# Budget & Finance Meeting - March 25, 2008 > Auto-transcribed civic record · March 25, 2008 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/432 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/432?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2008-03-25 - **Last revised**: February 2, 2026 - **Length**: 8,686 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Budget and Finance Committee convened on March 25, 2008, at 1:00 PM with Dr. Stevens presiding as the meeting officer. The committee addressed three informational agenda items during the session, focusing on financial updates and administrative matters. The meeting included a General Fund Revenue Update for February 2008, a presentation on the 2008 Consolidated Plan, and an update on internal audits. The committee heard three public comments during the meeting but took no formal votes, as all agenda items were presented for informational purposes only. All three presentations provided the committee with important financial and operational updates to inform future decision-making processes. ## Attendance The following members were present at the March 25, 2008 meeting: • Dr. Stevens • Jim Gray • Linda Gorton • Chuck Ellinger • Jay McCord • Ed Lane • Kevin Stinnett • George Myers • Andrea James • Don Blevins All members were in attendance with no absences or late arrivals recorded. ## Public Comment Three speakers addressed the meeting during the public comment period, all focusing on homeownership assistance programs and community services. **Yolanda Bradford** spoke about funding concerns for first-time homebuyer assistance programs. She expressed concern that her organization did not receive funding for these programs and emphasized the critical need for their clients to have access to down payment assistance. Bradford highlighted the importance of maintaining support for first-time homebuyers in the community. **Mr. Farrell** provided an update on his organization's homeownership activities. He reported that their organization successfully closed 23 loans without government assistance, demonstrating their continued ability to provide home ownership opportunities to community members. His comments appeared to highlight the organization's self-sufficiency and ongoing commitment to facilitating homeownership. **Chris Ford** addressed the meeting regarding REACH's community service activities. Ford spoke about REACH's service to the community and emphasized their ongoing commitment to first-time homebuyer programs. The comments focused on the organization's dedication to continuing their homeownership assistance efforts. All three speakers centered their remarks on homeownership assistance and first-time homebuyer programs, with Bradford raising concerns about funding gaps while Farrell and Ford highlighted their organizations' continued service delivery in this area. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps were not available for these public comments.* ## Contested Items The meeting featured one primary area of contention regarding the allocation of funding for first-time homebuyer assistance programs. **Funding Allocation for First-Time Homebuyer Assistance** Community members raised concerns about how funds were being distributed for first-time homebuyer assistance programs. The disagreement centered on the perceived exclusion of certain organizations from funding opportunities, with some community groups expressing frustration that they had been left out of the allocation process. The nature of the opposition appeared to stem from organizations that felt they should have been considered for funding but were not included in the proposed distribution plan. Community members voiced their concerns about the fairness and transparency of the selection process for determining which organizations would receive assistance funding. The specific details of which organizations were involved in the dispute, the exact funding amounts in question, or the resolution of this contentious issue were not detailed in the available meeting information. The outcome of this disagreement and any actions taken by the governing body to address the community concerns were not specified in the provided materials. This funding allocation dispute highlights ongoing challenges in municipal decision-making around resource distribution and the importance of community input in determining how assistance programs are structured and administered. ## General Fund Revenue Update February, 2008 Mrs. Cole presented the February 2008 General Fund revenue update to the meeting. The presentation provided an assessment of the city's financial position partway through the fiscal year. According to Mrs. Cole's report, February revenues came in slightly stronger than had been anticipated in earlier projections. Despite this modest improvement over expectations, the overall fiscal picture remained challenging for the municipality. The key finding from the revenue analysis was that the General Fund was still projected to fall short of budgeted revenues by approximately $5 million for the full fiscal year. This shortfall represented a significant gap between planned income and expected actual collections. The presentation was informational in nature, providing city officials with an updated assessment of the financial situation as they moved through the fiscal year. No specific actions were taken as a result of this revenue update, but the information would likely inform future budgetary decisions and planning processes. The revenue shortfall highlighted ongoing fiscal pressures facing the municipality during the 2008 budget cycle, requiring continued monitoring and potential adjustments to spending plans or revenue strategies as the fiscal year progressed. ## Presentation on 2008 Consolidated Plan Paula King presented the 2008 Consolidated Plan during the March 25, 2008 meeting, providing a comprehensive overview of federal funding allocations and recommended projects for the upcoming year. The presentation detailed the distribution of three major federal funding streams: - Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds - HOME Investment Partnerships Program funds - Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG) funds King outlined the specific projects and programs recommended to receive funding through these federal sources, explaining how the allocations align with the community's housing and development priorities identified in the consolidated planning process. The Consolidated Plan serves as the city's strategic framework for utilizing federal housing and community development funds over a multi-year period. The 2008 plan represents the annual action plan component, specifying how available funds will be deployed to address local housing needs, support community development initiatives, and assist homeless populations. This presentation was informational in nature, providing council members and the public with details about the planned use of federal resources. The consolidated planning process requires public input and transparency in how communities propose to spend their federal housing and development allocations. The presentation covered the technical aspects of fund allocation while ensuring compliance with federal requirements for the use of CDBG, HOME, and ESG resources. These programs represent significant federal investment in local housing and community development efforts, making the annual consolidated plan presentation a key component of the city's planning and budgeting process. ## Update on internal Audits Sahli presented an update on the internal audit process and provided a summary of recent audit results during this informational agenda item. The presentation covered the current status of internal auditing activities and highlighted key findings from completed audits. Sahli walked through the audit results, though specific details of the findings and recommendations were not captured in the available meeting documentation. This agenda item served as an informational briefing to keep the board informed about ongoing internal audit work and ensure transparency in the organization's oversight processes. No action items or decisions resulted from this presentation, as it was intended solely to provide an update on audit activities. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this agenda item, and detailed discussion points were not captured in the source materials.* --- ## Full transcript . . . . . . And I think we can call the. The first item. On the agenda. Is a report from. Finance department. About our. Revenue updates. And Mrs. Cole will give that to us. Good afternoon. You should have received a package of information from me earlier. I didn't bring extra copies. I'm just assuming everybody has. What I passed out. I think the way we could characterize February. Is that there's. A little bit of good news in the numbers. We were. We were very, very concerned. That. I guess. In the financial world, what we call it. So we were afraid that February was going to tank on us. And it didn't. The numbers were a little tiny bit stronger than we were expecting. And I'd also like some feedback on the format of this report. You'll note that it's a little different than you've had in the past. Taking into consideration that we gave you a column now for the same month last year. So we can continue to work on this to refine it to meet your needs. But I think. The good news is that year to date last year over year to date this year, we are still seeing some increases. Our problem is that our increases are not as strong as they need to be to make budget. And if I would draw your attention to the big three that are near the bottom of the page. That's usually how whether we make it or we don't. In withholding occupational license fees, this year over last year, we're up 4.9%. But we're budgeted to be up 6.1% this year budgeted versus last year actual. Net profits, we are just. I mean, I'm what. I think that's what you would consider just flat. And we have budgeted an increase of 5.4%. Again, insurance is relatively flat. And we budgeted an increase of 8.3%. So while we are still trending ahead of last year, the bad news is that we're not trending ahead as much as we had expected and budgeted. So while we were a little more pessimistic last month than we are now, we're still expecting our revenue to be about $5 million short this year. The administration is taking great pains to manage our way through that, which is what we indicated to you last month. We have a hiring freeze, except for some of those critical positions that we absolutely cannot function without and some of those positions that are needed for the consent decree. And we are cutting back on other expenditures where we can do that. Right now, we think we will end the year in a positive situation. And quite frankly, we'll do whatever we have to do to get there. But we do believe that the steps that we've taken to this point by freezing payroll and also being very conservative on our operating expenditures that we will manage our way through this year. Thank you. Are there any questions for the commissioner? Council Member Beard has a question for you. Commissioner, last month you were saying that your numbers were tracking with the state pretty well, as I remember. That's right. And then I'm hearing that the state is looking for a huge deficit, and I don't see that here. So are we catching up or going ahead or pulling ahead of them? Well, I think the way I characterized it, and if I didn't, I meant to, is that while they were seeing a slowdown in revenue, and traditionally the Lexington-Fayette County area has felt that a little bit later than they feel it at the state level. And, in fact, if you start at the federal level, then the state, if they start feeling revenue slow down, then it's a little bit slower to hit the state and then a little bit slower even than that to hit Lexington-Fayette County. We still have been in touch with the folks at the state level. We still are thinking that this slowdown in our revenue could potentially last for about 18 months. So while we trend the state in that their revenue has slowed down and ours has slowed down, there are a lot of other factors at the state level that we're never going to deal with here because of the difference in our tax structure. When you speak of slowdown, you're meaning that we're not accelerating as fast as we thought. That's exactly right. We still are accelerating. We are not accelerating, you're right. Huh? We are not accelerating. Well, it looks like we are. I'm sorry. I guess it depends on your definition of accelerating. I don't call growth a one-tenth of a percent. Anything ahead of last year would be an acceleration. Okay. Then if that's the definition, yes, sir, we are accelerating. Okay. Thank you. Uh-huh. Are there other questions? I do have a question under net profits, which is, of course, one of our major big three, as you termed them. Yes, sir. It looks like from the colored graph, which Mr. Southers has distributed, which I think you showed us earlier, the biggest month for net profit tax is April. Absolutely, yes. And we do not have that yet. In fact, it looks like roughly, I haven't got a ruler, but maybe half of it comes in in April. Do you think that will bring that up to your expected or projected revenue for that category? Or what do you think about that? What's the projection? I think that our projection overall is that everything is going to be a little bit, is slightly going to be under budget, and that the totality of that under budget is about $5 million. Which of the taxes increase or decrease exactly how much, I don't know that we have the expertise here to try to nail that down. As you know, we met earlier this week with the finance task force, and we'll be looking to some of those folks to help us institute some additional models to be able to forecast revenue. But from where we are right now, we still tend to look at things in the totality. But again, even if it just keeps up with last year, we've budgeted a fairly significant increase in that fund, in that revenue of 5.4 percent. Thank you. Of course, we've been for many years hostage to the economic cycles, because when the economy cools down a little bit, so do our revenues. Absolutely. And then when it heats up again, sometimes it's way beyond our projections, but that's not going to happen this year. That would be a really nice problem. Yes. We've enjoyed it every now and then. Yes. But it won't happen this year. And we certainly hope that we pull out of this in a shorter term than 18 months. We have this committee that's going on, or task force, I guess you call it, or commission. I'm not sure what we call it, but it's a group of citizens plus people from the government, from the finance department, myself and Kevin Sten and Ed Lane are on it as the chairs of this committee. And we're examining right now the revenue sources of our government, and hopefully we'll get around to looking at our expenditures and also trying to correct the problem of this cyclic revenue pattern. There aren't many options, really. Hopefully we would get that sales tax, which I think is dying in the General Assembly, if it's not dead yet. Some of us were over there yesterday to talk about some other matters, and I could almost smell that dead bill as I was walking through the Capitol to expect the legislators to give up part of their sales tax and give it to Fayette County. It's maybe asking too much. I would note, though, even if we had it, while we would love to have that option available, even if we had the sales tax right now, the sales tax would be slowed down, too, because it is at the state level. There's almost no revenue that's totally recession-proof. Well, we recognize that. Are there any other questions concerning our revenue update? Oh, yes, Mr. Stennett. Thank you, Doc. I know we plan on bonding a lot of things in this 08 budget. Have we bonded anything? We have not bonded anything yet. So there were a lot of revenue payment or bond payments, I think, in there. Do you know what the totals were on the bond payments that we haven't paid? So it would be, in essence, a surplus right now. Well, except that you acted on a budget amendment last week that reappropriated a number of funds that needed to be reappropriated, and we used that budget number, the debt service, to be able to do those reappropriations. I think it's about $1.7 million. There's still a few hundred thousand dollars left of the debt service. So right now we're hoping that we can just retain that in the budget and kind of let it go to the bottom line at the end of the year that will help push us over to being in a positive position. So those items that we were supposed to bond, like the infill and redevelopment money, the trail money? None of that has been bonded yet. What are we going to do? Are we going to bond in the 09 budget? Well, the debt service will be in the 09 budget. I'm working with the financial advisors right now. We hope to get to market before the end of this fiscal year. It is a good time. Well, in some respects, it's a good time to go to market. So I'm actually meeting with them next week to try to finalize our package to move forward. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Seeing or hearing none, we'll move on to the Item 2, which is on the fifth page of your budget and revenue packet. This is from community development and a presentation of their plan for spending the money that we received from the federal government through the housing and urban development section or department. We decided to do it today in that we have more time in the Budget and Finance Committee for hearing reports such as this than we do on Tuesday afternoons where we try to limit it to 15 minutes, as you know. Also, in the last few years, the recommendations from this division come to the council and will be part of the general budget, but it has been completed and is now ready for presentation. So Mrs. Paula King, who is director of the division, will now give us her presentation on their recommendations, which will come to the council as part of the budget concerning the CDBG, HOME, and ESG segments. Ms. King, it's all yours. Okay, thank you. She's going to help me. We're just going to give you a brief overview of the consolidated plan. Dr. Stephens stated the consolidated plan consists of the Community Development Block Grant, CDBG, Emergency Shelter Grant, ESG, Home Investment Partnership Program, and American Dream Down Payment Initiative, which we call ADDI. Some of the CDBG major program requirements is that we must primarily benefit low- to moderate-income households. Seventy percent is our minimum, but as a norm, the urban county government, normally we do achieve close to 95 percent, usually almost 100 percent. We can spend the money to prevent and eliminate slums and blight. We can spend money on urgent needs. Some of the eligible activities include public facilities, housing rehab, infrastructure, parks, social services, which we're limited to 15 percent, and fair housing and administration, which we're limited to 20 percent. Some of the major program requirements for HOME include homeownership, housing rehabilitation, rental housing, and these federal funds must be matched at 25 percent. Right now this match is coming from 50 percent of the match is coming from general fund and 50 percent of the match is coming from UDAG repayment. The ADDI major program requirements is the first-time homebuyer, low-income families. There must be some outreach to public housing residents, public mobile home sites, the limited assistance of $10,000. This program is really combined with HOME, so we don't really consider it a separate program. It's really, and for the dollar amount that we got this year, which was $14,000, it's really combined with HOME. Emergency shelter program, major program requirements are homelessness prevention, operating costs for homeless shelters, costs of needed improvements, and these funds must be matched at 100 percent of which the agencies that we fund provide their own match. We do have a structured planning process for these monies. We do have a required citizen participation plan, which the council does approve. This plan was amended in July of 2007, where we did delete the annual review and recommendations of the projects from the Housing and Support Services Commission. The council approved this change primarily because there was some conflict of interest, concerns with some of the members of the Housing and Support Services Commission. So in order to avoid that conflict of interest, we shift that responsibility from the Housing and Support Services Commission to the responsibility of the Division of Community Development staff. There are two required public meetings that are required. We have had them both, and there is public solicitation of the applications. We started the process in September of last year. We did have a training session for all interested applicants. We sent out a public notice. We had the first public hearing on September the 10th. There was another public notice that was sent out. It was also in the paper. The notice was sent to the public and to the council members. The applications were due on November the 16th. This was seven weeks earlier than normal. But when we amended the plan, we changed the dates and we moved it up to November the 16th. The recommendations, we submitted them to the administration for their review on February 1. We have made the plan available for public comment on March the 3rd. That period does end on April the 2nd. The second public hearing was held yesterday. We did get a nice turnout with lots of comments. Some people are here today that have additional comments for you to hear. This will be presented as a new business item on April the 8th at work session. You will give it first reading on April the 10th and second reading on the 24th, and it must be submitted to HUD on May the 14th. I just want to remind the council of the whole goal of the consolidated plan. It is to provide safe and affordable housing for low to moderate income persons, homeless persons. It's more than sometimes we get caught up. It's more than just about money. It is about providing a framework for how we spend our money. So we need to be aware of what the goal is for the consolidated plan, and we have tried to address this goal in our annual action plan. This is our fourth year in our five-year plan for the 08, and the only thing this plan does is basically it identifies projects, and that's what the annual plans do annually. We identify the projects that we plan to fund each year. The priorities are housing, where we, of course, want to increase the opportunities and supply of affordable rental housing, home ownership opportunities, preservation and rehabilitation of existing housing. Homelessness, we want to continue to prevent homelessness, want to be able to provide assistance, want to offer permanent housing for persons with special needs. Public improvements, we want to continue in our matters north of Arlington. We have committed to complete that project. It may take us a while, but we are committed to completing that area. Public services, we want to continue to provide funds for home ownership counseling, youth programs, fair housing, economic opportunities. Just a little bit of the history, because we do have some new council members who don't know what we've done in the past with our CDBG funds. We have received, you know, approximately $81 million since 1975. We have focused on four different areas. Neighborhood infrastructure, we've done just about all of the low- to moderate-income neighborhoods that we could have done in Lexington. We've started in Georgetown. You know, we finished up Meadows, North, and Arlington as one of our last ones, but we've done just about all of the public improvements, such as curbs, gutters, and sidewalks. We've done many of the parks in the low-to-moderate-income neighborhoods and public facilities. We actually bought the Senior Citizen Center. We've renovated, you know, Black and Williams Center. So we've done just about all of the parks in the low-to-moderate-income neighborhoods. We've done over 2,000 units that we've brought up to code with our housing rehabilitation program. We continue to allocate over $1 million a year to help low-income residents all over the community. And I do want to point out that with the housing rehabilitation program, we don't just do it in one council district. We have touched everybody's council district, so it's not just the inner city. It's everybody's council district. So it's not just the inner city. It's everybody. No matter, as long as you're less than 80% of income, then you are eligible to participate in the program, and we do actually assist everyone in all of the council districts. And we have maps, if you would like to see them, where we can show you where we have assisted everyone in everybody's council district over the past five years. Social services. We are limited to 15% of our money on social services, but this is just a little broad statement of some of the agencies that we have helped in the past. We've done Police Activities League, Hope Center. We've done a lot of the homeless agencies, mainly primarily because their funding has gotten cut over the years, and CDBG has stepped in to help keep these social services programs going. But because we are limited to 15%, we don't have the capacity to be able to fund these agencies at the levels that they would like, but we do the best that we can. The history of HOME. HOME has been around since 1992. Over $21 million in federal funds, 3.7 in match. We've assisted 1,600 units, 796 homeowners that have become homeowners since we've been funding the HOME Progress since 1992. We've brought 670 new rental units into the market that are low to moderate. These people are less than 60% of medium income. And we've rehabilitated 151 units for our housing rehabilitation program. Total funds for 08, which it's the federal funding 08, it's our 09, is $4.4 million, federal about 3.5. We actually only lost about 3%, which was good. We actually had a good year. We only lost 3%. We need to continue to lobby our congressmen so that we don't lose more than that, because every year we lose a little bit each year, but 3% makes a difference. And if we continue to lose 3%, 5%, it's going to continue to make a difference on how much money and the services that we can provide. Program income, $550,000. That comes from loan payments, loan and principal payments from where people have borrowed money to help fix up their house. So those are the payments that we receive from those folks. The match, of course, is required for the home and ESG funds. Those are the services that we're primarily funding, neighborhood infrastructure for CDBG, housing rehab, social services, ESG, mainly homelessness. Home is affordable housing for owners and renters. And ADDI, as you see, is only $14,000, so it's basically rolled into the home program. We did receive applications for about $3.25 million. We only have for CDBG. We only have 2.295 available. We actually did not rank administration, housing rehab, housing rehab admin, and public improvements. We know that we have to fund the public improvements. We have to fund our staff and our staff costs. And those that we did rank, we rank them on capacity, quality, need for the project, and operational feasibility. These are our continuation projects. Meadows, North and Arlington, we will continue. Engineering has proposed to do Highland Park Drive from Meadow Lane to Oak Park, which they actually need, based on their recommendation, they actually need the latest recommendation that I got. They need $1.1 million. We only have available to give them $820. I don't know where the difference is going to come from. That's their latest estimate that we got, actually, in an email from them about two weeks ago. Housing rehab operations, $300,000. CDBG admin, $160,000. Housing rehab at $500,000. HOPE Center for Transitional Housing, $53,000. HOPE Center for Women Transitional Housing, $44,000. Realtors Repair, Affair, and Rent Program for $40,000. Volunteers of America Transitional Housing for Families at $53,000. Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program for Permanent Housing and Support, $32,000. You do have a summary of this that was included in your pocket. It's a different format, but you should have the summary that was in your pocket. The Community Action Council Weatherization Program for $20,000. Bluegrass Regional Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board Homeless Shelter for Persons with Severe Mental Illness at $38,870. Repairs of the Breach. Continue expansion of the Youth Adult Employment Services at $28,200. And MASH Services of the Bluegrass for the Youth Services at $31,000. The new projects that were recommended for funding were Florence Crinton Home. They need exterior renovation and repairs. Safety violations primarily, $143,327. Shepherd House to rebuild an accessible ramp, $2,000. Ruby Bailey Family Services Center Operation Regeneration is for their summer camp, $10,000. Manchester Center Youth Development Program expansion of their current Children and Youth Services Program, $20,440. For Home, the allocation is $1.966,450. Reach First Time Home Buyers Program for $400,000. Community Ventures Corporation, $200,000. Rental Housing. Lexington Home Ownership Commission is actually the housing authority. They are going to renovate and rehab Falcon Crest Apartments, which is a 72 three-bedroom apartments, which we do need. We don't have very many three-bedroom apartments that are available for low- to moderate-income families. For $300,000, they do have their tax credits available and they are ready to go. We have offered letters of support so that these people who are applying for tax credit projects can continue to seek additional funds. For First Presbyterian Church, which is proposing to renovate 10 historic properties. Brenda D. Coward Coalition is doing 56 units and also some additional social services programs. And the Faith Community Housing Foundation is proposing to do 36 units. Single Family Rehab, $500,000. This makes a total of $1 million available for housing rehabilitation. Community Housing Development Organization, which we call our CHODO, is the Urban League. It's actually their subsidiary, the Fayette County Local Development Corporation. We are required to give them a 15% set-aside. They are continuing to do rental projects for $210,000. Admin Community Development, limited to 10% at $135,690. And the reason why we do the admin at 10% is because that means we don't have to match those funds with Urban County Government funds. And the CHODO is actually limited to 5% and we give them $40,000. ESG at $182,816. Of that, 9148 is actually ESG funds. Adult and Tenant Services will receive $24,000 of which they will match with their general fund dollars. Shelter Operations, Salvation Army, $12,688. Hope Center for Men, $24,720. Hope Center for Women, $20,000. And Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program at $10,000. Each of these agencies will provide their own match. Next step, you can approve the plan as presented. You can amend the plan. Like I said, it's going to be a new business item on April the 8th. We do need to submit it to HUD for approval by May the 14th. As Dr. Stephens says, we always try to present the plan to give you an opportunity to make changes to the plan before we present it as a new business item just because once it's presented as a new business item, it is difficult to change it at that point in time just because at that time we are on a time schedule and we do need to get it approved so that we can submit it to HUD in a timely manner by the May 14th day. So I'm open for questions if you have any questions. As I understand it then, this is not a regular, won't be handled as a regular item in the budget because the budget will be presented to us by the mayor on the 8th of April. But your recommendations will be considered for a first and second reading on the 10th and the 24th because you have to report to HUD in the middle of May, much before our regular budget will be passed. Is that correct? Correct. So now is the time for the council to look over your recommendations and see if there are any changes to be made or if they want to ask questions. Now is the time. And I do want to go ahead and point out and make some points just from our public hearing from last night, just bring out some comments that were made during our public hearing last night about some applicants that were not funded. Like I said, we did move the deadline up. Previously the dates had been usually late December, early January. So we did have some applicants that did miss the application deadline. Salvation Army was one of them. They have commented that they missed the deadline. They were not funded. Previously last year they did receive $85,000. And in previous years they had received around the $40,000 mark. They were not the only agency that missed the deadline. We also had Police Athletics League that missed the deadline as well. Lexington Habitat missed the deadline. And I just wanted to point that out just because they are here and they may want to speak. And I wanted to make that clear. And you have prepared this rather thin document, which is your plan. And that's available for anybody who would like to review it in detail. I think there are 167 pages, which went over in the public meeting last night, which I attended. Are there three people that indicated they had some questions or comments? Councilwoman James is first. Thank you, Councilmember Stevens. Thank you for your thorough presentation, Paul. I appreciate it very much. You mentioned something that was one of my questions, which was how does the council receive formally the input from the public hearings? What is the correct procedure for us to absorb everything that was presented at the public meeting last night? As a norm, what we would do with the comments that we received last night, we summarize them and we actually just put them in the final document. If you would like to see them before then, then we actually can do that today and have them to you tomorrow if you would like. That would be helpful because is the purpose of the public hearing to give input for possible changes, or is it just to critique the final plan? The purpose of the public hearing is, unfortunately, it's a required policy and procedure. It is to just get the public comments and to include them in the final document. Okay. Thank you, and maybe some of my colleagues can advise me of how to move forward. My thought is that we definitely will hear from folks who want to amend this and believe that there should be some amendments, and we may see some things. So what is our process of getting that? It looked like we had an option to approve as presented or to amend. Do we have to have full committee discussion or full council discussion in order to amend, or do we just present our suggested amendments to Paula for implementation? Two groups who were there last night are present in our audience today, and I would recommend to the committee that we hear them if they wish to speak so you'll get some information for what was presented at the meeting last night. If this committee feels that there is change they might want to make, we could make that motion today, and if it passes, we would carry it to the full council for their consideration. Yeah, I think we're going to need to get, I would like to get, and maybe some other council members would like to get the information from the public hearing last night so that we can then make those possible amendments if we agree with what it is that was presented. And so if we make a motion today, we wouldn't have the information. I'm not suggesting we make a motion today, but I'm suggesting you may want to hear from those parties who were at the. Oh, absolutely, and there were more. I'm sure people are at work today, so I'm sure there were more last night that were here. This committee will not have a chance to meet again. Our regular scheduled meeting would be at the end of April, and that's after this is acted on by the regular council. So there's a timing issue here in that it will be presented in first reading at the council session on, it will be in the work session on April 8th, then will be presented at first reading on the 10th and the second reading on the 24th. And as Ms. King said, she has to send the final consolidated plan as approved by the council to the Federal Government by, did you say May 15th was the deadline? Yes, sir. Ms. James, I can give you a verbal summary. My only concern is I don't want to be misquoted. Yeah, that's my only concern, too. I mean, there was someone there from Shawnee. They were concerned because they were concerned that their street had got pushed back because they thought they were next on the Meadows North and Arlington. And as we informed them on the list that we have from Meadows North and from engineering, they are scheduled for 09. They are one of the streets that they should be next, according to the email that we have. They were one of the people that commented. I don't have the names of the people with me. I don't. But they were there. They were represented. Salvation Army was represented with the two majors and several other board members who spoke and a resident who read a letter. They voiced their concern that they were not properly notified of the change of the date of the applications that were due. They voiced their concern that they were not funded at any level, and they were funded at $85,000 last year. They were concerned that they still have a need for their residents. They voiced their concern that we did not put the correct bed capacity in our draft plan, which we will correct with our final. And they are here, so they can speak for themselves if I am saying something incorrectly. Okay. Then we had Yolanda Bradford from the Road to Home Ownership who spoke, who was concerned that we did not fund them and other nonprofits who needed money for first-time homebuyer assistance programs and that we only funded REACH and CVC. She was concerned that we did not give them an opportunity to share in those funds because they also had a need to use those funds to help their clients, and they were serving the population and their folks needed an opportunity to participate in down payment assistance costs. And they were offering a similar program. And for those people who did not want to go to REACH or CVC and who chose to go to them, they needed an opportunity to also be able to share in those down payment assistance funds. Okay. And she is here as well, and she can speak for herself too. And the only other, Mr. Farrell, who is also with the Road to Home Ownership, just spoke basically saying that they did not have money, but they were doing, they were closing loans, and they had closed 23 loans, and they were still working without the assistance of the government to continue to provide home ownership opportunities for residents in the community. Okay. And REACH was there. Chris Ford spoke, speaking that REACH had served the community and they will continue to serve the community of the activities they had done for the communities in regarding to first-time home buyer programs. And that really is, community action was also there, and they really did not have a comment. And those were the people that were present at the meeting who had comments. Okay. And that's, I don't believe that I'm misquoting anyone per se. I hope not. The two that were most important and most vocal are here today. So I'm sure they can speak for themselves. Okay. If you two could even still, I'm going to try to figure out a process of trying to find a way to amend this before the second reading if it's necessary, or before the first reading if it's necessary. But could you still write something up so that we have that as part of our record? Yes. Yeah, that's not a problem. We can do that ASAP and get that information to you. That's not an issue. My only concern would be if you, and that's why we try to present it beforehand, if you want to make a change, like I said, and we always tell the people the council has the final say. Absolutely, right. If you want to make the change, if you change the services, like I said, we're limited to 15%. I understand. So when you make the change, you just have to tell us which one you're taking it from to fund. That's just how you have to do the math. Because at this point in time, all of the money is allocated. So when you fund one, you just have to reduce from another. Okay. And if we talk to engineering and find out that Shawnee should actually be next, and this is based on previous data because there is engineering or in the previous consolidated plan where Shawnee should have been the next one. If we get with engineering the term that's next, can that be something that's revised as well? Actually, we can actually include Shawnee in the final plan just so that we don't have to amend the plan. We can actually, that's just adding Shawnee. We can actually add Shawnee and not necessarily allocate a dollar amount, but we wouldn't have to amend the plan if we add Shawnee just to be prepared in case they choose to do Shawnee versus Highland Park. Okay. Because really it's their choice. Engineering's choice. Right. So that way if they choose to do Shawnee instead of Highland, then it's already there. Okay. Let me ask you a question about the $820,000 that's available for that. And we know that the quote is maybe 1.3 or something for the actual road project. Is there any way that that CDBG fund money could be used? Could these road products be done in a bond? Sure. As a bond. And how could we utilize this money to do that? Is that a possibility to make that happen? No, we can't use CDBG. To match it or to pay down? No. We looked into that. We cannot use that money to pay the bond debt. Okay. So how can we ñ how do we have enough money to complete those road projects every year? I mean, we need to ñ if everything's ñ the estimates we have are lower than the actual cost of the road project, we'll never have within that year the money to do the project, to complete that project. It seems like we always end up going to the next year to grab some money, and then that cuts down on the amount of money for the next project that's for that year. Well, basically what they need to do, they being engineering, if they don't have enough money to do Highland Park, which they don't at this point in time, then the logical thing would be to do ñ Shawnee is estimated at 960, for instance, versus 1.1 million for Highland Park. So Shawnee is at least a little bit more feasible to do than Highland Park. So they have to negotiate and try to figure out how do we get down to the 820 that we have. And they can do that. They just have to figure out how to do that. I mean, because how to accept the bid at the dollar amount that we have. And they can do that. They just have to figure it out. How can I expedite that to occur? Just talk with the engineering department and say find a project that we can do for 820,000. And they will. They will. I mean, once we tell them the dollar amount, then they will. I mean, they understand that this is all that we have, and if you want to accept the next bid, this is it. I mean, because they have to continue to move. They know that they have to continue to move, continue to accept the next bid. Okay. So. Okay. And I think that they will. So, I mean, we don't have a problem in putting Shawnee in the plan. We just would put both so that the engineer would make the decision as to which street they do next. Okay. But it does have to do. I know that they're trying to do loud, and they should be done with loud, but it's their choice. Okay. Really. I may get with you offline and talk more about that. I have a question. In our packet on page five, it's the HUD consolidated plan, FY2008, the recommended projects. And at the top, it has a divided CDBG, home, and ESG. And under CDBG, under housing, rehab, operations, and staff, is that all community development? Staff and operation for where it says housing, rehab? It's staff, and it's also for costs that are associated with the rehab program. That pays for titles, appraisals, loan servicing, and those types of costs, lead-based paint, and all that types of costs. Is there any way that you could get a stronger breakdown of that and break down that $300,000 a little bit more? Mm-hmm. Okay. That would be helpful. And then under home, when it has, let's see. That was for another reason. Program funds, $300,000. I think that's all that I have. The rental housing that says Lexington Home Ownership Commission, Falcon Crest, is that the housing authority? Yes, it is. Okay. That's all the questions that I have right now. Thank you, Paula. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman James. Mr. Stennett. Thank you, Chair. Paula, I just have one quick question. Councilmember James asked a couple of them. I was going to ask about bonding, some of these things. But do you have a list of everyone who did not receive funding that requested it? Yes. I didn't see it. Is it in our packet? No, it's not. Can you give us just that list of everyone who requests? Yes. I don't have that either. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Are there any other questions, Mr. Stennett? Okay. Mr. McCord. Thank you, Chair. Paula, thank you. Just to, for some of us that are not as familiar with the process as others are, would you mind just kind of taking a step back for my benefit and others and people watching that I know CDBG is comprised really of three funds and so forth. But now that the commission doesn't determine the process, can you just kind of walk through how does the process get determined? How do you select things just so that there's a working knowledge of what happens first, second, and third? Okay. What we did was we solicited applications like we normally did. And basically the staff did review the applications. And as a group with the grants manager, my staff, and myself, we went through and we ranked them as a group and we submitted those recommendations to my commissioner, Kina Cole, and her and, sorry, I forget titles, Joe Kelly, forgive me, him and Anthony Wright. They reviewed those recommendations and they said okay. And that's basically how we came to these recommendations and that's what's in the draft plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all. Okay. Thank you, Mr. McCord. Mr. Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. King, for coming in today. I have just a few questions for you. Earlier you talked about we lost 3% in one of the funds. Can you describe just so people have a working knowledge of that as well? Because as we make improvements with these funds, our allocation decreases every year from the federal government. Is that correct? That's correct. Can you explain that a little bit, what it takes out? Basically, your Congress, you know, their allocation of CDBG continues to decrease every year, just like, I mean, all of our federal programs continue to decrease. CDBG is not one of their favorite programs, but because of the strong lobbying by the League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors, it continues to receive funding, and usually it continues to be restored to some level because the president, of course, recommended zero funding. But because of continuing lobbying, it continues to receive funding. So we must continue to lobby. Okay. But there's another reason why. That's one reason why it's decreasing. The formula has not changed. They are talking about changing the formula, if that's what you're referring to, but they have not changed the formula to allocate the funding. They still are talking about that, but they don't have anyone to sponsor that bill yet. So they have not changed the formal allocation of how they are going to allocate the money as of yet. But could you explain to us, for example, the home funds. Some of those funds are used to rehab existing housing, correct? Correct. And as our housing stock improves, then isn't there also a mechanism in the current funding mechanism that decreases our funding as our housing stock improves? Not yet. Not yet. Okay, that's what they're trying to change it to. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. In the past, when the commission used to meet and make the recommendation to the administration or to the council on how to spend those funds, I know, being a member of the commission, that you would speak about your desire to have the commission meet sort of in the off season when we're not just looking at the funds, but actually looking at the program itself. Can you talk about your vision for how the commission will interact with community development now that they no longer make the decision on how to fund or make the recommendation? The commission will basically meet with us. We still have to do a five-year consolidated plan, which will set the goals and objectives for the community, such as what we went through with the social services needs assessment. So that plan will be due in May of 2010. So we actually anticipate starting, hopefully, in the spring of 2009, maybe sooner. But there are pieces of that that we need to start on, such as Chris King talked about an affordable housing study. Those are the types of pieces that we need to work on and that we need to collaborate with, that we will need the help of the Housing and Support Services Commission, because that document is not a money document. It is a planning document that we will use the expertise of the Housing and Support Services Commission to review and to help us put together a plan that will drive the funding sources as to how we spend the money. In addition, too, we are working on a 10-year plan to end homelessness in Lexington that the Central Kentucky Housing and Homeless Initiative has drafted. We are still working on that draft, community development and us and them. We have not finalized that draft that we will be submitting to the Housing and Support Services Commission for their review before we bring it to council, so we are looking for their expertise on that as well. So there are things that they will be working on. It's just not things that will require their attention annually. Okay. I've had other commission members ask me when we were going to get started on some of those things. Do you have a timeline? And are we going to just review what the other groups put together, or are we actually going to be included in the process of putting together the plan? I don't look at it as a review, no. We can play and have an active role that they want to play. We will get the group together and see how they want to participate, which will be interesting. Okay, I look forward to that. Finally, just a couple of comments, and then I'm going to ask maybe you to respond, and maybe the commissioner may want to respond as well. Many people believe that when the federal government established these three funds and provided that funding to local governments, it was because oftentimes around the country, local governments haven't taken an active role in infrastructure needs and supportive service needs in their communities. I know that the previous council members, Jacques Wiginton, for one, when I worked with him, would talk about our city has advocated its responsibility to old Lexington before merger. And so instead of using general fund dollars to address some of the issues in that area of town, they just go to this fund. But the fund's not adequate to address all the needs. When we talk about Loudoun Avenue and the work that's being done, part of the goal is to use CDBG funding to complete that project. But we also know that because the fund's decreasing every year and because every year that we wait to finish that project, the price of the project goes up, we've reached that point of no return in which we're never going to have enough CDBG funds to finish that project. So part of the goal, at least for me, when I voted to have the administration make the recommendation on how to spend these funds rather than that commission, because we did have that conflict of interest there that was always an issue, additionally to the conflict of interest for me was the idea that the administration could then look at using this money as a whole with respect to the rest of the budget to address the infrastructure needs and the other needs of the community. So what I'd like to hear from you, and maybe the commissioner or whomever can speak to that, is what was the process like this year when they decided how this funding would be spent relative to the Loudoun project and different things like that, that the CDBG funds have generally been used to evade? You want me? I don't know that it was really any different. I mean, just given that, you know, given the benefit of the doubt, okay? I mean, she's fairly new as being my commissioner, okay? And she's not very familiar with the process. So as I've told her and, you know, Mr. Kelly, you know, once again, we always come at the wrong time of the year. We come during budget season. And everybody's busy thinking about the general fund budget, so no one has the time to give us the time that we need, okay? So we are scheduled, once again, to try to start in July to educate them as to how we can try to do a better job as to do what you're saying. Because you have to start early because, once again, we come to April and it has to be done. Right. So they have to be educated and brought up to speed. And we have to go through this process so that everyone can understand, just like you're saying, how it can all be brought together into how to make this not just a separate program, but how it can be looked at overall with the general fund dollars and how you can bond some of it and how to figure out, okay, how do we get the best bang for our money, not with just these funds, but with all of it trying to put it together. So we do plan on doing that. We were not able to do that with this past year just because they were not really where they needed to be. Sure. But we have talked about it and we do plan on going through the process so that they can be at a better point in time so that they can know more about it and feel more comfortable in being able to make those decisions so that we can incorporate, even with what social services is doing with their partner agencies, in order to be able to make better choices with these funds as well. Okay. And I appreciate that. It wasn't a trick question or anything. No, it wasn't. That's also why I wanted you to talk about what the role of the commission is going to be moving forward because it seems to me that that's a role that they could play an intricate part in, which is as we look at the budget as a whole and starting this process early enough that we can have this piece figured into the budget before the budget gets here so it can be squared away with the federal government on its proper timeline, but still take into account how these funds can be augmented with, for example, like you said, to bond up that Loudon project and then get that project done. So could I ask that you work with the appropriate folks in the administration to come back maybe in a month, or actually we can wait until after the budget cycle is over because everybody is going to be busy, to come back with an action plan on how the commission can be involved in that process early on in, say, August or after the council gets back from break so that next year we can be way ahead of the curve and maybe we can use this money as a leverage to bond up some of those projects and get them done. That's fine. And in addition, too, if you don't mind, if you would tell me how you envision the commission working with that as well, that would help us as well. I mean, if you have some ideas that you know that would help.