# Budget COW - June 2, 2015 > Auto-transcribed civic record · June 2, 2015 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3669 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3669?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2015-06-02 - **Last revised**: June 2, 2015 - **Length**: 31,303 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council held a meeting on June 2, 2015, at 11:00 AM in the Council Chambers. The meeting focused entirely on budget-related discussions and planning, with five informational agenda items covering various aspects of the city's financial planning process. The council reviewed a revenue update and examined the Mayor's late items for consideration in the budget process. Members also discussed Link recommendations and council member recommendations that would impact the upcoming budget. Additionally, the council addressed scheduling for Budget Committee of the Whole meetings to continue their budget deliberations. No formal votes were taken during this meeting, as all five agenda items were informational in nature. No public comments were heard during the proceedings. The meeting served as a working session to review financial information and coordinate the council's budget review process ahead of formal budget adoption procedures. ## Revenue Update A revenue update presentation was scheduled for this meeting to provide information on the current financial status. However, based on the available meeting records, specific details about the content of this presentation, including the speakers who delivered it and the financial figures discussed, are not documented in the extracted materials. The agenda item was classified as informational in nature, indicating that the presentation was intended to update attendees on revenue matters rather than seek approval for specific actions or decisions. No transcript timestamps are available for this portion of the meeting, making it difficult to reference the exact timing of when this update was delivered. Without access to the detailed presentation materials or speaker information, the specific revenue figures, trends, or financial concerns that may have been addressed during this update cannot be reported. The outcome was noted as informational, suggesting that no formal votes or decisions were required following the presentation. This revenue update appears to have been part of the regular reporting structure for the meeting, providing attendees with current financial information necessary for their oversight responsibilities. ## Review Mayor's Late Items The council conducted a discussion on late items submitted by the Mayor for consideration during the fiscal year 2016 budget review process. This agenda item, numbered 1-16, served as an informational session to review additional budget proposals that were submitted after the standard deadline. The discussion focused on examining the Mayor's late submissions and their potential impact on the FY 2016 budget deliberations. These late items represented additional budget considerations that required council review before final budget adoption. The session was structured as a discussion item rather than an action item, allowing council members to review and discuss the late submissions without requiring immediate voting or formal decisions. This provided an opportunity for the council to understand the scope and implications of the Mayor's additional budget requests. No specific transcript timing was available for this agenda item, and no key speakers were identified in the meeting records. The outcome was classified as informational, indicating that the discussion served to brief council members on the late items rather than to take formal action. This review process represents a standard part of municipal budget procedures, where late submissions from the Mayor's office are formally presented to the council for consideration during the budget review cycle. The discussion allowed council members to evaluate these additional items as part of their comprehensive review of the proposed fiscal year 2016 budget. ## Review Link Recommendations The meeting included agenda item 17-19, a discussion focused on reviewing recommendations made by the Link for the fiscal year 2016 budget. This item was presented as an informational discussion without any formal action required. The agenda item provided an opportunity for officials to examine and discuss the Link's budget recommendations for the upcoming fiscal year. However, specific details about the content of the recommendations, the nature of the discussion, or the participants who spoke during this segment are not available in the meeting records. The item was categorized as informational, indicating that no votes or formal decisions were made during this portion of the meeting. The review served as part of the broader budget planning process for fiscal year 2016. No transcript timestamps are available for this agenda item, and no key speakers were specifically identified in the meeting documentation for this discussion. ## Review Council Member Recommendations The council conducted a discussion session on agenda item 20-24 regarding recommendations made by council members for the fiscal year 2016 budget. This informational item provided an opportunity for the council to review and discuss various budget-related proposals that had been submitted by individual council members. The discussion focused on examining the recommendations that council members had put forward for consideration in the upcoming fiscal year 2016 budget process. This review session was designed to allow for collaborative examination of the various proposals and suggestions that had been made by council members regarding budget priorities and allocations. The agenda item was structured as a discussion format, providing council members with the opportunity to present their recommendations, explain their rationale, and engage in dialogue about the merits and feasibility of different proposals. This type of review process is typically used to ensure that all council member input is formally considered as part of the broader budget development process. The session was classified as informational, indicating that no formal votes or binding decisions were made during this particular discussion. Instead, the focus was on information sharing and preliminary consideration of the various recommendations that had been submitted. This approach allows council members to better understand the range of proposals being considered and provides an opportunity for initial feedback and discussion before more formal budget deliberations take place. The review of council member recommendations represents an important step in the collaborative budget development process, ensuring that input from all council members is systematically considered and discussed as part of the municipality's fiscal planning efforts for the 2016 budget year. ## Budget COW Meeting Schedule Agenda item 25 addressed the scheduling of Budget Committee of the Whole meetings. This was presented as a discussion item to inform council members about upcoming budget-related meeting dates and logistics. The item was categorized as informational, indicating that the primary purpose was to communicate the proposed schedule to council members rather than to make immediate decisions requiring votes. No specific key speakers were identified for this particular agenda item, suggesting it may have been presented by staff or handled as a routine administrative matter. The discussion focused on coordinating the timing and logistics for the Budget Committee of the Whole meetings, which are specialized sessions where council members review and deliberate on the municipal budget in detail. These meetings are typically scheduled separately from regular council meetings to allow for more focused and extended discussion of budget matters. The outcome was informational, meaning council members received the scheduling information without taking formal action. This type of agenda item serves to ensure all council members are aware of important upcoming meetings and can plan their schedules accordingly. Budget Committee of the Whole meetings are crucial components of the municipal budget process, providing a forum for detailed examination of proposed expenditures, revenue projections, and budget priorities. The scheduling of these meetings requires coordination among council members, staff, and potentially the public, as budget discussions often include opportunities for public input. While no specific transcript timestamp was available for this discussion, the inclusion of this item on the agenda demonstrates the council's commitment to proper planning and communication regarding the budget review process. --- ## Full transcript Started. Good morning, everybody. Welcome. This is the Budget Committee of the Whole meeting, June 2, 2015. And before we get started, I just want to say a few words about the procedure for today. This is a discussion among council members. If they have questions for administration, those can be asked, but it's not a time at this point for public input. But we have an order of agenda, which would start with the revenue update, then the mayor's late items, then link recommendations, and council member recommendations, and then we'll talk about our schedule. And I believe that council member Stinnett has a motion about the agenda before we begin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So we give due consideration to individual council member recommendations. I'll make a motion to move number four up to number three, because we've already been through links once. We haven't been through any of the councilman recommendations, so we can take those first. So moved. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think that then allows us to begin. And when we get to the council member recommendations, I want to say a few more words about how we're going to approach that. But right now, we'll start with the revenue update. We're ready to hear where we stand. Welcome, Commissioner. Thank you very much. We shortened the revenue update to get straight to what I think you all are most interested in, and that is where we stand through the month of April. It is the first month of a quarter, which usually shows variations in timing differences. Our due dates are always at the last day of the month. Some mail is received on that last day of the month. Some mail is received the beginning of the next week. And that is the theme that we have this April. If you look at the top four revenue streams, we have a negative variance in employee withholdings of $2.5 million year-to-date. We have a positive variance in net profit of $263,000. We have a negative variance in insurance of $1.684 million, and we have a positive variance in franchise fees of $2.1 million for a net change between actual and what is budgeted through April of a negative $1.3 million. Now, we are lucky in that we can see May, and looking back at May ended Friday, we haven't closed the books. but we do know what was due the last day of April and what flowed through our receipts in the first week of May. And the employee withholding variance of 2.5 was reduced by 2.1 with those receipts that came in the first week of May. And the insurance was reduced by 1.1 with receipts that came in that first week of May. So it is not bad news. It's timing differences. But the observation would be that we do not see any real variations from what we were predicting. We expected the employee withholdings to soften in the fourth quarter, same time as they did last year. we actually reduced our estimate when we were putting the budget together, reducing the estimated revenue for payroll withholdings for the year. We did increase our estimate for net profits, which that does seem to be online, and we held insurance constant and increased franchise fee estimates. So again, taking into consideration the timing differences in the first of May, those estimates seem to be still valid for the remainder of the year. If you compare it to the same time last year, we anticipated stronger revenues than last year, and we're seeing that. We have $138 million through April. Last April, it was $134.4 for a favorable variance of almost $3.6. Withholdings is coming in at $31.3. Last year, we were at $28.4. That's a $2.9 million increase year over year, but we budgeted for more, thinking the economy would be rebounding this year. Insurance were at $22.2 million and last year at $24.1 million. That payment that came in in May was received in April last year, making that negative comparison. And franchise fees are sitting at $20 million against $17.3 million. That's a $2.7 million variance year over year. So questions on the top four? Councilmember Maloney. Dave, I appreciate this information. Now, a few months ago, did we take $10 million out of the surplus we had to just the $7 million we have left over from the $10 million we took out surplus a couple months ago? So in other words, we would have had $17 million surplus? No, I'm going to move to total revenues and total expenses. and it will show the adjustment of that $10 million. Did we take out a couple months ago some surplus already? We did, and it's reflected in the next slides. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I think those are all our questions at the moment. Okay. Then I'll turn it over to Melissa from Budgeting to finish up. Since Bill's talked about the top four, we'll move on to the other revenues. We have a positive variance of around $500,000 in the other licenses and permits. That, once again, is due to the bank franchise fee being up. Ad valorem is due to personality taxes and delinquent fees. The services is, again, having a negative variance of almost $300,000. This is due to we are still waiting on a couple payments from excess fees and collections, so we're a couple quarters behind there. So we fully expect that to recover and be a positive or at budget by the end of the fiscal year. The property sale is $167,000 variance. That's due to sale of surplus equipment. I have a question from Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Can we get a copy of this? Because none of the council members up here have this. Yes, we can send it to you. Not in this form or in our packet. So if we can get a copy of it. Okay. Can Steve send it? We'll get it sent to you. Sorry about that. Did you have a question? I have one more. Another council member signed up. Council member Evans. Just a request. Because we don't have this, I request to council members if we could keep cumbers. conversation at a minimum so we can really hear and listen since we don't have this in front of us it is the first time so I'm just asking if we can all listen and pay attention sorry I didn't I didn't hear the first because we don't have this I mean for me it's just difficult when there's side conversation going on so I'm just asking thank you so we'll proceed and we'll wait for for the hard copy okay um the investment income that's just the adjustment to cost to market for the month um and then the other income that is due to just miscellaneous income that we've received this next slide is the one i think you're going to be the most interested in this is our expenses we're this and this let me preface this this is to the end of april so through april the budget amendment for the reallocation had not gone through yet so you'll You'll see that at the bottom of this slide. The personnel variance was $6 million. The operating variance was $6.5 million. That was professional services, utilities, repairs and maintenance where our big variance is there. Debt service is a timing issue as well as the partner agencies. Operating capital, people are just spending their capital sooner than they did in the prior year, which is how we base the budget for the months. And then transfers is also a timing. A transfer happened, was booked sooner than what it was in the prior year. We based that off of prior year's transfers. So if you take into consideration the increase in revenue that we have and our expenses, we have a $12.9 million variance through the end of April. However, you'll see at the second to the last line there that $10.6 million was reallocated through the reallocation budget amendment. They got a second reading on, I believe it was the 7th of May. So that's not in these numbers. So if you take that budget amendment into consideration, the variance right now that we're standing at is $2.2 million through the first 10 months of the fiscal year. I have a couple of council members signed up. Council Member Evans, you, okay, that needed to be withdrawn. Council Member Maloney. I'm sorry if I had the packet, I'd have known this. Sorry about that. But this is what I want to ask. We have not gotten the taxes in for May or whatever. It's a tax, a high time for money to come in, too. So this number we're looking at, $2.3 million, could be considerable a lot more than what it is. It could be more or it could be less. We don't know at this point. We've still got two months left. The way the economy's going, everybody's on la la lane. I think it's going to be a lot higher from what I understand. So I'm just curious. And I'm not jumping on it. I just want to know, is a $20 million surplus going to come after it, it sounds like to me? I'll let Bill answer that question. I mean, it's a total $20 million surplus. Is the total going to be $20 million surplus this year, maybe, close to it? I don't think so. Okay. Come back. Here's the way I see it with my crystal ball, as well as that crystal ball can predict the future. With these timing difference we talked about, we're at 2.26, but we talked about those major timing differences in the four major categories coming in in May. I think we're back at the 15 million, take the 10.6 out, you're at 4.4, about the same position you were at when we reported in March because of those timing differences. Now, will that grow when we close the books at June 30? I don't know. It has in the past. It probably will because we have open purchase orders that will not be spent. We also have to compare revenues that occur in July this year and compare them to revenues of July of next year and make an end-of-year accrual. In years past, we have picked up a million dollars with that. We have lost a million dollars with that accrual. We won't know that until the 10th of August. So to answer what we feel fund balance will be, we actually have to wait until August before we have the actual information before we can start putting that number together. The reason why I ask that question is we're getting ready to go through this process today, and there's a lot more on this docket than what money we have, supposedly. And I don't know from what previous council what they've done the last few years, But if we end up with a surplus, and we have a lot of these projects, if we don't make the priority list for this year, what we think we're going to have, do we carry this over in August to make sure these things that are on this priority list that didn't get funded can be funded in August, October, November, December? Or is that something I have to add to council? I believe that's a prerogative of council. Okay. I was just curious. Thank you. If I could address that. Yes. The process that we've done the last two years is when we are closing the books for the consolidated annual financial statements. We get a fund balance that is almost completely audited. We bring that to council in October financial committee meeting. At that time, council will participate in advising us on how to structure the report of fund balance in our consolidated annual financial statements. How much would be reserved for X? How much would be reserved for Y if some is unallocated? In the past, there has been capacity in the category of unallocated fund balance for council then to add projects in their discussions in October and the 1st of November. So the real question I think Council Member Maloney is asking is, will we have unallocated fund balance to address to other projects? I don't know. I'm not here to promise that today. We've had it in the past few years. Our goal is to make so that we don't have a large unallocated fund balance, that we have sufficient for unexpected emergencies, but we're trying to change so that our budget is closer and closer to actual so that when you offset the budget, those programs that you wish to be funded are funded through the adopted budget. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Bill, my question is along the same lines. When we're addressing some of our, what I call a wish list to some extent, but we've got some projects each council member has, is it better to acknowledge the funding for those as unallocated fund balance, which would flow into the 16 budget? Is that not correct? how would that be reported out? In other words, if I had a project that I wanted to fund it with an unallocated balance that we won't know until September or October, how would that be reported out? Is it a 2015 budget item or is it a 2016? I would not see it as an approved budgeted item at this point. We're approving the 2016 approved expenditures. that would be part of the encumbrances and expenditures that council has approved that then the government can go forward and make expenditures. It would be more like a budget amendment? They would be budget amendments after you find out what unallocated fund balance is and how much you would approve project by project at that time. Okay, okay. That answers my question. Thank you. Thank you. You may proceed. All right. Well, at this point, our recommendation is to stay with the mayor's proposed budgeted revenue that was presented in the proposed budget. That is a general fund revenue of $324,554,410 if council is ready to discuss an approved revenue number. And then if I could take advantage of being here, I would like to make this one request. First, this is the council's budget, and it is your all's decisions on how to allocate and approve. I ask you to consider that the final budget that is approved to be structurally balanced. What does structurally balanced mean? That means if you start with a $1.5 million fund balance, that after all the revenues and expenses are approved you have at least 1.5 million dollar fund balance that means you have not spent more than the revenue you have taken in you're not borrowing from your bank savings you're spending within the revenue that is supposed to come in in in the 2016 budget so that's just my request and wanted to get that on record thank you thank you councilmember stinnett thank you Thank you, Vice Mayor. Bill, thank you for saying that. That's exactly what I wanted to start with. We see the slide up here, $2.2 million. I assume that is net of the health insurance reserve, the litigation reserve. That's not in that number? No, sir. All this is is how much we have underspent the revenues we've taken in in 2015. Right. Okay. Now, we proposed a budget of $1.5 million. So when we get into talking in October about unallocated, unrestricted, uncommitted fund balance, we're asking you to make sure that you don't go below $1.5 million now when you approve the budget and again in October when you reallocate fund balances left over from 2015. So for the public watching, can you tell us our budget's starting with $1.5 million coming from $15 to $16? How did you come up with that number? Well, in other words, let me phrase it differently. Why wouldn't we make it $2.2 million to start with and we end with $2.2 million? You can. We were being conservative. Okay. A budget is a promise of intent, but it is not binding. You can go above and below it as long as you go through the budget amendment process. I would have liked to have had it $4.5 million. That, to me, is the fund balance that I would like to have in case there's some sort of an emergency or a very large ask that comes before council at the beginning of the year. Realistically, I think $2.5 million is more where I would expect a budget to be. We had a $500,000 fund balance. That's way too low budgeting-wise. So it's a matter of ratcheting that beginning fund balance up closer to that $2.5 million. Instead of doing it all in one year, we went to $1.5 million. It's just a planning tool. Right, and that's what I was trying to get to. Usually at the end of these days that we're going to go through today, we get down to $200,000. And if we did $1.7 versus $1.3, is that a huge difference when we're managing a $324 million budget? Some would say no. Some would say yes. Well, it's where the $200,000 is in my world. Is it coming out of fund balance and you're structurally imbalanced? You have now overspent by $200,000 than what you've taken in. That is a signal to the investment community that you're spending more than you took in. And it's not really the amount. It's the fact that it's not balanced. Of course, the amount's important, but the first thing they look at when we have talks with Standard & Poor's and Moody's, is it a structurally balanced budget that was approved by council? Right, and that structurally balanced all depends on what we start with. Do we start with 1.5 or do we start with a million dollars and end with a million? It all matters on that starting mark. I think that's what we can decide here in a second. The revenue percentage growth can remind us what that percentage is from last year so the public watching can understand how much is it. It's 3.6. it's 3.6% from last year. It's just year over year. And can you tell us briefly how we got to that 3.6%, how we built the budget and got to that revenue number? I can. Most of the increase is in the four major categories. We're looking at a $6.8 million increase in withholdings, year over year. We're looking at a $1.7 million increase in net profits. We're looking at a $700,000 increase in insurance. We're looking at a $1.75 million in franchise fee. That equals $11.025 million increase. Our total increase for the year is at $9 million because we know that there are other revenues that are not going to meet last year. This was an end of term for the sheriff and the county clerk. We took in over $1.2 million in end of term fees that we know are not going to repeat next year. We have one-time payments and medical reimbursements at the jail. We know that that's not going to repeat this year. So the lion's share of your revenue increase is in your four top categories. Very good. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Bill, I have a question on that. You bring up something. You'd like to see $4.5 million or $2.5 million. I kind of agree with you on that because all the years I was in affordable housing, I always told somebody, you need to save this kind of money to build your roof if something happens over the years. And if you come up with that, that's awesome. Now that we understand why we went as close as we could for the million, a million and a half, when we were going through tough times because we had to spend money to make money. I understand that. Now that we're making money, and your argument is we should save more in there, if the administration on board with you, well, they're just sticking with the million.5 because we're still what it was four years ago, three years ago, we were going through tough times, Are we, or is the administration saying, well, since we need to go with this logic of trying to pay more money? What is, where are we on on that? Well, I need to answer this appropriately. I recommended the 1-5. The administration took that recommendation. Did what? I recommended to start with 1-5 along with the budgeting department, and the administration was fine with that. When we talked to the council last October, we had the conversation of how much should be unallocated, no strings attached. And that's where I made the statement that between two and a half and four and a half is my conservative comfort zone. Don't forget that we have reserves for overages in health. We're going to recommend reserves for overages and refunds. There are other categories in October that we asked the council to consider for reserves. And then we have $25-plus million in the economic contingency fund. So the government has not overspent in total. We have good, healthy reserves. This is a matter of good governance and adopting a budget that is within its revenue means for the upcoming year. So that's kind of two separate conversations of 2016 budget reviewed just as a 2016 budget, and then total reserves of the government from all sources is a wider conversation. and I appreciate your answer there but I kind of still like the idea that I feel like we've been blessed for the last few years and I don't mean to sound like an old timer here but I'm going to bring I went through tough times in the 90s we had good times 2000 we went through bad times and I know saw spikes it seems like to me we've got to learn and the message we had I think what we went through It was probably the worst recession we've had ever since probably the Great Depression, I think, across the United States. And I'm just wondering, are we learning enough that $1.5 million is an example? We're sending a message, or should we send more money just so we learn to tell the public we're here to preserve and protect if it does happen again in a few years? I would point out that this is a budget, and so it is a statement of intent. And the real crucial decision is in October when actual fund balance allocations are decided and reported officially in the consolidated annual financial statements. I think that is the time when the real conversation would be appropriate and see what that fund balance is. Because if you promise now, you've limited your flexibility then. But, I mean, it's council's budget, and it's definitely a conversation that's worthy of your attention. I understand where you're coming from. I think what you all in this government needs to decide today or next year or whenever, instead of a million and five every year, we need to decide if we need to do more. That's what I think. Now, this October deal is a whole different animal to me. I'm just talking about a regular budget year is a million fives considered, which I don't think it is. And you just got through saying yourself it's not a great number to deal with. And now we're going through good times now. I just think maybe we need administration and us all need to get together on what is a good number in case we go through it again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Thank you. I was having a thought about this, too, with regard to the fact that you're budgeting much closer on the personnel cost. And if you'll notice that one of our largest variances is in budget up there for personnel, and that's only for, I guess that's nine months, right? So we probably are looking at an $8 to $9 million surplus in the personnel category. We've taken a lot of that fat out of the budget because you've budgeted much closer as to what the actual personnel costs are going to be. And regrettably, that has been sort of the reliance of the government. If we had a bad year, we had some reserve money stuck in there that we could get out. Also, if you look at the operating expenses up here on the chart, it looks like about 20% is savings from what we budgeted, which, you know, that's a pretty significant difference between what we budgeted and what we've actually spent. Now, there may be timing issues there, so I'm not, you know, giving you a hard time about that. But my point is I think that we should have a bigger contingency line or, you know, a $2.5 million, you know, bottom line number for the budget. Or even maybe 1% wouldn't be all bad, and that would be about $3.2 million to have as a reserve line on the bottom of our budget for the year if we have that money available. just to protect it. Because what happens if we have a dip in the economy? And, of course, the first quarter GDP was down substantially, just announced last week. And, you know, we could have ongoing downturn and maybe things will pick back up again. But we're sort of in a start-stop kind of an economy. And if we get in a stop period for an extended period of time, that could be bad for our budget. So that's just a thought I'm having to share with the council members. And, you know, people like Kevin and Richard and I, you know, have been on for a decade. I hate to say that. But, you know, we've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. We've had $20 million surplus one year, and we were in the hole one year. And we had three or four years where the revenue was basically static. It didn't increase that much. But we still had pressure of health care, utility costs, gasoline. You know, a lot of expenses were escalating while the economy was flat. So we just, you know, need to be thinking that this could happen again and to be prepared. But I want to commend you because I think the way you've budgeted this year to actually reflect what our costs are in personnel is a real improvement of what we've done in the past. But I think along with that, we need to make sure we have plenty of reserve money in case the economy dips, because we can't go back to personnel and get that leftover money at the end of the fiscal year. Thank you very much, and keep up the good work. I'm very pleased with your work on the budget and all that, and I don't want you to take these as negative comments, more as a constructive thought for everybody to think about. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lane. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Mayer, based upon the conversations we've had up here with the various council members, should we not right now get a specific number so we can move forward what we're talking about, whether it's 1.5, 3.5, 4.5? I think it would make these discussions viable rather than just saying, well, maybe it's 1.5 or 3.5. I would defer to you on what you think the number should be, and then maybe council can either agree or disagree, but I'd rather have that number in place and move forward than not know what the number is. Can you give me an idea what your comfort level would be? Would it be 1% of our budget or beyond that? What do you think? Well, I know he did say 1.5, but there's other council members who have said, well, let's bump it up. You know, let's save for a rainy day if things don't go well. So that's why I'm asking you. I would ordinarily recommend 2.5, but I am not comfortable recommending that when our current variance is only 2.2. I feel it will grow, but I only have what's in hand, not what is predicted. So I would recommend this year to stay with the $1.5 million as presented and reflect this conversation when we budget next year. So the $1.5 you are comfortable with? You don't think it needs to be bumped up at all? I'm comfortable with $1.5. That's what I needed to know. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Moussardi. Council Member Farmer. Just a comment. I'm happy with all the fiscal responsibility, but don't forget, separate from this conversation, which this is a budget conversation for this year, we have an economic contingency fund that has closer to $30 million in it than any other number. So we have saved money. We are in a position to look at that fund if we need to. It's got a very tight trigger on it. We have to have two consecutive quarters of downturn, but it's not like we have a bare cupboard. We have money set aside. We just have to make really good decisions today. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. There are no other council members signed up for questions or comments. Anything else, Bill? No, I just ask that through the process, the beginning fund balance and the revenue be adopted by council at whatever time you think is appropriate. Thank you. I believe at this point, the motion is in order to adopt a revenue number. Is that correct? And that would include whatever fund balance, et cetera. The mayor's proposed budget is $324,554,410. Is there a motion? Council Member Brown. I move that we, a motion that we accept the 324 and some odd change as a revenue for the fiscal 2016 year. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. that will be the number we work against as we modify the budget up or down thank you thank you commissioner the next item on our agenda is the mayor's late items and what I propose is to take them in order I will not read them I will say a number and if a council member has either a question, a comment, or a proposal to amend, please log in. Hopefully we can run through these fairly quickly. So starting in our packets on page four, item number one. Seeing none, item number two. I'm sorry, Council Member Stinnett. I was just going to make a motion to accept the general fund recommendations for late items. I have a motion and a second to adopt all the late items as proposed. Is there any discussion of the motion? Hearing none, I'll take a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Councilmember Stenet. The next item then on our agenda would be to review Councilmember recommendations. We've got to do the rest of the funds, Vice Mayor? I'm sorry? We have to do the rest of the late item funds. That's just general fund. Misunderstood. That's the motion on the general fund. The next category would be urban services funds starting with number 14. Councilmember Massadi. I'm sorry, I was going to make a motion to accept the mayor's late item on the Municipal Aid Program, number 1136. I believe that's next. The Urban Services Fund. I'm sorry. Yes, starting on page 6, item number 14 through 19. I skipped it, my apology. Okay. I would move that we accept the mayor's proposed late budget items on the Urban Services Fund, number 1155, on page 6. the motion is there a second i have a second any discussion of the motion seeing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed that motion carries council member masardi displayed do you want to make a similar motion yes sir i'll go ahead and accept the municipal aid program number 1136 the mayor's laid items on page page number eight so moved Second. Motion and a second. I have Council Member Stinnett and then Council Member Fred Brown. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Can someone go over the revenue estimate decrease of $1.2 million? Yes. Is that in reflection to the state gas tax? Yes. In the motion, if you could possibly amend your motion to have pages 7 and 8, we need those approved separately. But this, we received a letter from the state notification that we would be getting a lower allocation than what we had originally done. and it is due to the gas tax. So in that letter, did they specifically say $1.202 million, $220? No, they gave us a new revenue number that we would be getting from them, I believe is what the email said. Well, I mean, that's what this is reflecting, the revenue estimate. Yeah, the number they gave us was $1.2 million less than what we had proposed. So it is the exact number that they referenced in the letter? In the email that we got at that time. Can we get a copy of that? Yes, we've got an email, and I can forward it to you. If you can forward it to the council, we just see how they're corresponding about the state gas tax. It's pretty basic, but I'll forward it to you. That's fine. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Fred Brown. Yes. Along the same lines, a question. This $1.2 million reduction, what numbers are they using to give us that for the next fiscal year? Are those set and concrete? No. Nothing is set and concrete yet. It's still, we got a revised estimate. So this is still an estimate. Okay, so it's still an estimate. It's a closer estimate than what we had in April whenever we proposed the budget. Well, I guess it's better to be lower than on the upper end because it's going to affect a lot of our paving, I guess, this particular fund here. Right now, with the revenue that we've got, the revenue estimates, we're still able to do everything in MAP that was proposed in the mayor's proposed budget. Okay, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Massadi. I need to amend the motion that I put forward, and that would be accepting the Municipal Aid Program, number 1136, on page number 8, and also the Police Confiscated Treasury Fund 1142 to accept the Mayor's late items on those two items. I think we still have the Municipal Aid... Right, that's what I just said. ...motion on the floor, is that... Right, and they said I needed to be amended to include 1142. two that's what i was told correct the map funds are pages seven and eight in the late item list i see i missed because it was on the back page i'm sorry fund 1137 on page nine that's the county road aid that we got that estimate in the same estimate that we got from the map fund so okay so melissa tell me the correct motion okay if you could approve um if you wanted to approve seven eight and nine that would capture the map funds and the county road funds okay vice mayor i want to approve the motion for pages seven eight and nine that would include all those funds so move i have a motion and second any discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed that motion carries that would bring us down to the police confiscated treasury on page 10. Is there a motion? Motion to approve. Second. Motion to approve. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Next is the Affordable Housing Fund. I have a motion to approve. Second. And a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. next would be the sanitary sewer fund motion to approve and a second any discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed that motion carries next is the water quality management fund have a motion to approve and a second any discussion seeing none all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next is the Water Quality Management Construction Fund. I have a motion to approve and a second. Any discussion? Council Member Fred Brown. Is this Charlie Martin's area? Water Quality Management Construction Fund. There was a reduction of a million $200,000. It says to restore budget for water quality incentive grant program inadvertently omitted. Can you give us a little bit more explanation? Yeah. When we were putting the budget together, long story short, this was left out. We had a filter on our Excel file, and so it didn't capture this accounting, and so it was left out of the budget. It was requested by the division, but it wasn't put in the mayor's proposed budget. It was just accidentally left out. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next is the City Employees Pension Fund. I have a motion to approve. Second. And a second. I'm sorry. 15 and 16 pages 15 and 16 both reflect city employees pension fund can be put into one motion i approve so move okay motion on both pages any discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed motion carries and i believe I believe that's it. Thank you very much. That would bring us to now the council member recommendations. And just to remind council and to let the public know, these are recommendations from individual council members. And in order to be as fair as possible, we have essentially assigned the order of consideration on a random basis. And we will go from the top of the list, starting with the first recommendation, down to the bottom of the list. This starts on page 20 of the packet would be where the individual council member recommendations start. And we're going to handle this by going through one time and voting on each one up or down as a placeholder. And then we're going to look and see what that impact is on our total budget. And once we have that number, we're going to go back and review from top to bottom again to see if there are any motions to amend what we have tentatively approved. So I'll repeat that. We'll go through twice. first time up or down on every single item without tracking the impact on the budget then we'll get a sum and we will see what we've done and we'll see if we want to modify is that clear to everybody any questions council member lamb i just excuse me i just want to make sure that we are referring to the most up-to-date information um stacy was just explaining that there have been some changes even through this morning so this sheet here that's six pages long that was sent out this morning has the most accurate and up-to-date information versus what's in the packet and everybody got a copy was that circulated to council members here or was this It's called Links Committees and Individual Council Member Recommendations According to Fund. That's what the name of this, at the top of this document, FYI. I do not seem to have a copy. I'm sorry. Do other council... I don't have one either. I see some council members who do not have copies. Does it not get circulated? It's coming around. if they got an email and printed it out, but I did. I'm sorry, are these? Ordered by fund. I see. This is the order by fund, but it does not change what was in our packet in terms of the individual. Just a slight change to a few of the numbers, maybe lines of accounting, but other than that, it should not change the order of the recommendations from the council members. So this second list is simply for information, so that we can see by budget category a fund where the money is coming from, but it's not the list we will work off of. Right. We'll work off the list we have in our packet, unless there is objection. Council Member Lamb, any further comment? I mean, that, okay, thank you. In that case, on page 20, we start with recommendations from Council Member Scotchfield. Council Member Scotchfield, if you wish to comment, starting with your first item. I will go ahead. Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor. The first item I have are three sidewalks that are desperately needed. I have to include them each time we go through because my areas desperately need these sidewalks but I do know that the price tag attached to them are high I don't know if everyone got the email I believe that Teresa sent out Mount Tabor Road is one of the sidewalks which would include gutters and I believe some infrastructure and the Mount Tabor Road is 1.3 million Old Todd's Road sidewalks are 9.5 million. And Squires Road is 206,000. I will say with the police department, this again is a request because I think we do need increased patrol in the neighborhood specifically. And this would... I'm sorry, can we take them one at a time? Yes. So the first one for the sidewalks is three separate sidewalk requests. And the total? The total of the three is $11 million. Thank you. So on all of these items, I believe that the easiest thing to do in terms of process is take a voice vote. if there are nay votes, we'll then have to use the electronic voting system, if that's okay, with everybody. So, all those in favor of this first recommendation, please say aye. All opposed? No? I believe that motion fails. And I'll... Do you want an electronic vote on every item? Yes, sir. I'm going to treat that as a proposal, and I want to check it with counsel. The proposal, before we vote on this, is that for every item, we do electronic voting. Let's make a motion, if you would. I have a motion to have an electronic vote on every item. Is there a second? That's really close. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? What's the motion? Council Member Akers, are you in line for that? I wanted to ask Council Member Sketchfield a question on her sidewalks. Okay, but nobody's in line. All those in favor? the motion on the floor is to have an electronic vote on every single item. All those in favor, please say aye and log in. Those opposed, say nay and log in. Or just say, just log in, and I believe that motion fails. That's fine. So, going back to the first item, I'll again ask for a voice vote. All those in favor, please say aye. I'm sorry. Council Member Akers has a question. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So is this motion for all of them you're requesting at once instead of individually? I think my preference would actually be to take each one of them individually. Because they are, I mean, I submitted them separately, not as a combined. I think that's a good idea. And then can you also clarify which budget or which fund or how you would propose to fund this? You know, the reality is they put them in the general services fund, and I don't think that's appropriate for this. This truly probably should be a bond, and I don't have the information for what the debt service would be. Further questions? Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Henson, are you in line on this item? Thank you. Council Member Henson? Council Member Scutchfield, I wanted to suggest his design cost. Because I know, you know, it's like we were working on this for Southland Drive, for instance, and we were able to get into the budget, the design, and construction cost for Southland Drive. So just as a suggestion, I know we have this need in many, many places. Brad Frazier has been working, and you all have heard me speak about these three areas in the past as well. So I know Brad has some information. I think Todd's Road might be the only one that is only a guesstimate. The other ones, there has been some work done on those. If I could real quick, on Old Mount Tabor, the first of the three, it's basically working within the area where Peerats is at and Patchen Drive. and as Council Member Scottsfield has said, you know, looking at sidewalks. Unfortunately, these three are just not straight sidewalk application. They have to have the full urban cross-section put in. So to your point, we're talking sidewalks. It has to have a curb section. We have to have the right-of-way component, probably some minor utility, depending on which one it is. So it's a full section. And that's why, as far as the cost, all that is inclusive. For the first one, we're already in the design phase, so that component will not be for the remainder of the funds. What she has requested is for the right-of-way, utility relocate, and the full construction. The next one, as she was just saying, for Old Todd's Road, the estimate that we had to make use of, The only thing that we have is from the Metropolitan Transportation Plan, which is a document used by the MPO for long-range planning. So, yes, that is a guesstimate. We don't have any actual true design at this point to have a full understanding of what those costs could be. But understand that for those that have driven Old Mount Tabor, if you're out at Codell, and if you head toward Palumbo, and then further on out to Liberty Road, completely absent of all elements of infrastructure except for the old county cross section. That is an immense project, a very good project, but at the same time that will cost a significant amount of money to implement. Squires Road. Basically, we are on Squires heading toward Richmond Road area. We're by the reservoir. So what this would do is go ahead and complete half of an urban section, which will be on the outer side close to the developed side, if you will, to go ahead and have a curb section, add the necessary storm drain boxes, and a sidewalk and sidewalk platform to support it. Thank you. Further questions? Council Member Stinnett. And, Brad, are any of these state roads in no tides a state road? I think that one is ours, sir. We are inside the circle. That belongs to us. We're outside the circle. This one here? Yeah. Liberty heading toward Coldale? Yeah, this is outside the circle. Not outside the circle. My apologies. Inside Man of War belongs to us. Outside still remains with state. Okay, so O, Todd, all the way, the whole link. We just created that road five years ago. Yes, that's ours. It's a new road, technically. That's ours. It's our road. We took ownership at that time. I guess, but no, I can tell you right now that it is ours. Sorry for that. Yes, sir. Thank you. So, Councilman of Scotchfield, if you take them one at a time, then we'll take a vote. Make a motion to approve Mount Tabor Road at $1.356 million. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Further discussion? Councilmember Stennett. I really want to help and get these done eventually, but the problem I'm having today is we don't know if we're going to bond them. If we are, what's the cost to us? How do we program it into our general fund budget? We have no idea what those estimates are. And I just think they're worthy. I want to support, but I just can't do it until we have that data and those numbers so you can see where it fits in the large scheme of things. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Any further? All those in favor, please say aye. All opposed? No. I'll rule that that motion fails. Next item. Council Member Scottsville, you've got two more. Motion to approve Old Todd's Road at a price tag of $9.5 million. I have a motion. Is there a second? That motion fails for lack of a second. And your third item. Motion for approval for the Squires Road sidewalk at $206,000. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Council Member Henson. Council Member Scutchfield, it shows the mayor's proposed budget to have $150,000. Is that correct? I believe, but he has not stated where the sidewalks are that he is intending to do. Does anyone know? What's in your packet there? The 150 was actually in the bond fund for sidewalks. If you give me just one second, I can tell you if it says where it's going to be. It's sidewalk and catch basin repair on Manowar Boulevard is what's in streets and roads currently in the bond package. But it does not include any of the... No, it does not include those sidewalks. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown? Yes, on this requirement, the $206,000, what are you getting for that? Is that just design or is that actual sidewalks? and is that a pretty solid number what was the question again i apologize that 206 000 does that complete the sidewalk yes sir on one side half of the urban section for uh for what what place um give me a directions again. Okay, so if you're on Squires and you're coming by the reservoir area heading toward Richmond Road, as you proceed on that left side through there, we will go ahead and pick up the existing section and bring it all around until you get close to the urbanized section. On the other side, it is extremely difficult to go ahead and work in that area. There's all kinds of hurdles and stuff. So this is just for half of the urban section over there, sir. That will allow residents up in that area to have a walkway down to Richmond Road. On that side. That should go ahead and take them to that commercial area. There's a shopping center there at Squires in Richmond Road. It should take them to that vicinity. Has this been on the radar for some time? Yes, it has. It has? Yes. And ever since Council Member Scotchfield got in office, it has been put forward. I would support it. I would support it. Keep it on the radar. in this first stage, and then I may not support it depending on how it's funded, but I would support it. It's a needed item. Thanks. Thank you. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Next item on your list, Council Member Scutchfield. My next one is, again, I realize that we're increasing the size of the police force. This is specifically to increase the size of the police force and the numbers in neighborhoods. I think having more police officers that are assigned specifically to areas. And I know we've talked about this in the past, and I don't know if this is the right time for it. But I think it's something that I wanted to bring forward because I do think it's a priority for our community. So I make a motion to increase the size of the police force by an additional 10, having those officers as neighborhood speeding enforcement. Do you have a motion? Is there a second? I'll second it for discussion. I have a motion and a second. of the people who were signed up to signed up on that issue. Council Member Evans, are you speaking to? I just had a question procedurally. Do we have the authority to delegate how officers are used? I would think we don't have the authority to do that. I guess I'll just say it that way. We don't want that authority. Right. I guess that's a question for law or the police department or somebody's coming forward. The 10 additional officers, the primary concern is to make sure that calls for service get responded to. And so those 10 would backfill vacancies from attrition and things like that. So then that gives us, Chief Barnard, the opportunity to look at areas of need, whether it be neighborhoods or investigations in different areas, to see where the greatest need is to staff those areas. Thank you. Does that answer your question? Council Member Evans. I think it does, yes. Okay, I have other council members signed up. Council Member Brown. I'd like to amend that motion to just include ten additional officers and not be specific on where they put them. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second to amend, And to simply have this be a motion to add 10 additional officers, is there a discussion on the amendment? If you'd signal me, I've got other people signed up for the motions. Anybody wish to speak to the amendment? Councilmember Massadi. Thank you, Chair. In our public safety link committee, we recommended, I believe, six additional officers to work in the neighborhood. So could this be a collective effort with what we've decided in the links process so we don't overlap? That would be 16 then. Maybe. The motion as amended, yes. Council Member Brown? This motion to amend was for 10 new ones additional. Out of public length, that's not six new ones. That was just a reallocation request. Okay. Anybody else wish to speak to the motion as amended, to the amendment first? if not I would like to add a comment and that is that as has already been said in the links we recommended that as the police force adds officers as planned that a number of those be allocated to the clear unit which is about community policing but we did not recommend additional officers and I would ask if I can the representative from the police force do they actually have the capacity to add an additional 10? And if so, what would the timing of that be? To answer that, if the decision was made to put additional officers in the neighborhoods, I'm certain that we would look at that to look at where the greatest need is and things like that. I'm sorry, my question is you have plans to add officers. their recruits, et cetera, could you, the commissioner's coming forward, could you add another 10 within this fiscal year? Commissioner? The growth plan calls for in the mayor's proposed budget has 10 additional officers in it as it stands now. We're having some problems filling those vacancies with the amount of attrition that we've had in the last couple of years. So right now, recruitment isn't providing a large pool of applicants, so we want to be very careful to make sure that we hold equality and get people that we want to serve in our community. Thank you. Anybody else want to speak to the amendment? If not, we'll take a vote. All those in favor of the amendment, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? No. We will take an electronic vote on that. Thank you. Please log in. That amendment fails. That leaves us with the original motion. Is there any further discussion on the original motion? Yes. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. How many vacancies do we have, Commissioner, in the police department right now that we're trying to fill? You just said we were having trouble filling those, so we got ten new ones. So I know we have ten in the budget. How many other ones are we trying to get through the academy and fill? Currently, we're at 570. We currently have 520, authorized 570 actual strength is 522 today. So you have almost 48 open positions plus the 10 in the budget, which is 58. Well, that does not count the recruits that are in the academy now. Looking at those, I think we're 12 or 14 vacancies. But we don't count those that are just in training that have no benefits to citizens just yet. Okay. Commissioner, did you want to add anything? Yeah, we typically average with attrition 24 to 30 vacancies. And that's retirement when you say attrition. Retirements or disability all. So that with the budgeted 10 or the mayor's proposed 10 is going to cause us, with the current vacancies we have, to have a need for a lot of people in the next year. The following year, too, the growth plan calls for an additional 10 officers next fiscal year after that. So we're going from 570 to 580 in the budget? Yes, sir. So that leaves a considerable amount of openings for the police department. I'm not sure these additional 10 could even be handled if we approved it. So I thank you for that clarity. I think we'd have a hard time filling them. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor, if I may, I'm going to withdraw my motion knowing the amount we do not have filled at this time. But I do, you know, hopefully we can get these filled. Council Member Brown, you withdraw your second? I withdraw second. Thank you very much. That would bring us to the next item on, I'm sorry, Council Member Stenet. A bit of housekeeping. Before we get off track too much, we approved a sidewalk or road construction in the previous motion, but we didn't identify the amount and where it's coming from, either general fund or bonding and what the debt service would be. The reason why that's important as we go through this list is when Teresa compares it and brings it back to us, we've got to know what amount we're voting on so it affects the bottom line. So can we identify the funding source and what that amount actually is we're voting on? Because in the previous one, we just gave an amount for the whole item. We didn't say if it's bonded or general fund. So was that a general fund item or a bonded item? Bonded. Well, how much is the debt service then? I mean, we need to know these things. I think we will be able to come back to these. This is not approved at this point. It is on a list. No, but we do need to know when we get done to the end of the list what the impact of what we have approved is. And I would take Council Member Stendent's proposal to be a helpful one. So while we may not have that number initially, before we get too far down the list, We want to come back to that and say, here's what the total cost, here's what the bond would be, here's what the impact on the budget, if that's okay. And I think that will affect some people's votes, whether we're bonding or paying cash for something. I think the proposal is to bond. The question is, how much will a bond at a net at a cost on an annual basis? Is that fair? Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Evans. I'm sorry. I'm confused now because I thought we were originally going to go through and just say yes or no and then look at where the money was or was not proposed coming from. I believe, if I can clarify, we need to go through with an idea of how much money each item will cost and where the money is coming from so that we know the impact on the general fund in particular. Well, then I agree with Councilman Stenet. We do need to have those discussions because that's not how I understood. how the process was going to go. So, yes, I would agree with Councilmember Stenet that we do need to have those discussions. So we'll try and get that information before we finish the list. I've got three people in line. Are they all on this same issue? Does anybody else wish to speak to the question that Councilmember Stenet has raised? Councilmember Farmer? so we're going to change the style of the meeting from what you had proposed no sir okay no all we were saying i think councilman mistinda's point is that if we're going to go through the list we need to know what the number is proposed so that when we get to the bottom of the list we can total it all up and see what the full impact is then we will go back once we know what the total impact is and see if anybody wants to modify any individual item but we need to know what the cost is we need to know for every item what the potential cost is as we go through does that make sense it doesn't make it hurt any less no thank you well we're trying our best to inflict as much pain as possible council member massadi i would have to agree with council member stendent i mean we're going to have to know exactly if this is going to be bonded it's going to come from a general fund because how can we accurately go forward if we don't know that? Thank you. I believe that we're ready, unless anybody else has a comment, to proceed. Stacey. Counsel? The estimated amount that we got from Brad Frazier on this Squires Road project was $206,000. And if we bond that, the debt service is $23,537 and some change. So unless anybody objects, we'll use that figure, those figures for our calculations. I'm sorry, what's the question? The question is that we now have the number of the cost, but are you also putting that it's going to be bond fund? Because I won't vote for it if it comes out of the bond fund, if it's in the bond fund. The proposal, I think, was not clear. We can re-vote. this would be a bonded project as proposed. Is that fair, Council Member Scotchfield? You know, for the whole of the three, because the amounts for the other two were so high, I had proposed bonding, but this amount is a lower amount, which I think a general fund would make more sense for this one. Second. For $206,000. This is, as I would understand it, this is a vote to reconsider. So you basically want to amend your motion and take those funds, full funds for the sidewalks, out of the general fund and not bond it. Is that correct? Well, I guess it's not amending because it's clarifying. I believe it was $206,000 we didn't specify for general fund. Well, if it makes sense to counsel, I would like to suggest that we take a new vote since at least one member was confused about whether it was bonding or out of the general fund. So unless there's objection, I would propose that we now vote on the full amount for this sidewalk again, which was, can I have that number again? 206,000. 206,000 to come out of the general fund. Is there any further discussion on the motion? I'm sorry, Commissioner, comment? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to make a few observations. No, I just want to make one comment. Approving the revenue at the $326 million, And if council adopts a process of having a structurally balanced budget, that would mean, after approving the late item list, that there's $843,570 to use in the general fund before you start making the approved budget imbalanced. So when you're talking about $200,000 here and $200,000 there, I just wanted to size that with the $843,570 that would be currently available if you want to stay as a structurally balanced budget. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Just further clarification. We're talking about we're mixing these things up between the years. the general funds. If we specified, Commissioner, if we specified that we would like to fund this out of unallocated fund balance, would that make it clearer and not jeopardize our fiscal year 16 budget? From my perspective, if you said you wanted to wait and make a decision in October, it's not approved and it is not to be funded from the 2016 budget, that you would wait until the October fund balance discussion, and then if you wanted to approve it, that would be a budget amendment to the 2016 budget. Well, see, that's the dilemma that we have, and I have on some of my projects, is how to pay for it. And the question is, and you've answered that this is preliminary, or we shouldn't be even discussing and approving projects at this point in the game? We wait until October? No, sir. That's not my statement. Okay. All right. My statement is there's $843,000 of capacity to approve for additional spending in the 2016 budget. Then the second question is, if you recommend waiting until October, then that is waiting to approve the project until October. but can we acknowledge and approve it now? There's no reason, as long as we specified that we would like the funds be used out of unallocated fund balance. Can't we go ahead with the process now and not jeopardize the 16 budget? I would be challenged to say yes to that, because we do not know what the unallocated fund balance will be to approve. So until we have the amount, I don't see how council can authorize the spending of it. What we have done in the past with fund balance, if there's something, we've put it on the fund balance to be considered list in the past. Not accepting the approval of it, but we've put it on, we'll pass it over. I'm sorry, but I actually believe that the council has taken action to approve projects from the unallocated fund balance already this year. And so I'm not advocating that we do that again, but I believe that that's already been done. Is that not the case? It was done in April. And so if you want to spend 2015 fund balance, you would need that budget approved in the next two council meetings. And we currently have an estimated $2.2 million of unallocated fund balance estimate as of the end of April. Again, I'm not advocating for that. I don't think it's a terribly good idea, but I just wanted to be clear that if council members want to do that, they want to make a motion that that's not out of order. I've got Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to kind of give some summary to this because what Mr. O'Mara said, the $840,000, that's the number that's in the budget. But unless we cut other places, we can add to that number and have a bigger final number. So if there were, say, 100,000 or 200,000 we found, we'd have over a million in there based on if we choose to cut anything. So that's just what was budgeted, and I appreciate you pointing that out. Keep in mind, there's three ways to get money for any of these projects. First way is current year 15, make a budget amendment at work session and try to find the money today if we wanted to. And that's what we did with $10 million a few weeks ago. The second way is in the budget F5 16 budget put in the budget fund it and the third way is what comes from a brown was alluding to is Put it on the list to be considered in the fall in October So those are three different pots money Obviously, I wouldn't agree with using the first method and taking out of this year's Budget because we don't know what that final number is going to be now that we took out 10 million That could be a very low number at this point So that I just want to bring some clarity to three different pots of money You can actually fund any of these things from and that's why it's important to be clear where we're getting the money from but you can't fund out a fund balance we don't know what it's going to be thank you for that clarification and I would just add that was a part of the reason why I was interested in suggesting to council that we go through first without looking at what the individual impact of each item is going to be because we'll run out of money pretty quickly and it will it will it will jeopardize those folks who have recommendations that are at the bottom of our list and i would like to get all those items given fair consideration and then let's see where we stand does anybody else wish to comment councilmember scotchfield i am going to amend my motion to make it come from bonded and not from general fund i think that makes the most sense it's an infrastructure thing it takes more out of the so i'll amend my motion to bonded i'm just procedurally if it's okay. It seems to me it's easier to make a new motion to rescind and then to... I will then rescind and make a new motion to take $206,000 bonded to pay for old Squires Road sidewalks. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Council Member Henson. Stacey, will you give us that bond amount again? 23 537 and 35 cents thank you any further discussion all those in favor please say aye opposed no we'll take an electronic vote in that case please log in. I need two more people. Who has not logged in? I'm sorry, there they are. That motion fails. Thank you. I think that brings us finally, perhaps, to the next item on your agenda, Council Member Scotchfield. The next item on the agenda that I have for consideration is something that was requested out of the Social Services Administration. I believe Commissioner Ford sent out the information that they had put together, Terry, the current executive director for the Domestic Violence Prevention Board, to move that position to full time. It had been a request that they had made to the mayor's budget, and I currently serve on that board, and I know that they had been moving forward thinking that that was going to happen, and I do think this would be a benefit to that program. It has grown, and so I make a motion to change the budget allocation of $43,770 to full-time director for that board. A motion. I'm just not clear. On the list, it says change 43.7. So that's in addition to what was proposed in the mayor's proposed budget? Not in the, yes, in addition to what? Because they kept it at a part-time in the mayor's proposed budget. Coming out of the general fund. Okay, thank you. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Council Member Stinnett? The 43770, I saw somewhere else that United Way is paying part of that, or is this our share? Or is that a totally different item? I've seen it on a couple other lists in here. Commissioner, welcome. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Stinnett, just to give clarity, the current position is a sole source contract provider to the government, which has been in place almost 30 years now. Terry Farragut serves as the incumbent in that position, and that is by contract right now equivalent to a part-time position. We fund to the level of $22,500, I believe, and the United Way funds $5,800, and that is current year, fiscal year 15, and that reflects the tradition and the history of the position now. So this is the total amount we need? The total amount that you see listed, what I believe would represent the salary and fringe of a full-time position. For a whole year? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. And it's listed at 50% because it's a new position. That's all new positions based on the new personnel model that the administration has brought forth. So what is the full-time then? This is only 50% of the salary. What is the full annual? The full annual was projected at $66,000 approximately. Okay, help me here. The math didn't add up. So is this half of? Plus fringe. Salary and fringe. So with fringe, it's $86,000, $87,000? Yes, sir. For full-time? Okay. What are we paying now for part-time? $22,500. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lamb? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to add in that since this is a current contract price, and I am advocating for this, too, I think that it is necessary, and I think that the position currently does a wonderful service for our community. I just want to make that clear. But also, we need to think about if we're going to budget this, are we going to continue to have the contract position for continuity purposes so that the contract position can help fuel and help with the full-time position to be created? I think that we do need to make sure that there's some continuity to that. And I do want to also, I was talking to Council Member Scutchfield yesterday afternoon, that I do want to have a presentation on the program and what it does for the community in the September, I believe, committee of the general government and social services. So I still want to continue with that. that was something that came out of our budget link, and we think it's very important that we are made aware of all the good things that come out of this committee. So I will support the motion, but I want to make sure that we think about all the different components of it. Thanks. Commissioner, could you comment on the question of continuity? Yes, sir. I think, and I will attempt to do my best. The request, and Terry Farragher is here to provide additional information as it relates to the duties that she's performed for years past to the current. This was a proposal that was brought forth by Commissioner Mills, working with Terry, and there is an interest and a concern that, of course, that Terry's long tenure now, 28 years, that most likely there's a transition on the horizon. She's perhaps deserved a retirement at some point in time in the future. There's concern in regards, there's interest, rather, of continuity with this program going forward, and this government has long supported the program. The current budget calls for the continuing support of that via contract, but Commissioner Mills, working with Terry, brought forth the request to transition it going towards a full-time position. Thank you. Further questions? Thank you, then. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner, I guess just to clarify, the amount that we have here, $43,770 would bring this position up to full time with benefits, correct? Yes, and that position, Council Member Henson, is based on a classification of a program coordinator. It is similar to the program coordinator relative in our department, subject to the new position of substance abuse and violence intervention. The new savvy office, their leader, will be classified as a program coordinator, as is our multicultural affairs coordinator. So it's under the classification of a program coordinator, and the estimated range was 66,000 approximately. Would the part-time position continue to exist, or would this take the place of that? Because there is a cost involved with that part-time position. That's correct. Long-term and going forward, the answer is no, in my opinion and understanding. If the council approved this, the interest and the intent was to do away with the contract that we've had for almost three decades now and to transition that position to a four-time equivalent. So what you're saying is initially we would continue with the part-time physician and then phase that out? Or would that be a cost savings? So could we subtract the current cost from this amount? I believe yes, Council Member Henson. It is all contingent upon the decision that the council will make at this time. What's proposed in the councils in the budget now is the continuation of the contract. So the part-time is included in the mayor's proposed budget. It would be replaced by this funding. What's proposed in the mayor's budget is the continuation of the sole source contract that we've had for years prior and an estimated cost of $22,500, $25,000. I think it is actually in this budget. So that would reduce this number then, correct, by $25,000? If this position was made a full-time position, there would no longer be a need for the sole source part-time contract. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. I just want to make a comment. The lady, Terry, has been doing it for 20 years. is it brought more money into this government for a part-time job than anybody in here. And this job should have been a full-time a long time ago, and I want to commend you for where you are. Now, you're not going to be here forever, so I think it's time that we get this job, a full-time job, and how important it is. And I commend that Terry there, because she has brought so much money into this program with her grant writing ability. I hope you don't leave. But if anybody, they're going to have to take a lot of talent up. So this needs to be a full-time job, so I support this. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. I still think that we're confused. I think that Council Member Henson's question, it's my understanding, and I'm looking at Ms. Farragher right now, this is the first time I've, it's nice to meet you. I'm still confused whether that the contract that is currently in the budget, if that intention is for that to go forward and add this position. I know that Commissioner Ford just was saying that we don't think so, but I'm looking at you, and I know this is sticky because it's per this council and what we decide. But the last thing we want to do is to hurt the program and its efforts. So I don't know if it's okay to ask you what your intentions are or not. I don't know if that's proper or not, but I'll ask. I think it's a question of semantics, and I hope we're speaking in unison here. But if I transition out of this position and someone new comes in, it is a learning process. And one of our major grants, we have brought in $3.2 million over the last 10 years in federal grants, and one of them is due for renewal in February. It takes a while for government to start a position and get somebody up and running. And so I believe that is why Commissioner Ford was hoping to continue some of the part-time, however much was needed. We don't know how long hiring will take or any of that. I haven't said for sure what my decision is, but if I should decide not to take the position and someone else is hired into it, there really would need to be a transition period. And let me just say that the services that hang in the balance that these grant monies have funded have funded some very critical services in this community, including services in our police department, supervised visitation services, services in our shelter, our rape crisis center. It's not all just money coming to government. It's also money coming to fund some critical services. And Commissioner Ford, did you want to add? And then I will add something after that. Yes, and I just wanted to say and respond to Council Member Maloney because I believe he expresses sentiment that is not only shared by the administration, this council, and the government across our city, is the value of the work that has been tendered to this issue of domestic violence. I don't believe that that is an issue in regards to how this government, how the administration values it. When our, in my new role as commissioner, when I met with the budget link about a month ago, there was great discussion in regards to the request. And Council Member Senate makes a point that this position should have been made full-time a long time ago. There's perhaps an argument to that, but the reality is that it was not, it has not until this point been requested to be a full-time position. So this is the first year, and correct me if I'm wrong, this is the first year that this position is being requested to transition from a part-time to a full-time position. In summary, I also, in the interim of our committee meeting, I met with Terry, and Terry has been very forthright and very helpful in providing not only to orient me to what it is that she's done for quite so long, but to also attempt to describe how this position may work, what duties potentially would be assumed if it were to go to a full time. So that is new information that we have. I've shared it with the council budget link. I've shared it with council member Scotchfield. And perhaps we may be willing to share that with the additional council. And then also, regardless of the outcome of the council's action, in regards to this budget, we would also welcome the opportunity to come and enlighten and inform the council globally about what this office does. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Ford. I just want to say this is the reason that it is clear that we understand and value everything, and I think that makes it even more important that we do this so that we don't just make a hastily decision to stop the contract and have a full-time position without the continuity. I think it is very important, and I think this goes back to why the budget links felt like that it was important that we actually look at this and not just create a position and do away with the contract. So it goes back to the reason that our budget link made the decision to have it brought to committee, and that way we can do this right and make sure that we're not going to mess it up, because that's the last thing that we want to do. And I think that states it clear. There's no, there's no, there's, everybody realizes the value of this and the importance of it, too. So I just want to make sure that that's clear. So thank you. Thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I like sausage as well as the next person. I just think that this is a very complicated discussion because this happens to also be part of one of the LINCS recommendations, which is visioned in here as a council member's item when it came to us as a LINCS recommendation. From my point of view, though, it's a complicated policy discussion as well as fiscal discussion because we're talking about how does one thing end, how does another one begin. And in the final analysis, in debating the actual motion, this adds a full-time equivalent job. And I step back from that because I think we need to act very carefully before we add jobs back. So with that in mind, or with that as a foundation for conversation, I would like to propose an amendment to, I think this needs to be in, this policy discussion needs to be in committee. I will leave that to someone else. I think for discussion on the amount of money here, or looking for ways for us to have discussion over more than the $800,000, which I think is what we've been potentially allotted to spend here, we need an outlet. We need a place to put items through the rest of this discussion that will let us maintain the balance, but let us look at these issues later. And I think we need to create a list for the October fund balance discussion, if you will, and I think this should be one of the items that is on it. So I would move to amend this rather than to spend the money now, but to endorse the policy and make it part of our listing of potential expenditures for our October discussion, but having given it priority by acting on it here today. So mine is a motion to amend, to place this on our list for our October spend after we know what our fund balance truly is. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. If you would like to speak to the motion, I've got at least three people on this side, and then I'll come to the other way. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you for the motion for discussion. councilmember farmer i would start off with one caveat usually in fund balance consideration we do not include personnel in that discussion that could be a another policy decision that we can have a discussion on i guess i want to go back to what councilman lamb asked i don't think we got the full answer how much money is budgeted in here for the current contract for a full year that's that here 22 000 and that's the contract that's budgeted for one year that's it's 25 000. Okay, so will we only need that for half a year so we'd have $12,500 left over once we hire the new person? How would that work? No, sir. The proposed budget does not diminish the government's commitment to this project. It keeps it flat. And flat is $22,000 it was last year. I believe it's proposed to be $25,000 and some change this year for the equivalent of a sole source contractor, which Terry provides for us, which is a part-time equivalent. That's in the budget now. That stands in the budget as we speak. We'll keep that for the whole year. That's what it's always been, yes, sir, that amount. So we'll have two people doing the same job come January 1? No, sir. What was proposed in the original budget was to take the current contract, which is a part-time equivalent, and to convert it and reclassify it as a full-time equivalent government employee. And I explained this to the link. That's really what makes it tricky. And if you'll just give me just one moment, Council Member Senate. When you think part-time to full-time, you really think double. You think you take the X amount, you double it, and you go from part-time to full-time. Well, that makes it slightly different here because the rate that we've compensated via the contract, it is what it is. It's $22,000, $25,000. But the proposal is not to double that. If we were just to double that, the number that council would be considering is $45,000, $50,000. But we want to go from a contract, which is not a part-time position. It's a contract just like any other contract. And we want to make it a full-time equivalent, a classification of program coordinator, which has been studied through HR and is comparable to other special programs. Domestic violence is the first, in my opinion, special program that the commissioner's office has undertaken. Multicultural affairs followed. SAVI is now coming on board to follow it. Same full-time equivalent type position. And that's what was proposed in the budget. Well, and I support what we're trying to do. I'm just trying to get the math right, and I still don't agree with what you just said, because I feel January 1 you're going to have a full-time position in place if everything works out as planned. So why do we need a contract for a full year? That's just my observation, and maybe I'm wrong. My understanding is the $22,000 that we provide, United Way provides another $5,800. That provides Terry's services to the government and to the Domestic Violence Prevention Board on a part-time rate. I think it equates out to 16 hours or so per week per fiscal year. That contract covers the fiscal year. It has in years past, and it's proposed to do so again in fiscal year 16 as listed in the mayor's proposed budget. So the new person, and Terry, we'll just use your name, I don't want to bring you into it, will be side by side the last six months of the fiscal year working together. And that's what I feel like you're saying, because we're going to hire someone new. No, sir. The proposal, if there were a full-time equivalent position created, this is perhaps the better way to say it. If there were a full-time equivalent position created, as was recommended by my predecessor, Commissioner Mills, there would be no need for a sole source provider via contract. taking Terry's incumbency away from serving now as the sole service provider contractor. Taking that away, the idea is there's no need for a contractor if we elevate that position to a full-time equivalent. Which we're planning to do so by creating this position a full-time. We're going to elevate the position to full-time. That's what was, and for clarity, That's what was recommended from the department in the mayor's budget. And would this be advertised position to go through the same HR process, or would this be appointed? How would this position be filled at that point? I would assume, Council Member Henson, that it would be a full-time equivalent. It would apply to all the other HR policies that we have. So we'd advertise an interview the same way we would with anybody. Okay. Now, and again for closing, it was proposed from the department to the mayor's budget. The administration considered it carefully, as it did with all the new hires. We discussed this in great detail at the budget link, and the budget link has brought forth its recommendation, and now we're studying Council Member Scutchfield's proposal. Thank you. Council Member Massadi. I guess this is confusion with a capital C. Terry, would you mind coming to the stand? Let me ask you a couple questions. With reference to Councilmember Farmer's amendment, that's October. You may be gone in October, am I correct? What I told the commissioner is that I am not willing to, I basically work a lot of hours, and I don't get paid very much, and that's okay. That's the choice I've made for 29 years, but I know someone else isn't going to make that choice. So what I would like to do is simply transition someone into the new position. So my plan would only be to be here for a month, maybe two, according to how quickly it happened. If it takes a little while for them to get hired, I would imagine I may need to work with them a month. If it were right during the time when that grant was due, it probably would be better for me to be there until that was completed. And then I plan to move on out. Gotcha. That's my concern. You may not be here in October. So I wouldn't be here the full year unless the hiring happened late spring. Okay, and this is also something that came out of the general fund link. So, again, we are ultimately, I am, really confused that this has been such a long dialogue on this one position. I would think that we could have transitioned this a little bit more smoothly. So I either defer to someone in administration to give us some guidance on this, how we can take care of this without all these concerns and questions that we've had. I would like to add one more thing that may inform the discussion. It is very unlikely that I am going to accept the full-time position when it's created, if it were offered to me. But if it isn't created, it's likely I'm going to move on out, and then I'm afraid of what will happen to this person. That's why I'm thinking about the timing on this whole thing. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Akers. So, Commissioner, I take it, I mean, my understanding is that you wanted a full-time position. You wanted this position to be full-time. The mayor's administration did not agree and kept it as part-time in their proposal. If we approved the full-time position, then we could amend the mayor's budget and either reduce their amount, if we wanted to do it for three months, six months, or whatever, or we could remove it completely if we didn't want to duplicate the positions. Is that correct? Yes. Commissioner Mills, and I as her successor as the Commissioner of Social Services, she recommended in her budget proposal for fiscal year 16 the creation of a full-time equivalent for this domestic violence prevention coordinator. So, of course, I assumed and I inherited her request that was submitted prior to me coming. And apologies to the council. I have done pretty well, I think, in orienting and trying to catch up with what's going on up at the commissioner's office. The request that I shared with the budget link and Council Member Scutchfield yesterday was the information that I requested after we met with the budget link. There was not a whole lot for me to go on just to be very honest and to be plain about it, to be frank about it in regards to how this transition and what the proposal. What we have is in the budget, officially was requested on the budget worksheet to transition from a part-time to a full-time equivalent. And I appreciate that, and I appreciate the intent or the thought behind having someone there to transition. But we don't really do that anywhere in any positions that I know of, to have two people in the same position to help, even if it's grants, even if it's, I mean, whatever we do. So if we approved the full-time position, then I would assume that we would amend the mayor's budget and remove the part-time contract. That's just my thinking. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I'm going back to the amendment on the motion to move this into possible discussion for the fund balance. And it's my understanding that fund balance is for one-time cost items, not for ongoing cost. Is that correct, Bill? So I would not be in support of the amendment. I would be okay with this position transitioning to full-time. And we did have quite a bit of discussion through the links. and through our links, and you can tell by the discussion that's taken place, that it is a little complicated, and Terry has done such a fantastic job. But could we replace her with a full-time position and get the same amount of quality of work that we've been getting from Terry all these years? So that experience and expertise is so valuable. So I would prefer to go with the LINCS recommendation and study this in committee and take a really good look at it and the best way to proceed. But I appreciate Council Member Scutchfield's recommendation. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member, is this to the amendment? The amendment is to What was the amendment again? To put it into the fund balance Deferred for fund balance I guess not But I do have a point though Well we'll get back to the main motion I think So seeing no Further discussion on the amendment All those in favor of the amendment Please say aye Please state the amendment again Refer to the domestic balance I will refer the domestic violence prevention position to the fund balance discussion in October. All in favor, please say aye. All opposed, no. That motion fails. Now back to the main motion, Council Member Lamb. Yes, I would like to make a suggestion, and I'd like to call CAO Hamilton up to the podium, please, But I'd like to make a suggestion that instead of creating a full-time position this budget cycle, let's create a part-time position in order to create the transition. And I want to ask CAO Hamilton, and I'm just dropping this out of the air right now. We certainly could do it that way. And what I had originally thought about was that if I can, because I was in the discussion with the Lynx on this, is that if we created a full-time position, we could do 50% contract this year. That would be six months. That would, and just think through this with me a minute, that six months would allow us, it's going to be three months to get somebody in here. For the time you, after July 1st, you advertise and you go ahead. We do that. Terry's doing the job in the three months, just like she is now. That gives her the opportunity to think, does she want the job? Does she want to apply for the job or not? We bring somebody on. She transitions them for a month, five weeks, whatever it takes in that area. That means that her contract is going to be less than six months. But we keep it at a six-month basis just in case we have a problem in finding somebody. So that way, we would take half of her contract amount. Follow me, Bill. half of her contract amount that is $25,000 off of the 40, whatever has been recommended, the $44,000. And if you chose to fund it, that would be the thing you would fund it on, unless you want to go back. Is that acceptable to, I mean, because clearly I think that's been the problem, is to know that that's acceptable to the existing or the ongoing contract. The other thing is, my point about the part-time is, is that when you have a full-time civil service versus part-time, you have different hiring regulations, too. So I'll just throw that out there. But I agree with what CAO Hamilton just said. Thank you. Councilmember Gibbs. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner Ford, can we have you up here again? would you mind addressing Councilman Acres' comment about we don't have anybody else train other positions or have people hang around. This seems like such an important position and someone's been at for so long. That's my feeling at least. Thank you, Councilmember Gibbs. I'll be glad to, and thanks for the opportunity to circle back. Councilmember Acres is correct. Traditionally, when one incumbent leaves and the next successor comes, This is slightly different based on Terry's tenure, 28 years now, and she's, there's so much to transition down. You know, there's some things that perhaps she will retain, some things that perhaps need to be not retained, destroyed, And there's some things that 28 years is a long time, and it would perhaps best serve the government and this community if there were an interaction and transition period between Terry and whoever the successor is going to be. and that also speaks to timing is because, irregardless of this conversation, at some time in the near future, we will hopefully, and I'm almost certain that we will want to be vested in that conversation, that this government will have to begin working with Terry's successor. So there's going to be a transition at some point in time, and this budget is all about timing, so it's only a matter of whether or not we see value in having that work on parallel tracks. Thank you. Councilmember Scotchfield. I am going to withdraw my motion and amend the motion. Yeah. And make a new motion that instead of we approve for $43,770, approve the position funded at $31,000, which would take out half of the $25,000 for the funding year. Because as CAO Hamilton thought, a six-month period would be more appropriate. Second. Second. I have a motion and a second. I see the commissioner rising. Yes, sir. We really need the $43,000 to be in the budget for personnel. and then if you want the 12-5 reduction in the contract, that way we have both buckets approved in the right places. It's the net same. If you could make that two different amounts, that would help us. So the motion now reflects the, is that okay with the seconder? Yes, sir. I now have a motion in a second to reduce the amount of the contract and to approve the position as recommended. Is there any further discussion? If not, I will call a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? We will take an electronic vote. Somebody else? That motion passes. Thank you so much. Thank you all for your patience. For council members, I'm going to suggest about a 10 to 15 minute break. There's lunch. People are, yeah, we're going to take a break. Get some food. Please take a short break. Bring food back in if you're willing. And we'll continue at 1.15. Thank you. What? ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. I think we're ready to get started again. People find their seats. We'll reconvene. Thank you. Councilmember Scotchfield, your last item. Thank you, Vice Mayor Kay. On my last item, I think this is an item that we can discuss in fund balance in the fall. So I will remove it from consideration at this time. Second. I have a motion and a second to consider this item for the fund balance in the fall. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. next uh council member maloney thank you i hope mine's short and brief uh the reason why i bring this to the table is because this is something i pushed for for a while as most of you all know i i feel that the reason that we have a surplus the last two or three years is because of some of the jobs that we did not fulfill. And those jobs have been done by employees that were doing the job of one person that were doing the job for three people. And as you all know, that's why we have had a lot of jobs not being filled, because we went through a tough time. Employees were not asked to get raises for a couple years because of what times we were going through. And my goal was, since last year was a great year of surplus, and a lot of it has to be credit to these employees. And sworn officers are getting a considerable good amount of raises, which their jobs and what they do is deserved in what they have. And I also believe that these employees deserve the max of what they deserve. I'm not asking for the 7% or 8% that the sworn officers get. And I know that's like asking for the moon, which I think they deserve. But I was originally going to look at the 5%. I went down to the 4% just to be realistic, knowing that the money's there. But we need to reward where this money came in surplus. And I know a lot of people here think we're the government. We set an example that other employees are not giving raises. Well, they are starting to give raises. And 1% added on to this 3% for what these employees went through with the medical change and not having raises over those few years of doing that. And the morale in employees, I feel, are not great right now. And I'm not trying to put – reading in the newspaper about the administration, some of those folks getting a lot of money, it doesn't go well with these employees. and I think it's a time where we award these folks where they need to be awarded and that's why I want to make a motion that we had the 1% on there, which the money will come out, part of it will come out of general funds, $800,000. The other $160,000 comes out of the funds where the garbage and solid waste has their rest of funding to pay for those other funds. So I'd like to make a motion that we add the 1% that the employees raised this year. So I'm going to take it. A motion and a second. Is there a discussion on the motion? Council Member Lamb. Council Member Maloney, would that mean that we would need to change the 2% structure to a 3% structure? Have you put any thought into possibly changing the structure movement on that? I don't think I mean I really don't want to I mean it depends on how I don't feel like we should change the structure I think it's already placed in what they are I just think we just need to raise employees up to another percentage I guess the only thing I would say is that I don't know what the number is if we only raise the structure 2% and we give a 4% how many will that cut out Well, they've said that they were going to give, regardless, they were going to give 3% to everybody, regardless whether they're at the top of their scale, pay scale or not. So I guess that would need to be made sure, that was a stipulation, that they would get 4% regardless of whether they were topped out or not. Well, I think those who still get their raises were the 2%, whatever, but everybody still get the 4% raise on top. is what I recommend. 1% extra. Everybody's getting 3%. I want to add the 1% so everybody gets 4%. Council Member Malone, is that your comment? Thank you. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess I would ask budgeting and Mr. O'Mara would this is this $800,000? What percentage comes out of the general fund? Do we have that amount? And does this include a structure movement for everyone as Mr. Maloney wants to do? If you can give me just a minute, I can get the breakdown of all the funds, the percentages. Okay, sure. If you just give me just a moment, I can get that for you. Okay, and will you include the structure movement? I think that's what the intention is. I want to defer to HR on the structure movement. I don't know the specifics on that, so I would defer to Sally or Tammy on that one. Okay. Hello. Hello. The structure movement would not require a change necessarily. That's an adjustment to make sure that, you know, incoming rates and that sort of thing are all the same. And with regard to your comment, if it were to be kept the same, the additional 1% would mean that everyone would get the entire 4%, the way it's written right now. Okay. And then do you work with the collective bargaining contract? HR works with that contract, correct? Yes. Were there any 7% or 8% raises in there? Each one is a little bit different, so it's, I don't know right off the top of my head if anyone is. Mr. Williams alluded to it. Some people were getting a 7% and 8% raise across the board, and I don't think that's accurate. I think they're smaller than that. I did some. Not all of them. Are there any? That's my question. Yeah, I suppose. I'd have to do some research. I'm not sure, but Tammy's right. The movement depends on which step you're in. in what year of the contract. Right, but overall the average raise is not 7, 8 percent. Oh, no. No, I mean, it's probably 3, 3.5 is my guess, but I'd have to do some research. Just curious. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Lane. CAO Hamilton. Are you recommending that we do the 1 percent increase in addition to what we've already given, or does the administration have a position on that? Or should I get Mr. Emmons up there and put him on the spot? When we went over this, and I certainly appreciate it since we all benefit from that, Council Member Maloney's suggestion, but when we went over this to decide what the administration thought was appropriate for the raises, we had HR sort of survey what was going on out in the private sector. And those raises were in that 3% range, and that's why we stayed with 3%. And we moved from 2% last year, I think it was, to 3% this year, and we thought it was appropriate. But, of course, this is the council's decision raising it. Well, are you saying that basically there were two raises involved? One was the study that adjusted certain jobs in the government to be competitive with private jobs in the Lexington area. And then in addition, there's a percentage increase raise across the board. Across the board. These are for non-sworn or non-union. They may be union members, but they're non-sworn members. Does anybody have the number of what the increases for those people will be as a lump sum cost for one year without this additional 1% in there? Do we have a number on that? Across the 3%. Wait just a minute, sir, and we'll get that for you. General. And across. The general fund 3% increase is $1,633,668. Okay, now that's the 3%. What about the adjustments that were made by the outside firm that try to have parity on the competitive rates between the government and the private industry? Do we have a number on that? I don't have that number in my binder. I need to get that number for you. All right. Well, I was just trying to get an overview of what the cost will be because we put in basically two raises already, and this would maybe be the third raise. And this, you know, we don't roll payroll back. So whatever we vote on today, we'll be paying that into the future, plus any additional increases on that. So I think council needs to be sensitive of maybe the recommendations of the mayor and the administration as to whether we should put the 1% additional in or not. So that's why I was asking. I presume that you're not recommending it because you didn't put it in the budget. But would that be a fair characterization of that? We felt that our 3% was in line. Okay. All right. Thank you, CAO Hamilton. I appreciate it. And that's all I have. Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor. Thank you. I have nobody else signed up to speak. We'll take a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. We'll take an electronic vote on this, please. That motion passes. Next item on the agenda. I think that would be Council Member Gibbs. I'm sorry. I thought that was covered in the motion. Is that correct? I thought that that was included in the motion. I'd like to make a motion that the $160,000 be taken out of the fund. That would be the, which one would be coming out? Water, streets? I mean, water. No, it wouldn't be coming out of general funds. It's the $160,000 that comes out of the, to pay the. Okay. So the cost to the general fund for the 1% only is $544,556. If we run it across all funds, it's $811,475. And I can get the breakdown of all those other funds for you. So this is going to be less than what we have on here. For a general fund, it's less than $860,000. We've taken a vote on that. We're now talking about the $160,000, I believe. Oh, the $160,000. I'm sorry, I misunderstood your question. I thought the 160 was part of the money that comes out of the garbage to pay the water. I don't know where the 160 figure came from, so I can't speak to that. We can run the numbers for you, but I don't have the calculations for the 160. Well, I go back and make a motion that $811,000, I mean, it's already been motion made, so I'm fine. It was already made. It can be amended later if needed. Thank you. So now we're on the 160? Now we're on the 160. I thought we were on the 160. I thought they were together. No. Okay, well, I make a motion that we put the $160,000 to add to the ranges for the non-sworn officers that will come out of water quality in those funds. That way we already surplus in those funds. So move. This is for minimum wage. Second. This is not the minimum. Am I doing the minimum wage? Oh, I'm sorry. Are we... Hey, give me a... I'm sorry. I've been gone for a while, folks. I apologize. This is $160,000, and I understand that I'm pushing forward because if we're going to be sending a minimum wage across this city of Luttonton, the city of Luttonton, we need to start here first in-house. So I'll make a move that we start with $160,000. And what it does is get the temporary, the part-time, and those employees back up to where they need to be. And it will be spread out over the next three years for what the motion was made for the minimum wage if we were to pass it. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. Anybody wish to speak to the motion? Councilmember Massadi. I just wanted to add some information with that. I mean, it's an expenditure of $160,000, but the revenue generated as a result of this increase in pay over a three-year time is $440,000, only for the first year. So it's more than revenue neutral. It adds money back to the general fund because of the payroll tax that accompanies this. So thank you. Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak to the motion? Council Member Akers. Commissioner O'Meara, could you speak to that comment? Councilor Massotti's last comment of the revenue positive, actually. Well, I think she may be talking about the additional spending and the GDP of the area. The actual revenue to the urban county government would be 2.25% of $160,000. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Stinnett. Can you explain where the 160 number came from? How did you arrive at that number? From, I believe, our staff came up with that money. That number was provided to me by Council Member Masati, and I'm unable to locate that in the stack of papers I have over here right now. But if I remember correctly, that $160 was supposed to be a first-year out of a three-year cost. Is your microphone on? Get a little closer to it. That number was provided by Council Member Massadi. She advised, and I can't find in my notes right now the email where that $160 is referenced, but it was supposed to be a first-of-a-three-year cost, I believe. Correct, and that came directly from HR. There was a memo from Mr. Scheuniger to me from HR that supported that documentation. Can we verify that from HR, though, this is the correct number for all of our seasonal and all of our part-time? I mean, you may not be able to do right today or this second, but if you can get that to us. I can get that to you, too, Council Member Senate. I've got a copy of that if you need that. The other question is, does this also cover our summer youth employment program under this? Is your intention, Mr. Maloney, to cover the Summer Youth Employment Program under this number? It should, and that's something that does include the Summer Youth Program. It should. So, and those are primarily high school students? Yes. Right. So you want to include those in here as well? I believe they're already in there. Okay. And I don't want to jump ahead, but Mr. Brown, I think you have a recommendation to increase the Summer Youth Employment Program. Did that take this recommendation into consideration, the number you came up with? Okay, so what the gestures is if we come to it. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. My first question, I guess, is what will be the hourly rate that we'd be setting in order to get that $160,000? what would be our minimum wage for year 1, 2, and 3? What are the numbers on that? I take it year 3 is $10, but what year, 1 and 2, what would be the minimum wages? Councilmember Lane, if I remember correctly, we go to 815, 920, and then 1010. Okay, and is there any, you are proposing a cost of living increase on the minimum wage, and your other ordinance, did you put cost of living increase in this too? No. Okay. All right, well, good. Here's my thought. I am opposed to the council raising the minimum wage for all of the businesses in Fayette County, but I believe in the free market system, and I think the free market system is where each entity can raise their wages and set minimum wage for their own company or own government entity. So I will support this because I feel that the Irvin County government should try to have a minimum wage that's acceptable. But I'd like to just remind our council members that McDonald's, Walmart, a lot of the major Target, a lot of major companies are all raising their minimum wage, and that we need to let the free market system raise the rates for the people that operate in our county and not let the Irvin County government set it. But I think we should set an example of moving towards minimum wage by taking care of the few people that do not make it currently on our payroll. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Akers. I wanted to ask, I guess, either Council Member Maloney or Massadi or Commissioner O'Meara, if it's 160 in fiscal year 16, can we get the total numbers for 17 and 18, what that increase would look like, based, I guess, if we kept the same exact number of employees today? I think if I could get a copy of that memo, it would give you an idea of how this was broken down. Maybe Rob Bolson could get that memo down to us before the end of the session today. But there was a breakdown over three years. The cost and the expenditure and the revenue as a result of that probably would help you. And I think the 440 is incorrect. I think the 440 depends upon the total for the three years that would come through. I do remember maybe I misunderstood your question but I was told if we would have raised them for $10,000 right now it would have cost $400,000 does that help you? yeah so then next year would be somewhere between $160,000 and $4000 thank you thank you I have nobody else signed up Council Member Lane Yeah, I'd like just to add another thought here is that the most recent unemployment data for Fayette County showed that we had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. We're at 3.6%. That is almost full employment because a certain number of people are going to change jobs each year, and that could be 3.6 people out of 100 that were looking for a job might be in the course of switching to another position. So the reason I mention that is that it gets back to the free market system again. The demand for labor will force up the wages anyway. And ultimately, what we're voting on here is really sort of maybe a moot question. It's more saying that we support minimum wage for the urban county government employees, but we're going to end up having to pay higher wages for entry-level people because of competition in the marketplace. and the fact that unemployment is so low here that there's a demand for employees, hopefully even in the unskilled area. So I don't feel like this is that big of a burden. But on the other hand, where we just passed a 1% increase for all current employees, that's a long-term impact on our budget. That's why I voted against that. Thank you. Thank you. Now I have no further people signed up. Take a vote on the motion. And all those, I'm sorry, Council Member Massotti. The question was asked to me whether that would be, this would, this minimum wage increase would be tied to the CPI, as I indicated in the ordinance that I'm trying to move forward. I guess I said yes, but then I thought about it, and depending upon that ordinance, it may be. So I cannot unequivocally say yes or no on that. Currently, right now, we don't have an ordinance in place stating anything about the minimum wage and the increase and how it's tied to consumer price index. However, this motion is separate from that, so I'm going to recant my last answer and say I just don't know. It's going to be dependent on the ordinance, but this one provision right here that Council Member Maloney and I both support has nothing to do with a minimum wage ordinance. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Just a post-mortem comment on that. is I'm going to totally oppose the CPI index, and if you put that on the ordinance that you're proposing, I would vote against it. We're not talking about an ordinance today. We're talking about $160,000 here on this for our part-time employees. This is a Cal meeting, and the vote here is non-binding. We have to bring this before council for a binding vote on it. And that being the case, when you bring your motion in, you need to consider that aspect of it. Thank you. I have nobody else signed up all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye opposed no we'll take an electronic vote that vote reflects passage of the motion thank you next item councilmember Gibbs thank you vice mayor I just have one item I'd like to include fifty thousand dollars to enclose the farmers market the fifth third pavilion for the winter time I think it'd be a major enhancement for the for the market my star witness Ashton Potter right just had to leave but uh but uh i can try to answer questions about it if anybody has them and any of the technical aspects john sheet is here for that so we have a motion to i'll make a motion to include the fifty thousand dollars in the from the general fund they have a motion do i have a second hearing none i'm actually going to ask councilmember stinnett to take over the chair so that i can second this motion for the purposes of discussion i'd like to be recognized i will i'll second the motion then i'd like to speak to the motion Please do. Thank you. This is an item that the farmer's market and the parks department had worked on last year and had thought they had private funding for. It turned out, finally, that that private funding was not available. But this is a project that is basically all set to go. It's been cleared with parks. It's been cleared with facilities. What it would do, it would add flexible siding in the winter months so that the farmer's market, which has been having a winter market, would have a little bit of protection from the environment. It would also make the pavilion more available for other people during the wintertime. The total cost of $50,000 reflects the cost of materials, installation, and removal, and storage between seasons. there would be an additional cost of, a very minimal cost of, I don't know, $1,500 or so annually for cleaning and so on. But I see that Jamshid is here. If you'd be willing to come to the mic and just speak to this, thank you. All right, I'll turn the chair back over to the vice mayor, Kay. Thank you. The item that you noted in terms of takedown at the end of the season, in this case being winter and early spring, cleaning and proper storage will run anywhere from $1,200 to $1,500, obviously depending on the extent of some of the repairs that might be needed. The original contract include that amount as part of the base for the first year, and obviously for years after that, that item needs to be the cost of that item needs to be added to Parks and Recreation's budget. Thank you. Council Member Akers. I just had, I guess, a point of order, a procedural question. Looking at the balance of the general fund minus what we've already approved, we're negative almost $150,000. So I just wonder, I mean, I know that technically we're not approving things, but we are approving things. We're not. So this is all just hypothetical approvals today. I'll, if I may. We're going to come back and do this all over again is what we're hearing. We're going to come back after we have gone through all of the items that council members have suggested and give them an up or down vote as a preliminary vote. We'll go through the links, recommendations, and then we'll see where we stand in relation to the budget. At that time, there'll be an opportunity to make further proposals for either inclusion or for taking some things out of the budget. The intention is not to shortchange the people at the bottom of the list. and if we stop if we do it by basically saying we don't have any money left and all we've done is we've privileged the people at the top of the list i understand that but i also just see i mean this is we're spending several hours today we're going to so now we're scheduling another meeting to spend several hours to do it again and i just if we don't have the money and we're i mean it doesn't i just don't like to waste time for everybody but we'll we'll do it thank you uh council member in it on this on this item you're saying take it cash from the general fund correct and it's one time what will happen if we proceed with the courthouse project will the farmers market stay there do we know what the status of that would be if we proceed with the courthouse project will they have to move i'm just trying to say we may not need the money right away we may need a future need i don't know right that's unclear as far as i know right now okay people get clarity now In our conversations about the Fifth Third Pavilion and the farmers, we do not know at this point where the staging of that work will have to take place for the courthouse. And there could be the possibility that we would be staging a lot on that particular side of the courthouse. And that consequently would cause us to have to make some alterations there with the farmers market. When will we have that answered? sometime this year? Yes, sir. We'll have that. Before we start phase two? We'll have that information. I would say late fall. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Jake, Council Member Gibbs, I support these kind of programs, but my question is can we get other private organizations to come in with matches? Because this, to me, is used by a lot of folks who are going to come in there and make money. They're going to be using farmers markets year-round. They're going to be using art. There's going to be a lot of people that are going to do to sell their products and all that. And I think it's great what we're going to do. I've seen how these things work and everything, but I've seen private partnerships come in on these kind of projects to bring money in because this is something I think would be a great group, a community organization where farmers market goes out and raises money, the art center raises money. So they could use, both of them could use it all the time, and then we come in with some kind of a match to make this work. The only thing I have is I don't see where anybody has come in and offered to work to help us with this. Now, if you have some information that people have and there's a reason why, I'd be glad to hear it. But I just think this is a great chance to bring a community together and do something with that. It's amazing what this kind of, instead of the city just doing it. That's just my concern. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. In a minute, I'd like to ask the Vice Mayor to comment on this because he knows more about the background. Apparently, there was some private money and it went away. So I think it would be pretty late to try to do the legwork now to try to get something ready for late fall. And so I'd like to see us go past this now. The farmer's market is a wonderful amenity for this entire community. It's one of the best things in this community as far as I'm concerned. There are environmental aspects to this that I think the more we have local food, we keep more money in the community, we keep people from buying stuff coming in from California and so on. So I think it has a larger impact on the community. So I think it's very much worth our government financing it. But as for the background, I'm not clear on the background of what happened, so I'd ask the Vice Mayor to comment on that if you could. I may. the farmers market and the local food coordinator made a concerted effort to get outside funding for this they thought they had it lined up at the last minute it turned out not to materialize and this was fairly recently the reason to come to the city at this point is that if we don't get funds shortly we can't get the material produced we can't get it ready for the fall the farmers who have been coming in the winter time if you've ever gone down to the farmers market in the winter time it's pretty brutal it's windy it's cold it's difficult they come they bring food they create a little bit of a community environment i think we all understand how valuable it is in the summertime but it also has that function in the winter time So I basically would make the case that this is a point where without a huge investment, the city can support the activities of the farmer's market and ensure that this winter they'll have a little bit more protection. Thank you. And I'll turn it back over. I appreciate y'all's answers. I think it's more than just the farmer's market there. I think it can be used for art. It can be used for a lot of things. And I think the downtown authorities should be involved with this because they rent it out to a lot, and I believe they're in charge of renting that thing out a lot when they're not used for other things, if I'm correct. I don't know. I thought the DLC has a policy. And that's why, to me, I just see all kinds of potential from anywhere from weddings, all kinds of art, and this is a great chance for the community to come together and put money up and do it like a top class, or just to throw the government in here. I just don't see where we've shown any effort yet to try to ask for other money from, because I think there's a lot of people out there who are willing to do that, because it does work. Thank you. Councilmember Akers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I wanted to ask someone from Parks to come up, please. Sorry, Brian. I know you were hoping you could stay hidden back there. Can you tell us a little bit, I mean, first of all, the lease for the farmer's market is how old, do you know? There's a memorandum of understanding. There is not a lease, to my knowledge, and that was performed out of the mayor's office. Parks is not really involved with the agreement with the farmer's market, per se. So, and they receive that rent-free, correct? They don't pay rent for using the space. So the, I guess the enclosures that they're requesting funds for, would those remain even outside of the time that the farmer's market is using the space? No, it's my understanding they would come down in early spring. But I mean, but they would stay up for other people as well. If other groups wanted to rent the space, those enclosures would be there in the fall or winter. Yes, it would be problematic to take them down and put them back up. Yes, ma'am. And so I guess since you all were in my link, why wasn't this part of you all's budget request to the mayor or to our link? There have been some issues with the lack of a director. I'm not sure that the communication came all the way down through the ranks. It could have been. We support the initiative. There's really not that many outside entities that are interested in the Cheapside Pavilion during the winter. and so I don't think it'll be that impactful to what Parks is doing. And what is the normal fee for renting the park? $700 for the first four hours and $150 for each additional hour after that. And you all manage that, correct? Yes, ma'am. You all rent it? With the assistance of the mayor's office, yes, ma'am. Okay. I think Commissioner Reid's behind you if he wants to comment. Oh, there we go. Thanks, Brian. He covered it all well. We had been, this issue had kind of gone into limbo status. We had dealt with folks about participating in providing some funding. When that fell through, we didn't include it in our budget request. It was brought up in our link by Vice Mayor Kay, and we support the concept and had done a good bit of initial lead work. But it had not been included in the mayor's budget per se. Can anyone, do you all have the number? I mean, you all, I guess, provide like trash, recycling, other services to the market in addition to free rent. Do you know what the costs are of those? Is it cost to the city? We can work that up. It would be part of our overall downtown, what our downtown staff does for the downtown area, which is with staff and operating and those type of things. For the downtown area, it's around $130,000. We'd have to prorate that into that specific area. Well, I guess I'll just say a couple of words, because this was Vice Mayor Kay did attend my link and request this of my link, and I didn't bring it forward from my link. obviously, so it's here as an individual council member requests. And the reason I didn't is because I feel like that the city already gives lots of concessions to the market by giving them free space, by providing for trash and recycling pickup, by providing police service to bag the meters and close the streets. And we have another market in town that does not get any assistance or support from the city, and they have found their private locations, private sponsors, and done it all privately. And so I just felt like an additional $50,000 that they could or should fund that privately, and so I won't support this motion. And that's why I didn't bring it out of the link. So thank you. Thank you. I have nobody else signed up, so we'll call a motion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. No. Please vote electronically. we'll get a few people out of the room do they want to that motion fails next item on the agenda would be council member masadi I'm sorry. Council Member Lamb. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Well, I'm going to try to make mine as simple as possible. The first item is an educational sign for Zandell Park regarding a stream restoration, and I'm going to actually take and defer that into the fall discussion. Sorry, I was distracted. That's okay, I understand. Yes, I want to take the first item, the educational signage for Zandell Park for $2,500. I'm going to defer that to the fall discussion. The motion is there or second? I have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Council Member Brown. Could we have a clarification on maybe the verbiage on where you want to put this? In other words, you want the council to either agree or disagree that you put it in the fund balance surplus for the fall? I would like to have some verbiage on this because I've got several things just like Council Member Lamb has that I would like to report out so that we can get a list of those items going into October. Does anybody agree with that? If we can all have the same language. I'm not sure I understand. That's my request. The request is, if you would, I'm sorry again. I have the same language as Council Member Lamb wants to defer this to the fund balance or to whatever, the surplus. Fall discussion. For the fall discussion. Yes. Could we have the verbiage on that so that we all could use that if we needed to so that they could make a list of those items? I think we are. The staff is keeping a list of anybody who makes that request. I'll send it out after the meeting. We'll reformat it, but we're keeping, I've got the spreadsheet open and updating it as we go. All I want is just the same verbiage on the motion. I don't particularly like your verbiage just for fall. I mean, you know, you're just waiting for the fall. Is it out of the unallocated fund balance in October? Is that what it is? That's all I'm asking. I mean, I didn't say October because I know Commissioner O'Mara suggested that it would probably be around October that there would be discussion about. I think, is that correct, Commissioner O'Mara? Yes? Well, maybe the commissioner could give me the verbiage then. And is it, are we addressing this issue in unallocated fund balance, which we will know in the fall? I would suggest looking back at the council action last year. And at this time last year, I think the verbiage was that it would be listed as a preferred item when fund balance discussions occurred in October. Preferred items for? for fun balance discussions in october okay is that sound i think it all gets us to the same point so so all right uh vice mayor am i to go ahead or is there is did you take a vote on that motion please i have not taken a vote i want to and i presume did you have another comment or are you Okay, then we're ready to take a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Your next item. Okay. The next item is for two half-court basketball courts for Veterans Park. And a little, just a tad bit of history. One of my subdivisions, Pinnacle, had actually brought forward a request to think about a basketball court in Veterans Park, which there is not currently one. So as opposed to just going to one side or the other of the park, we decided to place them in two different sides of the park. and so that would be $155,000 for both half courts and one of them I believe is on Rockbridge and I don't know if that's actually in Councilmember Lane's district or I'm not sure but anyway I just wanted to point that out. So it would be for the creation including the asphalt striping and the gold for the courts. all of that is included in that price for those two half courts. And I would like to request this move forward with the FY16 budget request. Thank you. I have a motion. Is there a second? I second. I have a motion and a second. A discussion of the item. Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess my only concern is that we have the master parks plan that's getting ready to be done. And I think we need to be hesitant before we spend too much money on parks until we have a final report from that. And that's my concern. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak to this motion? Council Member Brown. Would you consider an amendment to refer that to the fund balance in the fall? I would like to just hang on to that one. I'm actually going to defer the next one to that, so I would like to hang on to this one if possible. We'll see where it goes. Thank you. Seeing nobody else signed up, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. sign in got somebody else to vote but that motion fails next item okay the next item is the updating fitness stations for the Kirk Levington Park and I would like to defer that to the discussion on in October I have a motion to defer this to the October discussion on the fund balance. Is there a second? I have a second. Further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. And the last one, I will actually defer because I know a number of other council members have also put funding for additional, for street paving. So I'm going to defer to my peers who have much larger amounts on their request. So thanks. I'm through. Bye. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. My first recommendation is to increase the summer youth employment program by 75 students. Right now, the program capacity is 225. It would bring it up to 300 students. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Councilmember Stinnett. I want to go back. this $75,000 that adds those 75 students, is that based on the minimum current wage? So it wouldn't be enough to fund it if the minimum wage changed. Yes, sir. I guess we would have to get those numbers once finance can plug those numbers in. But I think we can still approve the increase to 75 students. Is that possible? Yeah, I'm just trying to get a true placeholder in the general fund because this affects our bottom line and what that real number would be. I know it's generally, I was told it was $1,000 a student. If I might throw this out there, for the 75 students, we would also need to calculate benefits costs on top of this, so it would be more than the $75,000 regardless of the minimum wage discussion. So we can calculate that with benefits. I'll support it in concept to the next round, and that way we can get a real number and vote it that way. Thank you, Melissa. If you can get us that. Thank you. So we still have a motion on the floor. Anybody else wish to speak to the motion? And I guess with the proviso that should it pass that we'll get a more complete number before we do a final tally. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Please log in. that motion passes next item please um the other recommendation is um and i guess this number it may or may not change for 28,802 for a staff assistant for the summer youth and program to help to help handle the additional workload. In addition to the Summer Youth Employment Program, they would also work with the 500 plus students that the Youth Services works with annually as well. And I guess I'll just say kind of something with both of the proposals or both of the recommendations. I overheard somebody say the other day that it's summertime, students are out of school, so we'll put on our seatbelts and kind of wait and see where the summer is going to take us. And I think this is the city's opportunity to put the seatbelt on and kind of be in the driver's seats as far as stirring the positive activities for the youth during the summer. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion of the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Please log in. That reflects passage of the motion. Thank you. And the last item? The last item is $180,000 for funding for critical repairs to the Morton House in Duncan Park. Following my appointment, one of the first places that I went and visited as a councilperson was the Morton House in Duncan Park, just because at a couple of neighborhood meetings, I'd heard that neighbors were concerned about Duncan Park and it being a destination park for the neighbors. And I was taking, you know, I was giving a tour of the Morton House, and I was greeted by some park and rec representatives, and they went on to tell me about some of the improvements they were making at the Morton House, one of them being the roof, which has already been funded, and it's on schedule to be completed, I think, this year. And then the HVAC unit has been replaced last year, 2014. But it's still a few items on the critical repair list that needs to be addressed. And I think as an example of being good stewards, I think it would be in the city's best interest and maybe even improve the park in its perception as a destination to the neighbors, to do those improvements to the Morton House. And adding to that is I also took a tour of the park with Park and Rex, and we kind of threw out some ideas of projects or improvements to make to the park. But I think one of the strengths of Duncan Park is the Morton House, and I think if we improve on that, that we would be working towards our strengths instead of adding, you know, before we get to the point where we add other park projects. So I'd like to make that motion. And I apologize. Is this for general funds or is this for bonding? I'd almost hate to categorize it right now as far as, unless I have to, whether it's going to come out of general funds or bonding, because if there's some other council recommendations that could, you know, be put together as a bond package, then it might go. But if we have to say bond it now, then it may not pass. So, I mean, do I need to make that distinction now? We need to know, yes, so that we know what the impact on the general fund is. This would be added to a bond package that would be put together that would include that as well as many other things. Commissioner, were you going to? This speaks to the question of bonding this, but this could be put... Hello? It's been up too close to the phone. If this were to be approved out of bond funds, it would simply be added to a larger bond package. Is that correct? That's correct. I was just giving staff the cost of the bond, the cost of the debt service if it was bonded. I see. So can you... What would the... $20,500. 20 500 would be the debt service thank you so customer brown it's your choice as to how to make the motion either out of all out of general funds or bonded 20 500 out of general funds i think that i would say general fund is there a second on the motion I'll second. I have a second discussion. Council Member Brown, are you signed up for this? Yes. I can't support the motion because we don't have any money left in the general fund, for one. The other one would, I think in this particular instance, it might be, just to give you some information, I think it would be better to be a deferred item and we take it up in the fall because it looks like to me it's a much-needed expense, but I think we could have everything in line and have all of our information together by deferring it to the fall, hopefully the surplus that we have, and then we can make a decision then. So I would suggest that. Thank you. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I had a question for Parks and Rec. And if they currently have bond package that maybe this could be added to for other maintenance. I believe this would need to be a stand-alone project. It couldn't be added to any current projects, per se, in the bond packet. And what we're working on now. It could be added? It could not be. As far as a bonded project, this would be a new project. And it really is in general services and administration. It's really under our umbrella over there. It is not the maintaining of this building. Am I correct, John Shee? We are in the lead of doing the roofing project in general services area for this building. And we've been working with the nest as the group that occupies this building and does the programs for this building. And we've worked with their board of directors over the past couple of years. There are a great number of needs in this building, and it is of great historical significance as well. Right. The nest doesn't pay any rent for use of the facility. It's just a benefit to the community. Yes. Them being there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Council Member Gibbs. Thank you, Vice Mayor. uh john sheet i just wonder if you could uh give us an idea of the condition of it first of all i want to ask for while he's walking up here clarification on something uh councilmember fred brown said in essence we're out of money my understanding is that's not really the case what we're doing today is weeding weeding things out and then we'll do a further weeding a reduction later that's that's correct we have not allocated any money yet okay that's mine i just want to make make sure I was clear on that. But for John Sheet, I'm curious, like Councilmember James Brown said there is already money for a roof, which is absolutely key, of course, to maintaining a building. What about the urgency of the other aspects of the project? Well, about two years ago, we hired an architect to do a full-blown condition assessment. The facility, you know, actually got a campus there, consists of the main house known as Morton House and then a courtyard and across from it there is a building that as Commissioner referred to that's where houses nest activities. The report came back as of 18 months ago and identified quite a few items. Some of the cost is high simply because of the Morton House is on a historic registry, and it's required more of a restoration than your typical repair and so forth. We decided to move forward with the roofing, which seems to be the most immediate issue there on the Morton House itself. That one, the materials on site, as a matter of fact, I believe the contractors would be working today. It's a three-weeks program. We're hoping to have everything replaced and repaired by then. Last year, we took an attempt to repair the HVAC system that was in desperate need of repair at the Nest building. So what you got left right now is primarily items associated with the envelope, top pointing on the exterior, winterizing the facility, doing some additional site work. it has some drainage issues and problems, window replacement, door replacement, upgrading of some lights, and so forth. So these are the remainder items on that condition assessment report. Well, thank you. Given what John Sheet has said, I want to say that I would like to support this proposal. I've seen in many other cases where we've deferred maintenance on things like our sewer system, the courthouse, and other places. I think you can pay now or you can pay more later. So I'd prefer to pay now. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Council Member Brown, I don't know if you know about this, but looking at this money, I don't know why we couldn't apply for CDBG money because it falls in that category. I mean, $180,000 will fall over the low incomes in the neighborhoods and all that. And this is the kind of stuff CDBG can be used to fix these kind of problems. And I know we don't have a lot of CDBG money, but this, to me, $180,000 go a long way in reaching what CDBG goal is to help low-income families and help people in the neighborhoods and all that. And I just want to know why we didn't, the administration or somebody might be able to answer, if anybody ever thought looking at the CDBG to see if we can fund it that route. I don't think you can answer that job sheet. I think Sally or somebody might be able to answer that. Looks like Jamie. Well, Bill stepped away. I don't have an answer for you. We can certainly look at it. I'm not sure. Is Irene here? I'm not sure, to be honest. Is this the kind of project that could be funded with CDBG funds? I believe it is. It is. Yeah. As to whether or not we've actually gotten into the details on specific, no, I don't believe that's the case. I mean, see, the reason why I bring that up, when HUD sees these kind of programs, you're doing that and helping the community and revitalizing, they like to see this kind of work done. And, I mean, I know we use a lot of that money to do sidewalk improvements and all that, but they also like to see community students, stuff like this be done. and this would be a high list qualification to be put on that list. I don't know if you would like to take a vote on the concept and then maybe we could have a conversation about CDBG funding in the interim before you make a final decision. We can certainly take a vote and look for that additional information and see if that's an option, if that's okay. councilmember stenton thank you vice mayor and i appreciate the motion i just can't support it coming from general fund these are major capital repairs and like every other repair we do whether it be in parks or in government it comes out of a bond package so i won't support it coming from the general fund this time thank you does anybody else wish to speak if not i need to yield councilmember stenton i'd like to Yield the chair, if I may. And I'd like to make a motion to amend that that money come from the bond fund rather than from the general fund. I have a motion. We got a motion on the floor and a second. Anybody have a second? That dies for, oh, Congressman Gibbs? Second, okay. We got a motion to take the money for the Morton House at $180,000 and bond it, which would be a debt service of what, $23,000? $20,566. $20,566 from the general fund. Any discussion on the motion? I do. Councilman Maloney. I mean, I'd like to amend the motion that we try to use CDBG money, and then we don't have to touch the bonding because the CDBG qualifies for this kind of program. So before I vote on anything, I want to have an answer to if CDBG can take care of this, it helps all of you guys to have more money, project to be done, and also get credit for HUD for doing something that's very important to the community. We already have a motion on the floor to amend. so we need to dispose of that motion. Any other comment on the motion to amend and take it from bond proceeds? Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you. I just want to echo what Council Member Gibbs has said. We have faced any number of issues in this community lately where deferred maintenance has cost us a lot of money. We're responsible for that building. It needs these repairs. We can do them now and save some money, or we can wait until we have much more major repairs to do and cost us a lot more money. So I would advocate for getting the money bonded. Let's make these repairs because they're needed. Thank you. All right. All in favor of the motion to amend? I can't see the voting screen. It's off, so we'll just raise hands. Councilman Henson. Thank you. I guess I just had a question of the Morton House, and if this would satisfy the maintenance needs or if there are other things that would need an overall assessment. The report that I took a look at, these were the critical repairs that it needed. The report also had some optional updates and renovations, but I think these repairs are what's needed immediate and critical repairs. Okay. Thank you. The building is very unique, and I think it's worth providing that maintenance for it. So thank you. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Council Member. John Sheed, I'm sorry, I stepped out when you spoke, so if this is repetitive, I apologize. But when the Vice Mayor said that, you know, this is a building we own and we need to do this now, again, you were in my budget link, so tell me why this was not one that you all recommended, or where is it on your, because I know you have a priorities list for capital improvement projects. That's correct. So where does this fall on that list? This was noted in our six-year capital plan. Obviously, this building competes with many, many others. And as I mentioned, when we originally got the report on a condition assessment, we had to make some choices. We always got more needs than the funding. And so that's why we went ahead with the roof and fixing the HVAC. So it was on our list, but it was not on the proposed FY 2016. So Sam Brown offered help trying to expedite the remaining items, and that's where we're here today. Is it on your list for fiscal year 17 or 18, or do you know? Some of the items fall under what we categorize as general repairs. So the money is earmarked within a lump sum of money. and I believe we divided into two-year cycle, 217 and 218 at this time. So if this were funded, this year's budget, do you have the capacity to complete it in this coming? Oh, absolutely. You do? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Sardi. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Jamshid, can you just tell me specifically what does this building do? I know it's a Duncan House, but what does it provide? I'm sorry, Duncan Park. As far as I know, the primary, I'm more familiar with the nest operation out there that's been in operation for a long time. As a matter of fact, it was there before I got here. So it provides services, child care services, and quite a few other non-for-profit services to the families in need. Okay, thank you. Sure. And then Councilman Maloney. I'm going to support this motion under that administration come back to see if it's CDB eligible then hopefully we can take this out and hopefully we can get an answer pretty quick on that but as of right now I do need there is a need for this I think we should pass this motion but I would hope that administration come back to see if it's CDBG eligible thank you okay all in favor of the motion to amend and take it from a bond proceeds rather than general fund please vote electronically all right that passes i'm turning the chair back over to vice mayor k thank you i think that i lost the track we back on the original motion back on the original motion thank you as amended any further discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed that motion carries Next item on the agenda, now Councilmember Massadi. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think Councilmember Stinnett and I had a discussion about this, and it looks like Councilmember Lamb has also asked for some additional money for paving. I think we all can agree that after this winter, we've got a lot more streets and roads that need attention. And so I had a couple of proposals. One, that if we were to bond this, the debt service for doing this for 10 years looks like it would be about $159,000, which would bring us up for an additional $1.4 for bonding, and or we could take an extra million from planning, preservation, and development that we've not used, and that would increase that to about $3.4, add that to the $6.9. I think Council Member Senate, we were trying to hit the $10 million mark, something right around there to have for additional funds for paving for our streets and roads. So that was my thought process on that. Council Member Stennett, do you want to jump in at any time? Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Currently we have $7.6 million for neighborhood paving in the budget. This would add the additional $1 million that was put in the budget from Planning and Economic Development Infrastructure Fund, move the million over so that would give us $8.6 million so the additional bonding to get to the 10 would be $1.4 and that debt service on $1.4 million is $159,962 and that's the number that would come from the general fund so the 10 million would be in addition to the major roads and the other money that's already in the budget and if I may ask a question just for clarification that million dollars is the million dollars that you had moved to propose So you had recently moved from the distillery district TIF into that fund. Now you're proposing moving it out of that fund into the road fund. No, no. There's already a million dollars in the budget that has debt service attached to it for the economic infrastructure fund. That's in the budget. The distillery still stays. That money goes to the fund from the distillery fund. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Councilmember Farmer? So what's the motion here? Right now we don't have a motion. Actually, we have had a description. We had a description, and I gave it either or scenario or both. If we do the $1.4 million, it's bonding. It costs us $159,000, which comes out of the general fund, because I thought we were supposed to indicate what funds we were taking this from. So that's the top one there. Then the second one is the million transfer. Correct. And what's the third one? The streets and roads one? That's actually redundant. Yeah, I was going to say that's just a... Okay, that's redundant. So would we take action on the first one and the second one? Correct. Let's make that a motion then. So, yes, we need a motion on the first item. I would move approval of the contract debt item noted as a debt service for additional $1.4 million bonding for paving due for 10 years. Second. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on this item? Councilman Mahenson, are you on this item? No. Thank you. Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Now the next. We need a motion for the next item. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. then I would make the motion that we transfer the bond proposal from planning, preservation, and development to streets and roads for additional paving. So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Is there any discussion on this motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Next would be Council Member Akers. I don't think... Thank you, Vice Mayor. My request is for $100,000 for the fire department, which would fund site prep and phase A of design for the fire station 24 located near Masterson Station. I make a motion to approve that, please. If a motion is there a second? Hearing none. That motion dies for lack of a second. Next item. The next three are just organizations that were not funded through the ESR process, and so I guess I would take them individually and make a motion to fund $100,000 for the Urban League. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Does anybody wish to speak to the motion? Councilmember Gibbs. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm very sympathetic to the organizations that didn't get funded, but we had a process. I prefer we stick with the process. I don't think we should be playing favorites. There's organizations that I am well acquainted with and others I'm not acquainted with, and it seems like the strongest lobbyist may win on this one, and I'm very uncomfortable with singling out organizations. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess I've got a question on this. is that Council Member Akers, we've got these requests. Several council members are requesting monies for these, particularly for Urban League, God's Pantry. I don't know about Carnegie Center. But I guess point of order, Vice Mayor, could we combine these some way? Because I don't want to turn one down and accept another because I'm in favor of allocating some money. but we've got this several council members have monies in their requests. I believe if you want to make that motion to combine, it would be not. Right now we have a motion on the floor. Yeah. And I'm going to honor that motion. And if after this motion you would like to make a motion about combining, that's acceptable. well i don't want to vote no against that one because i'm asking for money for this for not this particular one for another one that she has and i don't feel comfortable on asking for money when i'm turning something down from somebody else so that's where i'm at so just procedurally if council member acres wishes to withdraw her motion for the moment and the seconder wishes to withdraw to make space for your procedural motion then we can do that otherwise the motion on the floor stays on the floor i don't see his i'm looking for his request for organizations on here i don't see it um it's on the next page okay I see. I mean, you can vote yes or no for the Urban League, and then you can come and ask for the Salvation Army. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how, why you would, I don't, yes. That's fine. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We do this every year as a council. Commissioner of Social Services comes up. They provide us the process. They give us their recommendations. and at the end of the year, we change the whole process, and we do tend to have agencies pitted against one another and against us. So I cannot support the extra funding for any of these additional agencies as requested. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Council Member Akers, for making this motion. You know, every year we have different pots of money that we award agencies. Some get our social service dollars, which this year we're calling ESR grant, and I don't believe we should open up that process. That's closed to me. That's been awarded and scored. We have CDBG money that we award each year. That's a different pot of money. And we have agencies in our budget that everyone up here has approved that gets pulled out and cherry-picked directly, and we're funding them right now. There's a couple in our budget now that we're funding this year's budget. So this is no different. This is not setting precedent. This is putting money into our community to help kids. this helps an organization that reaches out in the african-american community and low-income people and help kids and their families in its economic development at its finest and if we can do this we've done it before this is not opening up any new process for the esr grant process that process is closed that wasn't even mentioned in the motion this is just funding an agency directly from our budget which we have done hundreds of times over the years in the past so again i appreciate councilmore acres making that motion. This affects over 2,000 kids in our community each year and the programs that they offer. And this money is actually used to produce and leverage over a million dollars in our community. And this agency has been around since 1968, and we've supported them since then. Why I wasn't supported in the other processes, whether it be CDBG or ESR grants, and I know other agencies weren't, but we're talking about this one, and that's what the motion's on, so I support it. Thank you, Councilman Rakers. I'd like to comment if I can. Well, there are other people signed up. Well, let me go ahead, and then I'll yield. I sent an email to all council members about this issue when I saw that there'd been some requests for individual funding for individual agencies. And I thought long and hard about it, And what I concluded is that if we were going to provide funds for agencies that had made requests within the ESR process for some and not others, that I would bring forward a motion, and it's later on in our agenda, to make an across-the-board allocation for all those who did not get funded. I have the same concerns that Council Member Gibbs expressed. We can describe this however we want, but the agencies that are being requested now for additional funding were all in the ESR process. And we would be picking out four of them to provide funding for. Not only that, we would be providing funding for some of these agencies at a greater rate than had been given to agencies that scored higher in the process that we set up. The council has worked for four years since I've been on council to take this process and make it as fair and transparent as possible. And we have worked every year to improve it so that it reflects when we get the outcome, it reflects what our intention is. We've set policy about how we want it to be done. We have given instructions. We've worked with the administration. I think that if we are going to allocate any additional funds to any organization that was in the ESI process, that we ought to give some funding to everybody who didn't get funded. In addition, we will have the opportunity after this to, again, amend our own process. If there are some ways in which we think it did not work well, we can fix that. I just don't think it's appropriate to have a process set up that provides agencies with clear direction about what we're looking for to fund and then to ignore any part of that. Having said all of that, I would also like to ask if Commissioner Ford is willing to come forward. we had a conversation about some ways that we might amend this process going forward if we leave it the way it is now in terms of present allocation so commissioner thank you vice mayor thank you council and i'll attempt to be very brief i've had the fortune to speak with many of you over the last few weeks and days in regards to this process uh and and we're close based on the process that Vice Mayor Kay mentioned that we began four or so years ago when I was still a member of the council, working with Commissioner Mills. This process has been fair, deliberate, and inclusive, but nobody has indicated that, and we don't indicate that it's perfect. There's always room for improvement, so I offer some ideas on that. But I do implore to stick with the process that we have for fiscal year 16. Council passed Resolution 736-2014, that identified how we would want to set forth this process, and I contend that our department has stuck really close to it. The funding that we're providing, $3 million this year, is up from fiscal year 2012 when it was $1.75 million. This is what I would propose and offer to the council, working with the committee structure, General Government and Social Services Committee, Council Member Lamb, Chairs. and this is in response to where we are this fiscal year. We had $6.8 million of requests and $3 million to give. I would reopen the process. I would recommend that we reopen the process. The current process calls for a two-year cycle, but being that our process is close, we're much better along than where we are, but we may not be to a level of comfort in the process to bind ourselves by a two-year obligation. So I would open that up to a two-year, open that up for fiscal year 17, And I would ask that this be referred to committee to begin our work again in the fall, which is consistent with what we did in years past. The demand for our wind and supply demonstrates that we need to have better managerial control and limits. And I would ask the council to consider these limits in these three fashions. There should be, and all of this is to be determined, this is why a committee process is important going forward. We should consider a limit on the number of applications submitted. We should consider a limit on the aggregate amount granted to specific agencies. And we should consider a limit to the percentage increase one year from the next that a said agency or program may request. That will allow us to help confine the resource. I would also contend that we may want to consider truly classifying priorities. And we took precedent last year. If you guys recall, we carved out emergency shelter because we were at this point last year. We went through a process, but the council said we still need to be able to be assured that we're going to provide basic shelter. And so we carved it out. And the 75% that represents the traditional six priority areas of program funding, We could very well classify those out as subcategories, if you will, to allow those that provide youth development, such as Carnegie Center, to compete with other areas that provide that service. Human needs, God pantry, they would be able to do that. And we would be able to set a range, not extend the amount of level of funding, because our funding has very much increased over the last few years. but it will allow those agencies to have a better idea of who they're competing with, and that itself will allow them to better confine their ass to more reasonably allow us to manage it. The scoring evaluation volunteers that have been a benefit to us this year, if we subcategorize the respective priority areas, we could have a scoring committee that is focused only on human needs, a scoring committee that is only focused on youth development, and that would even it out. I contend that it very well may be at the council's purview to open this up next year if it's your choice, but the process that we have embarked on for fiscal year 16 is sound, and I would ask you guys to consider sticking to it, and we'll be very much open to help work together for fiscal year 17. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Thank you. I've got four people signed up, and I've also got an eye on the clock. We have a work session scheduled to start at 3 o'clock. What I would propose at this point is to honor the four people who are signed up with the understanding that we may not reach any conclusion on the motion that's on the floor and that we'll reconvene next Tuesday morning at 9 o'clock to pick up this conversation where we have left it off and continue on the list. Unless there's objection, we'll proceed that way. So the four people. Jennifer, excuse me, Council Member Scushfield. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Akers, since it is outside of the process where we have a review that's done, how would this organization be reviewed on the money that they were given? Well, I think like other organizations that receive funding outside of the ESR process, they would report to Council maybe once a year, provide quarterly reports to Paul. And that's how they would, I guess, oversight, if that's what you're asking. And that's, I mean, and that's my, the agencies that I've requested or not, or asked, you know, for funding for, are not necessarily pet agencies or my favorite agencies or what have you. Urban League is located in, some of their offices are located in LFUCG buildings. They provide services, I think, that, you know, definitely benefit on behalf of the government. God's Pantry, basic need, food. We need to be funding that. And the Carnegie Center, we also, you know, provide the maintenance and all that, and we support their agency, their facility. So I felt like, you know, and it was created under the LFUCG, so that's why I picked those. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. I'll be very brief. I had the same concerns that Commissioner Ford expressed earlier, and we talked often about, in this process, what kind of fell out, the results of this process, was that we had basic needs competing with youth empowerment services. And it's challenging to provide God's Pantry, for instance. I'm just picking this one out. It's a pantry. It's hard to be innovative with a pantry. It's hard to be partnerships with a pantry. It is just that. It serves a specific agency and a membership in our community. It's very important. So I think the recommendations that we talked about are just like you brought forward, of re-looking at how we assess and categorize and ensure that our basic needs in this community are being met. And I strongly support Commissioner Ford. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I believe Council Member Lane has not spoken yet, so I'll yield to him if he has, since he hasn't spoken yet. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Council Member Stinnett. I just had a question for Commissioner Ford. and my question is the agencies that applied and did not receive any grants, was there a post-analysis type meeting with them to discuss why their application didn't earn any kind of money at all so they sort of had a reading of what was going on and maybe could prepare better next year for their proposal for a grant? Yes, sir. We've begun those and we make ourselves available. Teresa Maynard in our office, our administrative officer, has been in communication with some folks. We've provided information in regards to their scoring. And it's similar to years past, and we'll make ourselves available to provide that technical assistance as requested. Okay, good. The only other comment I'd like to make is some of these are agencies, are excellent agencies that did not get funded. So it makes me think that we could do a little bit better. And I think from the standpoint, we need to keep the process we had this year, even though it may not have been perfect. But maybe we could strive for more perfection next year and make some upgrades in that. So I do support your position on that also. Thank you very much. That's all I've got. Thank you. Councilman Maloney, I believe you were not on the list when I mentioned that we had four people on the list who had signed up to speak. I don't think I've spoke on this issue yet. I don't believe I spoke on this issue. I don't believe you have spoken on the issue, but I believe that we're out of time. And I had basically said... So, in other words, I'm not going to vote until I get my question in. We're not going to take a vote on this issue at this time. No. I believe Council Member Stinnett was the last person on that list. Council Member Stenet. I'll just want to reiterate once again. We're not asking to reopen the ESR process. That's a two-year grant. The request being made today is straight from the general fund. There are four agencies in our general fund that are being funded this year in the budget that are nonprofits, and they're being funded directly from the general fund. This is no different. This is a one-year grant. This is a one-year funding. This is not the ESR, so I appreciate the conversation about the ESR process and that, But this is not what we're asking to open up or change. That's been done, and that's what this request is, just funding directly from the general fund to a valuable community partner. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. I believe that that's all we have time for. Vice Mayor, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't think it would be parliamentary appropriate to adjourn with two motions on the floor. I'm not sure that we, I think we would have to take them off the floor and then start over on Tuesday, I believe would be the case, sir. I thank you for that, but as the chair, I'm going to overrule and say that we can leave it on the agenda so that we don't get into a whole discussion of this issue. unless somebody moves to overrule the chair's ruling, we'll complete and we'll come back on Tuesday morning at 9 o'clock. Seeing no other motions, we will stand adjourned and reconvene Tuesday morning at 9. We'll reconvene in five minutes and start the council meeting. ¶¶ Thank you.