Music Thank you. Good afternoon. It is 1 o'clock and we'll go ahead and begin the budget fines committee. We have a full docket today. The first item on agenda is the December 10, 2013 committee summary. Have you all had a chance to look over it and do I have a motion to approve? We have a motion and a second by the vice mayor. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes. now I've been asked by council member about moving an item and I see council member Kay thank you chair yes if possible I'd like to I'd like to move that we move the number five the parking finance handicap zones up to the top of the agenda so we don't inconvenience citizens who are here to to speak on that issue we have a motion and second we have any discussion Council Member Stenet. And if I could also do something before we have that, because I can help clean up the agenda a little bit and make it number one. Because a couple items before that, one needs to go to the end anyway. Because the people here are. But, yeah, number three. Before, I'd like to postpone to our next meeting because we didn't have a presentation in the packet and we need more time to get it together. Okay. Do you want, let's see. Well, we've got a motion right now. Why don't we withdraw that motion and come back to you and let Council Member Stenet make that motion. I'd be happy to do that. I'll withdraw my motion. I apologize. I just wanted to help clean it up. Okay. I'll make a motion on number four to move it to our February meeting so that the administration can have time to prepare a full presentation. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, we'll move that to the February one. Thank you, Chair. Okay. And I was told that number three that they are en route, so we are going to may have to wait for them. So now I'll come back to Council Member Kay for your motion. Motion is to move number five up to the next item on the agenda. Second. And we have a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed. With that being, we'll go ahead and start with the parking fines handicap zone. It's Christy Stamble. And we have Christy Stamble. And Council Member Henson, you put this one in. And would you like to tee this one up for us, please? Thank you, Chair. Christy has prepared a presentation for this, but this is something the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities has been working on for quite some time. And a lot of work has gone into this. So I'll turn it over to Christy. And we also have Gary Means in here. And I know Gary Means had item number six, too. And I think they do dovetail somewhat to each other. so we might want to have to take these into consideration when we talk about them. Welcome, Christy. Okay, thank you. Thanks for letting us present this. I've got to tell you, I've been working on some facsimile of this for about five years, but Donnie Whitler came to us, the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities, with this specific issue, and he came to us maybe two and a half to three years. And so we've been working on this ordinance change, And our issue is primarily with signage for the access aisle and secondarily for the handicap parking citation. We've been in conversation with Lex Park all through this process, and so Gary and I have talked. So as we go through this, I wanted to show another project of the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities is we worked with planning to include the language of accessibility in the comprehensive plan just so that the city, as we move towards more livable communities, as we know that our population is getting older, that we know we need and want to serve our persons with disabilities. So I wanted to include that. Now, it is my honor and privilege. Donnie has worked on so many projects with me, and I'm thrilled that he could be here today. So Donnie is going to take over from here. Welcome. Yes, as you can see, the issues we have is vehicles to Italy parked and spaces where they shouldn't, it's, as you saw the drawing there, when I would pull my van in a spot and I'd come back out and a vehicle would be parked in the loading zone for the wheelchairs. And the guy that parked here, I waited for him, and he actually had a handicap spot or a tag. He thought that he could park there. and so i had to explain to him so wanting to put a sign there you know no parking right or maybe paint on the ground there in the with the yellow stripes that you you know it's no parking for anybody this is for you know wheelchair loading and even a you know then you have a spot next on the other side let's say it's just a car and they're getting a wheelchair out for their grandmother or themselves that they will straddle that they'll park in half of the painted area that happened there designated area and then when I let my lift down there's not enough room so it's real frustrating I'm just trying to come up with a solution Yeah, so there is the drawing I created using AutoCAD. Somehow it put a no parking sign right directly in front, just for no vehicles at all. And then maybe put a paint on the ground there where the yellow diagonal stripes are. okay so donnie actually created a youtube video on um the problem and what he had to do prior to coming to the commission and i think he still carries an orange cone in your van don't you and so he kind of self marks that um access lane so that a car can't get in there because he owns his own business and needs to conduct business and needs to get to his appointments like everyone else and so it's a source of frustration one time somebody took my cone i come back out So I got an invention maybe. The back of my van, like an antenna would come out, drop the sign, no parking. I don't know. I'm trying to come up with it. Just imagine you come out to your vehicle with your groceries and it's raining and you can't leave. So he came up with that wonderful solution. We talked about could we just paint and not erect a sign? and because it snows here, that one was quickly. And then Donnie says, well, let's just put heated coils under the access line because that would make it easier for him to get in and out of his vehicle and many other people who rely on transportation like Donnie does. And so we took this. The commission said, I'm a little Pollyanna, and I said, oh, this will be easy. So I met with Don Blevins, and Don Blevins is here with the county clerk. And I said, Don, what do you think about this? Because the handicap placards are issued out of his office. I said, could we just include a drawing like this? And he says, yes, we will do whatever you want us to do, but I've got to tell you that they kind of get a lot of paper when they get their handicap placards. So he said, we need something more powerful. And I said, well, Donnie did this YouTube video. So GTV3 worked with us, and I think we sent you the link. Jill Barnett is the chairperson for the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities. And there's been a video, and it's called Where Not to Park, The Problem and the Solution, and it's on the commission's website. So Donnie and I reshot the video that he had done with GTV3, and then we put a solution. We ended up presenting this to the Celebration of Disability Expo, and we got about 77 respondents who gave us feedback on what solution would be beneficial to them. And the people that came to that conference were, by and large, persons with disabilities or caregivers of that population. So this is kind of what we came for. So we come to you today to ask for ordinance language change and amendment to the Handicap Parking Sign Ordinance. And we've drafted it. We sent that in the packet. And basically what we're saying is that we would like to erect a sign in front of the access aisle that says no parking anytime. We would like to have painted in the hash line no parking anytime. And instead of the no parking anytime, which is typically blue, to be either yellow or white. because what Donnie has witnessed a lot is that the persons who violate this are persons who have a handicap placard because either there's not another spot or they think that it is a handicap spot. And if you can see from that picture, it's confusing because there's a handicap parking sign right in front of that loading area. So this is kind of a problem citywide, and this might pose a solution. So the commission then further went to Lex Park, and we said, would you help us with this? And they said, absolutely, we would. And so we would like to, in the ordinance, ask businesses, as new construction occurs in the city, that they be in compliance with this handicap parking sign ordinance. And then for businesses that exist, any time that they upgrade, improve, or reconfigure their parking lots, that they become in compliance then. So further, we said, gosh, that might take five to ten years, and we want this to be a livable community today. So we approached Lex Park, and they're going to offer us a grant for the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities. And this grant is going to help us be able to go to businesses and ask if they would like to be in compliance sooner than is required. And we, the commission, would help them to offset the cost of coming into compliance with the new ordinance. So that's this part of the whole conversation. So then as we were starting this, we said, gosh, I wonder why there seems to be so many violations of handicap parking in this city. And what is the current fee? Well, the current fee for handicap parking in our city is $15. So then we had the University of Kentucky Disabled Student Services, Jake Carnes is on our committee. And he did some benchmarking, and you can see here the cities around us or cities of like size that have different citation rates. So we, the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities, are proposing in ordinance change again, or an amendment to the ordinance, that the minimum parking fine be raised to at least $150, or whatever the council chooses. but certainly we would hope more than $15. And so here's where we've been and where we're going. So we approved, we already went to the Lexington Parking Authority and had conversations with them and met with their board. And again, they offered us a grant, which is wonderful. We're here before you today asking for the amendments to the ordinance. Next, it would go for council approval. And then we know that when there's an enforcement issue, which would be the citation part of it, that it has to be enacted for 60 days. So during the implementation stage, the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities would work with Lex Park and the county clerk to create an awareness campaign to let everybody know. Don Blevins, again, who's in the audience and we appreciate him, is willing to let us communicate directly with the Fayette County residents who currently possess handicapped placards or handicapped parking license plates to let them know one of the ordinance change and two of the fine increase. And then we'll continue with the educational campaign. We'll purchase some signs. Then in April, we'll approach businesses. And we'll approach the businesses that we know that our consumers with disabilities are having more difficulty than others accessing parking. And Donnie's been instrumental in giving us these lists. And many of the other constituents that work with the commission on a regular basis have helped us. And then we would provide the businesses with approved signage. Anybody have questions? We have a list of council members that have questions. Do you want to hear from Gary Means on this, or do we want to go questions first and then come to Gary Means? All right, let's go to questions. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Christy and Donnie. How much is your grant? What LexPerk has agreed to is $10,000 this fiscal year and $10,000 in July for a total of $20,000. We anticipate for a business to come in compliance, it's not more than $250 per spot. So kind of what we're hoping is that we'll approach a business and say we'll go half with you. So if you would improve your parking signs before it's required, we will help offset the cost. Okay. And then you said you're developing a list of businesses. This is for throughout Fayette County, correct? That's correct. And we would approach every business, but we know where some of our constituents frequent the most and have the most difficulty accessing handicap parking spots and this issue that Donnie is talking about. Okay. And is it a possibility, and I don't know the legal part of this, and I think your idea is great, by the way, the signage. and is there a possibility of towing someone who's in the zone? I don't know. I think that would go to public safety. The police, I don't really know the answer to that. Currently the issuance of handicap violations, handicap parking violations, is quite low, and I think that it's a ticket, and then if the ticket goes unpaid, it probably would fall, and Gary can answer this better, into the Lex Parks purview of however they handle people who continuously violate. We kind of had talked, and Jillian Beard's on the committee too, or the commission too, and we kind of talked about graduated fees. Okay. Well, I think it's a really good idea, and perhaps, you know, the grant, maybe you can get enough businesses through the grant that will agree to have these, that it'll be pretty countywide for the places that people use. So thank you for your work on this. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thanks for having me. Did you have something you wanted to add? No, I was just thanking you for letting us come up here. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for recognizing me. I'm not a member of the committee, so thank you for letting me speak. did you guys think about raising the fee to $250 or $300? We would gladly accept any fee that the council saw fit. We had long discussions. We looked again at the benchmarks of other cities. The mean was $124. I think Louisville is $100. Cincinnati is $250. So we kind of wanted to land somewhere in the middle. But we, the commission, as long as it's more than $15, we would be happy with the pleasure of council. Right. And I think that's part of what the other discussion is going to be and I think Gary Means is here. We can kind of come up I think working the two together to come up with I think appropriate fine. Okay. I just want to make one other comment. When Mr. Means came and presented his schedule to the council a year or so ago that was the first question I asked is why is the handicap parking $15? I think everything is kind of $15 across the board. And as this committee knows, I was working with Mr. Means to change the fee if you park in front of a fire station. And we've got some pretty serious situations that are going on at one of our fire stations that's also in front of a school. And the fire truck has to back in and out five or six times. It takes five or six minutes extra to leave the station. And so I encourage us to move this to 250 and go forward with it. And so I think we ought to do everything we can do to make this real. Thank you. Council Member Stanton. Thank you, Chair. How does it work? Is this the same for public and private property? So if someone violated the handicapped parking at Fayette Mall or Walmart, is that the same penalty as this will be? Yes. Because I know some of them, they're labeled $300. I think that, and I can't truly speak to this, but Rick Curtis is from Public Safety, and he was on the committee with us. And so if the police officers write it as a traffic citation, the fee, which is $250, goes to the state, of which the county gets less than 2%. Okay. And if it's written as a parking citation, the dollars stay local. But the police still write both of them. Yeah, the police write, and Lex Park writes on public, the streets that they monitor. Right, so Lex Park would just monitor downtown, basically. Right, and then part of the campaign, too, is for us to approach the roll calls for police and let them know about the ordinance change and ask for a little bit of enforcement. Well, I think consistency in how we write it is important, whether it be a local citation, a parking, i.e. parking, or the state citation. I'm not sure what the difference is and how they choose to write one or another. Does anyone know? We've got Gary Means in back. I know Gary can answer this for you. How does the police determine which one to write, if you're at Walmart in Hamburg or at Fet Mall or somewhere? Well, I can't answer how they determine, but I can describe the differences. So they've got the one pad that they would use if they're going to write a speeding citation, and on that pad is this ADA or handicap violation at 250. If they write out of their parking pad, all of our citations are 15. So I'm not sure, can't speak for the police on why they might choose one or the other. But the moving violation one is the $250,000. And like Christy said, most all of that goes to the state. But on this, if we change it to $150,000, how much goes back to the city? All local parking citations that are written go through the Lex Park. They're paid through Lex Park. So we would keep those fines and put them to the work of the parking program, which is the reason why the board decided to do a grant rather than sort of track this. Because really what everyone's going to hope is that it keeps people from doing it, and there's hardly any citations written because nobody wants $150 or $250. So we just wanted to do the grant as a flat way to help. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out how our police have been writing it. If they've been writing the $15 ones, obviously it's not working. But if they've been writing the $250 and people are still violating it, I go back to what Councilman Myers says, maybe that's not enough. Right. I think typically they're writing the police here. I like to hear part of their conversation what education they'll do going forward and which one they're going to write. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mine was about on page 30, talking in May, but you may have addressed this, Christy, already. Commission provides businesses with approved signage and assist with the cost of restriping. So that's where your two $10,000 components come in, right? That's correct. So we got the price that under a city contract we would expect to pay for parking striping in a lot. And so what we're saying is we already purchased the stencil, so we would provide them with the stencil that says no parking anytime, and then we would offset the cost with the use of the grant. So a business would say we're going to upgrade six of our parking spots, and we, the commission, would say we're going to go in with you halfway. So in essence, we would pay for three spots to be improved, and the business would pay for three. Does the stencil look similar to the? It's the street stencil. I mean, there's a lot of stuff. Yes, yes, yes. It says no parking anytime, but it's in whatever font is required by streets and roads kind of things. And then, Mr. Chair, would it be okay to kind of go over these figures in the ordinance on page 34? You know, I thought when we got done with this that we would also bring that, because I think they dovetail each other, and I think it would be good to hear both of them, and then we can decide what we want to do on pricing and expectations. For this particular issue is what I'm saying? Yes. Okay. Very good. So after we get done with the question, I was going to go to Gary Means and have him present. Thank you. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. I'm not a member of the committee either, Christy, but a couple of questions. We're talking about how long it would take to make this happen. Why do we give them that long to correct this? We wanted to be, we really didn't want this to be a controversial issue, that it was going to cost the businesses or maybe impede the businesses from choosing Lexington as a place to continue to do business. So we wanted to provide a little bit of flexibility. Again, the pleasure of the council is totally okay with us. The sooner the better, but we didn't want to put any businesses under undue hardship or ask them to do something that wasn't on their radar currently. So it was more of a, you know what, this is kind of the right thing to do, and so we hope that we approach the businesses and let them know about this, that many of the businesses will just do it and won't need our financial assistance. But for those that this might help them to be in compliance sooner, that's what we were thinking. Personally, I'd like, this can't be a huge expense for a major business that does this. And so I would think the sooner the better. We just make it part of the ordinance. The other question that I have, is there a way, if and when we change the price, is there a way for a driver to know that if they park there, the fine is going to be $150 or whatever? Is that part of the sign? Through the educational campaign, we can do that. The ADA does not require that you post, because if you go to some of the local businesses, there's a little sign that says maximum fine, whatever. The ADA doesn't require that we do that. We didn't put that into our expenses, but we hope that through the educational campaign, and we kind of anticipate with the funding or the grant from Lex Park to actually buy commercial airtime to let the community know that this thing has changed. Of course, the people we really don't want to harm is the people who have legal handicap placards. And so working with Don Blevins and the county clerk, kind of alerting them ahead of time that this is coming, that whole population of people who can legally park in those handicap-designated spots will further understand that that spot's not available and that the fee has been increased. Right. I think the people who come from out of the county, they're not going to be part of the educational campaign, and so it seems like to me somehow we need to tell them that they are in big trouble if they park there, and we want your money, you know. Right. If you look at the handicap thing by the state, a handicap traffic citation, however the language is, and it's kind of weird, it is $250. So that's out there to the world to know, that if it's a state citation, the fee is $250 for parking in a handicap parking spot. What we kind of anticipate is that compliance has been low because maybe the fee's only been $15, and so for our people who are writing the citations, that could be an issue. All right. Thank you, Christy. Appreciate it. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I think one thing we could do is when we put those no-park, we could put on the bottom that maximum of $250 or whatever we decide. I think that will allow people who aren't from here, who haven't got part of that education, we'll see, and I think that will certainly deter people. I think at this point it would help us if we go ahead and have Gary Means talk on number six on the parking fines, because they kind of dovetail each other, and that way we can kind of work at these together. Okay. Shall Donnie and I stay available to you? Sure. Yeah, please. Welcome. Quickly, I can explain the difference so you can kind of separate these two. that whole presentation does require an ordinance and a change in the ordinance to be able to pull off and move forward with that program. What our numbers represent and what we really were coming back to you all with was just a report out of the study that we did and what our board adopted as the figures that we would change to. I can't remember what page that is, but it's that horizontally set up. Page 38. Right. It doesn't require any action by council because we're not exceeding $100 in any of these. The parking authority has been given the authority to make these kind of decisions on our own. We basically were just coming back because Council Member Myers had asked us to take a look at it. And we did this study and come up with some changes in safety-related violations. Can we put that up on the Granicus, please, if you don't mind, so people in there? Audience can see. What you'll see when you look at that is safety-related violations, parking too close to a crosswalk, blocking things, parking in the wrong direction, but more seriously inhibiting fire department traffic in and out of the fire departments and fire lanes is really important. So nothing to do with meters or anything like that. Nothing to do with what? We did not do any increases on, like, meter violations over time. Those are all staying at 15. So probably two-thirds of the citations, or at least half, were keeping at 15. So you'll see the ones that jumped up from 15 to 40 or 30 or 35. Some of those figures down through there are all related to safety, either traffic flow or pedestrian safety. And then the two larger fines of up to 100 are within 15 feet of the fire hydrant and then within 20 feet of the fire station. So we're really just reporting that that's the action we want to take. And have these taken into effect yet? No. What we'll probably do is first of the fiscal year, July 1, because we want to do public awareness as well before we do something like this. And I see the very bottom one says TBD. That was the one that we were dealing with. Exactly. So right when we were doing this, we were taking a look at it. We knew that that program was coming out of that commission. And did you all have a number that you all would recommend to us, to the committee? You know, I really hear what a couple of our council members said earlier, you know, the higher the better. But at the same time, you set yourself up for scrutiny no matter what you do when you increase. So, you know, somebody's not going to like any form of increase. So if it's 150 or 250, I don't really feel like there's a big difference. But you all didn't have any kind of agreement on a number? No, I mean, I agreed that it probably should be 250, which is what the state already was, but we didn't come up with a figure. Okay, good. Because we knew it was going to require an ordinance change, and everything else we were doing there wasn't. Thank you. Okay, we do have some questions. Councilman Farmer. Mr. Means, welcome. Thank you for your work. Thank you very much. I just want to ask you about four of these changes that end up being more than the non-Lysington average, because I'm just interested in all the others came in under the Lexington Average, but in one, two, three, four, five cases, you've made changes to beyond the average. The first one is under, although on our sheet, just so you know, most of these words on the very left-hand side are cut off. So on here it just says ER, but I think up there it says Other. So Other went from 15 to 35, which is the average was only 25. Give me a capsulization of what Other is. Other is something that we've had to create here locally. when the police write on a handwritten parking citation booklet, there may not be the choices on there. Typically, it's because of signs that prohibit that type of parking. So if it doesn't fall under a category that they can check on that book, then when we're keying it into our system, we use the category of other. But it's, again, not meter-related. It's something safety-related, something to do with blocking or parking incorrectly. All right. And then the next one down is not parallel to curb, which this gets into. Yes, I'm bringing it up because going from 15 to 35 is above the average of non-Lexington. But this gets into a conversation you and I have had about some of the authorship of some of these tickets in a business parking setting like Chevy Chase, where we begin to edit for style rather than content. If it's not parallel to the curb, what problem? If it's inside the line but not parallel, or how does that become so egregious? The interpretation of that would be parking outside the line. I mean, if you're inside the line and you're not parallel to the curb, it's really about being 12 inches or more away from the curb. And actually, we train our folks, and they take pictures with every citation. Yes, they do. Probably with some people, too. If anyone feels like, you know, that was a really picky, they can always take a look at the picture and take it to an appeal process. But what we're really looking at there is if you're so far off the curb or not parallel to the curb, you could be inhibiting traffic. So if someone needed to swerve around you, then they could go into the other lane. All right. We look at that as a safety violation. The next one, I guess, is within 15 feet of a fire hydrant, going from 15 to 100, which is above the average. That one is just the mere fact that it's a safety violation. If a fire truck was trying to hook onto a hydrant and a car was there, it could really mean life safety issues. And we felt like it's just, in communicating with Council Member Myers as well, one of those kind of issues where you really want to put the penalty in a place where it makes folks make different decisions before they park. And so I take it from earlier remarks you made, that becomes the highest rate you can charge. Yes. All right. So you found the same thing to be true of within 20 feet of a fire station? Same thing, going from 15 to 100? Same exact scenarios. And the average is around 57. And lastly, what is it? Over 12 inches from the curb. This is another style one. This goes from 15 to 35 when the average is 28. But obviously you're trying to get people, I just, sometimes I think we're, sometimes what you do can be considered a little subjectively picky, but I guess you've heard that before in different words. Yes, sir. And somebody's got to do it, right? Well, you're getting paid for it, yeah. I would say it's obvious we have very little say in this at this point, although personally the ones of these that are on here that go above what would be the averages of the others, I might not personally support, but I do understand the theorem behind them. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Gary. I guess some of these violations are more common than others, correct? Yes. So I would think in those cases it would be just like with the handicapped parking. it, in my opinion, should be definitely increased. So because of the harm it does to some of our citizens, and I was thinking about the neighborhoods, for instance, other. You and I talked about parking in the front yard or side yard. It's an epidemic in a lot of areas. People just disregard that. And so it would be increased from $15 to $35. The parking in a yard is not listed here. That's private property parking. So that's a little different. This is all public right-of-way. Right. This whole list. So we don't have, that's not in our purview. So if we, I know that we got the email from the police that said it was okay with them because they do use the Lex Park citation and they mark other and then list what the violation was. So parking in the front yard, as far as the police is, would be, the fine would be under the other category, right? I think so, but it may make really good sense to describe it better, and especially if you're going to make an ordinance change possibly related to the ADA violations, maybe that could be something to be added. So it can, we can use the other category, and then there's that increase right there. But it may be a good thing to just add that into the text. I mean, I know for a fact that they're using it. I've seen them. So, no, it wasn't my ticket. No, you're right. They do use that. That's not something we would be able to use, but they do use that. And I've had officers tell me, you know, well, I'll write the ticket if it's only $15. So if they write the ticket now and we make these changes, it would become $35. Yes, ma'am. All right. Thank you, Gary. Thank you. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. Gary, a couple of questions. Both fire station and a fire hydrant violation, considerable increase in the fine. Yes, sir. You can't park at a hydrant, but how close. I mean, 20 feet is a pretty good distance. Is there any plans to paint the curb so people will know automatically you can't park there? You're making a great point, and right now I'd say it's kind of a mixed bag. There are some hydrants that don't have any coloring, but most of them have the yellow, and parking at a yellow line is pretty commonly known that you're not supposed to do that. I think it would make sense to couple that with making sure they get marked or not enforced until they're marked. I'll give you a good example. There's a fire hydrant in my side yard right beside my driveway, about five feet. So theoretically I can't park my car in the driveway. But I won't worry too much about that. But I do have another question. Sure. When we say on an ADA sign, the sign is a maximum of, and you say 150 or 250, whatever, that implies that the fine might be less than that. Yeah, I was thinking that when that verbiage. I think somebody should look into what the verbiage really should be. I don't know that maybe it's a minimum of whatever the figure is that you all come up with. Or a fine is $150, period. You know, if you said a minimum, it allows you to increase it, but then again, at some point if that was done, you probably would want to change the sign anyway. So maybe just what it is ought to be on the sign. Something we ought to consider. Thank you very much, Gary. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. We'll contact the police and make sure and let them check your driveway here for you here. Okay. Councilman Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Gary, for coming in today. I just want to talk just a little bit again about how we arrived at those numbers for parking in front of a fire hygiene or parking in front of a fire station in particular. There's a situation over at Maxwell Elementary School, there's a fire station right across the street, And I was over there one day, and the fire engines went off, the alarms went off, and the trucks left. And when everybody came out of the school, the trucks were coming back. And I noticed that there was a firefighter standing there waiting to talk to some people who had parked on a yellow in front of a fire hydrant that said no parking. And so I kind of sat across the street and watched him talk to people, and then I went over and talked to him, because I saw the trucks pull up and back in, and it didn't look like there was that big of an issue. And he said the issue isn't coming back in, it's leaving. So they've got a ladder truck there that when that truck comes out, they have to hit their front tires on the other side of the double yellow line before they can even begin to turn the steering wheel to get out into the street. So when you park a car there, they simply can't get out. And so either that or you take the back of the truck off or you take the side of the building off. So they sit there and back up, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to get the truck out. So another time I was going up that street, I saw the regular engine come down, and then it took four or five minutes later, then the ladder truck comes down. And I went over and talked to them, and they said it was that same issue. There was a car parked there. And so we worked with Fayette County Public Schools, and we've done some things over there, and there's some signage we did over there and other things. We actually put, and I wish I had the pictures here today, but we actually had traffic engineering come out, Fayette County Public Schools got together, and we looked at what kind of mitigation we could do there to put a physical barrier from people parking there. But if you put too much of a physical barrier, then you still have the same situation. The truck can't get out. Well, we did all that work. The parents still park. It's marked yellow. It's got the yellow poles that are sticking in the ground. They just pull out and park right next to them and get out and go into school. And so with a $15 parking fee, it doesn't matter. People are doing U-turns there, coming out and picking up their kids and dropping them off. We had a motorcyclist get hit by someone doing a U-turn. So what we wanted to do was we tried the physical piece, mechanical piece. That didn't change behavior. So now we wanted to change behavior by making the fine higher. And this isn't raising taxes. It's not raising fees. This isn't a fee. This is a penalty for breaking the law. And as long as you don't break the law, you won't have to pay it. And so I hope the council will support this. I understand that we do things for a reason and we have transparency and we have all this talk about it. But to me, some of these things are just simple. It ought to be that way. This gentleman shouldn't have had to come in and talk about the parking situation for handicapped parking. It should have just been done. And so I fully support what you're doing. Again, this isn't raising fees or anything. It's the penalty to change behavior for people who break the law. And so I hope the council will fully support this. We also want to put signage up that says if you park there, not only will you get this fine, but if you're there long enough, your car's going to be gone when you come out because we've got the sign up that's got the tow truck towing the car away. And so it's a matter of public safety. You know, if somebody's mom is having a heart attack or somebody's child's having an asthma attack and that fire truck takes five extra minutes to get out of the parking lot, we've got a problem. And we've got liability issues for the city, too. So I hope that we'll support this. I don't think they're exorbitant. I think we need to do some things to change behavior and push this through. Thank you very much. It's my understanding that you all can do this without our input, but the one at the bottom is the one that at the end we'll have to make a motion if we want to change that, correct? Yes. Okay. We still have a couple of council members. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. I want to thank Christy and Donnie, first of all, for your suggestions. And I think that when the solutions come from those affected and impacted, that that's the most meaningful. And I think that I've seen it myself in the loading zone being blocked. So I'm glad to see that change. And then, Gary, to Council Member Myers' point, my son also went to Maxwell, and I still pick him up there from Bryan Station Middle and see this problem every day. So my question is, I don't know that anyone has ever received a ticket in front of Maxwell for parking in the fire zone or in a lot of places outside of the downtown area. So is it who, where's the enforcement, I guess, is my question. I mean, I think if we had an officer or parking person that was there at the time school lets out or within that hour, just, you know, handing out a few tickets maybe for a week, that we might see a behavioral change. And so I don't know if we raise the fine to $100, if there's no one there giving the tickets, then they're still going to continue to park there. I think Mr. Myers wanted to help answer that question, I believe. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we have done that, and there have been many tickets written. We've had selective enforcement out there for much of this school year. Oh, good. And there have been police there. They're writing tickets for doing U-turns. They're writing tickets for doing three-point turns. They're writing tickets for parking. And so they're doing all that stuff. and we've gone to the neighborhood, not to the neighborhood, but the PTA meetings. We put that on the agenda so people knew. We've talked about it. The principal said the nine years she's been there, she's been dealing with this, and nothing changes. So when you talk to the firefighters that sit in the station, I mean, I've seen it. And they said it's almost a daily occurrence that someone's parked there, that they've got to back that truck up five or six times to get it out. We've got to change this. There's also a station on Jefferson that, with Jefferson as congested as it is becoming now also, that's a question, too, to make sure we get those curbs painted and that we notify people who visit the area to know not to park. And, again, I think, like, as Councilmember Clark said, the 15 feet or the 20 feet or whatever the distance is, that we need to paint the curbs to that extent as well. And then, Gary, one more about the fire lane is only $50. And so I guess that's like in front of businesses and Kroger, for example, right? Because at first I thought, why wouldn't that be the $100 also? But I guess it's not as an emergent public safety issue. And those are typically red, and they're on private properties. I think part of getting those businesses open, they're required to do that. Okay. And the police enforce that. Well, I would also support the increasing the handicap parking fine. And so just let you know. Thank you. Thank you. I think when we get done this, we'll probably have a motion from Council Member Henson, I would think, to increase that fine. Council Member Farmer. So, Mr. Chair, really, I guess, in looking at the packet, everything on page 38 is just something the parking authority has already done with the exception of the very last item in the column. I think that's correct. That's kind of an information that they're bringing back to us, and the only one that we can really, I think, do anything with is the last item on the agenda of that sheet. We haven't actually. We've just adopted those figures, but we haven't rolled it out, and we'll make sure we do a good job with getting some press release and trying to do some public awareness and some warnings before we actually write this. And you say probably for the next fiscal year, so July 1 is when they'll go into effect, you would think? Yeah, that's what we've talked about. We haven't officially made the decision, but I think that would make the most sense. So then the only thing we would have the ability to say so over would be the proposed ordinance that is on page 34. That's correct. May I ask questions about that at this time? Certainly. I think these both dovetail each other, so I think this would be the appropriate time. Item D. Any person who shall violate the provisions of Section 18-69 of this chapter shall be fined not less than $25, no more than $500, or imprisoned for not less than three days, or more than six months, or fined or both and imprisoned. Give me the background on the $500 here. Christy, do you want to answer this one, or Gary? I'm right here, Gary. I think that's an ordinance that already exists. I think if I remember correctly, when we sent to the law department, we were asking for the language on one of the very last fines on the bottom page, and I'm just visualizing it out of memory, and it says a fine not less than $15 and up to $200. So if the pleasure of the council is to make it $250, we would need to further change that amendment to the ordinance. So the $500 one, I think, is an ordinance that's been in practice for a very long time, and I don't really know more than that. I see the law department's back there. Commissioner, there's no one behind you. You can't look backwards. You're it. I wish there were. Oh, there is it. Come on, David. She's looking for a backup here. I have him here for a reason. I'll have to look because we pulled the parking authority ordinance today to look at the range. And so we need to know if we can go up. How far did you all want to go up with that one? What was the question? Well, we talked at 250, I think, was the number that had been brought up. Well, it was mentioned by Council Member Myers, but the point of the committee's discussion is to make a decision or two here. Right. We can try and check that quickly, but I will have to do a little legal research on that before I can tell you. I guess if this were an old ordinance we were editing, so to speak, there would be an underlined version. I don't see anything underlined here, which tells me it's all new. That part is correct. The subsection in your all's packet would be a new subsection added to the ordinance. May I ask just one more on the next page? Certainly. This one is in item I, and this one says, Any person who shall violate any provision of section 118-113.3 shall be fined not less than 25, nor more than 200, which I think this is the point where I'm trying to make the difference between what's been proposed and what we may decide to do. However, if any parking citations remain unpaid for more than 10 working days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, as from the date thereof, the fines shall be not less than 50 nor more than 200 again. And I'm just interested in where these figures came from before we were back. I guess, Council Member Henson, did you bring this forward, and who with the Law Department drafted this? I know the answer to that. It was Mike Sanner, and he had an ABC hearing today, so he could not be here today. That's why we're all serving for Mike. But, you know, I think the ordinance does include a range, and so I think if it's within that range, it would just be if you wanted to go above. I might get that. And what would be the maximum we could go that state law would allow? 250. 250. Is that? Okay. I didn't know the answer to that. Okay. Okay. Just a thing. I may come back to make a motion on this ordinance, maybe making a change into it as it's been proposed. But for now, I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for all your work on this. Obviously, with a minor fine, I don't think people have as much of a deterrent, and money usually gets to the root of getting people to change behavior. The one thing that I do ask, I know Council Member Akers and Council Member Myers mentioned issues with schools. I know this past year we had an event at this school in my district where probably about 50 to 75 citations were handed out where people had parked on the street outside the school. I want to make sure that we roll this out so that people are aware of changes, and we try to do it uniformly. and I understand the complaints that the people had at the school because for seven years they've parked on that street and never been cited. And to all of a sudden have 75 people come out of a school assembly celebrating kids' achievements and have citations, it did not go over very well. So I think making sure that we do it consistently around the city. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, something like that. We might give a warning or a probationary period just to let them know that next time it's coming. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I've had a question for our legal folks who are in a powwow back there. Do I understand that one of the issues about the range that you're going to look at is do we have to have a range, or do you know that already? could we just, for example, set the fine at $250 for the handicap violation? I think you would have the authority to do, yeah, you could set just a fine. I think the question on the $250 was we just wanted to make sure we're within state law, which Christy thinks we are. Okay. We haven't verified that yet, but I trust her on that. Okay. Okay, and then do you know legally, or maybe, Gary, you know, I think I heard Mr. Myers say that the work with parking near the fire station at the school had signage that had tow zone on it. You said there was a tow truck, and it indicated that it could be towed. So is that something we could use with handicap parking also? I think that's a legal question. I know that the existing ordinance has a provision for towing, and I want to say it's in 113, what's in the penalty part of that, but I believe it's I'd have to look to see if you could add that to the other sections. I haven't looked at that. And I guess my thinking then would be if there was support for it to take away the range and set a 250 fine, and then after, if someone got two of these or three of these, then they could be towed. I mean, my thinking is that the violation of the handicapped parking space is a huge violation in my mind. That's one of the worst. And so I think we need to make this very, very strict. It may be beneficial if you make a motion, if you're going to go with the $250, say that the fine would be $250, or you may be subject to towing. So you could then adopt a practical policy within that if you want to do two times, three times. You'd still have the ability to do both at any point, whatever you want to. Okay, so you think legally we could do both? I've seen other ordinances that we have that say either or. Okay. Well, that is, I would advocate for that. I'm not sure what the motion is going to be that you're going to bring, Council Member Henson, but I think taking away the range would say we're really, this is important to us, and we don't want to let you off easy. and then possibly making the tow zone part of it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I think Council Member Henson's prayer will be making a motion. It looks like, though, we do have some issues with law that I was hoping we'd get done today, and maybe we can. But if you want to bring a motion, but we might have to wait until next month to get this finalized. But I'll let you go ahead and see what you want to do. Well, and I was prepared to make a motion. but if the council would prefer to wait until we've done. But the commission recommended 150 as a fine, and I agree with the vice mayor that if it's a chronic violation that a person's making, then it should be increased. So if we could, I will make a motion that the fine be set at $150 up to $250. So moved. Is that it? Second. We have a motion and a second to make it $150 up to $250. Now we have the floor open for discussion. Vice Mayor, I know you had said that you'd like to make it $250. So Council Member Farmer. So would this impact on page 34, section D? So section D would be any person who shall violate the provisions of section 18-69 of this chapter shall be fined not less than $250 nor more than $500? Her motion was for $150 to $250, wasn't it? So that would make it be fine not less than $150, nor more than $250. And then the rest of it would remain the same. Then one more. So that would be D that we would be changing. And the only reason I had made this suggestion maybe we come back is that we could have a clean ordinance that can be brought back from law. I think it would probably be helpful. But if we can get this done now, I'm all for moving it forward. Well, I believe with the change she has suggested, if there are votes for that, that's a good change to this potential ordinance, 150 to 250. My question was going to be, how would that play in item I? Would we adopt the same of not less than 150 nor more than 250 there? I mean, I don't see the subtle distinction between those two, but they're listed separately here. Can we have some help from law on making sure that when we do this ordinance... That would be an aye on page 35. Yes, sir. And I'm sorry, what was the... This was just the second part. Item I, any person who shall violate any provision of Section 118-113.3 shall be fined, and I think we're looking at, by not less than $150 nor more than $250. However, if any parking citation remains unpaid for more than 10 working days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, from the date thereof, the fine shall be. I mean, I guess this is where I guess I'm trying to decide what's best. Or if we leave this like it is and just go with the change that Council Member Henson outlined in number C, or number D, excuse me. So this is just for people who have gone unpaid then, from 50 to no more than 200. All right. So if we leave that one alone, then I think what Council Member, did Council Member Henson make an amendment to her motion? She has not. She just made it $150 up to $250. And I guess one other question. I see Mr. Barber here who's come from the back row. The idea, just so I can clarify Council Member Farmer's question, I think the idea of the second part of I is to give you an incentive to pay it. Okay. You pay more money. I mean, if you fail to pay it within the time frame that's elaborated here, it doubles the minimum five. That's why that's in here. We have that in a lot of different instances in the civil fine context where we give someone an incentive that if they go ahead and take care of it, they pay a lesser amount of money. If they don't, then it ends up being a higher amount of money. Thank you. Mr. Schrapp. I guess the other one that you talked about was number D, and it also talks about six months imprisonment, too. Which one are you on? D. Number D. Page 34. D already exists. My understanding is, just for clarification, my understanding is the only part that doesn't exist today is I. Everything else in the ordinance number, the blank ordinance in front of you all, My understanding is all these other sections already exist on the books today. And what was added on here is Section I. Everything else is actually on the books already. See, that usually helps us because we like to see what's the new, what's changed. Yeah, I would have liked to have seen an underlying copy myself. Right. But my understanding from talking to the people that were involved in this is that Section I is the only section that is new to you all for you all to consider at this point in time. And that's all we need to actually change in the ordinance, you think? That's correct. Unless you all have some other issue with how the ordinance reads now, that would be the only section that you would need to change. And section one, for further clarification, section 113.3, which is already codified, it deals with the vehicle parked in the designated handicap parking slot on a public street or an off-street parking facility. And at what finding level? It doesn't have the fine. The fine would be laid out as proposed it would be in I. The actual violation itself is just laid out currently in 113.3. May I continue? My time is up. We're almost up. So actually what we're being asked to do is to codify I, but potentially make changes to all of this section if we so desire. I think that they were comfortable proceeding with the existing language on all of these other fines you're talking about. But once you get above that $100 mark, there's no authority under the existing ordinance, absent there being another change by you all, to go above that level, the $100. And I'm okay with what's going on there. I'm just trying to get back to the legislation, what I consider to be before us at this time. And I like what Council Member Henson had said and was going to try to make a motion to that end to change D to be not less than $150 but no more than $250. So I would make that as an amendment at this time. We'll see if we get a second or not. Well, I think that was the motion. Is that what she said? The motion was $150,000, no more than $250,000. Then you will agree with that. Okay. Then you'll vote for that. That's what you're saying. I think I'm on board. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gorton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to go back to the amount of money. And I respect that the commission brought $150. I respect the work that was done to bring that. However, I think that's not enough. I think that this needs to be a stiff enough fine that people won't do it ever. and so I would go ahead and make a motion to amend the motion and not include a range but to bring this back with a fine of $250. We have a motion second by Council Member Beard. Do we have any discussion on the amendment? Council Member Myers and then Council Member Farmer. This would be the subsection I, correct? That would be correct. Okay. What do you think? Councilman Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with this amendment. I'm not on the committee, but I just want to voice my agreement with this. And I think another thing this does is make everything consistent so that you don't have one person getting the $100 fine and someone else gets a $125 fine and people asking what was the difference. It was the same type of parking violation. So I think this is a great amendment, and I support it. Thank you. Councilman Farmer. So the effect of the amendment would be to change the verbiage in aye to remove the range from $25 to no more than $200 in both places and just replace it with $250, period. Correct. Correct. Thank you. Any further discussion on the amendment? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? No. We have one no. That passes. And now on the original motion, as amended, do we have any discussion on that? I don't see anything. So all those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes. And I will read that out next Tuesday. and in the interim we should be able to get an ordinance from the law department, correct? Do you all want us to look at the towing issue still? Council Member, Vice Mayor? I think it's probably likely we can come up with an answer to the towing issue by then. I would think that might be something we'd want to see. And I can have that. When I read out, you can bring that to us when I bring that issue up and we can discuss it if we're in the full council then. Thank you so much. And we do have some other people that are still on here. Council Member Farmer? Would you like a motion on the signage issue, ordinance change? It's on page 32. And if so, I would move to approve it as tender. So moved. Second. We have a motion on the ordinance on page 32, and we have a second on the signage. Do I have any discussion on that? I see some. Council Member Henson? No, I was going to like a second. Okay. Any other discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, that passes. I think that takes care of the issues on the parking. And now we'll move on into the monthly financial report, Commissioner. And I want to thank the people in the audience for your help on this. We certainly appreciate your efforts. Thank you. We'll start with the monthly financial report, and then we have the CAFR in the audit. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. We have in your packet the monthly financial update. This is through the first six months of the fiscal year, ending December 31, 2013. And we'll do a group presentation. I'll start it off with economics. Rusty Cook, our director of revenue, will give you the top four revenue, and then Melissa will end it with the total revenues and expenses. So with that, we'll go to the first slide, which you all are used to seeing. This is plotting our unemployment rate over the course of time in comparison to the national, the state, and the local MSA. Kentucky is at the top, which is where it has been throughout this study. and it is currently in December sitting at 8%, and that compares to a November unemployment rate of 8.2 and an October rate of 8.4, so it's heading in the right direction. At the national level, we currently in December are at 6.7, and that compares to 7% for November and 7.3 for October. For the local metropolitan area, we do not have December numbers yet, but November was 6.3 compared to October. of 6.6. And lowest, as it has been throughout this area, is Lexington, and that November is 6.1 versus 6.4 the month before. A couple of weeks ago, I showed the preliminary results of this, which had the MSA and the city crisscrossing for the first time, made a comment on that, found that those numbers were incorrect. With that correction, it's following the same type of bumpy road along with the MSA that we've seen in the past. The next slide is just the moving three-month average to give you a better trend line. And then finally, we have selected economic indicators that we have been following, all of which are looking positive. We talked about the unemployment rate. If you look at permits issued, 1,359 for the month of December compared to 870 the same time last year. And we have seen an upward tick three out of the last four months. On new business, we have 164 compared to 132 same time last year. Again, we have three positives over the last four months. And home sales, we have 725 versus 673, and we actually have four out of four months with positive gains. And then the one that is down is the one we want to be down, and that is foreclosures, 46 for this month compared to 72 the same time last year. And again, we have four months now that foreclosures have been less than same time last year. So we have positive signs. We would like to think that we have tailwinds. As soon as we get comfortable, other things happen. There's a correction in the stock market. There's announcements of possible layoffs. So we are trying to get that ball rolling and are hopeful going into the second half of the fiscal year that we are going in the right direction. Fourth quarter was strong. We hope that tapering and other adjustments that are going on nationally won't affect the local economy too much. Any questions on those indicators? Yes, Julian. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. Something just dawned on me while looking at this in depth, which took about a tenth of a second. You have on the unemployment rates, you have Fayette County, and then you have Lex MSA. In the MSA, are our numbers in Fayette County embedded into the MSA? Yes, it is the 12 counties, I believe. I may be off there, but it's kind of the one surrounding one to two circles around Fayette County is the metropolitan area. Wouldn't it be more accurate to pull Fayette County out of that number so we can see what their real number is, as opposed to carrying them on their back? Well, that's a challenge. I get this from the U.S. Department of Statistics, and that is how they report it, and saying this total circle is the metropolitan area. It includes Lexington as well as the surrounding counties. So I'm kind of dependent on the federal government's reporting of these MSAs across the country, and that's where we pick up the number for comparability. I still feel like to have that somehow, it's a math problem actually, would be interesting if nothing else. But it would give us some idea of who's doing what more crisply. Think on it for a while. It's not a big deal at all, but I just wanted to. You've got me. I don't know how to massage those numbers, but people at the University of Kentucky may. So we can make a phone call and see what's possible. I guess what you do is that you would just take out Fayette County, and then you would get the other counties, and you would do what their average is, and that way you would just not include Fayette County. I need a numerator and a denominator instead of just the percent. I have just the percent. All right. So let me see what I can do. I said it was a math problem. Yes. I accept. Thank you, Bill. I don't see any other questions. All right, with that, I'd like Rusty Cook to come up and talk about the four major revenue streams. Welcome. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Commissioner Romero. I'd like to start out with going over the major categories for December on revenue. We are currently at 3.1 over budget for the month of December. That is mostly timing differences. so I'm going to move on to the year-to-date numbers and give you a better comparison of where we are through the first half of the fiscal year. As you can see, currently we are $812,000 below our budget for the fiscal year. That is in our net profit and franchise fee categories. We had an anomaly hit in the month of November in the net profit that we mentioned a couple weeks ago. we had two refunds requested by businesses during their reconciliation of their net profit return at a total of $480,000. And then in franchise fees, we had a $230,000 payment that we received the 1st of January that was budgeted in the month of December, which is affecting the variance there in the month of December. So if you take those two numbers and add them back into our figures, you would see that we missed our budget by about $100,000 for the first half of the fiscal year, or .09%. It shows you we're kind of trending on our budget going into the second half of the year. Moving on to our December 13 month-to-date compared to same period prior year, you'll see we beat prior December by $4 million. That is mostly due to the timing differences. So I'm going to move over to give you a year-to-date perspective versus same period prior year. The good news is we are $3.5 million ahead of prior year. All four categories are up with the withholding and insurance categories, both at $1.2 million over prior year. Net profits up $700,000 in franchise fees, about $475,000. If you take into account those adjustments I discussed earlier against the budget, that would actually make us at about $4.2 million ahead of prior year. And as we saw in the prior numbers, we did budget an increase in revenue year over year, and we are seeing that so far through the first half of the year. So the takeaway on that is we're $4.2 million ahead? Yes. Over last year? Yes. Good. Is there any other questions before I go into my final slide? I'm going to give you a chance. I see none. The last slide is the nuisance, abatement, and lien collection slide. have been requested by the committee previously, and this is the current year collections over prior year collections for your reference. And if there are not any other questions, I'll turn over to Melissa Luker now to go through our total revenues and total expense categories. Thank you. Welcome, Melissa. All right. Rusty's already talked about the Big Four, so I'll move on to the other revenues that we have. If you look, we have a positive variance of around $800,000 in other licenses and permits. That is due to bank franchise fee and the de-tax fee being up. Ad valorem, we've got a positive variance of about $475,000. That's due to ad valorem, actually. And then the services category, you'll see we're $2.2 million ahead of budget there. Once again, I feel like I'm saying the same thing every month. This is because we're housing more federal and Class D state inmates at the jail. So the biggest portion of the services is coming from that, from the additional revenue that we're receiving from those inmates. You'll see a negative variance of around $450,000 in investment income. That is the adjustment for cost to market. That is actually just an accounting required reporting. That is, if we were to liquefy our investments today, that's what we would owe. But we have no intention of liquefying our investments, so that's just a reporting thing. So don't get too worried about seeing that large negative number there. The other income is up about $845,000, and that is miscellaneous revenue as well as penalties and interest. So if you take all of the revenues, we have a positive variance in revenue of around $3 million. So we'll go to expenses. If you look at our expenses, you can see personnel. We've got about a $560,000 variance. We are within 0.5% of budget for personnel, so we're right on track for the first six months with our personnel. Operating, you see quite a large variance there, $4 million. Some of that are things we can control, and some are things that are out of our control, such as we have positive variance in utilities and vehicle fuel. You know, we don't control the cost of fuel. So those are things we can't control. And then some things we can control are professional services and operating supplies and expenses. We have positive variances there. And I looked through this. It's not in one division. It's spread throughout the government. So there's not one thing that just stands out in that. Also in that operating variance is grant match. That's actually booked at the end of the year. So we've got a positive variance now, but that will go away in June. So our expenses, if you take them in total, are $3.9 million ahead of budget. If you include that with our revenues, we're about $7.8 million ahead of budget for the first six months of the year. The next slides are just the current year to the prior year, and we're 4.3 ahead in revenues for the current year than we were last year. And we have $9 million, almost $10 million ahead in expenses. And you all know we have an increased budget from 14 over 13, so that's why you see that there. So are there any questions? Yes, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Melissa. On page, your slide 11, page 13 on your expenses, does operating include salt? It does. And do you know, given that we've had an interesting winter so far and it's only January, how our SALT budget is holding? Well, interesting you should ask. I worked with Charlie last week to provide him some figures on that. They're currently finishing out the current PO for SALT. We had rolled a PO from the prior year of SALT. They've placed that last order, I believe. And so we're looking for money within Streets and Roads' budget to do a budget amendment to move some money around for salt. We have plenty of salt here right now, but, you know, the winter's not tracking very well, so it's likely that we will need more. But we are working on where we can find money for salt. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. And to follow up, what kind of budget amendment, what kind of number are we looking at? Charlie hasn't set a specific number. I know he's been working with streets and roads on that. I know we have $75,000 that we are doing a budget amendment for to start with, but I'm not sure if he will be needing more or not. Did somebody else want to respond? Okay, $75,000. That's the latest one? Yeah, that's the figure I gave him looking in his budget we could find. Okay, thank you. Anybody else have questions? Seeing none, Commissioner O'Meara, I will go to the next item, which is our CAFR. Item number three. Thank you, Chair. This is January, and we're starting a trend of having a report out from our outside auditors on our financial reports in January. And we have Simon Kemmerer, a partner with Dean Dorton Allen Ford, who is here, that was in charge of our engagement, ready to report to management on the financial report. Welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon. First off, I'd like to apologize for not meeting the 1 o'clock time for this meeting today. Unfortunately, traffic worked against me, but hopefully we can get through this, and I'm available to answer any questions, whether they're at the end or whether they're during the course of my presentation, feel free. We'll let you go ahead and go through, and if I do see somebody wants to ask questions, and I'll try not to rudely interrupt you, but I'll try to ask a question if you don't mind. Okay. So in essence, this presentation today is we're required under our auditing standards to provide certain information to those charged with governance after we complete our audit. And so this presentation today is designed to meet those requirements. In essence, what I'm going to get through today is a brief introduction and then go through our responsibilities with regards to the audit, a quick overview of our plan, scope and timing, accounting policies and practices, audit adjustments, uncorrected statements, and then the other communications that I'm required to provide. All of those items are laid out within the auditing standards. And as I said previously, this communication is required of me to you by the auditing standard AUC 260. So in terms of our responsibilities for the audit of the city's CAFA, we perform the audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and then government auditing standards issued by the Comptroller General of the U.S. and then for the CIFA, the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards, that was performed under the Single Audit Act and OMB Circular A133 and its supplements. We planned and performed the audit to obtain reasonable assurance whether financial statements are free from material misstatements, reasonable assurance being the key word there, not absolute assurance. In the course of our work, we also evaluated the appropriateness of accounting policies that were being used by management, and then the reasonableness of the estimates and the overall presentation. We also considered internal control over financial reporting in order to determine the procedures that we needed to perform in order to express our opinion on the financial statements. But just to clarify there, our procedures are not extensive enough to provide an opinion on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, so we do not express such an opinion. We also performed audit procedures to ensure that the government was in compliance with laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements applicable to the major federal programs. and we also considered internal control over that compliance. Again, because our procedures are not extensive enough to provide a legal determination of whether the government's in compliance with the requirements of laws, regulations, contracts and grants applicable to the major federal programs, we don't actually express an opinion, a legal determination. In terms of our plan, scope and timing, we actually issued this group, it went to the chair, what we call a pre-114 letter which outlined our plan, scope and timing for the audit and that letter was actually dated April 25, 2013. That also included a copy of our arrangement letter. So in terms of accounting policies and practices, there are certain circumstances under which generally accepted accounting principles allow management to select among different alternatives. In those circumstances, based upon our industry expertise, we determined that we felt management had selected the preferable accounting practice in each case. Adoption of or change in accounting policies. Generally, accounting policies were applied on a consistent basis year to year. As you probably noted in the CAFA, there were two GASB standards that were implemented in fiscal year 2013. GASB 63 was required to be implemented. GASB 65 was actually early adopted. These two statements are sister statements. In essence, GASB 63 provided some definitions and some changes in vernacular use. So the statement of net assets was changed to the statement of net position. GASB 63 also brought in the concept of inflows and outflows and how to reflect deferred inflows and outflows on the statement of net position. GASB 65, the sister statement, in essence took types of transactions and provided examples and additional guidance on what items would be regarded as deferred inflows and deferred outflows and which items would be considered outflows and inflows in the current period, i.e. you would incur the expense and recognize that expense in the year incurred rather than including them on the statement of net position and amortizing them. The impact of GASB 65 to the government, you can see there, It was, in essence, bond issuance costs that under previous standards you could capitalize on the balance sheet and amortize over the life of the bond. With GASB-65, GASB-65 classifies bond issuance costs as period costs, and so they were required to be expensed. That item is disclosed as a prior period adjustment in the financial statements as GASB 65 requires disclosure as a prior period adjustment. We did not identify any significant or unusual transactions that our audit guidance requires me to report to you today. In terms of judgments and accounting estimates, I have a section a little later where we will go through the summary of significant accounting estimates. But just as an overview, again, based upon our work, we believe those estimates were in line with what we would expect. And they were being applied consistently from year to year. We did not identify any audit adjustments made to the original trial balance that was presented to us to begin our audit. And then in terms of uncorrected misstatements, there was one. In essence, the due from other governments is presented on the balance sheets and within the fund financial statements as a net number. There are debits and credits, if you will, offsetting each other. So some of them are receivables, and some of them would, in essence, be regarded as unearned revenue, where you receive the cash in advance of actually incurring the expenditures. That number is presented net in the CAFA. A strict interpretation of GAP would require that where other governments owe you money, that's an asset, but unearned revenue, where you've received the money in advance of making the expenditures, that should actually be disclosed as a liability within the financial statements. It's merely a balance sheet reclass and is not impacting surpluses for the year. We had no disagreements with management, and as far as we're aware, they did not consult with other accountants about accounting or auditing matters. There were no significant issues discussed with management that we deem necessary to report here today, and we did not encounter any significant difficulties in dealing with management. So in terms of accounting estimates, we're going to quickly go through what we believe to be the significant estimates just to ensure that this group is informed about the accounting practices being used and the recommendation there for this group to monitor throughout the year the process used to compute and record those estimates reflected in the financial statements. These estimates and judgments are consistent with what we brought to your attention last year. There are no new ones that we felt we needed to report this year. So the first one, the net pension and OPEB obligations. In essence, the government is using an actuarial valuation every year for the pension obligations, and then OPEB, that actuary valuation is being performed every other year. Government accounting standards allow that every other year approach. So in essence, for the OPEB management, FY12 was the year that the actual valuation was obtained. FY 13, management just updates that calculation, and then in FY 14, a full actuarial study will be again performed. We analyzed the assumptions used and tested the underlying information and concluded that the assumptions used to calculate those balances were reasonable in relation to the financial statements taken as a whole. the allowance for doubtful accounts the estimation process there again did not change from the previous year it's based upon historical loss rates the age of the accounts, collection patterns general economic conditions and then any known ongoing disputes again we tested the underlying information supporting those allowances and concluded that they appeared reasonable in relation to the financial statements as a whole capital assets, the lives that are being assigned to assets is a significant estimate, and that's impacting how quickly or slowly those assets are depreciated over their lives, and so impacts depreciation expense. Those lives appear to have been based upon historical data, consistently applied. We assessed those lives, tested that the calculations were being performed accurately, and again concluded that they appeared reasonable in relation to the financial statements taken as a whole. The landfill closure liability, the significant estimate is decreasing with regards to this estimate now that the landfills are closed. But again, there's estimates there as to how much it's going to cost to maintain those landfills over time. calculations again were consistent with how they've been performed in previous years any inflation factors in there appeared to be reasonable so again we tested the calculation we looked at the underlying data supporting it and it appeared reasonable and consistent in relation to the financial statements taken as a whole the self-insurance program the main issue there is the the IBNR, the incurred but not reported liability, and then also estimating what claims are actually going to be settled for. An actuary is again involved in performing those detailed calculations. We analysed the assumptions used by the actuary, tested the underlying information that had been given to that actuary to perform their calculations, and again came to the conclusion that we believed that liability was being reasonably calculated in relation to the financial statements. Contingent liabilities works in a fairly similar manner. Management assesses what contingent liabilities are out there in conjunction with legal counsel, both internal legal counsel and external legal counsel. An analysis is performed in terms of likelihood of a liability being incurred and then what the likely payment would be. we discussed pending and threatened litigation with management. We went through the pending litigation or the active litigation that's maintained by the law department, and based upon our testing of that information concluded again that that contingent liability calculation appeared reasonable in relation to the financial statements taken as a whole. In terms of financial statement disclosures, the disclosures we believe that are particularly sensitive to users of the financial statements are the fund types and the identification of major and non-major funds, revenue recognition, net asset classification, fund balance classification, and then those significant estimates related to contingent liabilities, accounting for net pension, and OPEB obligations. We consider those to be the disclosures most sensitive. We reviewed the CAFA in detail to make sure those disclosures were neutral, consistent, and clear. And again, we had nothing to report to this group here today. We felt those disclosures were consistent with what you would expect in a city or a government that has the complexity of LFUCG. In terms of our communication of significant deficiencies and material weaknesses, we have not identified any new significant deficiencies or material weaknesses this year. So we have a requirement to look at what we issued last year and to provide updated information on those prior year findings. Many of them have been resolved and there are a few that have been substantially resolved and when the A133 report is issued you will see our responses to those prior year findings. But again, nothing new to report to this group this year. So in essence that completes the presentation that I'm required to provide under auditing standards and I'm happy to take any questions this group may have. Thank you very much. I don't see any questions. I did have the A133. When will that be presented? We are finishing some final procedures right now, and then when they are complete, we will be able to issue our report fairly shortly thereafter. What kind of time frame are we looking at? I'm thinking it might be a week or two to get comfortable with those final procedures. Two weeks. Do we have any questions from council members? I see none, Simon. Once again, I always enjoy hearing your voice. I can't decide if it's Hazard or Harlan, but I know it's somewhere down there. But it's really good. In closing, we would like to extend our thanks to LFUCG for selecting Dean Dalton to be your auditors and our thanks to Bill and Phyllis and their team for all of the help and support that they provide. They certainly do a very good job of providing us a very large amount of information very efficiently and effectively. So we extend our thanks to them, too. Thank you very much. Cheerio. As the vice mayor says, cheerio. That leaves us to the last item, which is items referred to committee. and I think most everything outside of the one that we went over today on the increasing certain parking fines, we probably can take that one out. I would say if someone wants to make a motion for that. Move to remove the parking signs. We have a motion. And do I have a second to remove that? And a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. All those opposed, we'll remove that. and the rest of them it looks like we'll keep in committee. At this time, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Move adjourned. Second. And a third. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, we stand adjourned. Thank you.