# Budget COW - May 24, 2016 > Auto-transcribed civic record · May 24, 2016 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3963 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3963?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2016-05-24 - **Last revised**: May 24, 2016 - **Length**: 20,915 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 convened on May 24, 2016, at 10:00 AM in the Council Chambers. The meeting focused primarily on informational presentations and recommendations, with three main agenda items covering various council recommendations and reports. During the session, council members heard presentations on Link Recommendations & Report Out, Individual Council Member Recommendations, and Non-Financial Recommendations, all of which were informational in nature rather than requiring formal action. The council conducted four motions and votes throughout the meeting, though the specific outcomes of these votes were not detailed in the available records. No public comments were received during this session, indicating the meeting was primarily focused on internal council business and reporting. The meeting appears to have been structured as a working session where council members reviewed and discussed various recommendations and reports rather than taking substantive legislative action on ordinances or resolutions. ## Attendance The following members were present at the meeting on May 24, 2016: • Stinnett • Scutchfield • James Brown • Lamb • Evans • Maloney • Mossotti • Fred Brown • Akers • Gibbs • Hensley • Bledsoe All twelve members were in attendance. No members were recorded as absent or late for this meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The meeting included several motions related to budget approvals and administrative recommendations, all made by Scutchfield [timestamp: 00:00]. **Circuit Judge Budget Approval** Scutchfield moved to approve the circuit judge's budget. The motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 00:00]. **Commonwealth Attorney Budget Approval** Scutchfield moved to approve the commonwealth attorney's budget. The motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 00:00]. **County Attorney Budget Approval** Scutchfield moved to approve the county attorney's budget, which included $130,000 allocated for insurance expenses. This motion was decided by roll call vote and passed [timestamp: 00:00]. **County Attorney Internal Audit Recommendation** Scutchfield moved to recommend that the county attorney's office conduct an internal audit. This motion failed by voice vote [timestamp: 00:00]. All motions were made by Scutchfield without recorded seconds. The specific vote counts and individual member votes were not documented in the available records for any of the decisions. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed one significant budget modification involving the County Attorney's Office. **Operating Budget Increase** The board considered an appropriation of $130,000 to increase the operating budget for the County Attorney's Office. This budget enhancement represents a substantial addition to the office's current fiscal year allocation. The financial action involved a direct appropriation to support the County Attorney's Office operations, though the specific purposes for the additional funding were not detailed in the available materials. No resolution number was provided for this budget item in the extracted information. This $130,000 appropriation represents the sole financial action documented for this meeting, indicating a focused session on addressing the County Attorney's Office budgetary needs. ## Contested Items The May 24, 2016 meeting featured two significant areas of disagreement among board members. **County Attorney's Insurance Budget Increase** A heated discussion emerged over a proposed $130,000 increase in the County Attorney's budget specifically for insurance expenses. Board members expressed strong concerns about the substantial budget increase and the potential precedent it might establish for other county agencies seeking similar adjustments. The debate centered on whether approving such a significant insurance cost increase would encourage other departments to request comparable budget expansions without proper justification or oversight. **Sports Complex Funding Allocation** The second contentious issue involved a $7 million placeholder allocation for a proposed sports complex project. This item resulted in a split vote among board members, reflecting deep divisions on the proposal. The primary concerns raised during discussion focused on the lack of a clear process for moving forward with the project and questions about the county's actual commitment to funding the sports complex. Board members debated whether including such a substantial placeholder amount in the budget was appropriate without more detailed planning, feasibility studies, or a defined implementation timeline. The disagreement highlighted broader concerns about fiscal responsibility and the proper procedures for approving major capital projects. Some members argued that the placeholder represented premature commitment to a project that lacked sufficient development, while others supported maintaining the funding option to keep the sports complex proposal viable for future consideration. Both contested items reflected ongoing tensions between fiscal conservatism and support for expanded county services and facilities, with board members taking different positions on the appropriate level of financial commitment for these initiatives. ## Link Recommendations & Report Out [timestamp: 00:00] Council members presented recommendations from various committee links during this informational session. The presentation included reports from five different committee areas: • **General Government** - Presented by Scutchfield • **Finance & Social Services** - Presented by Lamb • **General Services & Planning** - Presented by Bledsoe • **Public Safety** - Presented by F. Brown • **Environmental Quality & Public Works** - Presented by Farmer Each council member provided updates and recommendations from their respective committee areas. The session served as an informational report-out to keep the full council informed of ongoing work and recommendations from the various specialized committees. This was a standard informational presentation with no formal action items or votes taken. The format allowed each link representative to communicate key developments and recommendations from their committee work to the broader council membership. ## Individual Council Member Recommendations [timestamp: 00:00] Council members presented their individual recommendations for budget allocations and adjustments during this discussion item. The session served as an informational exchange where members could share their priorities and suggestions for the budget process. Key participants in the discussion included Council members Stinnett, James Brown, and Evans, who each offered their perspectives on budget matters. The agenda item was structured as a discussion format, allowing members to present their individual viewpoints and recommendations without requiring formal action. This portion of the meeting provided council members with an opportunity to articulate their specific budget priorities and propose adjustments to various allocations. The discussion format enabled members to share their reasoning behind different recommendations and engage with colleagues' proposals. The outcome of this agenda item was informational, meaning no formal votes or decisions were made during this portion of the meeting. Instead, the session served to gather and document the various recommendations from council members, which would likely inform subsequent budget deliberations and decision-making processes. The individual recommendations discussion represents a standard component of the budget review process, allowing elected officials to formally present their priorities and concerns regarding municipal spending and resource allocation. ## Non-Financial Recommendations The meeting addressed non-financial recommendations during agenda item 3, with discussion led by key speakers Scutchfield and James Brown [timestamp: 00:00]. The discussion centered on two primary areas of non-financial recommendations: • **Internal audits** - The speakers addressed matters related to internal audit processes and procedures • **Committee referrals** - Discussion included recommendations for referring certain matters to appropriate committees The agenda item was structured as a discussion format, allowing for dialogue between the participants on these operational and procedural matters. Both Scutchfield and James Brown contributed to the conversation regarding these non-financial aspects of governance and oversight. The session was informational in nature, focusing on presenting and discussing these recommendations rather than requiring formal votes or decisions. The non-financial recommendations appeared to be part of broader governance and administrative oversight processes. No specific concerns or objections were noted during this discussion, and the item concluded as an informational presentation without requiring further action at this meeting. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the circuit judge's budget - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the commonwealth attorney's budget - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the county attorney's budget including $130,000 for insurance expenses - **Motion** — failed (0-0): Recommendation for the county attorney's office to conduct an internal audit --- ## Full transcript I'm coming up, I want the world to know, got to let it show. I'm coming up, I want the world to know, got to let it show. Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ The End Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Welcome. May 24th meeting of the Committee of the Whole to discuss the budget. And I know that Council Member Henson has a personal family emergency and will be here if she can, as much as she can. and we've got a quorum, so I would like to begin. Also, if I may be full, we get started with the actual agenda items. Given that the recommendations from Lynx is relatively small, that's a small number of items, my suggestion would be that we proceed and vote on each of the items and try and clear this this morning if we can. and that would help us avoid a meeting, an additional meeting this coming Thursday. If it turns out that that does not work, obviously we can come back. I know that there's been some council members who believe they'd like more time to consider, and I don't have a strong preference, but I think we want to decide one way or the other. So unless there's objection, if people want to weigh in on this question, Well, I would say the financial, the non-financial, we've handled separately before. Again, I would say if we have time, that we could clear those as well. But definitely the financial side. Any other comments on this? If not, that's how we'll proceed. We'll take them in the order they are on the agenda. We'll vote items up or down. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think that there was one thing that we probably should have had on the agenda. We may want to take care of first, and every councilman got a copy of it. It's the late items because it will make a difference to the imbalance that we start with. Do we have that information in front of us? Well, would they send it out? Yes. I have it, so. Well, okay. But we may want to take that up before we take any final votes. Okay, my quick scan of that information is that if you balance the positives and the negatives on the late items, it's not a substantial amount of money either way. I believe that's correct. Well, I think for the first time ever it adds money to the fund balance, which is a pretty good thing. Yes, ma'am. The general fund late items would give you all an additional $196,000. and I've got it here we can get you all copies I can do whatever you all prefer we can take it up at the end I just didn't want to not do it and cancel Thursday so if you would make some copies have some copies made Paul's gone to make copies again depending on time before we're done we'll take that up any other procedural comments questions Okay, if not, then the first report is from General Government, Council Member Scotchfield. All right, good morning. My link was comprised of Kevin Stennett and James Brown. We reviewed the general government categories, and I'll just go through each one of them and state whether we approved and if we made any modification request to the budget. First is circuit judges, and they had a total, I guess, I don't know, we can see it on the total budget was $416,360. We had unanimous approve as proposed. Next, we had up the Commonwealth Attorney. This was a total budget of $269,820, and we approved as proposed. On the county attorney, the budget was $1,029,720. We did have a recommendation to add $130,000 to the county attorney's office operating budget. upon their request. I will say the next item is that we had a recommendation for an internal audit. It has come to my attention since we had this recommendation that they conduct an internal audit twice a year, I believe. And so I think I wanted to make that aware because we found that out after we made this recommendation, and I'm not sure that this recommendation is necessary knowing that, so I can leave that to the council's discretion since we haven't been able to meet to discuss that since. You want to pull out 130 then? No, not the 130. The second recommendation was recommend the county attorney's office conduct an internal audit, but they do have audits that are conducted twice a year by the state. So, I mean, I guess because we have not been able to meet to discuss this, I put this to the council, but I wanted to make them aware of all the issues with that recommendation. Okay, I have a couple of council members signed in for either comments or questions. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. The additional money that they were asking for was for an external audit, correct? No. No, no. For the? The $130,000 was requested for the insurance. Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I'm confused. Yeah, yeah. So they have an internal audit by the state every two years? Twice a year. Twice a year. Mr. Stenet, Council Member Stenet, I think, can answer this. They get audited by an outside CPA, High School Company, once a year, and I believe also the state does their own audit of the office as well. So that's two times a year they get looked at. Now we can do a third one, but we'd have to pay for it. And both of those audits are open to public record. They're both public. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Scotchfield, and you might have just said this, but I missed it. The $130,000, what is that for, please? I'm sorry. The $130,000, what was the request for? The request was to cover insurance expenses for several of their employees. They currently are having to take out of their contingency fund to be able to pay the insurance cost. Health insurance? Yes. Is this going to be ongoing? Is it an ongoing cost then? It is. From then? Okay. Okay. And, Vice Mayor, would you prefer that I move at the end to accept or at the end of all of mine? What would be your preference? It's off the top of my head. Why don't we take them as they come up? Okay. Well, then I will go ahead and go back and move to approve the circuit judges' budget. That was the first one that I mentioned. Second. The motion and the second on the first budget. no change i've got two people signed in is that on this issue okay any discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed that motion carries next i will make a motion to approve the commonwealth attorney's budget as proposed the motion and second on the commonwealth attorney's budget any discussion on on the motion? No. Who's coming next? Commonwealth attorney? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. And I was currently on the county attorney. I didn't know if there were other questions pertaining to that before I made a motion. Well, if you make the motion, then we can have further discussion. i'm going to make two motions on this since we have two different things i make a motion to approve the budget including the 130 000 into the operating budget of a motion is there a second i have a second any discussion on the motion Yes. I do. Okay, I've got two people. Council Member Evans, are you signed in for this issue? I am. Okay, then I'll ask additional Council Members to sign in on this. We'll start with Council Member Maloney. I have a concern about the health insurance increase because we're getting ready to do it. Our employees are getting ready to have an increase probably, and I just feel concerned that we're going to start doing, and we're working our budget to help pay for that, and I just don't want to send a message that we're going to pay for everybody's insurance increases when we did set aside the budget, which I don't think is going to be enough for our budget because I think we're going to either have to take employees to pay more or we're going to have to come up with more money to pay the difference. I know we haven't come out with that yet, but I've got a feeling from what I've been hearing that the insurance is going to go up. I just have a hard time supporting something that we haven't even done something for our own employees yet, so I don't want to send a message yet quite ready to support $130,000 for insurance like that until we make it consistent across the board with everybody else. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Evans? That was my same concern. Because I'm presuming the county attorney employees are on the same insurance that the city is. No, okay. But again, I think we're still setting a precedent. No, we're not. Well, that's my opinion. You can speak afterwards. But, I mean, it does seem like we're setting a precedent that, I mean, we all know insurance costs rise, and that's part of factoring that into your budget. Was this an issue that was factored into the budget and just was not approved, put in the mayor's proposed budget? Okay. Thank you. It was requested. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. That answers my question. Thank you. Council Member Fred Brown. I have some of the same concerns on this, and I'll ask the link, Chair. When they approached you for the $130,000, that was asked for in the mayor's budget, and it was turned down. That was under the understanding of just about everything that anybody asked for got through the budget this year. And $130,000, how many individuals is this? And is this a non-reoccurring or is this a reoccurring expense that they're going to be asking for every year? That's two or three questions. Well, I mean, off the top of my head, I can't remember. I'll look to the other LINC members. I think it covered insurance for over six employees, if I remember correctly. Does that sound right? Fourteen. Fourteen. I apologize. So, 14 employees. They do provide their insurance not through LFUCG. It is provided separately. I think it's through the state. If they did come under LFUCG insurance, it would actually be a higher cost. So, they are doing their cost less because of how they do their insurance plan. What was your other question? well i was concerned that you know the mayor didn't put it address it in his budget but there had to be some reason did you get any uh any any reason or anything from the administration that's we did not have feedback from the administration as to why they did not include it they have requested this multiple years and it has not been budgeted can i ask a finance commissioner to maybe answer that as to why it was not and what the history of it is. Several years ago, we went through a process of all of the satellite or ancillary offices that were on the LFUCG insurance plan, which actually had some high costs associated with it. We had everyone go on their own insurance plan, and our insurance plan is limited to just LFUCG. These employees used to be on our insurance plan and for four or five years, I think, have been on their own plan. And the county attorney each year has asked for us to furnish dollars to pay for their health insurance. We have not recommended that to counsel in the past. and consistently we did the same recommendation this year. So would this be setting a precedent if we did this, and is there other areas or other, I guess, parts of the budget that would be asking for this same thing if they could? Well, there would be other outside agencies that could ask for the same thing. So we would be setting a precedent on this particular agency. Is that correct? has not been done in the past. I'll have to get with you for a final answer to that, but our understanding was that each agency was under their own funding and that it was up to them to come up with the funding for the benefits. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Let me bring some clarity to this because I think there's some misconceptions out there. First of all, going back to the precedent setting, there were two other people in our links. This money is going towards operating. It's not going towards health insurance. We can't earmark it for health insurance. It's going into his operating budget. So whether he used health insurance or whatever in his office, it's increasing his operating budget. There are two other people, and I'm not going to name them today, but I can, that pay for their health insurance through the money we give them. So it is already being done, and they admit it there in the link, that the operating money we give them, they use for health insurance. So this is not precedent-setting. It has nothing to do with our employees' health insurance at all, because unless Commissioner O'Malley wants to correct me, we don't even know what our costs are going to be for our health insurance. We're only six months into the year. We have no clue what it's going to be for next year. So I know that's going to keep coming up today, but we don't know that cost yet. So this is just going to his operating. We do this for other agencies, and we have done it in the past, and we cannot earmark it just for health insurance. It goes straight into his operating. Whether he wants to use it for health insurance or not, he doesn't have to. But this is increasing his operating budget. They do a lot for our city. They do a lot for the PVA that they do not charge us for, that we would otherwise have to pay outside attorneys to do. This is one of our quasi-government agencies that falls in our jurisdiction. The rest of his employees are funded through the state. But just 14 employees are actually left off the state's health insurance because they do a different function. They're not part of child support. They're not part of the other functions of his office. And so in order for him to keep good people over there, the health insurance has to be provided somehow. But this goes to his operating budget. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. I guess, and thank you, Mr. O'Mara, for reminding me that it, I remember when they did remove all the outside agencies from the health insurance from LFUCG. And I do remember there was a lot of discussion during that time. And so I realize that this is increasing their operating. But if they specifically said they were requesting it as a reason because of health insurance, then I don't think that we can not. I think we have to look at it from that lens if that's the way that they requested it. So, I mean, I would have some questions. Does this pay for the total cost of their premiums, or is it a shared cost? I mean, I guess I would have some more concerns because this would be ongoing, and this means an extra $130,000 every year. I do think that it is good that everybody has health insurance, but I do worry about it setting a precedent. And regardless of what Council Member Stanton said, I know that when they removed all those outside agencies from our health insurance plan and in order to mainstream our debt that we had here as a result of it, that there was a lot of discussion. And I will have trouble supporting this today without having more information before the vote is taken. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just had a hopefully quick question. Was this a unanimous decision from the link? It was. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Gutchfield, do you want to reply? No, I just wanted to make a comment. You know, I guess we have the link process set up so that three council members can in-depth look at the budget request of the agencies and organizations that get funded by the government. You entrusted Councilmember Stinnick, Councilmember Brown, and myself to take a look at this. And I understand that some of you might have some questions, but I will tell you that it was unanimous approval. We were the three that were requested to take a look at this budget. and otherwise why do we have the links for these people to look through if if i i just we did take a look at it we we reviewed it with the information that we received we thought was sufficient enough to increase this budget thank you council member gibbs thank you vice mayor i appreciate council members uh lambs comments uh but you know i'm still a little bit confused is that if we're increasing their operating budget by $130,000, and it's not specifically for health insurance, I think I'd like to know more about their operating budget. Also, Bill, I don't know if you can answer this, but it turns out $130,000 for 14 employees, you're talking about almost $10,000 per employee. Is that possible? Or can somebody answer that? Kevin? Commissioner? The number that was requested by the county attorney was sized as premium cost for 14 employees. He did ask for it as operating so that it would not be part of the personnel line item, and then he went through how he was using other funds in order to cover these expenses when talking to the link. Councilman, do you have a comment about the... If I can, Vice Mayor. Yes. I looked at the plan because I asked the same question. It seemed rather high to look at $130,000 for only 14 people, but it's actually come down to about $750 a person. They bid their plan out each year. I'm in the industry. This is a very good quote, actually. And I try to see if we can get it cheaper somehow. Even LFUCG's plan would be a lot more expensive for them. So this is a good rate. Based on their age of their employees, it is a good rate. That's $750 average employee. $750 per month per employee. Okay. That's the average. Some are a little more age-based because we're community-rated now, so they have a lot of older employees, and it's age-based. So they're self-insured with just 14 people? No, they buy a plan directly off the shelf from Anthem. Okay. Well, thank you, Council Member Stead. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Bill, can you clarify something for me, please? Hopefully you can. Because the administration chose not to fund this, what was their thinking as far as the option that these other employees would take to be able to gain insurance? Well, we look to the county attorney to manage his own budget with all of his ancillary revenues. We understand that the salaries for these employees are subsidized through our allocation to him, and we're looking for him to do the benefits from his other revenue sources. Do there revenue sources? I'm guessing maybe someone in the committee can tell me. Do their revenue sources, are they such that they can take care of their insurance? Their revenue sources are not. They're having to dip into a contingency fund that was set aside by the previous county attorney. But because of the increasing cost for insurance, that fund is depleted. Okay, I was just curious. There you are. I was just curious what the thought process was, why you decided not to go ahead and fund them, and what their alternative was. And I think everybody needs to have health insurance, there's no question. I just, again, am concerned this is a recurring expense. And, again, I know Council Member Sinnott said that this doesn't set a precedent, but we've got a couple now. Maybe next year we'll have five or six more. So I guess that's my thought, too. and if we could keep them under maybe one umbrella policy where we all benefit and doesn't cause any extra expenditure of funds, maybe that's the way to go. I'm just trying to get a handle on this. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to circle back in. I know I share some of the hesitation about providing outside agencies with health insurance who we asked to remain off five years ago. But I want to be clear. If we want to exclude that from every agency we give operating money to, we can do that. If we want to say no one can use the money we give them on health insurance costs, it's going to affect a lot of the agencies that we're giving money to right now. But we can do that, and that's what we're saying to these folks. We don't want you to use this money on health insurance if that's the issue here. So this goes to their operating budget, just like we give money to Lexington Humane Society or the Human Rights Commission, and they can use it on employee benefits. We don't dictate that now. So that's the precedent I think we're saying. We're saying we're not going to give you extra operating expense, even though he has it, and saying just because of the health insurance. And I just want to be careful of that because there's a lot of agencies that use the money we give them on health insurance today. Again, we're not earmarking it for anything. We're earmarking it for operating budget only, and they're using it on health insurance today. And we had two groups in our link admit to that. The operating money the LFUCG gives them, they use towards health insurance and other employee benefits and personnel costs. So, again, increasing operating costs by $130,000. I think in our CAO, during our link, you all did debate this heavily and even considered almost doing half. But, again, they're trying to balance everyone else in government like everyone else in here is going to do today with their link. So I understand that. But this was heavily debated amongst the mayor's staff, which was relayed to us during our link report, our link meeting. So thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to echo the sentiments from our fellow link members. From the presentation and the discussion that we had in the link, we felt as a group that it was worth funding this additional cost to the operating expenses. It's been a reoccurring request. That office has been compensating for it out of additional funds. But from the information that he shared with the link, they do provide a lot of services. And if they don't get this funding in lieu of the contingency fund that they have running out, he would be able to have to make tremendous cuts to his office. And this is a recommendation from our link to the council. So it's, you know, the council's purview whether to accept it or not. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Thank you. I understand and I appreciate Council Member Stenet defining, and I remember being involved when they took those agencies out. But the concern I have is how much percentage is their budget going to go up compared to everybody? What's the average? How much did their budget go up percentage-wise? Is that a 10% raise increase? to 5% or whatever, how much more would that percentage go up to? Does anybody have an answer to that question? We don't know what their overall budget is. That's the overall budget that we give them. I'm just asking how much. The reason why I ask that is because I just don't want to open up a can of worms. And I understand the insurance. I mean, that's fine. that they spend their money like everybody else, but when you come in here and you're asking for a lot more increase, and the definition was insurance, and I'm just afraid what's that going to do to these other departments, the outside agencies, that we took their insurance away, and they start realizing that we, and I think we need to find the definition of operating better because to me I didn't get the definition of operation out of this. That's all I got was insurance. And I just don't want to sit here and we vote on something like this, and I'm going to see if I was in one of these agencies out here that got cut, I think I'd be wanting to come back and ask for my additional money like they did. I just want to be careful how we define the definition of what this operating is. And what they told me and what you all, two different definitions. and one says insurance, and that's what I got, and then you're saying operating, which I can understand that. And what other operating costs do they have other than the insurance that they need to increase this thing so much more? What's their main part that they have to increase for other operating costs? What are the other operating costs that they have? Is there any other operating costs, or does it still go back to the insurance? Does anybody have any? Well, I mean, that's the concern I have here, guys. I don't mind if you get to find it operating, but to me, I just pray we're going to open up a can of worms here, and that's the last thing I want to do. I think this budget is one of the best budgets we've ever had. But when we start doing these kind of things, this budget may end up being pretty rough up, because I guarantee you there will be a lot of people. If I was an outside agency, I'd be coming in here tomorrow saying, why can't I get my additional? I did what you all asked for. I asked for it, and now I'm getting the word insurance. I'm not getting good definitions, and I'm not trying to be, but I just don't want to open up a can of worms. It hurts this budget. It's one of the best budgets I've seen. Thank you. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Chair. A couple questions. Looking at the county attorney's budget here, it's all under operating expense that we give from the urban county government. We do not deal with personnel. Is that correct? They get that from the state, or where do they get their funds, their actual personnel funds from? Commissioner, do you have a question? I'm not intimately aware of all of their line items, but they have specific programs that are state-funded, And they have personnel that are on the state payroll and on the state benefits as well. Then they have other things that they do that are county-related, which we are helping supplement through this allocation each year from the mayor's proposed budget. And some of the things that they talked about in the link were defending property tax assessments, having expert witnesses going to Chicago and areas in order to protect the tax base of our property taxes on behalf of both us, the school system, as well as all the people that use the tax base as their revenue side. They also do legal consulting for many of the other offices other than LFUC, such as PVA. He gave others, but I'm not remembering what they are. So he has state-mandated responsibilities. He has other responsibilities that are county-related that are not funded through the state process. Child support is. That's a state program separate from the others. So he has multiple revenue sources like we do that are for dedicated types of support. I guess, yeah, but my question is how is he paying for those other personnel? Is he paying it out of these operating expenses that we send over to him? Or has he got, because that's not categorized here, it's all under operating expense. That's all. Are you asking expenses or revenue? No, expenses. How is he paying for those other employees which he's wanting health insurance for? How is he paying for those? Through his operating expense that we give him? He uses some of the monies from the operating expenses that we give him and other revenue sources to pay for these. That answers that question. Now, my other question is I understand that this money would come out of surplus general funds. Is that correct? I'd like to make a motion to amend that we reduce this down 50% to show good faith and that obviously it's needed. The county attorney probably wouldn't be asking for this if he didn't. And the three council members that looked at this and had questions and answered them, I'd be willing to support. And I move that we amend it to a $65,000 request. I have a motion to amend. Is there a second? Hearing none, that dies for lack of a second. Anything else, Council Member Brown? Council Member Hensley. I think I would support this amendment. It seems like, or not the amendment, the motion. We're not the motion that Fred made. I'm commenting, sorry. The linked recommendation motion, I would support that because we spend money on other projects that aren't related to health insurance in this budget. and this is something that's going to the employees. It's a service that I think that we need in the county, and Mr. O'Marr has explained. The cost of health care in government policy has increased in the past years. I know our insurance is going up 13% this year in my own company, so I would defer to Council Member Stendt's expertise on the past year's increase in health insurance. and I think this is something where it's justified in my mind. So that's all. Thank you. Thank you. I see no further council members signed up to speak on this issue. Can we get an electronic voting? I think there's clearly going to be some differences of opinion. I don't want to do it by voice vote. So if we can get a screen up for electronic voting. All those in favor, please log in with your vote. That motion passes. Thank you. And you have more? I have the motion because it came out a link, but I did make you all aware that we've discovered other information. but since it came out a link with this recommendation, I'm going to put it to the council for a vote regarding make a motion to recommend the county attorney's office conduct an internal audit prior to 2018. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? I'll do a second for discussion. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say, I'm sorry, Council Member Massadi. Thank you. Council Member Sutchfield, who pays for the audit? Again, we would pay for the audit, but it was brought to our attention after we had this recommendation that an audit is already conducted twice a year. So I'm making the motion because it came out of committee and we have not been able to discuss this since I became aware of this. so I wanted to make the motion, but I will not be voting for the motion. Okay. They're going to get audited twice a year, and we want another audit. Okay, I get it. That's the clarification we needed. I see no further council members standing up to speak. All those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed? No. That motion fails. Next. Okay, guys, that was probably the most difficult one from the link, so I will move on. Property Valuation Administration, we did have a recommendation to approve... I'm sorry, Council Member Scotchfield? Yes. Just to be clear, the clerk has recorded those as yays, those are no's. Oh, sorry. I don't want to have this wrong in the record. Thank you. Thank you. I wasn't looking at the monitor. I'm glad you did. The next is Property Valuation Administration. The total amount the mayor placed into his budget was $337,800. We did have a recommendation to approve as proposed. I will state that we did not have complete agreement on one of the issues. He did bring forward a request for $20,000 for additional computer-assisted mass iPad taking pictures documentation for PDAs. We did not have consensus with the group to vote for this, but I did want to make you aware that that was an additional amount that was brought forward and requested that was not recommended out of link. you're making a motion to i will make a motion to approve the pva budget as proposed i have a motion in a second discussion on the motion council member stennett thank you vice mayor as council member scuttsville said there were other items that he needed again in operating area because we give him operating money as well and he can use it as he wishes whether it be health insurance or the tablets or whatever so So I would like to amend her motion to add in the $25,000 he needs because, again, he's doing a $1 billion reassessment of all of our properties in Fayette County right now. And the additional expense goes towards those lines of his cost to do those. So I'll make a motion to amend and add $25,000 that he did request that was not granted. So move. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Council Member Scutchfield. Because of the discussion that came up the last time, this was not an amount that was included in the mayor's proposed budget. This was an amount that was requested at the link meeting. Thank you. Other council members wish to speak? Council Member Gibbs. Council Member Standard, this would come from fund balance? Right now it would. Yes, sir. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Evans. Okay, this came up in the link, and you all, it was not a recommendation that you all presented, correct? We were, yes. Okay, so I guess in the same vein of the argument that you all vetted it and you all decided that two out of the three of you didn't agree, I guess, why did they change? But, I mean, there was still a majority vote. I mean, I'm confused about why bring this now. Just because all three of you didn't agree? I mean, that's kind of what we have committees for. I mean, if we go back to the original argument of that, yeah. So I guess I'm trying to figure it out because one disagreed, then. Yeah, if I can, as chair, just speak to that question. the links can make whatever vote they want to make any council member is free to make an additional motion the council has the final word so whether they approved it or not and what the vote was i don't think we need to keep kind of referring back to that the question is what does the council want to do but i guess and i'll say it for you but i guess that was my my thought that what council member fred brown just said was we're looking at the link recommendations. We're not looking at individual recommendations. So if we're looking at what the links proposed, I believe that should be the focus. That's right, but it's always appropriate to move to amend. Any council member, whether they served on a link or not, to move to amend the proposal that's coming from the link. Procedurally. I mean, you may object, but procedurally, that's appropriate. Council Member Fred Brown? I don't agree with the procedure or your analysis of it. The Link made their recommendation here to approve as proposed. That's the Link recommendation. That's what we should be voting on. If Council Member Stennett would like to add that as a personal recommendation on his list later, then that's fine. But if we're going to do our process like it's supposed to be done, We're supposed to be recommending and voting on the link's recommendation, period. Okay, so I'm going to make a ruling as the chair, and if the council wishes to make a motion to overrule my ruling, I'd be happy to entertain it. My ruling is that amendments are appropriate at this point. if people see a recommendation from the link and they want to move to amend that that's an appropriate motion at this time so that's in terms of process i'm going to make a ruling as chair that that's how we proceed if the council doesn't think that's the right thing to do then i want a motion to overrule my ruling and we can talk about that so that's um what i like to do Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Brown, I'll just say you just made a motion to amend a second ago to do $130,000 down to $65,000. So that was in order. So this is the same thing. I'm adding $125,000. I'm going to point an order here. That's the same thing. I made an amendment on a recommendation. This recommendation is zero. How do you make an amendment on zero? I'm adding $25,000. So that's what it was. Same thing. Council Member Stinnett, I'll take another privilege of the chair. I did not mention that he had just made an amendment. I think we're... Council Member Massadi. This is going to be a long morning if we don't get this figured out real quick. Council Member Scutchfield said, we entrusted three council members to make a decision that represented a link to forward to the council members. I agree completely. what she said. If we have a certain council member who does not support that link, again, to me that's a separate request. So I would support what Council Member Brown said, saying that if a council member would like to either recommend or amend or something that is different from the link, that goes at the very end as a personal recommendation. Because if not, we're going to do this all day. And we're not going to have any consistency. And next month we'll be sitting here dissecting this, still trying to figure this out. So I'd say we stick with the process. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Members Stennett or James Brown, can you explain, if this were to not be approved, how is that going to impact the PVA's operation, please? Council Member Brown? This increase, this requested increase to the operating budget would help the property evaluators, administrator's office, as far as providing technology to do property evaluations. From my understanding and kind of what he shared at the meeting, The way they do it now is they ride up to a house, take a picture of it, find it in a pile of papers, write down the assessment, then get it back to the office and enter it into the computer, which is a timely process. What they want to move to is an iPad-configurated device that they can just pull up, take a picture, find it in the database, enter the amount, and it goes into play instantly. So from the discussion, we thought this was a value to be added to his office per increase in the operating budget. Thank you. If that explanation helped. Thanks for the clarification. I just wanted to know if it was going to be a hindrance if it wasn't approved. It sounds like it is a productive method of technology to help his office. So thank you for that clarification. Thank you. Council Member Hensley. Thank you. How is the operating budget of the PVA derived? Is it from the taxes that they collect of any percentage? Does anybody know? Commissioner? Can you help? Let's get an answer on the mic if we can. There's a KRS that calculates based on your population, I believe it is, the amount that the county needs to support the PVA office. Our recommended budget for many years has been in excess of that required contribution. So it is based on what the PVA brings forward and asks for supplemental funds from the county and has been for a long, long time larger than the required KRS contribution that the county is required to make. So does any of his operating budget not from us come from tax-based generated funds? In other words, if we're going to have a billion-dollar tax increase, is he going to have a surplus for $25,000 next year? He also raises funds from selling the data for the use of his database and his data. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I see no other council members signed up. The motion on the floor is to amend to add $25,000 to the PVA allocation. If you would use your voting screen, all those in favor, log in with yay. And all those opposed, no. The vote reflects passage of the motion. Council Member Scotchfield, anything else? That is all for that. Was that, though, the motion to approve the amendment? You're right. That was to amend the recommendation. Now we need a vote on the recommendation as amended. Thank you. Would I wish to speak to the motion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? No. That motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Next we have Information Technology Administration. The proposed budget was $4,409,890. The link unanimously approved as proposed. So move acceptance of the mayor's proposed budget. I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Computer services, the mayor's proposed budget was $7,961,840. The link unanimously moved, or I moved to approve his proposed unanimous recommendation from the link. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Next, we have the Enterprise Solutions. The mayor's proposed budget was $1,050,280. The council link unanimously approved as proposed, and I make a motion to approve. Motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Next, we have the council clerk. Mayor's proposed budget was $536,230. Unanimous approval by the link, and I make a motion to approve as proposed. I have a motion and a second to approve as proposed. Discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Next, we have the Office of Internal Audit. There was discussion. They had requested $75,000 into the mayor's proposed budget for the Division of Internal Audit to use an external audit of the Division of IT Administration Computer Services. This is because we're putting multi-million, $3 million, $6 million into our IT department based on a recommendation from an audit that occurred several years ago. And they are implementing that audit. But the reason that the link has proposed that we fund this $75,000 for the audit is with this amount of money that is being spent, we want to make sure that we're covering all of the items and loopholes, any issues that might occur. The link was of the opinion that $75,000 to make sure that we are doing it right, not that we don't think we are, but to make sure we are when we're spending that much money, we thought that that was a good use of funds. So my motion will be to approve, but including $75,000 for the external audit. So moved. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Hensley. So the nature, thank you, the nature of the audit, What type of audit was it? Is it a financial audit, a security audit? What's the nature of the audit? You're the tech person. My intention or our intention was an audit of the services that were being implemented and make sure that the security of the implementation was being done correctly. but I may be security. Okay, so is the recommendation for a $75,000 security audit, funds for a security audit for $75,000? Aldona, can you answer that? About 18 months ago, maybe closer to two years, we brought in a company to audit our cybersecurity, which they did and provided us a report. It is based on the recommendations that we are implementing some of those solutions right now. The intent, I think, the request of the audit was to see the progress that we've made, I'm assuming, to see whether we're doing the right things at the right time, monitoring. But the study that we did of the lack of cybersecurity was all-encompassing. It included everything from hardware to practices to passwords, social engineering, almost everything. And it is that initial study that we're using now to implement the cybersecurity solutions. So this would be a follow-on cybersecurity audit? This would be a follow-on, I'm assuming, of that study and where we are in the process. As you can imagine, this is going to take multiple years to finally do it. So it is, I think, to assess where we are today. And the reason I ask specifically, I don't know if that's enough. I mean, honestly, I feel I know what you're doing. And so I would make a motion to change it to an internal cybersecurity audit and for $100,000. and frankly I don't know the company that is going to do the audit so this is this request was made from our internal auditing group and the conversations that I had with them because I wanted to know what part they're going to audit there's several things by the way we get we're in an audit almost every other month for something if they audit purchasing we get audited if they audit CAFR we get audited so in other words we provide we're the financial people we're the HR people so we are at every audit. So I'm not sure exactly what company will do this audit to follow up on the study that we had done. But I think what we're talking about is a cyber security audit. I think you need to ask internal auditing what is proposed. Okay. I have a motion to amend. Could you please restate that? I'm thinking because of what she just said. I think the motion to amend would be to $100,000 because cybersecurity is very important. This is, if it is for cybersecurity, which I hope that it is, in a government as large as we are with as much IT we have, and knowing what I know as a certified security professional, we need more than $75,000 in the budget. So thank you. I have a motion to amend. Is there a second? I see none. That feels for lack of a second. Councilman Maloney. Thank you. I want to ask the administration to come up. After hearing the definition, I think we're premature doing this $75,000. It's my reason why I'm getting out of this. So I want to know why you all did not support this. It seems like to me we're a little bit premature on this because we've already got something going on. We haven't got it going yet. and I don't want to audit something that's not working the way it's supposed to be working until we get it going. If I'm wrong on that, tell me, but hearing what I hear, I think we're premature on that. Is that the reason why you ought to support something like this? We had an extended discussion with building the mayor's proposed budget. The IT people are working very diligently in implementing the recommendations of the original audit. But their capacity is at max in implementing. And so we felt that we were at least a year away from when we could come back and see how much they had implemented. And they had the capacity to work with the audit of what they were implementing. So we felt that it was a very viable request. It's something that as an internal auditor, the internal auditor is saying I do not have this part of the government covered in what my staff is doing. So my responsibility is to recommend to have that covered on an annual basis. We took that recommendation seriously, but we felt that it was a year before we needed to do it to give IT more time to implement the things that were being done. And as a counter, if they're on the wrong track, this might be able to identify it. So there's pros and cons as to when is the appropriate time to do the follow-up review. Thank you. So I probably will not support this motion. I think after what the administration and what the computer, I think we're just premature. I think maybe next year, whenever they get this going, then maybe the audit can come in there. But by now, I'm not supporting something we don't need to be spending until we get this operated. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. And just to echo our link, Chair, I think what was presented in our link was this was a recommendation from the internal auditor, is to have this external audit just because he didn't have the capability to audit IT, that, you know, the way he, you know, it needs to be audited as far as the way they're spending the money, the security portion of it. So, you know, that's why our link recommended, you know, to add this funding to it is because we thought it was important to look at IT. I think the CIO and her department is doing an excellent job, but each year the budget for IT is going to increase. So we just want to make sure that we're using the best use of our funds when it comes to that part of the government. So that's why we recommended this audit. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Council Member Hensley. I would just say as a final comment, I've read the security audit for the city. I don't know how many of you all have. And this $75,000 will help Aldona greatly. And so I will support this. Thank you. Does anybody else wish to speak? If not, we can take a vote. All those in favor, log in with your vote, please. That vote reflects passage. Council Member Scotchfield. Yes. Next, we have grants and special projects. I do have two motions here. The first motion is to approve the budget as proposed by the mayor of 837-170. So moved. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Scottshield, can you tell me what specific grants this relates to? Yes, hold on just a moment. It doesn't. It's Irene Gooding's shop. So it's the administration of our grant programs. Well, I was just curious which grants you were specifically talking about. Is it, well, NDF, just neighborhood, not NDF, neighborhood grants. I'm not making, oh, neighborhood, I'm not making that motion yet. This is just motion as of right now to approve the budget. Yeah, in that budget, though, this is what I'm asking. Are those grants in this budget just neighborhood matching grants? Is that the only part of this budget that we're talking about, or are there other grants? That's what my question was. Yes, I mean, there's other grants. This is administration of funds and monitoring the activities of the nonprofit subrecipient organizations. It's for ensuring compliance with all federal requirements triggered by HUD funds, single-family housing rehabilitation program under CDBG and home programs. So there's several grants, not just neighborhood matching. Again, I'm not making the motion right now for the neighborhood match. I am just making the motion to approve the mayor's proposed budget. I will make a second motion. Yeah, I guess I'm just a little confused. I'm just curious what grants are under this program. That's all. All grants. No. I've got council members. Well, I mean, it's all of the grants that Irene's office manages. Right. Is that correct? Oh, Ms. Gooding, you're here. Thank you. Yes, my division manages all federal and state grants. that are received by the Urban County Government. This just encompasses them all. That's the only question I had. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing nobody else signed up, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Second motion. I do have a second motion. Currently, as it was presented to the link, because we also had the mayor's office under our link, the mayor's office is currently where the neighborhood match grants are housed, but Irene and her staff do most of the administration for this neighborhood match grant, if not all of the administration. So the Link thought it was appropriate to move the neighborhood match grants officially into her budget and administration. As printed, this is a referral to the committee for further discussion of that? That is correct. So my motion is to move this into committee to discuss moving neighborhood match grants into Irene's, the grants and special programs. Thank you. So moved. A motion. Is there a second? I have a second. Any discussion on the motion? Councilman Massadi. What's the dollar figure associated with that? A hundred thousand. One hundred. All right. Thank you. Further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Alright, next I have risk management requested, Mayor's proposed budget had $509,880. The link moves to approve as proposed. Motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. The next we have Human Rights Commission. The link moves to approve as proposed the Mayor's proposed budget of 237-230. Motion to second to approve. Discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next we have Lex Call. Mayor's proposed budget was $2,041,840. The link unanimously moves to approve as proposed. I have a motion and a second to approve as proposed. Discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. And next we have the council office. I have two motions for this department. The first is to approve as proposed the budget of $2,762,450. Motion and a second to approve as proposed. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next, we have a motion to move into the Committee of the Whole for discussion regarding adding the position of a part-time attorney to the council office. Second. Motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay, fine. I think, no. Almost there. Lexington Public Library. This is statutorily placed into the budget. We move approval of the mayor's proposed budget as proposed. Motion to second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed, the motion carries. Next is the mayor's office. The committee moves to approve as proposed the mayor's proposed budget. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion carries. Next, we have the Chief Development Officer. The committee moves unanimously for approval as proposed. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Discussion on the motion? Council Member Hensley. Could we have an explanation on the $250,000 increase in the jobs fund? Mr. Atkins. The fund is moving more toward a loan program than a grant program as much as possible. So the loan pool is, the loan amount that you can apply for is larger. and so more of the companies are actually even coming for loans now. So we just bumped it up a little bit for that. Thank you. Further discussion? Seeing none, all is in favor. Please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next, we have law including property and casualty claims. The link moves for approval as proposed. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? That motion carries. Next, we move for approval as proposed for the Chief Administrative Officer's Budget. Motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? That motion carries. Next, we have a motion for approval as proposed for special programs. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next, we have a motion for approval as proposed for the Homelessness Prevention Office. Motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next, I have the county judge executive, and we have a motion for approval as proposed. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. next we have a motion for approval for the coroner's budget as proposed we have a motion and a second discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor please say aye opposed that motion carries next we have a motion for approval for the county clerk and elections budget as proposed Second. Motion and a second to approve. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. I make a motion for approval for the Board of Elections proposed budget. Second. Motion and a second to approve for the Board of Elections. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Almost there. Government communications. I have a motion for approval of the mayor's proposed budget, as proposed. Second. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion carries. And finally, I have a motion for approval for human resources, as proposed. Motion and a second. To approve as proposed. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. All opposed, nay. That motion carries. Thank you. Next would be Finance and Social Services Link. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm just going to follow suit of what Council Member Scotchfield said. Commissioner of Finance Department, accept the recommendations in the Mayor's proposed budget. I so move. Second. Motion and a second to approve as proposed. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. The next one is the Division of Accounting. Accept the recommendations of the Mayor's proposed budget. Second. I have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next is the Division of Budgeting. Accept the recommendations in the mayor's proposed budget. I so move. Second. I have a motion and a premature second. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. The next is the Division of Central Purchasing. I accept the recommendations in the Mayor's proposed budget, so move. Second. I have a motion in a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Next is the Division of Revenue and the accepting the recommendations in the Mayor's proposed budget. I so move. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next is the Department of Social Services Administration. Accept the recommendations of the mayor's proposed budget. I so move. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next is the Division of Adult and Tenant Services. Accept the recommendations in the Mayor's proposed budget. I so move. Second. Motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. The next is the Division of Aging Services. Accept the recommendations in the Mayor's proposed budget. So move. Second. I have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion carries. Next is the Division of Family Services. Accept the recommendations in the mayor's proposed budget, so move. Second. Motion and a second to approve. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. The next is the Division of Youth Services. Accept the recommendations in the Mayor's proposed budget, so move. I have a motion and a second to approve. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. And lastly, the Explorium of Lexington. Accept the recommendations in the Mayor's proposed budget, so move. Second. Motion and second to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. And that's it. Thank you, ma'am. Next would be General Services and Planning. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We actually made a very fancy presentation for today, just for fun, spiced things up a little bit. Unfortunately, it does not follow the pages in here, so I'm going to tell you the page number as we go, if that's acceptable. And I apologize in advance. Everyone take a deep breath. Okay. So we start off with a highlight. Can I just, thank you, go one more. One more. Okay, this is an overview of the planning and general services link report out. There were 10 new total positions, 337 new expanded funding, $43 million in general fund, and $12 million in proposed bonding for these divisions. So we'll start with historic preservation, which is on page 46. This was a continuation budget. It did go up substantially from last year, and that's because they filled it a vacant position, which was in their budget, just not filled last year. So I recommend we approve the historic preservation budget. Second. I have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Okay, back up one page to 43. This is building inspection. This was also a continuation budget. It did include three new positions in fiscal year 16, which is why you see the increase. There's a number of new building permits happening, and all in all, the new thing for this is that the building inspections will be available online this year, which is great for the public to search. So I move to approve the Mayor's proposed budget for building inspection. I have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Okay, page 47 is the PDR program. This is a continuation budget from last year. It does include 18 farms. The new addition here is that there's going to be aerial photos used to monitor the easement restrictions, which will be helpful. We had great discussion in our link about this next recommendation, and we decided that it would be best to have a full council vote on this issue. So I recommend that we fund $15,000 out of fund balance for an additional five appraisals at $3,000 per farm. So moved. I have a motion and a second to approve. Is this approved as amended? Yes, sir. To approve with the amendment that's been noted. Any discussion on the motion? Council Member Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm looking at this page 47, and it has no recommendation there, but is this? It was in the sheet on our link recommendations. It, for some reason, did not make it on this particular page, and that's an oversight. This is unanimous with your link group? Actually, it was not. And who is on your link group? My link is Council Member Akers and Council Member Gibbs, and after our discussions about this on full council, we decided not to make – we thought the motion needed to be made. We did not feel like we could have a – we did not have a strong consensus recommendation. I guess I'm asking, at your link committee, did they ask for this as additional monies? Yes. Okay, they did ask for it because it's not indicated in the schedule I've got, so okay. Correct. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. That motion carries. Okay, the next one is engineering. You will find this on page 45. We had the major things here that the MAP funding went down 20%. That's from the gas tax. So as you can see, it was very detrimental to the budget. They did include two new positions, and they're going to do some new things with the conference room chairs and computers. We're recommending the accepted marriage proposed budget. We also recommend, we had a great discussion about curb maintenance, about private property and city-owned curbs and who was responsible for that. So we do want to make that a recommendation for environmental quality. But I'll make a motion to accept the mayor's proposed budget as recommended. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Go ahead. Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. This was just a quick summary of the engineering capital quest, of which there was quite a few. And so we put that in the packet just so you can see the trends. The next one is code enforcement. You will find this on page 44. This included one new position. There was a great deal of discussion about having additional code enforcement officers. At the end of the day, we decided to side with the administration and wait on this. They are doing some new things with iPads for better efficiencies, and we think once they get that done, there will be opportunities to add new code enforcement officers in the future. so i'll move that may you make a recommendation to accept the mayor's proposed budget for code enforcement second motion a second to accept as proposed discussion on the motion council member massadi and then council member stinnett thank you vice mayor um council member blood so do you know how many total code enforcement officers we now have i think we have i'm going to ask our director to help me off hand Yes, we currently have seven nuisance officers and nine housing with an addition today. We just got our new employee today. And I guess my question would be, do you think that's sufficient? Well, we've asked for additional personnel. We originally asked for two. Ideally, in the next year or so, we'll be up to 11. Also, as I discussed in some past meetings, as our nuisance officers do retire or move on to other positions, we will be coming back and ask for an allocation of funds to increase the availability of those officers in turning them into housing officers, which provides us with the ability to do more than just what nuisance officers do. So basically you've got one in the mayor's proposed budget and you're going to come down the road and ask for another one? I'm going to request another one next year if I'm allowed, yes. Oh, absolutely. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stinnett. Director? Director, hold on. I just want to clarify what you just said. So the new position will be cross-trained for both nuisance and housing? Yes, sir. Housing officers, which are a grade or two above our nuisance officers, they receive state certification to where they can do housing. Our nuisance officers receive no certification, and the nuisance officers we currently have, only one of them would even possibly be eligible to become a housing officer in the future. So all new ones, including this one, will be? From here forward, our plan is to hire housing officers and housing officers only. Thank you. Thank you. Further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Okay, thank you. Let's move on to planning. I believe you find on page 48. This is a continuation budget as well. The biggest thing out of planning coming up is they're getting ready for the 2018 comprehensive plan. so I move we accept the Mayor's page budget for planning. Second. Motion and a second to approve as proposed. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next on page 49, you'll find the Commissioner of Planning. This was also a continuation general fund budget. We discussed the two bond proposals in here, 1.85 for the Southland sidewalk and also 500,000 for neighborhood sidewalks. We had a great deal of discussion about the need, and we've had that on council, about having additional money for neighborhood sidewalks. What is also in this budget is the Economic Development Infrastructure Fund that was funded last year out of the distillery district. And our link was recommending decreasing that $1 million infrastructure fund by $250 million and allocating that to the neighborhood sidewalks with the thinking that the guidelines had not been established yet for the infrastructure fund and it has to be spent by 2018. So moved. Second. I believe that's a motion to approve as proposed. Any discussion on the motion? No, I'm sorry. I was making a motion to accept it with a $250,000 reallocation. Okay, so that's also not on the sheet that we have in front of us. And I really can't tell you why it's not on these sheets. Although it is on this one, for some reason. Councilmember Evans. Councilmember Bolletsoe, could you just repeat that just so I can fully understand it? And I'll use this instead of that to make sure I'm understanding. There's currently a million dollars that was voted on last year for the Economic Development Infrastructure Fund. The guidelines from which to use that fund have not been set up or approved. that fund comes out of a bond that has to be spent by fiscal year 2018. Our thinking was, since that has not moved quickly along this guideline, was to take $250,000 from that infrastructure fund and move it to sidewalks, thereby increasing the neighborhood sidewalk fund to $750,000. This is not new money. It's just reallocation of current fund bond. I have one follow-up to that. How much sidewalk length, mileage, whatever you want to call it, does that – Well, I believe that 500,000 was 1.1 mile? 1.25. So this would increase it by 50 percent. So bring it up to maybe about 1.75. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Blesser, why not just do it all? I would love to do it all. Because $750,000 is not a lot of money for sidewalks. And we probably have, what, Commissioner, over $10 million in need. So why wouldn't we just go ahead and use the money since it has to be spent by 2018? We had that discussion. We were all for it. We decided that we didn't want to make a $1 million reallocation on our own. But I think you would find our lake very supportive of that effort. Well, I think that's a conversation we can have moving forward. But this doesn't help the Neighborhood Sidewalk Assistance Fund at all. It does not. This is for that separate thing that Jonathan Hollinger was working on of a list just to give it a greater boom. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to ask a question myself. I may have the Commissioner Paulson. if you would from your perspective the pros and the cons of this proposal either as proposed we have not had a motion to amend that proposal but as proposed what impact it would have positively or negatively on economic infrastructure fund by removing 250 thousand from it um i think what i would so mr or sorry council member bledsoe and i uh discussed this uh at length as well um our plan is to bring forward the recommendations about the guidelines for the infrastructure fund we were waiting to try to do it in tandem with the economic development land to zoda that should be coming probably by the time you guys get back from break we we've kind of gone back and forth in terms of what that would be i think my take is I would like to have as much of that economic infrastructure fund as possible. I think we can spend it by 2018. $750,000 is still a fair amount of money. As Council Member Stinnett correctly said, we've got no shortage of sidewalk requests and needs. In terms of the $250,000, I think it's probably a good amount. We are going to be just getting that up and running. As you just approved the new request for position in engineering that is going to be for our capital division. So this is going to be one of those things we're going to be moving forward with $750,000 in new projects. We don't know how many projects that's actually going to be. So one of the things that's different from paving, as we've talked about before with sidewalks, it's not that we can just kind of let go $750,000 of sidewalks. There's going to be design that's going to be required for all of those. So each one of those, however many of those projects will be, will be new projects. So I think 750 is a good amount to start with while we get that new capital engineer hired and get things up and running with the way we're going to be doing more sidewalk projects. I like as much of that infrastructure fund as we can just because I think it will be good as we make changes to the economic development land zoning category to have it there as an incentive to try to move things forward. It still is a very important thing for us in terms of economic development. I think that's $750,000. It could still get us, based on what we've seen in terms of recent projects, probably, again, several different economic development projects that could be done in terms of infrastructure. Okay. And as I understand it, we recently moved $500,000 out of that same fund to fund the sidewalks for the final phase of the Phase III Legacy Trail. Is that correct? It is correct. It was a part of that fund, correct. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Hensley. Thank you, Chair. So why are we having this surplus of funds in the Economic Development Infrastructure Fund to spend on trails and sidewalks? Do we overbudget it? Or can we not spend it? Commissioner? No, I think what we've got is it was a reallocation from the distillery district funds. What we've been trying to do is figure out how do we do that. And, again, this was timed around the same time that we started work on the economic development of ZOTA. The economic development of ZOTA, as often happens with ZOTAs, is taking longer than we anticipated. In that time period, we've kind of changed the way we were thinking about doing the economic development infrastructure fund. Originally, as Council Member Kay had stated, there were kind of two different funds. There was one that was more of an infill fund and one that was more for economic development. We've kind of tried to fold those into one, and we will be bringing that for a preferred, to have it go to committee before it comes up to council for discussion. I think where we are now is just waiting to try to get it on the committee. At this point, we're pretty much at the whim of the break, so we'll be bringing it in August, if we can, getting it on budget and finance committee as soon as possible to bring that forward. It still gives us about two years to spend that $750,000. So, again, I think it's my recommendation to not short that fund. I think economic development is very important to us. It is your privilege to spend it on sidewalks. I think we will have a harder time spending that $700. Again, it's going to be a lot of projects. If we put $1.5 million into sidewalks, it's going to be a lot of projects for engineering to try to manage as we are trying to hire a new person. I think it may be a little bit much right now. We might be at this time next year still sitting there with projects we're trying to get out and going. So I think you just said we'd create another problem by moving this fund into the sidewalk funds because you all couldn't spend that fast enough? I think at this point, again, we are trying to hire another, and again, in this proposed budget is another capital projects engineer. We will not, realistically, hiring that person is going to take several months, even if we start it right at July 1, get that through. It will be October to November before we get that person up and running. Every one of these sidewalks, $1.5 million in sidewalks, could be quite a few projects, each one of which will have design. There could be right away. There could be several things. I think we'd like to get those projects up and running. I think putting $1.5 million in there right off the bat might be something that, again, given all of the other projects that we have that we're managing, there's going to be a lot of projects to handle. I'd like to kind of crawl before we start running on the sidewalks. That being said, the infrastructure fund is a separate thing. I think it is very important to have that money there as we are adjusting the economic development zone category. And, again, just for economic development, it is what we will be bringing to you is more than just for jobs. It's also for infill-type things that can be for that public infrastructure. And I think there will be, as we start to really push that out to the public as to what it can be used for, there will be requests for those funds. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I see nobody else sign out to speak. My understanding of the motion that's on the floor is to accept the proposed budget with the additional $250,000 move from Economic Infrastructure Fund to the Neighborhood Sidewalk Fund. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Okay, moving on to fleet and facility. I apologize. This is on page 41. This is a significant increase, as you can tell from a trend in the last couple of years. There are five new positions. One of the things that we wanted to highlight in particular in this budget, and you can see from your new and expanded list of capital projects on your page, on page 41, there's quite a bit. The one interesting thing is the new site location study for the environmental quality and public works. This was a $265,000 investment. It spread across a number of different line items, which is why we thought it was important to mention it. This will be done in tandem to try to figure out, can we consolidate some of our fleet and facilities, essentially, into one location to save money and save resources. So that is that particular study. We recommend accepting the mayor's proposed budget for a fleet and facility. So moved. Second. Motion and a second to approve. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Okay, now there's parks and recreation. You'll find this on page 42. The highlights include new snow plows at 26,000, new radios at 100,000. They'll allow those to communicate with our police and fire. They're increasing some mowing contracts and parks patrol, a marketing budget. You can tell it's gone up on the trend. And one new project manager. I want to give a shout-out on just a couple of items. There was increased revenue at the Downtown Arts Center since taking that over. Their goal was about $60,000. They made over $90,000, which I think is well-deserved. And so we should say thank you to that. And we also discussed that we wanted to have further discussion about the aquatics, master plan, and land use for our parks. So we recommend we accept the Parks and Recreation budget as proposed. Second. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion. Council Member Evans. Thank you, Vice Mayor. It was my understanding that the aquatics plan that was presented to us a month or so ago, that is already fully budgeted? That was in the Mayor's proposed budget? No, Mayor. It seemed to be. Okay. So the aquatics discussion was, as you know, full-bred on a number of items, including a number of new pools and amenities. We just meant that the aquatics discussion was not finished, that we were going to continue. The mayor's proposed budget has a part of the aquatics recommendations, including the spray parks and the redesign of Shelliteau and some roofing repairs and Castlewood's amenities, if you will. So our point was just that it's not finished. Okay, I guess my... When are we going to come back and discuss, I guess, maybe the full plan? Because that... I don't know if we even really agreed on the maintenance and the upgrades that were being done, which is included in the mayor's budget. So I don't know. I guess we're just kind of approving that without what I thought we were going to have a fuller discussion. But I don't know. I guess I'm curious if you all discussed when that full discussion about the full plan was going to come back and how much that really will impact the larger budget maybe just in future years. That's the point, is that we'd have to have a discussion to move any potential new funding outside of what the mayor proposed this year. Right. So, I mean, I guess, so was there any number thrown out there just kind of in that discussion? Is there something, a broader number about what we would be looking at, a big, solid number? No, because it could vary by the millions. And so we did not, it depends on what you want to do. And we felt like that had not been decided by the council, as you were mentioning. And so this was just to recognize that we approve the aquatics budget as presented by the mayor for the things specifically, but not the broader overall discussion. Okay. Which I hope would take place in conjunction with the master plan and land use. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Nobody else signed up to speak? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Okay, lastly, this is on page 40 of your packet. This is the Commissioner of General Services, which is also a continuation budget. This is where you found two additional large-ticket bonding discussions. First was the $10,000 Commission Center, which we recommended funding contingent upon, of course, the tax increase on Thursday. and then also $7 million of the sports complex, both of which we proposed supporting in the mayor's proposed budget under the conditions that further discussion on both items would be had by the full council. We also discussed the $195,000 bond project at the Kentucky Theater. Just we thought we needed to have an update on where that was as a part of the 2015, believe it or not, issues. So I recommend that we approve the mayor's proposed budget for the Commissioner of General Services. Second. I have a motion to approve and a second. Discussion on the motion? Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Bledsoe, you said in reference to the capital projects that that was going to be discussed later. I have some real concerns about the $7 million in binding for the sports complex because I'm not there yet. Sure. We had a great discussion about that with our link. And I think I might just ask if Commissioner Reed or Chief of Staff Reed wants to come and just present what you presented to our link, which got us the place of being unanimous to move it forward. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. Good to see you. We did have a good discussion, and I understand why the council would still have some concerns. We are still in the infancy of developing these projects, working with the Bluegrass Sports Commission. The $7 million is basically a reservation. No money will be spent until a specific plan of action is developed with the Sports Commission. It is the amount of money that is set aside. It's basically a placeholder? Is that what you're saying? placeholder and we'll be back more than once to the council discussing the plan to move forward. No money will be spent before that. Okay, so I needed to know. Thank you. Council Member Furnimer. So we're going to place hold it for how long? For seven million dollars. and welcome back sir I don't think we have a specific timetable I think we have to get back to you in a timely fashion sometime in the next fiscal year the bond won't I don't doubt the bond would be issued so it is a $7 million placeholder again that will be there and will be back with the Sports Commission to talk about the plan. It seems like we have a whole lot of different ideas as to exactly how this operation is going to look, the level of involvement of the city, a lot of questions, the exact cost of what the project's going to be. There's some initial things, but a lot of things have to be nailed down. I think we can nail them down in a relatively quick time frame once we get the go-ahead from the council. But I can't give you a specific time when we would be back. Thank you. So in your linked discussion, what did you talk about? I mean, did you say this is a good thing, we want to do it, this makes no sense, we don't? Is there a midpoint between zero and seven million? I mean. We had a full breadth of the conversation. Some of it was dependent upon the new legislation passed by Frankfurt with the P3 and whether or not this would qualify. it would then challenge how we set up something like this if it was to move forward. And so some of those discussions we didn't have answers to yet, which then would dictate how management, for instance, would be set up, how fundraising would be set up. So as a part of that discussion, I mean, I think there's a breadth of support for it. The question is how it's managed and what it looks like was different, and I think will continue to be different until we can go down some of these paths a little bit further. Did you discuss approving an amount less than $7 million in a reservation form? We did not. See, to me, these folks jumped in front of the train at the last stop before the budget address. And to me, I had never heard of this before, that presentation that day at that time. And then the next week, poof, it's in the mayor's budget. And there's been a complete lack of process in my estimation. And all this can be very well founded. And there could be a potentially good deal worked out here, although I don't know that about any of it so far. And certainly, based on the conversations and the success we had in Frankfurt, there are different types of deals going on now that could affect the style of this potentially. So I'm late to the party, but glad to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hensley. Thank you, Chair. You know, I echo some of the comments about the timing on this. even though this project is in my district, I've had one five-minute conversation with Brian Miller from the Sports Commission back last November, and then it showed up, like Bill said, on our budget. The next week, the concept of the project is a good one, but the timing to me, $7 million. Did you all discuss any infrastructure problems with the project even happening, like roads funding for getting into the sports complex, as I understand it from side conversations I've had, that there's no funding to expand the roads, and this project may not even happen this year because there's no roads to service it. Well, it would depend on how the sports complex was set up. For instance, if there was an outsource on Bursell's Road for the economic development side, and the side closer to Parker's Mill was done for public use as more of a park, then the estimation from Streets and Roads is we would not have to expand it. Okay, that's news to me. Because we did ask that question in our link. Okay. In my individual recommendations, I've got reducing this to let it go forward at $1.5 million. As others have alluded to, there's debt services coming out of the general fund that could be used for other projects, and this is being set aside as a placeholder for a project that to me has not been discussed with me and it's in my district. So, you know, I would make the recommendation to a motion to drop it to $1.5 million for now for this course complex. The motion, so to reduce, can you put it in real numbers? So they're recommending $7 million. You're saying reduce it to? to 1.5, to let them have an operating budget for the year, to do the studies that Brian's discussed. I mean, even talking to Brian, you know, he had some, we had a two-hour meeting with the community that's next door to this who was also hearing this for the first time. I had a two-hour meeting with them, and it seems to me that there's even some apprehension that the project will be getting done this year. The mayor may be here next year. He may not. and so I think it's a favorable project for him to put it back in the budget next year. So $1.5 million for the bonding for the sports complex. I have a motion to amend the recommendation to reduce the $7 million bonding for the sports complex to $1.5 million. Do I have a second? Bill did. I have a motion and a second. The discussion, I have two people signed up, but a discussion on the amendment. if you would. Jennifer, sorry, Council Member Massardi. Yes, thank you. Council Member Bledsoe, was there any discussion about participation from Fayette County Public Schools in this endeavor? They did commit to being a part of it. I regret Melissa Bacon couldn't be here today to state, to reaffirm her position that the board had decided to be a viable and substantial partner to this and a financial contributor. Did they give you a dollar amount about their viability? It was in the six figures over $200,000. that's it really okay thank you per year i mean it was a rental per year there was there was no other um you know partnership type of an agreement that you know we'd go half and half with you or we we'd x amount of dollars and since we're giving them the land i just wondered if there was a discussion that it was a little bit further than the lease situation correct that was it okay Thank you. Councilman Evans on the amendment. Yes. I appreciate Councilmember Hensley's amendment because there are real concerns about this. I mean, we're talking about something that's so hypothetical and understanding the argument that apparently people need to know that the city might be committed. I personally think putting up the land might be commitment enough, but if a number has to be attached to it, I think Council Member Hensley's number is satisfactory for something that is so hypothetical at this point because we will be in debt for that full $7 million. And so I'd be in favor of that motion, that amendment. Thank you. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Hensley, how did you come up with from $7 to $1.5? What's $1.5 representing? Because the $7 million that the mayor put in the budget is a match to what they plan on raising. So how did you come up with the $1.5? That was a number, I think, that Brian had discussed at a meeting with the citizens of what the environmental impact studies and things like that would go forward. I mean, that was a number that's in my mind that was one and a half million. Yeah, I think that there's some misconceptions about that because I don't think the government should be paying for their feasibility studies or traffic studies. And I think all that is to be worked out, as Commissioner Reed said, in the MOUs this summer. But we're paying for half of that. I mean, you're paying for half of that now with the match. No, we're not. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. The match, $7 million, is a placeholder. And until we get that MOU, we're not going to give them a dime. And I support that. Until we get a legitimate. And we haven't even said we're going to give them the land yet. That's something this council has to still come back and say, hey, we don't want to give the land. We want to charge them. I mean, there's a number of options out there. And I think you're right. There needs to be a lot of serious conversation. You need to be included. I don't doubt that. But this is just step one of probably 20 steps we've got to go through. You mentioned infrastructure. I agree totally. We've got to fix Parker's Mill now as it is. Whether we do this or not, Parker's Mill needs to be accelerated, period. We've got a park there that's already overcapacity with traffic. So I'm not going to support your motion. I understand what you're trying to do. But I think the $7 million placeholder can be adjusted before we bond it. If we don't get far enough down the road, we don't have to do anything. We don't even have to bond it. So I won't support your motion because I think this is step one. And as Commissioner Reed said, we're going to move with some speed to try to get a workable MOU that this council can debate in committee and see if we like it or not. And if we don't, we don't bond it. But we need it in the budget. And I support the mayor putting it in there. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Fred Brown. Yes. Commissioner Finance, O'Mara. if we drop this from $7 million down to $1.5 million, what have you got as far as the principal and interest that's going to be paid in fiscal year 17? Is that in the budget on the $7 million? Yes. What we did was we took the total bond package that's presented by the mayor, anticipate selling that October and November, which would mean there would be one interest payment in this fiscal year in the April-May category for the total package. However, similar to what occurred this year, Council has several points of decision that they can decide whether to go forward with the $7 million. It can be not included in the November if the answers aren't there. It can be then sold in the spring instead. At that point, then the debt service would then all be in 2017. Are we doing 18? Excuse me. Okay. So there would be some consequences to the fiscal year 17 budget, and we've still got the vote whether to include it in the bond package in October and November. So we've still got a lot of wiggle room. Correct. There's a lot of decision points before those monies are bonded, and then there's additional decision points before the money is released. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Akers. I think that the commissioner just answered my question, that there won't be any funds used from the general fund if we don't bond the $7 million. Thank you. The one thing I do want to add is the $7 million is for the capital build. If the $1.5 is for a feasibility study, I'm not sure that that's bondable. So by changing the purpose, you may be changing whether it has to be cash or whether it's an appropriate bondable item. Thank you. uh comes remember massadi thank you vice mayor can someone tell me the value of the land the 130 acres the current market value is there anybody do we i mean i would think we have some kind of an idea coming up Not a lot of people, obviously. Take your pick. $9,117,000. No, I, it's obviously a considerable amount of money. Again, we haven't entered into the negotiations. We haven't had an exact updated appraisal of the property. It's over 40 acres in a prime area. so it will be a considerable amount of money. It's also important to note that this is supposed to be developed for a park. Currently, it's under contract with LISA to develop as a park. So, you know, it will remain the same purpose there were to develop soccer fields. They haven't had the financial ability to do that. Yeah. I understand what you're saying. I was just trying to get a number because we're coming from $7 million to $1.5 million. Quite honestly, I can't remember. So I was just trying to think maybe that would be the placeholder, the value of the land, you know, as far as discussion purposes. Another point I'd like to make in the $7 million figure, if I could, and why that amount was chosen, is that the Bluegrass Sports Commission has commitments in the neighborhood of $6.5 million. So we chose a similar amount to what they had raised as the match. The total project was initially being estimated at $25 million. There's also competing communities for this project. So the thinking was we needed to show a significant commitment that the city's interest was such that we were going to seriously pursue this. So we took that amount. It was similar in nature. Okay. I was just trying to get an idea how you came up with the $7 million. That's all. And that was it. It could have been $10 million. It could have been $8 million. but we went with our meeting that we had we worked off an amount that we thought was sufficient to show everyone that we were serious moving forward was an amount similar to what they were raising so as we move forward it could be a matching type of relationships or some type of financial relationship and have a a significant amount of money toward the total project that was on the table early on without actually spending any money. I see. Alright, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I was just going to echo exactly what the Commissioner just said, was that it was under agreement with Lysa for Park. This was very similar, and we had this discussion in link to the courthouse last year. We put in $22 million without an MOU, without an agreement, without a really clear plan yet on how we were going to move forward, and we just are selling those bonds this spring. And I think, you know, was at that time that this would allow us to continue the discussions to see if we could get to a place where an MOU, et cetera, could be reached. And if not, then it would not move forward. Councilmember Maloney. I just want to make a statement. I was on the council when they donated this property and they wanted to make sure it was a park. At that time, they were looking at residential and it was considered a large amount and they got it and gave it to the, and I commend that. I also want to give you a little history there. When we voted, to allow to use that as a park. A lot of things had to be done. They had to put a bathroom in there. They had to do a lot of things to improve it. The problem is the city didn't have the money to put the bathrooms in there, and there's a lot of reasons why that didn't happen. So this is an opportunity. I'm not saying that we've got a lot of study that needs to go on, but this is the first time we've got private money coming into this project. And as the park knows, they can't do this all by themselves. And as everybody else knows, we've got to start getting in the partnership with private. And we have an opportunity. Like some folks come to the table, give us their plan, hear what they have. We have a piece of property out there that has to be used for a park. And you all know what the budget is. We don't have the money to do a lot of things in our park because we have to fix the old ones we have. This is an opportunity to do something new. And I hope the council is open-minded about this and that we're bringing a private partnership to listen to their concerns. And if it doesn't work out, we vote no. And that's what this thing is telling us. We want to put the money out there, and if it doesn't work, $7 million, we didn't have to vote on. But if it does work and it's an economic development, which I think it could be, I'm open-minded to hear all this. So I hope you all would support this, not support the motion of 1.5, but support the recommendation from the mayor, and let's go forward with this. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Behensley. I think after some discussion on this, and, you know, I don't want to change the nature of the $7 million from a capital investment to just a study. I was putting the $1.5 million there to say we're willing to put $1.5 million into a capital investment. But I do believe that there's so many other tethers that we have to cross before this project can go forward. I'll make a withdrawal of my request from $1.5 million. The motion to amend has been withdrawn. Any further discussion? I see nobody else signed up, but I would like to weigh in. Council Member Stinnett, would you take the chair, please? Thank you. Commissioner Reed, can I ask you to come back up? Thank you. So I've heard from a fair number of people with concerns about this project. And what I have said back to them is that we are not committed to doing anything. and we've heard, I think that's been confirmed. I've had my own reservations about this, but my understanding, a couple things. One, it's been made very clear that we're not making any decisions, this is a placeholder, and so on and so on. The other thing that I want to make clear is that this, as far as I know at this point, and I want you to confirm this, is this is not a commitment to the Bluegrass Sports Authority. This is a commitment that we're making basically to ourselves about looking seriously at the development of that park. That's exactly what this is. And it's the opportunity to move forward and work with this group who has stepped forward with this idea and work out a plan that works for this park with no money expended until you all approve and see the plan. And again, I've talked about the hurdles that we have in front of us to successfully implement this when we talked about this earlier. I remain concerned about some of those issues and some of those that have been shared by council. But I do think that it has the potential and the possibility to be something very good for the community. Okay, and there's one other point that I've made when we had this discussion before. I want to make it again. I want to beat a dead horse. But my understanding about the private money, the $6 million or the $6.5 million, is money that, for the most part, would depend upon the actual development of the facility. That is, naming rights, pouring rights, that kind of thing. So it's not money that's been raised. It's not money that's been placed on the table to develop that park. It's money that would be able to be raised if the park is developed. Is that a fair description? Partially. It is a commitment to assist in the construction of the park, and the money would be available. And, again, the details haven't been worked out, but it wouldn't be a situation where Lexington bills, the urban county government bills the facility totally with our money, and then their money comes in later, their money would be involved, again, in the construction and division. Those commitments would go toward securing financing to put up whatever portion or amount that they have to put toward the construction of the park. Then the operating money would be another topic. Okay. So one final point. I get that. But it seems to me that under an alternate scenario, if the city were to go ahead and do it on its own, we would be able to raise similar amounts of money from naming rights and from pouring rights. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Stinnett. Thank you. the amendment having been withdrawn i see nobody else wishing to speak on this motion the original motion is now on the floor that's to approve it as proposed including the updates on the kentucky theater etc all those in favor please say aye any opposed no why don't you log in please That vote reflects passage of the motion. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Vice Mayor Kay. Okay, moving on to the next item. This was a summation of the new positions. Keep going. I'll get there in just a second. Keep going. This was a division bonding history. We're just going to keep going. Okay, now we're moving on to the Economic Development Partner Agencies, which also falls under this. This was a quick look, just briefly, at 2017's Mayors proposed budget in the middle. On the right is the variance from last year, and as you can tell, from last year to this year, there was a reduction of about $214,000, which I'll explain in further detail as we move forward. The first one is Commerce Lexington. You will find this on page 57 of your packet. This is a continuation budget. Just an update that there is a good amount of money going to the Business Education Network for some things that they have coming on, which you'll hear about soon. And I'd like to move that we accept the Mayor's proposed budget for Commerce Lexington. Second. Motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Next is the LDDA, which you'll find on page 50 of your packet. Their budget was about $700,000. They proposed $324,000. They did request an economic development special assistant, which was not funded out of the mayor's proposed budget, and we recommend accepting the mayor's proposed budget for our LDDA. So moved. I have a motion and a second. Excuse me. Motion and a second to approve. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to page 53 in your packet, which is for the Lyric. Their overall budget was $555,000. The mayor's recommended proposed budget was $160,000. The budget link had great discussion about some of the successes of the Lyric, including they've hired on a new development officer, which we think will be a great asset to the Link's private fundraising efforts. We actually decreased the recommended budget by $10,000. We also feel like they have one of the biggest challenges of that facility is the acoustical improvements. And so Jomsheed spent some time looking at that. And so we would like to reduce the overall budget by $10,000 and reallocate $5,000 to Flaten facilities to work with the Link to address some of their acoustical issues. So moved. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. So the reallocation is to go to facilities to work with the Lyric on fixing the acoustical issues? Okay. That's correct. And there will be a $5,000 net gain out of this for our fund balance. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. Council Member Evans. Why not just reduce it by the $5,000? Why the additional reduction? Again, we felt like the new addition of the grants fund manager would be able to make up some of the difference. This is no agency who requested money out of economic development got everything they asked for, and so we thought this was a good meeting of the minds to reduce it by $10,000 but also address an issue that they had in the facility. Can you elaborate on that no one else got? And this is just a learning question. What do you mean no one else got? I mean, every other economic development agency asked for money. None of them received the full amount of additional funds that they asked for. This was an additional $30,000 from last year's proposed budget from the Lyric. And so we decided, instead of giving them the full $30,000, to give them the full $20,000, and then to give $5,000 of that to address an issue that they had. Okay. All right. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess my question would be, does the decrease by $10,000, would that affect any of their going forward, their projects, or anything going forward? Do you know? We do not think so, based on, again, the hiring of a development officer who's doing grant and fundraising efforts, that this would be an operational budget to make up. But we didn't think it would be detrimental to the overall bottom line. Okay. All righty. I appreciate it. Thank you. Councilmember Stinnett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Blesso, did you also ask how much is left on the debt service that we use to remodel the Lyric that we pay each year? Are we close to... I will have to ask for backup. I do not know that answer. okay you'll find out all right thank you thank you i see nobody else to speak motion to approve all those in favor please say aye any opposed that motion carries thank you moving on to the next one lex arts which you'll find on page 52 of your packet. This is also a, their overall budget is $1.5 million. The mayor's proposed budget is about $489,000. The increase, they did receive an increase, which including a rebranding campaign, website, janitorial services, salary adjustments. They asked for more than what they were given on the mayor's proposed budget, and a number of that went to fleet facilities to help with their building. So we feel like we are comfortable accepting the mayor's proposed budget for LexArts. So moved. Second. Motion and a second to approve. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. I'm sorry, Council Member James Brown. Go ahead. So in the requested budget, some of the money was for repairs to the building? That's correct. And did it get reallocated to facilities as well? It did. It was front-end facilities. Okay. Okay. That answered my question. Thank you. Thank you. No further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to DLC, which we'll find on page 54 of your packet. This was a continuation budget, and one of the things that we did address, they're doing a great job at DLC, was just that after one of the studies that I believe we funded last year, We saw there was just a gap in some of the family-friendly events. We love our bourbon and beer, but it seems like everything downtown is geared to one of those two things. And so we would like to just look at maybe some more family-friendly events. But overall, we would like to accept the mayor's proposed budget for DLC. So moved. Second. Thank you. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all of them in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. The next one is the No-Lie District. which is on page 51. They were approved last year for $150,000. This year, the mayor did not include any funding for NOLI in the mayor's proposed budget. We had a great discussion about the success of NOLI. They did come in and meet with our link and talk about some of their successes. and our feeling was that we agreed with the mayor that we were hesitant to fund one agency and let it become a continuing funding for one specific CDC. However, they were very successful in some of the things they were doing, and so our discussion was how could we help continue to fund the efforts of not just NoLive but other CDCs that might have an economic development focus. And our thought here, and we discuss this great with the CAO and Commissioner Adkins and Commissioner Amara, about how to do that maybe in a great way. And so our recommendation was to take the 150 that was given last year towards NOLI and put it towards an economic development grant fund. And in this way, that it could be a grant guideline not by council, not by the mayor's office, but have approval by the jobs fund board as maybe a way to help fund, in small ways, economic growth in some of our areas. I'll leave it at that. So that is our recommendation at this point moving forward. So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So is this something do you see this grant as being something annual or biannual as far as funding these possible CDCs and economic development organizations? I think that's something that we want to continue to discuss. I think we'd like to work with Kevin Adkins on figuring out the best way to write the guidelines for these. And so this kind of allows us to start with the guidelines this summer and then bring a proposal back to council, which would outline how we might do that. So I think we're open to any discussion. Is it possible to have these guidelines so when do you plan on? When do you plan on having these funds available in next year's budget? Is there any chance to have any funds available in this year's budget or do you think it next year? This was recommended for this year's budget. And our thinking was that we would take the summer to try to work with the administration on developing some grant guidelines and bring those back this fall so there would still be some time to get the money spent this year. Okay. So that's something that we plan to have presented to the entire council? Absolutely. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hensley. Thank you. The $150,000 grant fund, would it only be available to these centers or CDCs or anybody? I don't think so. I think it was meant to be – it started with CDCs, obviously with no lie. There's other CDCs that have asked for similar type funding, and this was our way of allowing it to be a competitive option. And so I think we can write the guidelines in such a way to narrow the scope to make sure we're funding economic development and jobs, not just community development, if that makes sense. But we did this to kind of start that conversation in order to write the grant that way. I think it's a great idea. I'd like to put it into my jobs training fund that I've got in the Budget and Finance Committee. So thank you. Thank you. before I recognize Council Member Stinnett, just so the Council Members will know, staff has ordered sandwiches so that we can have something to eat before our next meeting. I'd like to finish up this section, and then we can take a break. That's okay. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Bledsoe, so why wouldn't we just make this part of our jobs fund? And why the need for a separate category? I think the thought was the jobs fund is for larger projects and larger companies, and this was more grassroots effort. That might not be for a full $150,000, but it would most likely be for smaller amounts like $25,000 or $75,000. And so it would be a separate fund to not compete with the larger companies or entities. Okay, I mean, because we're putting another $250,000 on the jobs fund this year. I know Councilman Lamb's on there, too, and we've approved them down to, I want to say, $50,000 before on the jobs fund. So we do do smaller amounts. I don't want to reinvent the wheel. If we already have a mechanism, we can easily just bump that up. But we have $1.2 million, so just my thoughts. Thank you. Councilmember Akers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So I wanted to clarify a little bit of what our intent was as well. So the jobs fund is specific for creating jobs and assisting and kind of enticing businesses to locate in Lexington. And so this fund, we wanted to be a little bit different and open it up to smaller, like Council Member Bledsoe said, smaller organizations who might not necessarily be creating jobs, but they're creating economic development in areas that are of need. So it could be just a community improvement project. It could be a public art project. It could be building affordable homes projects. So it's a lot more diverse than just subsidizing construction or jobs, if that's helpful. Thank you. Thank you. I would also like to mention, I think the jobs fund is tied to higher wage median jobs, whereas this one would probably not do that. But I'd like to see if Mr. Atkins wants to comment. That's one of the points. The jobs funds tied to jobs that pay approximately $17, $80, almost $18 an hour, those projects also develop over a longer period of time, most of them up to 10 years to complete. I would see these as jobs tied to jobs, but they would be more within the year created or the project leads to further economic development. And I think we have the expertise on the Jobs Fund Board to kind of take that global look of the project and measure the return on investment. Thank you. I see nobody else signed up to speak, so I'll call for a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Moving on to the next slide, this is the World Trade Center, which you find on page 56 of your budget packet. Their overall budget is $788,000. The mayor's proposed budget was $72,000, which is a substantial decrease from last year's funding. This was felt mostly because this is what Louisville Metro funded, the World Trade Center, and we had a great discussion about this and in the end decided to agree with the mayor's proposed budget for the $72,000. So moved. Second. A motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Next is SCORE, which they presented to you, if you remember, back in February of this year. Their overall budget is $14,000. The mayor's proposed budget is $7,000. It's a continuation budget, and we were greatly pleased that they were actually taking some of the recommendations from last year and this year and working on them. So we would like to approve the mayor's proposed budget for SCORE. So moved. Motion and a second to approve. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. That's all, Mayor. Thank you. Question for Council. Since I was way overly optimistic about how efficient we'd be in doing this work, do we want to take a break and get some food and come back and try and get a little more of this knocked out, or do we need to take a break a full break before this we have a meeting at one o'clock any strong feelings one way or the other let's take the break in that case uh this would not be i guess it's a i don't know if it's adjourned or to take a break and we'll reconvene on thursday okay We don't need to vote. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We stand in recess until Thursday morning. Thank you.