benefit ratio to the city is $10.18 for every dollar that the city spent. So we'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you, sir. Council members, if you have any questions for Mr. Pendergast, please log in. Council members, Scott, you're up first. Thank you, Council members, Senate. I had a question regarding the 2013 program priorities under the littering law change. Do you know what the enforcement results were for how many people? Do we have a listing of how many people had been charged, fined under the new law? No, we don't have that. Okay. I'm just wondering if that's something we could find out just to see how effective, you know, how many times. I think we may have an answer. Provide a little bit more information. We worked with the Division of Police throughout the year last year in actually creating a new citation. For the criminal citation, the Division of Police uses the state form. So we literally had to invent a new form, and it took a little while, and we got the forms printed and delivered to the Division of Police toward the end of last year. So we really don't have a good indication yet of how many citations were issued with the civil side. Okay, that makes sense. If we could, going forward, now that we do have the citation, I guess, available, if there's a way that we can track how much it is enforced, because I think we'll be able to tell, hopefully, a decrease as we move forward. And the reason we went, we sought the change in the state statute and in local ordinances, we conducted three years of research with district court and were able to determine that a lot of times when a littering citation was issued, By the time it was adjudicated, the littering citation was generally dropped in favor of some other citations that may have been issued at the time. So that's why we sought to change initially to begin with. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Next up, we have Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Chair. Noting how successful the Richmond Road cleanup has been, both in year one and year two, what sort of outreach do you have like that planned for this coming year? At this point, we're still looking for sponsors for those kind of events. So Lowe's donated $20,000. They did great. They were great. It was. It's an incredible amount of money, and we were able to do a very nice project with that. We'll be working on some smaller projects, and we are at this point, we have a subcommittee that is working on a plan to accept applications for grants. That's what I'm at with the next question. from homeowners associations or different areas so that we can fund more projects like the Wolf Run Project. So you have funding for that, potentially for neighborhoods to do those things? We have a small amount of money to do that. Like how small? We've got about $18,000 right now. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Farmer. Councilmember Henson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Jim, for the presentation. And I know, you know, this is just something to me that I enjoy tremendously. And I know that the rest of the commission members do as well. It's a fun commission. I've always participated in the cleanups. And that part of it is therapy for me. I did want to clarify the ordinance as far as the change in the litter law. It gives government an option of either citing civil or criminal. So in the case, if it's an illegal dump site, it can be cited criminal. And that's something David Jarvis and I talked about because that has been a problem throughout our city as well. But for your average everyday littering, it can be a civil offense. And I look forward to the responses from police. And we may, depending on that, expand that further to where other divisions can also cite. So thank you, Jim. Thank you. Next we have Councilor Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your presentation today over here. In your definition of litter, is an illegally placed yard sign, does it fit that category? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. Can you repeat that? In your definition of litter, does an illegally placed yard sign fit that definition? I don't believe it does. Code enforcement? So can you come to the mic, please? The reason I'm asking is because one of the things that I've been working with Mr. Jarvis over the years to do is figure out a way that we can abate the yard signs that are placed illegally. And part of the problem was if you go through the criminal aspect of it, we didn't have the authority to make something criminal that the state didn't call criminal. So under this law change at the state level, would a yard sign then fit under that so that we could do the civil? You know, I'm sure we could look at that. Currently, you know, it's under zoning, and it's a criminal statute enforced statewide. But I think locally we could probably look at maybe putting that under the civil citation through. Keep Lexington Beautiful. That might be a great idea. Can we look at that? Can you do the research on that and see if we can make that happen? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Councilman Clark. Thank you, Chair. I'd just like to thank Jim. I'd like to thank you and the members of the commission. And this is a great project, and I think it speaks well of Lexington and the quality of life here. And I'd like to express my appreciation for it and also thank Mark and Peggy, our own, for their work in it, too. And so just that word of thanks. Thank you. And all of our commission members enjoy serving. And I'd like to say that we all really appreciate the job that Mark York does. He is a workhorse with this. He gets a lot of stuff done. And we couldn't do the things that we do without the effort that he puts forward with it. I certainly agree with that. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Any other council members have any questions or comments? I did have one. What is your annual budget? Well, we're in the process of establishing that. Right now, we are not funded by the city. So everything is from donations, and we have different committees set up that we're working with right now. Our preliminary budget for this year is, I believe, $16,000. $16,000? Yes. You're accomplishing an awful lot, was my point, with very little funds. So we appreciate everything you're doing for our city. We've got several members that are working on donations now from different areas. So the more of those we can get, the more we can do. Very good. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you. All right, moving right along. Next on our agenda is the update from the Waste Management Audit that we had at the end of last year. This is the follow-up meeting. Mr. Sally, welcome. Thank you. I should be able to get on the screen here. Yeah. The copy of the report of the Management Action Plan report. Let's see if I can get there or not. Okay. Is it in there? It's the Management Action Plan Progress Report for Waste Management. Well, my apologies. I thought that it was going to be – there we go. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity to come and speak before the committee today, and this is, of course, a follow-up that was requested by the committee a few months ago. On April 26, 2013, the – can we reduce the size of that a little bit? Reduce it? Yeah, maybe a little bit more. And a little more. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. On April 26, 2013, the Office of Internal Audit issued a report on waste management operating and capital expenditures for the fiscal years ended 2010 through 2012 and fiscal year 2013 through November 30, 2012. And included in that initial report were seven findings and one risk observation. On August 20th of 2013, this committee, the Environmental Quality Committee, met and requested that the Division of Waste Management provide additional follow-up responses to each finding. And then also in that meeting, the committee requested that the Office of Internal Audit do a follow-up of the responses that were received from the Division of Waste Management and just see what kind of progress was being made in terms of addressing the findings that were noted in our April audit. This report that is up on the screen was actually issued to the council, the mayor, and others on November 22nd, and it is, as we call it, a management action plan progress report. the specific purpose of us going back in was to say you had an audit and you indicated these are going to be your action plans, and so we are coming back in to see specifically how have you done in implementing your action plans. So the grid that was included in the report issued to you, you'll notice that it lists the original findings and their priorities. Finding number one, which was a high priority, noted that there were five different type of purchasing policy and procedure violations that we noted in April. The results of our action plan management review was that waste management purchasing coordinators have received instructions on how to properly complete the purchasing activity and to follow the purchasing policies. We did see some instances where purchase orders continue to be issued, though, after an invoice date. The second finding that is also included up there was expenditures recorded in the wrong fiscal year. Management had indicated that the purchasing coordinators had received instruction and an updated SOP on how to properly complete the expenditures and to post them in the PeopleSoft. Once again, we did find some 2013 invoices, and these were like April, May, and June invoices from 2013 that were charged against purchase orders that were actually created in fiscal year 14 and charged against the 2014 budget. However, in our discussions with accounts payable, who monitors this type of activity on an ongoing basis, the accounts payable supervisor did indicate to us that they did see some noticeable improvement in terms of waste management, making sure that they apply invoices against existing POs in the proper year. The next page of that report mentioned that a written policy was needed for employee uniform purchases, and we noted when we went back in in November that the division does now have a written policy as included in their SOPs. It did still need to be formally communicated to employees, and the way that management indicated they would address this was that the dispatcher would have a sign-in sheet for waste management employees that they would sign indicating their understanding of the new uniform policy as well as the fact that the boots uniforms would be included as a fringe benefit on their W-2 as required by U.S. tax law. Finding number four, which was the incorrect use of the 211-5, when we went back in, we found compliance. There were no issues, no further issues there. Finding five, where council-approved account coding was not consistently followed. This would have been like on ordinances and resolutions related to contracts. When we went back in in November, we also found they were in full compliance there, no problems. Finding six, expenditures charged to incorrect sub-department. When we went back in in November, we did identify $71,000 that was charged to the MRF that was actually incurred for refuse or yard waste collections. And so the management response to our update was, this has been discussed with all the purchasing coordinators, and this will be monitored more closely. Finding 6 relates to finding 3 on the uniform allowance which was not reported on the employee W-2s. The employees have been informed that this is a requirement and they would be signing off with the dispatcher that they understood this. And then there was a risk observation related to purchasing activity or purchasing procedures that allowed invoices to exceed the related PO. The response to that was that the procedures were changed to clarify and provide absolute lower limits to initiate change orders. We noted this needed to be better communicated, and so Purchasing issued an email in November to all purchasing coordinators making sure that they understood the changes. I also want to note that one of the original findings from the April report was where $108,000 was incorrectly charged to Urban Services Fund and should have been charged to the landfill fund, and that has been corrected with a journal entry from accounting. So kind of the report itself, I think, is about 20-some pages. But just to kind of sum it up, what we saw when we went back in in November was we did see some improvement from the original audit. Some of the areas with regard to purchasing policies that need to be followed up on. Management indicated that they would try to monitor this more closely. So we were encouraged by the improvement that we saw, along with the fact that there were still some things that needed to be tweaked. So with that, I'll open with any questions. Mr. Salley, thank you, sir. Any committee members have any questions? First up, we have Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Bruce, I know, I guess maybe my question would be for Sally Hamilton or Charlie Martin, But throughout government, when we have these audits that we, I find, you know, we get the audit and it can be alarming sometimes. So what follow-up, how can we be assured from going forward that this is going to take place, things are going to get better, we're going to keep things on a tighter rein, I guess. I think to answer your first question about the follow-up, the mayor meets with an internal audit once a quarter, and his interest, like yours, was on that follow-up, that these audits need to be, that Bruce needs to come back in to just double-check that these things have been followed up on. Bruce, I'm going to speak correctly. His board is in total concurrence with that, and they have directed that there will be follow-up on these audits. But we need to do the same thing, to not just rely on Bruce, but we need to do the same thing with our management out. I mean, we need to take this audit ourselves and know that we have done all these things. And so that when Bruce comes back again, it shouldn't be Bruce pointing out to us that we haven't given that to our employees. Absolutely. And so I think it's a two-pronged circle back. Bruce does it from an audit standpoint, and we do it from a management standpoint. Yeah, I see it as a quality control, like even if you do periodic samplings or something throughout the divisions, not just, you know, the waste management issue came up when, of course, we received the audit, but when we've had a division with these high priorities, maybe for a period of time if we could do a sampling, to make sure those controls are in place and continue to be. And I think that is totally right, and he is doing it from his audit standpoint, and I think we can do it from a management standpoint. We can look at these, and we can sample ourselves before Bruce ever gets out there that these are needed. You know, in parks, when I was in general services, in parks we had quite a few things that just because of summertime and various people collecting money, there were issues of internal control. And those just have to be refreshed continuously because the people turn over. Correct. So I think you raise a very good point. Absolutely. Thank you, Sally. Thank you, Bruce. Anyone else have any questions for Mr. Sally on the audit follow-up? I did have one question for you, or maybe Charlie or Sally probably can answer it. It seems to be a lot of communication issues that some of the SOPs were not communicated to employees. How have we corrected communication in that division, and how is it working now that we have, I guess, an acting director, and who is filtering it down? What's the normal procedure? There's a lot of questions in there. As you know, the leadership changed at the end of December. Tracy Thurman stepped in as the acting director at the beginning of January. Basically, the approach that we're taking right now is that we're trying to eliminate the filters because we see the filters as being part of the communication problem. Her and I have this ongoing understanding that every time we go to waste management, we start out downstairs and communicate with the folks in the front lines as much as we do upstairs. out of concern that maybe that because it's a two-story building, the management and administrative folks are upstairs, the operation folks are downstairs, that we need to break down some barriers that have developed over the years. I'm also reassigning one employee, a key employee in waste management, to come work in the commissioner's office. I want to have them focus in greater detail on these standard operating procedures because I didn't create these, obviously. The last management team did, and I'd like to have the opportunity to look at them a little bit more critically myself, particularly how they compare to the kind of things that we do in water quality. But then the communication part of it is going to have to be is that Tracy, myself, the operations managers, and folks having a direct communication, not, hey, I just issued a memo, everything should be fine now. There has to be a regular and ongoing communication, and as CAO Hamilton was just saying, a check and balance to ensure that those changes are actually being implemented. Well, I'm just glad to hear that we're working to improve it and to give you time. I know you've only been out there a short couple months or so, but thank you for working on it and realizing that the need to communicate with the people on the front line, I think that was missing. I think it's very important. Councilman Clark. Thank you, Chair. I'm not sure who to ask this question to, but, Bruce, perhaps you can answer this. Regarding uniforms for waste management being classified as a fringe benefit, on page 14 I think it says that uniforms are excluded from wages if they are specifically required as a condition of employment. and are not worn at adaptable general use. So what's the story there? These are required for our employees, are they not, these uniforms? It depends on the type of uniform. For example, the boots. I mean, the boots can be worn wherever. Some of the uniforms, now you may be thinking about the jumpsuits that the people on the trucks wear, but then also among the uniforms you have a lot of polo shirts, things of that nature. That they can wear in general population. Yes, exactly. Okay. So that was my question. So that happens in the general population, so that's the reason for the fringe benefit. Right. And, you know, all we're trying to do here is to make sure that if there is an IRS requirement for reporting the fringe benefits, that is followed. On the W-2. Also, if I could, Chair, I just wanted to clarify something or to add something on what Sally said earlier in regard to Council Member Henson's question. I agree with Sally that we have recognized that from time to time an internal audit has gone in and revisited an area that we previously audited. We did not see that action plans were put into place as they had been represented they would be. So one of the things that I did back last fall was when I brought the annual recommended audit plan to the Internal Audit Board, I built a lot more of these reviews into that plan for the board's review. The board agreed with it, and they approved it. So there will be a lot more of these coming back in a few months later. You said you would do A, B, C, and D. Let's see that it's been done. We'll test against it. We'll examine it and make sure that it is being taken care of. Mr. Salley, thank you. I appreciate that follow-up. Anyone else? All right. Thank you. Moving on, next on our agenda, our monthly financials. I guess Commissioner O'Mara, can you give us a brief rundown through the financial pages? Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair. And we're starting on page 45 for those watching or following along. And that is the Fund 4002, the Sanitary Sewer Operating Fund. And I do want to draw your attention to a correction that we will be making on that. The second revenue line, intergovernmental revenue, $6.8 million, is a year-to-date through December. That actually belongs in the next fund, the 403 Construction Fund. That is a reimbursement from our Kentucky Infrastructure Authority draw. And as such, that is reimbursing us for capital expenditures that we have done into our sewer project plan. It was booked into the operating fund. It should be an activity in the construction fund. So that's the one correction I wanted to draw to your attention. The rest of the information is pretty much just a snapshot of where we are six months into the year. And I would welcome any questions that you might have on the financials. Anyone have any on this page? All right, move right along. We, in addition to that, have on page 47 the Water Quality Fund. Again, that's a six-month year to date. Page 48 is the newly created construction fund for water quality so we can maintain those dollars as a separate look. And then landfill is on page 49, all through December 31st, six months ending. Very good. Any committee members have any questions on the monthly financials? I do have one. All right. And I'm not sure how best to ask this, but if we could make a brief comment on the revenues. I notice all the revenues through the first six months are above 50%, so it looks like ahead of schedule. Are revenues coming in as we projected, given the new Lexer bill and the billing system on these three funds? Funny you would ask. Or are we on target? I just want to make sure we're on target. Well, we're in the process of a pretty extensive research and verification of our collection rate, which one would think is a simple number to report. But we're having some vetting in order to make sure that the data that we're getting from Cincinnati Water, that we're interpreting it correctly. and I would like to put that on next month and show you where we are. So I don't want to comment that until I get the numbers verified, but there has been some movement in our collection rate and some things that may draw some concerns that we might want to share with you. I want to make sure I have those evaluated properly before sharing. Very good. One could assume above 50% half the year that we're on target so far. We're not losing revenue. That's my concern. And the question is, where is that coming from? Is it higher usage? Is it larger customers? Or is it an actual payment? Right. So that's what we're trying to break down. Okay. Fair enough. Anyone else have any other questions on the monthly financials? Seeing none, thank you. Last on our agenda item is items in committee. If we could run through these real quick. The capacity analysis will stay in committee for updates as we go, otherwise known as the CAP program. Waste funding options is part of the Waste Management Task Force, and we still haven't had our next meeting yet scheduled. But as we progress with finding a new director, I think that will be important in continuing our work as well. The Consolidated Greenways responsibility. Does anyone have any information on this? This has been in committee since I've been on council, honestly. but it keeps coming back to committee, and I'm not sure what we're doing to move that forward. I will tell you that a similar issue is now in planning and public works put there by Masati, whether the discussion in planning would allow you folks to take it out, but it is also in planning and public works as well. Well, Council Member Farmer, when will you all hear that item? Do you have any idea? Next month. Well, I'd hate to outperform your committee, sir. Well, you know, we can share work. It's called delegation. And if you all can hear it faster than we can. I believe we're going to have it on our agenda for next month. Well, we'll leave it here for now. We'll listen with a close ear at your committee. Very good, sir. The U.K. game day, I think, you know, maybe we can look into this and have a report back if we really need to keep that in committee and how that process is currently working. And I know Charlie Martin is working very diligently to get his hands around what's happening at Solid Waste right now, intern director. But if we can just get some closure on that item, is it working smoothly? Have we improved on it? Same way with the bulky item collection. Do we need to keep that in there? I think they're revenue related. Okay. Yes, Councilman Farmer. I would just say let's have a look at them. I mean, these did come out of the EQ link. And let's just look at what those revenue sources are. They must have been forwarded as part of the link report for a potential reason. Let's just look at that before we drop them off the committee. Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. Very good. Construction process, Councilman Myers, do we want to keep that in? Have we seen the new SOP, I think, we were looking for? Charlie's done a fantastic job of working on this, I think. Are we done? Or did you want to give an update at some point to see how it's working? We're continuing the implementation, obviously, since I'm spending less time at water quality and more here that I can't speak to it specifically. But that was codified in an ordinance, as I recall. Yes. So my folks are clear on that is that they are not just following a policy, that it is an ordinance. I think that it's the pleasure of the committee if they want to have a checkup on it, but we're doing it. I expect it to be done. Could you maybe do a random sample on some cases at some point at your convenience? and just maybe bring that back as you get a chance, but I think we can take it out of committee and just whenever you get some fill time, let him come in and update us on his random sample. So is that a motion to take it out? Yes, sir. A motion and a second to remove the Division of Water Quality Construction Process. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, we'll remove that. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Thank you. And Power Lexington, Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. We had asked people to report on an annual basis, so I don't know. It needs to stay on, but it does not need to be reviewed every month. Okay. So maybe a report section on the pending items. We'll keep your mark in it for October and get an annual report then. Great. Thank you. Let's see. Annual report on public education effectiveness. Again, that's from the link. That's been a couple years ago. Yeah, we had an update last March. Do we still need to keep it in committee? Councilman Farmer? Well, just in deference to the report we had from Keep Lexington and Beautiful, it seems like these two are the same thing. So at this point, I'd make a motion to remove this one from committee. Second. Motion by Councilman Farmer, second by Councilman Ruskay and followed by Scotchfield. Any discussion? Yeah, I spoke inappropriate. He's not a member of the committee. We got a second one. Council Member Scotchfield, then. She was following up with you. Any discussion? Council Member Henson. I guess I was thinking about Bluegrass Green Source and the contract that they have with the city to provide the educational component. So that might have been what this meant. And maybe we would like for them to also do a presentation, which they probably do. Yeah, we did that back in November. So if we could do that annually, I think that would be good, too. Thank you, Chair. Fair enough. The distillery district update. I'm sorry. We need to vote. I'm sorry. All in favor of removing the annual report on public education effectiveness, say aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. That's removed. Distillery district update. Vice Mayor, we need to keep that. I think we're waiting for another update once they've met and come to some kind of agreement. I think we got a letter today speaking of the update. So we'll keep that in committee. And then is there a motion to remove the waste management audit? Motion by Councilman Myers. Second by Councilman Scutchfield. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Okay. And any other business to come before the committee today? Okay. Thank you. We're adjourned. Thank you.