# Budget and Finance and Economic Development Committee - August 25, 2015 > Auto-transcribed civic record · August 25, 2015 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3746 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3746?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2015-08-25 - **Last revised**: July 15, 2026 - **Length**: 8,055 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 Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee met on August 25, 2015, at 1:00 p.m., with Stinnett presiding. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session, including approval of the March 17, 2015 Committee Summary, a presentation of Monthly Financial Reports, consideration of a Local Minimum Wage Ordinance, and Items Referred for discussion. The committee took three votes during the meeting and heard three public comments. The Local Minimum Wage Ordinance was tabled, while Items Referred were deferred to a future date. The March 17, 2015 Committee Summary was approved, and the Monthly Financial Reports were presented for informational purposes. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on August 25, 2015: * Stinnett * Moloney * Kay * Lamb * Farmer * Scutchfield * Brown * Mossotti * Bledsoe * Gibbs * Akers * J. Brown No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions **Approve the March 17, 2015 Budget, Finance & Economic Development Committee Summary** [timestamp: 00:01:00] Motion by Bledsoe, seconded by Scutchfield. This motion passed by voice vote. **Table the local minimum wage ordinance discussion until the Louisville lawsuit reaches its final unappealable order** [timestamp: 00:03:00] Motion by Farmer, seconded by F. Brown. This motion passed by roll call vote with the following results: - **Ayes (6):** Bledsoe, F. Brown, Lane, Scutchfield, Farmer, Lamb - **Nays (3):** Kay, Moloney, Mossotti **Adjourn the meeting** [timestamp: 00:41:28] Motion by Farmer, seconded by Moloney. This motion passed by voice vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included a review of monthly financial reports for the General Fund and other funds. These reports were presented for informational purposes to provide an overview of the municipality's financial status during the reporting period. ## Public Comment Three speakers addressed the meeting during the public comment period. **Mossotti** [timestamp: 0:03:00] presented on the topic of a local minimum wage ordinance, using her time to give a brief presentation on the subject. **Lamb** [timestamp: 0:03:00] spoke in support of local businesses, expressing appreciation for those that increase wages for their employees. Lamb raised concerns about the CPI cap included in the draft ordinance. **Betsy Dexter** [timestamp: 0:10:38] presented a workforce snapshot for Fayette County and outlined next steps for the Business and Education Network. Dexter discussed plans to develop a strategic plan aimed at closing workforce gaps. ## Appointments Betsy Dexter was appointed to the Business and Education Network. ## Contested Items **Local Minimum Wage Ordinance** The committee was divided on how to proceed with a proposed local minimum wage ordinance. The core disagreement centered on whether the committee should move forward with the ordinance at that time, or whether it should wait for the outcome of a pending Louisville lawsuit before taking action. Six committee members voted to table the ordinance, effectively postponing consideration of the measure. Three members opposed this motion to table, indicating they favored proceeding with the ordinance despite the legal uncertainties. The debate reflected broader concerns about the potential impacts of implementing a local wage increase. Committee members who supported tabling the ordinance cited the need to await the results of the Louisville lawsuit, suggesting that the legal outcome could have significant implications for how the committee should approach local wage policy. Those who opposed tabling the measure appeared to favor moving forward with the ordinance regardless of the pending litigation. The vote resulted in the ordinance being tabled, with the majority position prevailing. ## March 17, 2015 Committee Summary [timestamp: 00:01:00] The committee reviewed and approved the summary from the March 17, 2015 meeting. The motion to approve was made by Bledsoe and seconded by Scutchfield. The summary was approved without dissent. ## Monthly Financial Reports Bill O'Mara and Melissa Leuker presented the monthly financial report during this agenda item [timestamp: 00:03:09]. The presentation covered revenue, expenses, and variances for the reporting period. **Key Topics Covered** The presenters reviewed the organization's financial performance, including: * Revenue figures * Expense analysis * Variance reports comparing actual results to projections **Questions and Concerns Raised** During the presentation, attendees raised questions regarding: * Employee withholding * Investment income * Encumbrances **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action required. ## Local Minimum Wage Ordinance [timestamp: 00:03:00] The council discussed a proposed local minimum wage ordinance, with Dr. Troske and James Ziliak presenting research on minimum wage impacts. The presentation focused on economic effects and data relevant to the policy decision. **Key Discussion Points** Council members engaged in debate regarding several aspects of the ordinance: - Economic effects of implementing a local minimum wage - Competitiveness considerations, specifically in relation to Louisville - The need for additional data to inform the decision **Speakers** The following council members participated in the discussion: Kay, Farmer, Moloney, Gibbs, Lane, and J. Brown. **Outcome** The council voted to table the discussion on the local minimum wage ordinance. The decision to postpone action was made pending the conclusion of the Louisville lawsuit, which was identified as relevant to the council's consideration of this policy. ## Items Referred The committee addressed two items referred for discussion during this agenda item. **Waste Management Task Force** The committee discussed the status of the waste management task force. Due to lack of membership, the task force was removed from the committee. **Activity-Based Costing** The committee also reviewed an activity-based costing item. This matter was deferred for further review at a later time. **Key Participants** Kay and Farmer were the primary speakers during this discussion. **Outcome** The overall outcome for the items referred was deferred, allowing for continued consideration of these matters in the future. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Approve the March 17, 2015 Budget, Finance & Economic Development Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (6-3): Table the local minimum wage ordinance discussion until the Louisville lawsuit reaches its final unappealable order - **Motion** — passed: Adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript You, I hear you're doing fine, seems like you're doing fine ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Okay, it's one o'clock. We'll go ahead and get started. I'd like to welcome everyone to the Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee meeting, otherwise known as BFED, for short. First item on our agenda is the committee summary, but before we get to the summary, I want to take a moment just to recognize our former colleague, Ed Lane. He was a vital member of this committee. We were at nine members currently until the new appointment, But I just want to take a moment and recognize his contributions the last 10 years, especially when it dealt with the budget matters and matters of economic development. They were both very dear to his heart and just want to take a moment for everyone to recognize him. And we sorely miss him on this committee. So thank you, Mr. Lane. I know he's watching over us. First up, committee summary, a motion to approve. Move approval. Motion to approve and second. This has actually already been approved by council last week. So it's a formality. But all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. First item on our agenda, as usual, on our monthly financial reports, who's up first this week? Mr. Rusty, come on up. Good afternoon, Chair. Thanks, and good afternoon, everyone. In Bill's absence today, Melissa and I will cover the whole package. I will start off and cover the slides that Bill typically goes over before going into the top four. Excuse me. So the unemployment rates through the month of July, which we have for the U.S., is at 5.3%. Through June, Kentucky is at 5.1%. The Lexington MSA is at 4.2%. And Fayette County is at 4.1%. And that is through June. This next slide is a three-month moving average. For your information on that, you can see how the rate is going with the average. Taking a look at the local economic indicators, Some of these are through June, some are through July. I'll point out which ones of those are through June and July. Unemployment rate, as mentioned for Fayette County, is through June at 4.1%, which is down from 6.3% in the prior year. Quarterly unemployment, we do not have that up through December currently in our office, but through September of last year was $184,800. We should be getting December soon. Permits issued through July is down to 1,319 from 1,696 in the prior year. New business license is up in July to 198 from 194. The home sales we have through the month of June, it went up to 1,346 from 1,069 in the prior year. and in July foreclosures is down to 18 from a prior year of 35. Now moving on to take a look at the top four through the first month of our fiscal year. There's not a whole lot of movement through just one month. As you can see, we're $198,000 below the budget through the first month. Employee withholding was up $130,000 while franchise fee was down $275,000. Take a comparison look at the current July through prior year of July. You can see we're up $2.4 million versus prior year. That is a timing difference due to the due dates in July. It was a July due date of 31st. And last year we had a couple payments received in August. This year we got them in July. So excuse our numbers. We are up a little bit if you back that out. But kind of the takeaway from this is we're pretty much on target with how we were in a prior year. Last slide is for information purposes on nuisance abatement and lien collections. At this time, is there any questions on the top four or the economic indicators? Yes, sir. We have one question so far. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Rusty. On these franchise fees, I thought we were getting to a point where we were going to be not in negative but positive on these because we raised the franchise fee? We have been fine. We had a higher budget going into the next fiscal year, and the rate increase for KU took place in July. So we won't start seeing some of that next year. We may be a little bit low going from our budget forward because we were aggressive on it compared to where we were last January. We were really high, and then it kind of flattened out through the last half of the year. But we are significantly up on franchise fees since we raised the rate. I believe it was before I started in 2013, I think two years ago, And we have seen a significant bump up in that. Okay. Thank you for the explanation. Sure. Anyone else have any questions for Rusty? I did have one question. When do you expect to have the year-end numbers finalized? They're still in progress. I would think probably like we have in the past in October. So we're still going to wait until October? Yes. We haven't gotten any update on being any sooner than that. Anything we would have is preliminary if we didn't have that. Okay. Good. Anyone else? Okay. Next up. I'll turn it over to Melissa for other revenues. All right, Rusty's talked about the top four, so we'll go into some little detail on the rest of the revenue. Overall, our revenue is within $69,000 of budget for the first month, so we're pretty pleased about that. If we could predict every month like that, we would be doing really great. Our other licenses and permits, we've got a large positive variance there, and that's due to the D-tax fee. On our services category, you see a large negative variance there of $167,000. That is EMS fees. There was a large accrual back to the month of June, so that's why we're down in that. And then the other large one there is $40,000 in other income, and that's penalties and interest. Last year we were tracking higher, so our budget was set higher on these just the first month. We're not really concerned with any of these revenue accounts for the first month. On the expense side, you'll see we have about a half-million-dollar variance in personnel, which that's within 4% of our budget with personnel for one month. We have spent about $365,000 more than what we had anticipated with our monthly spread on the operating side. Partner agencies is just a timing issue of whenever one of our agencies was paid. And then the operating capital, what we do on operating capital, because that varies from year to year. You can't really use the history because it's different capital items each year. We spread that out evenly over the 12-month period. So it's just people have spent a little sooner than what we had anticipated. did. So overall, if you take into account our revenue and our expenses, we're $69,000 over budget right now for one month. I'm not going to get excited over that because it's one month. We know there's a lot of volatility throughout the year, but for the first month, being $69,000 within budget is very, very good, and I am pleased about that. If we could be that every month, I would be very pleased about that. But like I said, it's just one month, so I'm not going to get too excited over that because we know things can change quickly. This is just comparing the revenue to the prior year, and if you see, you'll see we were $2.2 million more in July than we were the prior July, which we have a higher revenue estimate for FY16 than we did in 2015, so this is good. It means we're tracking higher as we had predicted, and then on our expense side it's very much the same we're a little bit better than we were last year but we have more expenses this year we have a higher budget to meet are there any questions anyone have any questions from the committee all right none thank you anything further rusty on your end okay that concludes the monthly financial report Next on the agenda, we have the Fayette County Workforce Overview, and I'd like to welcome a new presenter to the committee and to Commerce Lexington, Ms. Betsy Dexter, and I'll allow her to give her overview of how she got to the Pier 4s today, but welcome and thank you. This is your first time before us and in the chambers, right? Yes, first time. So thank you all so much for having me here today. Again, my name is Betsy Dexter. I'm the new executive director of the Business and Education Network, which is a subsidiary of Commerce Lexington, Inc., and we're charged with assisting efforts to close the workforce skills gap here in central Kentucky. So this is kind of what I'm going to cover today. I'm going to give you a little introduction just about me and my background. I'm going to just recap what Ben's mission and vision is, give you a little bit of a workforce snapshot, which I know you've seen a little bit today already, and then talk about next steps for Ben and what we plan to do, and then I'll take any questions and feedback that you all have for us. So again, my name is Betsy Dexter. I am the new executive director as of August 3rd. So I'm very, very new to this. I'm in my fourth week at the office, so I am trying to get settled in and get acquainted with the new position. Prior to starting my job at Commerce Lexington, I was a manager of education and workforce policy for the State Chamber of Commerce. I spent three years looking at education and workforce issues and hope to bring that expertise to this new position. I was fortunate enough there to participate as a fellow with ACCE, which is the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, where I spent the last year learning from experts in other chambers around the country on what they're doing in workforce and their communities. So I'm excited to bring that knowledge here to Lexington. So I have previous government experience in federal government. I also have extensive marketing background, so hopefully that will also help in the position here. And I went to UK. So I'm very excited to be back in Lexington and working in this community. So this is our mission. Ben's purpose is to ensure our workforce is relevant, pretty simple. And our vision is to be the catalyst for market-driven workforce solutions. So our mission, of course, is to design, orchestrate, and execute relevant solutions that will create an exceptional workforce. So we need to identify local regional workforce gaps. That's what we're tasked with doing. So we have to analyze what data we have, what data is missing, and on an ongoing basis. So that's what I'm going to be doing now is trying to dig into what we have and what pieces are missing so we can move forward. Again, we'll connect business and industry to education and vice versa, and we just want to make sure that our workforce is relevant and ready. So we'll identify some barriers and hope to remove those so that we can have a successful workforce moving forward. So the workforce snapshot, I know it's kind of hard to see on the screen. I don't know if you all can see that. But these are just some things that I pulled from some data that we did internally as I'm kind of digging into the files and getting accustomed to everything. This is the highest educational attainment by county. It was through 2013 from the Census Bureau. I pulled the eight county regions so you all could kind of see what the education attainment levels are. If it's less than high school, high school grads, some college, and then bachelor's degrees. So you can see there that Fayette County is highlighted. The bachelor's degrees, of course, is 45.5%, which is higher than the eight county region. So that just gives you a little bit of a snapshot through 2013 of what the education attainment levels are in the surrounding counties. The next slide is that educational attainment with the average annual earnings through 2013. So you'll see just in Fayette County highlighted, if you're less than high school, you're going to average about $16,000 a year, about $17,000 a year. If you're a high school graduate, $25,000, bachelor's degree, $44,000. And with a graduate or professional degree, Fayette County, you're averaging $58,543 a year, which is above the eight-county regional average and above the Kentucky average as well. So you'll see on the very bottom line, that's a state snapshot of annual earnings. So the average income by county, just when you kind of put everyone together, in Fayette County through 2014, the average annual weekly wage was $811, which averages out to be about $20 an hour. And the annual wages per employee was $42,160. So in terms of the eight-county region, Fayette County, of course, is slightly higher with the weekly wage as well as annual earnings per employee. So the next two slides are just going to show you all through 2013 just where people were placed and what industries they were in. You'll see this kind of goes in order of smallest to largest. So in Fayette County, we had about 153,591 employees in 2013. So this shows you the industries in which they were in. So it kind of gets bigger there. You'll see, obviously, health care and education were the biggest employers in that year. And then it breaks it down for other counties as well as that average for the eight-county region. The next slide here is just the same kind of information, just looking at it slightly differently with percentages. So you'll see there's the eight counties there, but Fayette County for employment in 2013, you had health care at 16.3%, educational services at 14%, retail at 10%, manufacturing at 8.9%, and then food services at 8.6%. So that gives you an idea of just kind of where people are employed within our county and the eight county region. And I know you all saw this earlier today, but the June unemployment rate for Fayette County was 4.1%. Eight-county region was 4.4, so we're slightly lower than the average. I know that, you know, when you look within the county and you look at different corridors, those numbers are going to change. But for a county as a whole, we're pretty good at that 4.1% unemployment rate. This last slide here is just a snapshot of what the Education and Workforce Cabinet did when they predicted 2012 to 2022 to see what the in-demand jobs would be over the next decade. So I highlighted the top three there for you, but you'll see the two there are health care. No surprise there, but they're expected to grow 22%, 23% over that decade. So we need to be looking at careers as they're projected to grow so that we can make sure we have the talented workforce that we need for all of those sectors. So next steps for Ben, this is where I see us going. We need to develop a strategic plan with industry experts. Like I said, I've been spending the last year with quite a few folks from around the country, and I know there's some best practices and great people to learn from out there. So we need to dig deeper into the data to determine what do we have, what's missing, and I'm in the process of doing that now to see what we've done internally, in-house, and to see what else we need to go collect. So we've got to identify those workforce gaps. We've got to listen to our employers to see what they're saying their needs are, connect them with education so that we can ensure that they're getting the skills they need to enter into those high-demand careers. And then our data is going to also show us barriers to employment, such as transportation or maybe some social issues or access to education, which is where we can partner with all of you to say, you know, we've got these barriers that we need to try to overcome, and that's what I'm hoping to find as we dig deeper into the data. And once we have that data, of course, we'll develop short-term plans and long-term plans to try to close the skills gap in the region and see what we can do to help move forward. And we'll have to collaborate with community partners like you all, education system and others to implement that plan and then find some way to measure that because that's going to be the biggest piece to all of it is how do we measure this moving forward so that's where my plan is that's where my head is so as I still get situated in the new position this is where I'm kind of looking moving forward and I hope to come back to you all maybe in a few months and let you know where we are but that's really the next steps for Ben is to really dig deep and get a short-term and long-term plan to work towards closing the gap so of course I'd love your feedback, advice, questions, anything that you have. Again, I don't know how much I can answer in my three weeks in the office, but I do have a pretty great support team back there who can possibly help as well. So with that, I'll take any questions. Okay, committee members, log in if you have questions. First up, Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your presentation today. I guess my first question would be, how do you anticipate your all's relationship with the newly the Bluegrass Workforce Investment Board? Sure, Workforce Investment Board. You know, the Workforce Investment Board is 51% business. That's the way it has to be. And so for me, I know that they're in the process of going through orientation, and we've had some folks that are new to the board. So I know that they're going to be a tool and a resource for me. So me being new to the region, I hope that we can develop a pretty strong relationship moving forward, and they're going to be a huge resource for everything that we do in terms of figuring out those gaps and what we need to do to close them. You all don't have a seat on that. Do you have a seat on that board? I am not on that board, no. No? Okay. Does? We have a local employer. Okay. We helped identify some employers. That is a member of the Commerce Lex that's on a local employer? Yes. Okay. Okay. I think Kim. All righty. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I want to go back a slide to number 16 or page 16 on the slide. It says the outlook for the 2022. I always heard that Lexington's biggest demands are health care, IT, and advanced manufacturing. What is community and social services? And this, again, is a statewide snapshot. So this is going to be the state cabinet for the whole state of Kentucky. So this was just to give you an idea of what they're looking at on the statewide level. if this is what we need to do in identifying the gaps in the region here in Lexington. So I'm looking to find that now. If we don't have that, we're going to go and get it. But I think, you know, looking at the state kind of gave you an idea of what Kentucky is looking at, just because that data already exists. But we can determine what that is here in Fayette County. But you're probably correct in your assumption that health care is definitely up there and manufacturing and IT, and that's something that we're looking at. But the data for our region, I don't have that yet. this is just for the state to give you a snapshot of what Kentucky is looking at. Okay. When do you think you'll get a plan together? I'm hoping as quickly as possible. We are looking at obviously 30, 60, 90 days out. I haven't even met with my board yet, so we're having our first board meeting. I'm meeting them this week, so that's how early this is for me. But we want to get going. We want to figure this out quickly. So I anticipate that in the next 90 days we'll have a consultant to help us determine the best way to pull the data, the best way to constantly stay up to date and with real-time information. So that's the first thing on the list is to make sure that we get the data correct because that's what's going to lead us in everything that we do. So I would anticipate that I would hope in the next three months to have a good plan in place so we can start making plans and programs and bring people together to close the gap. So I would say, you know, next by the end of the year. Okay. I just say that I'm I'm very interested. I mean, one of the complaints, I spent all of last week at the Kentucky Institute for Economic Development. Okay. So I spent I don't know how many hours to get that certification. Yes. And what's so interesting to me is we've promised so many people jobs that they get a four-year degree. Right. And then they get a degree in something, and they end up as a waitress, or they end up in the service industry because they can't find a job. Right. Because what they wanted to do, there was no job there to be had for that industry. Right. Especially in our area. And so I think there's a big disconnect with what are we telling people to go into? Exactly right. And what are we telling them to focus on so that there is a job for them outside of that? And I feel like there's been a big part missing in that discussion. So anything we can do to work with our current employers and really educate everybody, our high schools as well, as being part of that discussion. Right. And we're setting people up for success after high school. Absolutely. I think you have to show that pathway, and you have to get the data to say where are the in-demand careers and how do we get there, and then show that. And so communications and marketing piece to all of this is part of it as well. It's how do we get the data and how do we share it. And so that will be a big piece to that. So I agree. I agree. Thanks. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. A couple questions. One is, how do you view your relationship or working relationship with two of our biggest employers, of course, University of Kentucky on the education side and the Kentucky, the high school, or the Board of Education? Will you be working with them and working this project and this plan? Absolutely. Education is obviously a massive piece of the puzzle. And so in my first few weeks here, I have met with Fayette County Public Schools. I'm looking very much forward to meeting with the new superintendent once we're able to do that. But we'll plan to work with Fayette County Public Schools. We already are in a couple of things. University of Kentucky, I have a past relationship with some of those folks through my previous position. I haven't met with UK since I started just because we haven't gotten to that point yet. But education is going to be, I mean, that's the pathway. That's how you get to a career. So the education piece is huge, and we just have to make sure as employers that we're communicating the needs of the business community to the education. I'm sure both of those groups and there's other educational in Fayette County, but they're certainly going to have already some data and some background and be able to work with you on that, I think. And then the other question is we're dealing and looking at minimum wage, and minimum wage has been across several cities. Larger cities are putting something in there. Would that have any – would you be looking at that at all when you're looking at your particular program or plan? I think we'll have to see where the in-demand careers are. I think that that's more the focus is where the high-demand careers and where are the openings and where is the disconnect, so where is the gap. So I'm probably going to be looking at more all levels of employment, and the minimum wage thing is not something we've discussed at this point, but I think I'm looking at the whole gamut. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Betsy, for your presentation. I find it very interesting, and I would hope that you would come back on a more recurring basis to kind of keep us updated as to what's happening, because I think if you go for a year, a lot of things change. Sure. So I don't know what your plans are, but I certainly would ask if you could come maybe quarterly and give us an update on this, because I think it would help be beneficial for all of us. Agree. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair, and welcome. Hi. Thank you. I understand that you're new, but the business education network is not new. Is that correct? Right. That's right. So I like what you're proposing going forward, but I'm wondering if there are lessons learned from what has been happening with that, what's worked, what hasn't worked, what data has already been developed. You're not stepping into a vacuum, I presume. So can you talk a little bit about that? I think I'll have a better sense, too, of lessons learned once I've had a chance to sit down with my board, my full board, which is coming up soon. All I can obviously go on is me moving forward. But I think, too, with working with Commerce Lexington and being able to kind of talk about maybe what some of the problems were in the past or if there were things that were missing or things we didn't focus on, I can learn from that, which is what's exciting for me. But I think that it has been around for a while, and I think there are good things that we can learn from that and things that were missing. And I think the data collection is a huge piece to all of this because I feel that data is going to kind of lead us in all directions. So as I dig into the data to see what they already have, which I know they've been doing quite a bit of that internally, there's a lot of folks in-house who have been able to kind of pull that together to give me some of the information that I shared with you today. But there's a lot more that I need to do to dig deep to see what else is there and, again, figure out what's missing. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Scutchfield. Thank you, Betsy. It was great to meet you on your second day of work when we opened up the new campus of ITT Technical. And it was very nice to meet you there and encourage the education level. One of the things, you know, I'm taking a look. Where would those technical, trying to figure out where they would fall under the snapshot, what those type of careers would be? In the projections? Or in the industries? 16. So I think that, of course, my, oh, here we go. Computer and mathematical, you're going to have obviously something there with your IT folks. I think you're going to find that it's interesting when you look at, and this is just me thinking out loud, but, you know, IT is in so many different fields, and so they may fall into a bunch of different categories because they may work in health care, but they may be doing IT things in the health care industry. So I think we can, again, when we dig a little bit deeper, maybe go a little bit deeper within each industry to kind of see where those, because those tech careers are going to be huge. And that's what we're talking about with Fayette County Public Schools and trying to figure out career in tech ed and next steps and associate's degrees and certificates and all of that good stuff is going to be a big push. And so we do need to dig a little deeper. Right. And I guess after we had that, sitting in, working in the yard this weekend, and my neighbor came over and he owns an electrical company here in town. And he was talking about his current workload because there's an employer that's paying $65 an hour for electricians. Obviously, these are phenomenal jobs and qualified people, but he is having a hard time finding qualified. So, I mean, I think there's definitely, especially in those what are considered trades, I mean, there's phenomenal opportunities available if people will be trained in those. And I think that's a communications piece, I think, and a marketing piece, essentially, because I think you have to kind of share with folks that this isn't what it used to be, and there's some pretty amazing jobs out there. And if you show people a pathway and you show them occupations and you show them salaries and wages and what kind of path you can take to get there, I think that changes people's minds. We're seeing it in engineering and manufacturing, and I think we need to do a better job of communicating that to teachers, to parents, to kids, to say that this is a really great pathway for a really great future, and it's a perfect fit for a lot of people. So I agree with you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Maloney. You're up next. I, too, want to thank you for being here. I know that the state workforce wasn't very good before it came out. My issue is, and I brought this up when I ran for offices and everything, is the tech job for HVAC plumbers and electricians. The average age on there is anywhere from 59 to 62 years old. And the pay on that is unbelievable. And it goes back to what Council Member Brown brought up about our relationship with the schools. and how do we tap into that need to show, I mean, not everybody needs to go to college. Right. And I can give you some examples where I had a kid come to me when I was housing, building, construction, two of them. One of them went to college. The other one wanted to be an electrician. I got the kid to be an electrician, got a degree and everything. At the age of 24, he's making $150,000 a year. He's got a house paid for. He's got his own business. And the kid who got out of college has got a debt of $120,000, and he's working at Amazon. Right. So how do you get that message to the kids out there that more than just college? I mean, college, I want everybody to have an opportunity. But to me, my idea is a career. And I just want to know how you would tap into something like that. I know you've got to start young, but if you've got an idea how to do that. I think the answer, of course, is kind of what I was alluding to earlier, is the pathway plan. So I think what you have to do is you have to get your data to say these are in-demand careers moving forward. And then I think you need to lay it out. And I think you need to say if you have a high school diploma, these are the kinds of jobs you can get. This is the pay you can get. But if you go on to some post-secondary, let's say you get an associate's degree or you get a certificate or you move forward just a little bit into post-secondary, you can go for these jobs with this pay. And you show them high school, associates, bachelors, or more, and you show them the pathway. And then you've got to get it to them. So you've got to work with your schools. You've got to work with your counselors. You've got to get to your parents. And I think you have to find a way to show them the path. And I've seen that in other places like Jacksonville, Florida. They do a really good job of that where they literally lay out the pathway and they show if you're at this school, these are the classes you take and that puts you in this position. But if you want to keep going, that puts you in this position. And you can see that if you keep going, this is what you want. But if you don't want to go to college, that's OK. Here's a whole other pathway for you. So I think it's putting all the information out there for people to see and then promoting it and saying, you know, post-secondary education in some way, shape or form is probably going to be needed for most jobs moving forward. But it's not necessarily a four year for everyone. So I think we just have to get the information, the data, show where the jobs are, show the backwards path all the way through middle school, high school, and on to show you what you have to do to get that career. So you're right. It's about being career ready, not just college ready. And when I went to high school, they had a poster. They had a mechanic, and then they had an accountant. Mr. Brown probably back there, 1920, I believe. Were you there? But anyway, that was the message was sent. Right. Now, you look at the folks, it's a trend. It's starting to go the other way around now, where the people start their own business, making lots more money. And another 20 years from now, we'll probably need more. But right now, we need these jobs so they can have these jobs. So I'm just trying to figure out how you try to set it. It's the short-term plan, too, that's so critical of all these jobs that are in need now. And so that's where that short-term and long-term plan that I talked about is so critical in figuring it out very quickly. Because there's a lot of, you know, we hear about it all the time where there's businesses that need folks and can't find folks. And so, again, it's communicating that, whether it's, you know, working towards creating it online so that folks have the information they need. Or whether it's a pamphlet or whether it's something you hand out at school or whether you have a PTO meeting or whatever it is with the parents. You have to have the materials to show them the way, and that's something that we would have to do. Well, I'm tickled at the job board, and anything I can do to help, let me know. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you, Council Member. And, Richard, were your posters in black and white still? Council Member Bledsoe, you want a second? I do. I just have one follow. Question, Mr. Tennant. I'm over 40, so I can do this. Are you under 40 still? There is a. There is a. I'll just make two follow-up points. One, you're exactly right. I thought it was so interesting about the health care industry. You can start in the CNA, you have no education, a week-long training, and you can make $15 an hour. That can lead to a bachelor's or an RA degree. That can lead to a nurse practitioner degree. That can lead to other things. And showing how you don't have to go for the top row and find out you don't like the industry. You can start and move on. I believe it was in Houston, Texas, the largest segment of individuals going back to two-year technical schools was people with four-year degrees. Why? I mean, it's fascinating to me. And I think if we could reverse that a little bit and get people exposed, especially the needs and the short-term needs we have in our own county first. Absolutely. That we're really prioritizing. I would be very interested in that plan. Yes. And helping you do that. So you're on the right track. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions for Betsy? I had a couple. I want to ask you, on your data that you showed us today, how is government in here? Because like UK, there are health care and the school education side. So do you split UK up when you put it in this data? We have it on this. So what's it like, health care or education? Like government? You know, UK. Oh, UK, it's probably in both. Okay, so they split it up. So government's called public administration, I assume, on the chart? Yep. Okay. And then you said you could come back to us. How soon can you come back to us to kind of give us another update, do you think? I would think just, you know, once I meet with the board and kind of get situated and just kind of looking at the rest of the year, what was already scheduled before I took her place, I'm thinking end of the year, maybe January. I don't know what's better for you all, but if I could take the rest of the year to figure out what we have, collect the data that we don't, put the plan together, get the national experts or consultants to help out, We can get a real plan that I'd present to you, hopefully, end of year, beginning of January. Well, I ask this because this is a hot topic. Obviously, every councilman chimed in with questions. That very rarely happens, but this is a topic that's probably on the forefront of most of our list of priorities here for the community. And obviously, with the data you presented today, there's a strong correlation between education and wages, which is a big issue here. So Lexington has 25% of our kids only have a high school diploma or less. That's a big number. whereas the region's a third of the people have a high score or less. So I think we can definitely have a lot of room for improvement on that and getting those folks moving on. So that's why I asked how soon can you come back, because I think this council's ready to move. Yeah, I'm ready to move. I'm ready to move, too. I just want to make sure that I get the correct data and kind of get a good working plan before I come back to you guys. But I think by the end of the year, that should be definitely in place. Okay, and when you're doing your data, can you – I know this is our county region, but what about our comparable cities to Lexington? Okay. Can we look at their workforce analysis and what their education is and their wages? Just kind of give us a snapshot of what other industries they may have. Just some comparable cities that we've used to. I know we visit a lot every year on the Chamber Trip, so it shouldn't be too hard to find some of that information. I can do that. Five or six that we can compare ourselves to. I can do that. Okay, great. Certainly. Anyone else? All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Good job for your first time. Oh, thanks. I survived. I know you can be intimidating. All right, next on our agenda are monthly other fund budget reports. These are in here for information only unless anyone has a question on the sewer funds or the landfill fund or the water quality fund. Anyone have any questions on those funds? Because Rusty's ready to answer. All right. I did have... Councilman Brown. Thank you, Jerry. Yeah, you're a little early because that's going to take a little bit of analysis because the Urban Service Fund, for example, that's set up for street light, street cleaning, and refuse collection. So you'd have to find a way. It would have to tie to one of those services. So we need to look at that a little bit more and probably talk with the law department on how we could do. because these are restricted funds. Maybe redefining like the snow plan as to how it, you know, you redefine it and say, well, it is part of this particular fund or it's part of that other fund, just like street cleaning. Well, you can stretch it a little bit because they were cleaning the streets when it snows. You see what I'm talking about? No, I certainly see what you're talking about. And I'm not sure if you're talking about what we're talking about. But this, when we're looking at these funds, what we can do in these funds, especially funds that have a balance. Yeah, Melissa, if we can bring that up when we have the snow plan back in the other meeting, I think we can start that conversation. If we need to refer to the committee, we can get a little more in depth. I think that can be part of Commissioner Holmes. Okay, and we'll work with the law department to have some more information for the next meeting on the snow plan. Basically, options for funding. Yeah, we can work with a lot of our, on what the ordinances say for the specific funds. Because right now, we can include in that, I know right now we already are taking money from our sanitary sewer fund to actually do snow removal. Because of the way, yeah. So, Council Member Maloney. A question on that, before we start doing that. Now, we brought this up a few years ago back where we tried to tap into some of these services. A lot of these laws came in and said if we don't, we can't be using certain, for certain taxes for certain areas. We cannot use it for the whole city as a whole. Because like garbage collection, only certain people are paying it. Now, if we use any money out of garbage, it's going to be hard to say we're just using, from what I'm saying, they're not allowed to do that, just that street, take money out for that street. So y'all may want to look. The only one I think you can do is water quality sewer fees and also the general fund. But for most other projects, law will tell you that we cannot tap in taking funds out of those for that use, even though it's a great idea. But the problem is we tried to do that with the leaf pickup. And the leaf pickup, we couldn't do that. We had to keep it in the general fund, or we did enough using roads that only used the garbage pickup, and that was it. And like certain areas that didn't have garbage pickup would not get leave pickup. It used to be the other way around. We had everybody picked up. Yeah, no, we'll certainly work with the law department to make sure that everything that is done or proposed follows the ordinances, how they're supposed to be followed for the specific funds. We tried this a few years ago, and I remember they came back with a bunch of rules and say that it's very hard to monitor, and plus, I don't know, or legally if we can take tax money out that's only used for that purpose. Right, and that's why we have the general fund transfer for streetlights, because we couldn't make the other services pay for streetlights. So there are a lot of issues that we're aware of, and we'll work with the law department on that. Very good. Thank you. All right, anything else on those funds? All right, our last item of business, and we just passed out an updated list. Disregard the one in your packet, the one Paul just passed out, is the most updated. any removals or additions that we need to add to the list any motions on the list Vice Mayor Kay thank you chair I just have a question and it's about the first item on the list which is the waste management task force is there any update on when we might expect something out of that group well one I need to remove it from this committee because it's in environmental quality so it needs to come out but on the update We were actually going to have our next meeting, and unfortunately, Mr. Lane was part of that group. So we need to maybe either reassign the task force because we're down to one person, myself on there, and Mr. Farmer. So we probably need to add a couple more councilors. I can work with you, but we probably need to get that reassigned so we can get a full council back on there. Okay. Thank you. Anything else on this list? Yes. What do we need to do with the second item there where Councilmember Lane was, and it's been on there since 2012. Is there a committee on that, or it's activity-based costing financial efficiency? I mean, that was kind of a general, generic thing. It was. We were all for that. Yeah, but before we remove it, let me check with his aide, Allen, to see if there had been any work done. If there had been, obviously we can remove it. Unless there's a council member who wants to pick it up and take it over. I wouldn't mind picking it up except I'm just not sure. Would you mind meeting with Alan and get the background? I could do that. Because I'm not sure that since it's all the way back to 2012, maybe we've already done some things. At our last meeting, he asked to keep it in there because he wanted to bring it forward. I'm just not sure of the progress. Okay, fine. Yeah, I'll follow up on it. You can check with his aide, and then that way we can come back next month and make action on it. Anything else on the list? All right. Seeing none, do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Motion and second. All in favor say aye. Aye. We're adjourned. Thank you all. Motion and second. All in favor say aye. Aye. We're adjourned. Thank you all.