# Urban County Council Work Session - April 14, 2009 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · April 14, 2009 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/839 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/839?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2009-04-14 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: June 17, 2026 - **Length**: 22,905 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 Urban County Council convened on April 14, 2009, with Mayor Newberry presiding over the session. The meeting covered five agenda items, including public comment, approval of a summary, new business, a Services Committee update, and a Storm Water Fee Task Report. Two items — the Approval of Summary and New Business — were acted upon and approved, while the remaining three items were informational in nature. Over the course of the meeting, five motions and votes were recorded, and one public comment was heard. The session addressed both administrative matters and ongoing policy topics, including updates from the Services Committee and a report on storm water fees. ## Attendance The following members were present at the April 14, 2009 Council meeting: - Mayor Newberry - CM Beard - CM Myers - CM Lane - CM McChord - CM Blues - CM Ellinger - CM Gorton - CM Stinnett - CM Martin - CM Gordon - CM Crosby - CM Lawless - CM Kelly - CM Hancock - CM Taylor - CM Wright - CM Bennett - CM King - CM Webb - CM Cole **Absent:** CM James No members were recorded as late. ## Votes and Decisions The Council took the following actions during the April 14, 2009 meeting: - **Approval of the April 7, 2009 Summary** [timestamp: 0:31:42]: Motioned by CM Beard and seconded by CM Myers, the summary of the 4/7/09 meeting was approved unanimously. - **Amendment to New Business Item A** [timestamp: 0:33:22]: CM Lane motioned, seconded by CM McChord, to amend New Business Item A by changing the referenced amount from $5,000 to $3,933.25. The motion passed unanimously. - **Approval of Amended New Business Items** [timestamp: 0:33:57]: CM Blues motioned, seconded by CM Lane, to approve the new business items as amended. The motion passed unanimously. - **Executive Order Declaring LexArts the Official Local Arts Agency**: CM Gorton motioned, seconded by CM Crosbie, to request that the Mayor issue an Executive Order declaring LexArts the official local arts agency for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG). The motion passed on a roll call vote of 14 ayes and 0 nays. CM James was absent for the vote. - **Resolution Designating LexArts as Official Arts Agency**: CM Gorton motioned, seconded by CM Crosbie, to direct the Department of Law to prepare a resolution making LexArts the official arts agency for the LFUCG. The motion passed on a roll call vote of 14 ayes and 0 nays. CM James was absent for the vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The Council considered one financial item during the April 14, 2009 meeting involving the acceptance of an external donation. - **Resolution 238-09** authorized the acceptance of a donation of **$3,933.25** from **Kentucky American Water Company** to support the **2009 Reforest the Bluegrass Program**. The funds represent a charitable contribution from the water utility intended to fund tree-planting and reforestation efforts under the program for that year. This was the sole budget or financial action on the agenda for this meeting. ## Public Comment One member of the public addressed the Council during the public comment period of the April 14, 2009 meeting. - **Jane O'Tiernan** spoke regarding two related concerns: the installation of rain gardens and the proposed narrowing of Main Street [timestamp: 1:48:26]. O'Tiernan raised issues about the potential impact these changes could have on traffic flow and parking in the area. ## Contested Items - **Designation of LexArts as the Official Local Arts Agency:** The Council engaged in heated discussion regarding a proposal to designate LexArts as the official local arts agency. Concerns were raised about the process by which this designation was being pursued, as well as the potential implications for other arts organizations operating in the area. The available record does not specify which individual council members led the debate or detail the precise nature of each objection, nor does it indicate the final outcome of the discussion at this meeting. [No timestamp available] ## Public Comment No public comments were made on issues on the agenda during the April 14, 2009 Council meeting. ## Approval of Summary [timestamp: 31:42] The Council took up the approval of the summary from the previous meeting held on April 7, 2009. CM Beard and CM Myers were the key speakers on this item. The summary was approved without noted objection. ## New Business [timestamp: 33:57] The Council took up several items under New Business, covering authorizations and agreements on a range of topics. Key discussion during this portion of the meeting was led by **CM Lane** and **CM McChord**, who presented and debated the items before the Council. The business included consideration of **donations for the Reforest the Bluegrass Program** as well as **agreements with the University of Kentucky**. All items brought forward under New Business were **approved** by the Council. *Note: Detailed specifics on individual agenda sub-items, vote counts, and any concerns raised during debate are not available in the source data for this portion of the meeting.* ## Services Committee Update [timestamp: 34:28] CM Ellinger provided the Council with an update on recent activity from the Services Committee. The update covered two notable issues that the committee had been examining: peddler's licenses and dog tethering. No further details regarding the specific findings, recommendations, or debates on either topic are available from this portion of the meeting. The update was informational in nature, with CM Ellinger serving as the primary speaker presenting the committee's work to the full Council. ## Storm Water Fee Task Report [timestamp: 37:11] CM Gorton presented the Storm Water Fee Task Report to the Council, providing an overview of the need for a water quality management fee and its potential implications. The presentation was informational in nature, with CM Gorton serving as the primary speaker on the item. The report addressed the consideration of a storm water fee as a mechanism for funding water quality management efforts, outlining the rationale behind establishing such a fee structure. No formal action was taken on this item, as it was brought before the Council as an informational presentation. The outcome of the discussion was informational, indicating that the Council received the report and its findings without proceeding to a vote or decision at this meeting. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the summary of 4/7/09 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Amend new business item A by changing the amount from $5,000 to $3,933.25 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approve the amended new business items - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Request of the Mayor an Executive Order to declare LexArts the official local art agency for the LFUCG - **Motion** — passed (14-0): Have the Dept. of Law prepare a resolution making LexArts the official arts agency for the LFUCG --- ## Full transcript ... hello everybody. Okay. Ready to r- ready to go. Please, um, please joining, please join me in welcoming our mayor, Jim Newberry, for the budget address. Mayor Newberry. Thank you. Thank you very much. Members of the council and my fellow Lexingtonians, this year as a nation, as a state, and as a city, we face the worst economic times that most of us can remember. I'm very honored to have the opportunity to guide our city through these times, perhaps the most difficult time our city has faced in 80 years. And as adverse financial conditions put pressure on our home budgets, they also put pressure on our city's budget. For the city of Lexington, the times call for belt-tightening, living within our means and focusing on fundamental government services that are the heart of any local government's mission. Because the times are tough, they also call for straight shooting and transparency. I want every citizen to understand just what we can and cannot afford. My goal today and over the coming weeks as we work with the council, uh, on the budget is to lay it out for all to see. After all, we're all in this together. Lexington is our home and we want the best for it, but we also recognize that we have to pay our bills. Just as important as dealing with the financial aspects of the current economic environment, I want everyone to understand that tough economic times present an opportunity for our city, an opportunity to find faster, better, and cheaper ways to do the work of government. I have every confidence that we will emerge from the current economic challenges stronger than ever before. As I will address shortly, the foundation is in place for our city to continue to make great progress. And despite economic difficulties over the last several months, there is every reason to believe that we should be optimistic about Lexington's future. Today, I am presenting the Urban County Council with a total budget of $558,209,530, which includes a general fund budget of $279,290,110. Today's budget address will focus on the general fund, and it will be markedly different than prior budget addresses because this year's budget is markedly different from prior years' budgets. The last two years, we have attempted to use the budget as a tool to advance broad strategic goals for our community. While this budget still serves as a policy document, a blueprint for how we will allocate our limited financial resources, the primary goal of the fiscal year 2010 budget is maintaining critical services for our citizens until such time as our financial position is stronger. After some introductory remarks, I want to provide you with some background about the process we employed in developing the budget, followed by some general informations about, uh, information about the results of that process. I'll conclude with some thoughts about why we were able to present a balanced budget that overcomes a 27 million dollar projected shortfall without layoffs, includes a modest salary increase for employee, has no employees, has no new taxes, avoids any broad-based general fund fees, and does not compromise Lexington's ability to maintain critical government services. Let me begin by telling you that the preparation of the fiscal year 2010 budget has been a difficult task. I need not tell any of you about the difficult economic times in, in which we live. I need not tell any of the council members about the increases in constituent demands for local government services, about the improvements required in our sewer systems by the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement action, about the 246 million dollars in unfunded liability in our police and fire pension fund, or about any one of a number of other demands on our financial resources. However, in addition to all of the foregoing issues, the recent loss of key employees has hampered our efforts to produce the budget document. As members of the council know, two of our career employees have stepped up and performed magnificently during the course of the budget preparation. I cannot state strongly enough how appreciative I am of the work which Bill O'Mara and Mary Fister have done as Acting Commissioner of Finance and Administration, and as Acting Senior Advisor for Policy and Budget. I'm also glad that Connie Underwood came out of her retirement for a short while to, uh, help us with the budget, and her help has been invaluable. I must also express my appreciation to Elizabeth McGee, Kay Craft, and the rest of the staff in the Office of Policy and Budget for their tireless efforts throughout the year, but especially over the last two months. And, and finally, the commissioners, senior advisors and chief of staff have worked diligently over the last six weeks to pull a budget together. And as the k- is the case with so many efforts, I could not have done it without their help. I want you to know that as difficult as the circumstances have been, I feel as though this budget process has gone as smoothly as in either of the two prior years. And I consider our city to be very fortunate to have as many outstanding and dedicated professionals working for it as we do. As you will recall, in January, we were confronted with a projected 27 million dollar general fund shortfall. Assuming we implemented no new programs, funded our increased debt service, um, collective bargaining health insurance and pension plan obligations, and provided no raises for non-sworn personnel, that amount is approximately 10% of our general fund budget. One easy way to fix the problem was to simply seek to create an additional 27 million dollars in new tax revenue. However, every member of the council is well aware that in recent budgets, we have shouldered the responsibility of recommending fee increases, including supporting the new water quality management fee that will be discussed a little later on today. In light of those prior increases in revenue and of the economic challenges our citizens are already facing, we developed the budget on the premise that there would be no new broad based revenue sources, other than the water quality management fee that enables us to end the violations of the Clean Water Act. Given a 10% shortfall, another simple approach to balancing the budget would be to reduce the expenses of every budget unit of LFUCG by 10%. However, in looking for 27 million dollars in expense reductions, we were quickly confronted with the fact that approximately 20% of our general fund expenses are ones which are difficult or impossible to reduce, items such as utility expense, food at the jail, pension obligations, debt service, health insurance costs, and others. Thus, to achieve a 27 million dollars, uh, to achieve 27 million dollars in savings by expense reductions alone, we would actually have to cut 12 to 15% of the general fund budget for each budgeting unit. Initially, we considered such an across the board reduction in expenses. That approach is easy to explain, and it provides an equitable way for all budget issues, budget units to bear the, the burden of the expense reductions. However, the end result of that across the board effort showed that we would have to lay off literally hundreds of employees, and the end result of those layoffs would have unquestionably jeopardized the public safety of our citizens. It was clear that over the past two years, we had cut through most of the fat of government, and these additional cuts would mean cutting into the bone. Further, the civil service systems of restrictions on layoffs precluded any effort to make layoffs without significant impairments in the delivery of essential services. Either reason alone would have been enough justification to discard the effort to implement an across the board cut. When both circumstances were present, a different approach was mandated. Thus, we went back and evaluated the operating expense reductions proposed by the directors with the goal of reducing cost on a unit by unit basis without layoffs. We particularly took a hard look at our proposed capital expenditures, with a view towards postponing the issuance of any new debt unless it was absolutely necessary. We benefited from the General Assembly's enactment late last month of a reduction in our contribution obligations for the county employee retirement system. But even that expense review had its limits. For instance, just the increase in the pension obligations for all personnel, other than police officers and firefighters, the increase in debt service to support the police and fire pension plan, and the increase in health insurance costs for all employees totaled $8.4 million in new general fund expenses this year. Thus, our review had to include more than just cutting expenses. So in addition to scrutinizing our expenses, we went back to evaluate our revenue. We enlisted the services of Dr. Ken Trosky, an economist at the University of Kentucky, to evaluate our internal revenue estimates. We looked at the state's revenue data released last Friday, which indicates some reason for encouragement about our economy. And we scrutinized our own tax receipts through March. We evaluated our own building permit data for the first calendar quarter, which reflects an increase of 20% in all building permits, including a 40% increase in single family residential permits. We ultimately concluded that there is reason for legitimate optimism about revenues during fiscal year 10. But we also recognize the economic uncertainty of the times in which we live. Thus, we propose that we maintain a significant cash cushion in the event our revenues fail to meet our expectations. Thanks to the fiscal restraint we have shown in fiscal year '09, we believe we will end this year with a surplus that will provide us with that needed cushion during fiscal year 10. We also evaluated the use, the possible use, of non-recurring sources of revenue to meet some of our recurring expenses. Fortunately, we have $4 million in different funds on which we can rely to balance this year's budget. I readily admit that paying recurring expenses with non-recurring revenues is not a wise long-term strategy. But given the nature of the times, I'm willing to propose such a budget this year in order to avoid the necessity of laying off our valued employees. I'm confident that by continuing our hiring freeze, we can further reduce our personnel expenses during the course of the next year, so that for fiscal year 11, we will be able to present a structurally balanced budget. In the meantime, my goal for fiscal year 10 is to minimize personnel and other expenses as much as possible in the hope that we will end fiscal year 10 in a structurally balanced position. In spite of the encouraging revenue news, let me add a word of caution. If we are able to generate a surplus at the end of fiscal year '09, on June 30th, it is imperative that we resist the temptation to spend it. Last Wednesday, our financial advisors told us that Moody's, a bond rating agency, assigned a negative outlook to the entire taxed-backed local government sector. That means our future, uh, bond rating reviews will be done in, with greater scrutiny than ever before. If we fail to budget in a financially prudent fashion, our bond rating will go down and our interest expense will go up. Given our borrowing needs over the next few years, it is vital that we maintain our current bond rating in the financial markets. And for that to happen, both the council and every member of my administration must be reluctant to spend unless the expense is absolutely critical to our mission of serving the citizens of Lexington, or unless delaying the expense would be too costly. Thus, even if our revenue proves stronger than projected, we must make every effort to contain our spending. So, at the end of it all, I am proposing a fiscal year 10 general fund budget of $279,290,110, an increase of 1.5% over fiscal year '09. Here are a few key points about the budget. It proposes no layoffs. It proposes no new taxes. It projects no revenue from any broad-based new general fund fees. Despite the rainy day nature of our economy in recent months, it does not require any withdrawal from our rainy day fund. It requires no cuts to our social services partner agencies that form our social safety net, and protect our most valuable citizens. It reflects debt service of $5.8 million necessary to support the $70 million worth of bonds we recently sold to address the longstanding unfunded liability in our police and fire pension plan, and it reflects the anticipated sale of another $35 million in pension bonds during fiscal year 10. The proposed budget includes a 1% pay raise for all non-sworn personnel. The proposed budget anticipates that 96 vacant full-time positions will not be funded, but it creates five new positions. Three of those positions, an auditor, a software manager and a minority vendor recruiter, will make our government work more efficiently and bring more competition to our purchasing efforts. And the end result of these investments should be cost savings far in excess of the personnel costs associated with these three positions. The other two positions will be a part of our understaffed building security team. Finally, the proposed budget continues parks programming at current levels, and it provides a third installment of $250,000 in capital improvements designed to bring greater parity to the maintenance level in our parks. The nature of the unit by unit expense reductions defies general observations about those cuts. And a unit by unit discussion would last far longer than our time this afternoon permits. During the course of the budget review process, we will have ample opportunity to discuss the particulars of each department's budget. Your review may well lead you to conclude that some modifications are in order, and the commissioners, the budget staff, and I will work with you to improve the budget which is proposed. So rather than engage in a detailed discussion of the nuts and bolts of the budget, I wanna outline three key factors which have permitted us to overcome the projected shortfall and propose a balanced budget. First, we have been working for more than two years to reduce the operating expenses at LFUCG. From January 1, 2007 through March 31, 2009, we have reduced the size of urban county government by 201 full-time employees, primarily as a result of our hiring freeze. As the chart shown on the screen reflects, our headcount has steadily declined from 3,104 full-time employees to 2,903 employees, despite an increase in authorized strength of our police force and an increase in the number of employees in our Division of Water Quality as a result of the EPA consent decree. This reduction in our workforce generates an annual cost savings of approximately $12 million, but we need to do more. Consequently, we'll continue to impose the hiring freeze across LFUCG until such time as our revenues materially increase. While we will continue to hire in order to fill critical vacancies, no vacancy will be filled without my prior approval. In addition, as we have done for the last two years, we will continue to pursue management practices that enable LFUCG to work faster, better, and cheaper for the benefit of our citizens. To make fiscal year 10, uh, fiscal year 10 budget work, we must maintain our efforts to control costs. But thanks to the great work of our commissioners and our division directors, I am confident those costs can be controlled. Second, we have postponed as many capital projects as possible in order to minimize our debt service in both fiscal year 10 and fiscal year 11. There are many projects that we have postponed that I would love to implement immediately. But until our revenue picture improves, borrowing more money and paying more interest on optional products, uh, projects is not prudent. Third is that I mentioned earlier, there is legitimate reason for optimism about Lexington's economy. Even in these difficult economic times, our city continues to move forward, and that is vitally important to our budgeting efforts. As the pie chart on the screen reflects, 83% of our general fund revenue continues to come from licenses and permits, the vast majority of which are tagged directly to our local economy. Thus, as a community, we must remain dedicated to promoting growth in our local economy so that we will have the tax revenues necessary to provide the government cit- services which our community needs and wants. We are fortunate to be the host city for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games next year. And for months, we have been discussing the economic benefits of that extraordinary event. In recent days, we've had two significant announcements that provide even greater reason for optimism. Last week, Governor Beshear announced the location of the Argonne National Laboratories Battery Research Laboratory in the Spindletop Research Park. Dr. Todd announced today that Dr. Mark Evers, the new director at the Markey Cancer Center, will be bringing $14 million in new cancer research to Lexington. All three of these events are harbingers of exciting horse, healthcare, and high-tech opportunities in the Lexington economy. However, our economy has a legitimate and longstanding concern about protecting our farmland from poorly planned economic growth. So we must do all that we can to encourage growth through infill and redevelopment of our urban core, especially in our downtown area. That philosophy has driven our efforts to encourage an assortment of downtown economic development initiatives. A quick tour of the downtown area reflects many of the positive events which have occurred, and which are continuing. This aerial photo of the downtown area reflects the magnitude and the diversity of projects occurring in downtown. The public and private projects identified here will generate construction jobs in the short-term, and many of these projects will either provide long-term employment opportunities, or otherwise supplement the efforts of local employers to attract great employees to our community, and to retain those who are already here. Let me emphasize some highlights. Governor Beshear's support of the movement of Eastern State to Coldstream, and the relocation of Bluegrass Community and Technical College to its new Newtown camp- Newtown Pike campus is a transformative event of historic significance. It will create a key corner of the Higher Ed Triangle formed by Bluegrass, UK, and Transylvania, and downtown is right in the middle of that triangle. This remarkable configuration of our city's key assets will result in enormous economic development opportunities for years to come as areas inside that triangle provide new businesses and new residences for faculty, students, and downtown professionals. At the same time, this configuration permits greater integration of the campuses with their downtown business community, and the long-term economic opportunity created by that integration has potential beyond our ability to comprehend. There is no doubt in my mind that the change in use of the Eastern State facility creates an opportunity for Lexington to be one of America's pre-eminent cities by 2040, and that is an exciting opportunity. The estimated value of the private investin- investments reflected on this photo is about $1 billion dollars. I am grateful to all of those individuals and entities who have decided to invest in our community, because their financial investment is a clear vote of confidence in the future of Lexington, regardless of whatever else is happening in the world today. As a community, we need to support these private investments with a variety of traditional public investments, such as the completion of Newtown Pike extension, the redevelopment of the East End, and the Bluegrass Aspendale neighborhood, and the renovation of Cheapside Park and the old courthouse. But, our somewhat non-traditional investment in our downtown streetscapes is especially critical. In our urban core, our sidewalks are the pieces of public infrastructure that will connect the people and places that will generate jobs in the 21st century, just as roads provided those connections in the 19th and 20th centuries. This new form of public infrastructure investment is every bit as important as our forefathers' investments in roads. If the private developments in our city, and particularly those in the downtown area succeed, our revenue streams for this and future fiscal years will be much stronger. On the other hand, if the downtown development efforts fail, or become so complicated as to discourage future downtown development efforts, it will be increasingly difficult to promote infill and redevelopment projects such as those reflected in the photo. Rest assured, if we are unable to encourage effective infill and redevelopment downtown and elsewhere, we will, by default, encourage development along the urban fringe, where many of the difficult downtown development issues do not exist. The end result will be increased threats to the development of our farmlands, and a diminished appeal to the downtown area. So, especially in this economic environment, it is critically important for all of us to do whatever we can to see that the projects which are shown on this aerial photo succeed, so that we can create badly needed jobs, and maximize the jobs and other financial opportunities which they present for us, and for generations of Lexingtonians yet to come. If we fail to nurture the kind of growth reflected on the photo, we will simply not have the revenue necessary to provide the government services required to maintain our quality of life. If we do not support growth in our urban core, our economy... If we do support growth in our urban core, our economy will prosper, our tax revenues will grow, and we will have the resources needed to provide our citizens with the government services they have come to expect. The budget for fiscal year 2010 is not an exciting document, but I am pleased that the budget enables our employees to continuing deliver- delivering basic government services without the necessity of creating additional general fund tax burdens on our citizens. This is not a good budget, because there are many needs in our community that remain unaddressed, but until the local government strength- local economy strengthens, and general fund revenue grows, it is a budget that is appropriate for these times. In January, just as we were beginning to weather one of the more severe ice storms in recent memory, I said that 2009 and 2010 may well prove to be the most challenging, and yet the most productive two-year period in Lexington's 234-year history. As you recall, we worked together. And together, we weathered that ice storm in good fashion. If we continue working together to advance the interest of Lexington, I am confident that we will weather our current economic storm just as well. And we will prove to the rest of the world that Lexington is a great place to be in 2009 and 2010. Thanks very much for your attention, and we'll stand in recess for, uh, 10 minutes and then reconvene the work session. Thank you. Begin to get situated, please. Let's go ahead and, uh, get underway if we could. Is there anyone who wishes to comment on any issue that's on today's agenda? Seeing none, we'll roll ahead. We don't have a docket approval, uh, today, but we do have a summary to approve. It's actually April 7th's, uh, summary. Is there a motion to approve? Second. Council member Beard has moved the approval of April 7th summary. Council member Meyers has seconded that motion. Any discussion? All in favor, please vote aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Uh, we have no budget amendments. We do have a few items of new business today. Is there a motion to approve? Move to approve. Second. Council member Blues has moved approval of the new business items. Council member Wayne has seconded that motion. A new minute. Mr. Green. Mayor and council, um, item A on new business, the, uh, the correct amount of funding has changed from 5,000 to $3,933.25. That needs to be corrected. I think I've... We all have a, a memo to that effect that's changed that. And also, budget journal, uh, 2153 also needs to reflect that change. Could you give us that amount again? Changed from 5,000 to $3,933.25. Very well. Is there a motion to, uh, amend? Move to amend. Second. Council member Lane has moved to amend. Council member McCord has seconded that motion. Those in favor of changing the amount under item A from $5,000 to $3,933.25 and make a corresponding, uh, adjustment in our budget amendment, please let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Any further items for discussion? And those in favor of approving the new business items as amended, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Now down to the presentations, and the first one is from the services committee, uh, Council member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. The services committee met on April 7th. We began our meeting, called to order at 1:03. We had three items that we dealt with. The first item was the peddler's license. The law departments, David Barbary came and went over a memo that he sent to the committee, and it dealt with, um, peddlers and, and neighborhoods. One of the issues that we, um, will continue to keep in here is, and we need to ask the county attorney's office to come in and speak on it, is, is if they will go ahead and prosecute these issues. We'll keep that issue in committee. The next one that we dealt with was the dog tethering, uh, issue. Uh, th- two meetings before, we had requested a sub-committee, there were four people on sub-committee. That was chaired by Council member Beard. I wanna thank the committee members that were on there, Dr. Blues, Casey Crowelsby, and Diane Lawless for th- for their meetings. They heard, um, a lot of testimony. They brought back an ordinance that was, um, regarding d- uh, dog tethering. And Council member Blues, or Council member Beard said there was a lot of concern about the ability to enforce this. We met... Um, we had quite a few people that gave their input. One of them was Chief Bowling from the Fayette County Animal Control, and he said budget cuts will have an impact on the enforcement of this ordinance. A motion by Council member Beard to move the proposed ordinance forward to the full council, was seconded by Council man Lawless. It fell three to five. There were, um, several questions and comments that, regarding this issue. And we asked, uh, Rick Curtis, who is the chair of the Animal Care and Control Advisory Committee, who, um, advises the council if they would come back to us. And he said their next meeting was in May, but they were gonna try to meet sooner to look at this legislation and, um, make it easier for animal control to remove dogs for unsafe situations. The third issue was the private solid waste providers. Council member Gordon had put this in, and she wanted to look at the goal of being trash free by 2020, and how the private haulers fit in this goal. Steve Feces with the envir- Feas, with Environmental Quality spoke on the services the LFUCG provides. Kerry Loy from M&M Sanitation spoke on the services that they provided. Uh, we asked if the, um, if En- Environmental Quality could meet with the private haulers to make sure that we were on task to, to come together and talk about these 2020 goals. We'll keep this issue in committee. We were adjourned at 2:51. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks. Any questions for Council Member Elling? All right. I'll turn the podium over to Council Member Gordon, who, uh, will bring us a report. Thank you very much, Mayor, and I have a whole crew of folks who promised me they'd move forward in support, right? S- the, the folks who've worked right alongside with our task force, um, well, it actually is a, um, believe it or not, is a great honor to be before my colleagues and you, Mayor, um, to present the report of the Water Quality Management Fee, the, which was the Stormwater Task, Stormwater Fee Task Force. Um, because I think that it, it's exciting for me, because I think that it offers us some hope for, uh, improving the quality of life for Fayette Countians. So with that said, um, I wanted to go through this presentation, and then we will have questions at the end, and, uh, there will be some time in the next, uh, weeks to do further work. The members of the task force included ... Where did they go? County Clerk, he's here someplace. County Clerk, former Council Member Don Blevins, Council Member Tom Blues, Council Member Sheryl Feigel, Council Member Kevin Stennett, and myself, and I also wanted to acknowledge and give many thanks to Council Member Andrea James, who started out with us, and, uh, contributed to our task force in the beginning. I also wanted to thank, uh, Council Member Adminis- Council Administrator Rebe- Rebecca Langston and Council Staff Jeanette Williams, who stood in a couple of different weeks. The task force met 12 times in public forum since, uh, December 18th, and this task force worked in a way that was a little bit different from most of our task forces. We, um, in the beginning, decided we wanted to be very orderly about our work, and that we wanted to set some goals and some, uh, areas that we felt were important to, in which to make decisions to move us forward. So we made motions as we went along, and we had public input at the end of almost every meeting, and so the public was able to make comments and ask questions. And our goal through all of this was to present a report to you which advocated a fee which would be simple to administer and fair to our citizens. With that said, I'd like to go ahead and recognize the administrative and technical support that we had all along the way. We had, um, and many of these folks are here today. Uh, Sheryl Taylor, our Commissioner of Environmental Quality; Bill O'Mara, Acting Commissioner of Finance and Administration; Charlie Martin, Director of Division of Water Quality; Ed Gardner, Department of Law; Julie Mantrum and Darrell Bennett, Division of Water Quality; Candace Deininger, Division of Revenue; Melinda Milburn, Council Staff; Phillip Steifel Communi- Computer Services; and our two consultants, Doug Noel from Amec and Richard Walker from Tetra Tech. I also wanted to recognize, um, a- along with the administrative and technical support, we had, for every meeting, 20 to 50 members of the public who attended. Um, I wanted to just quickly read you a list of some of the entities who came every meeting or almost every meeting. Fayette Alliance, Fayette County Public Schools, Home Builders Association, Keenland, the Thoroughbred Association, Fayette County Neighborhood Council. We had representatives from Lexmark and Trane and other businesses. We had individual citizens who came on their own time to learn and make comment, University of Kentucky, Commerce Lexington, Town Branch Trail, Farm Bureau, Lexington Apartment Association, and various council staff. This was a task force which did, as you might imagine, create lots of interest in the public, and many members attended. Now, as far as background, um, you all know this history. Over the past 10 years, our community has considered this fee or some sort of fee on several occasions, but failed to act. And over the past 10 years or more, I will say, there has been property damage, loss of life, and now we have a federal lawsuit on our hands, and these have all reminded us that now is the time for us to act as a council. Now, storm water in Fayette County. What is the problem and how are we going to solve the problem? As far as what is the problem, these photos coming up to you, and I know that center photo's a little difficult to see, these are flooded areas in Fayette County. You see the Pepsi truck in the center, which reminds us of Versailles Road and the terrible flooding that goes on there every time we have a heavy rain. The public safety issue is one I do not really need to go into in detail. We were all reminded in September of 2006 when our stormwater system became overwhelmed such that it could not handle the water coming down and flowing through, and it ended in the tragedy of loss of two lives. Many Lexington residents dread a weather report that says several inches of rain because they know every time it rains, their basement will flood. Every time. And many times, this includes sewage in the basement. Okay, as far as public health issues, these are actual photos from Fayette County. On the left, you see that someone has changed the oil in a vehicle and dumped the oil down the stormwater drain, and, uh, the one on the right is where concrete washout was, uh, taking place in Vaughn's Branch, which is, uh, one of our creeks here in Fayette County. But that represents, both of those represent illegal dumping, and these are two of many, uh, examples that we could have given you. Now, I wanted to talk a few minutes about impaired streams. To many of you, this is not new information, but it's very important. We started out, um, calling this a stormwater management fee, and we discovered along the way, in all of the information that we were presented that, of course, as you know, water quality is number one in the EPA consent decree and 75 to 80% of this fee will go toward water quality. So, um, that is one of the reasons we renamed this the Water Quality Management Fee. This map of Fayette County, um, represents the different watersheds, which are the larger blocks of landmass in different colors. Those are each different watersheds. And our streams are checked by the State of Kentucky, and the state gives our streams, um, a rating as to whether they support aquatic life or not. Now, all the streams in Fayette County have not yet been, um, tested by the state, so these that are on this map represent streams that are t- have been tested by the state. The very few green streams, which, um, they're just a few branches of streams that are green, support full aquatic life. The yellow streams on here, the portions that are yellow, represent streams that are partially supportive of aquatic life. And, and aquatic life, when I say that, that doesn't mean just fish. That means all of the microscopic organisms that should live in a healthy stream. And then the red lines, which you see are streams that support no aquatic life. And I'd like to point out two of them, because to me, they're very significant. If you look, go to the center of the map and look at the red line that, uh, takes off from New Circle Road, I'm not sure if the cursor will go on, that it takes off from, yes, New Circle Road to the right a little, that one, and goes right straight up there and it curves into Scott County and comes back down. That is the Cane Run, and that is in the Royal Spring Wellhead Protection Area. That actually goes and feeds right into Georgetown's water supply, and it's a red line stream. And then the other one that I wanted to point out is to the left of that. Yes, you see a long red line stream there. That is the Town Branch. We just heard in the mayor's budget, um, presentation and saw his, uh, slide, which showed downtown projects. And we all know one is the Town Branch Trail. We want this multi-use trail to encourage citizens to bike, walk, uh, come into town to use the Town Branch Trail, but guess what? It's gonna go right past a stream that's a dead stream, and to me that's embarrassing that we would build a Town Branch Trail, a facility to draw people in, and then they will be walking along a stream that doesn't support any life. These are the reasons we need this water quality fee. Okay, um, now let's talk just a minute about the consent decree requirements. As you all know, council members, the consent decree is the legal agreement between the LFUCG, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Kentucky E- Energy and Environmental Cabinet. Um, this is a decree which mandates those things which we, as a community, have to do to fix our water quality and our stormwater. This is a partial list. We must put into place new ordinances to protect our water quality. We must map our stormwater system. Many citizens may think we know where all of our stormwater pipes are, but we do not. As a government, we don't know where all of our stormwater facilities are. So, we're required to map them. We must make a new list of projects. Uh, one requirement is to have better inspection of construction sites, of industries, so that we don't have concrete dumping in our creeks. Maintenance of detention basins, a public education program and monitoring along the way. We also have the supplemental projects which are required by the consent decree. 30 million dollars of flood mitigation projects within t- a 10-year period, green infrastructure and stream restoration. And I like the lily there. There was some conversation in the, uh, committee, lily's on the right, and she has become part of our e-family, and she may become an even bigger part of our water quality, stormwater, um, system because Lily can hold water, which would otherwise run off. Okay, now, I love this picture 'cause we're at the fork in the road and we need to decide how we're going to solve our problem. Um, I look at it as a wonderful opportunity. I thought that the budget address was upbeat and positive and optimistic, and that's how I would like to be, and I hope you will be with this water quality fee and the opportunity it gives us. We all want Commerce-Lexington, the University of Kentucky, Transylvania, our businesses, big businesses like Lexmark and small businesses like those on Southland Drive, to recruit and attract people to come into our commu- community and to live and work here. So, we need to offer them a clean, environmentally forward acting community, where we're not embarrassed to show neighborhoods because they flood, where we're not embarrassed to have streams which are red-lined and dead. And this is why we are choosing the fork in the road that I think will take us where we need to go. The three primary issues driving the decision, as you've heard, are public safety, public health and quality of life. And this picture, uh, is a rain garden, in case you haven't had the opportunity to see a rain garden. So, quality of life. These photos are both taken in Fayette County, and they're radically different photos of the situation that we're in. One represents, I think, where we'd like to be, and one represents what I would like to see as the past. The consent decree requires us to act. We've talked about this, both on water quality and on water quantity. Council member Gordon. Yes. W- we have about another minute, assuming we don't expe- extend the 15-minute, uh, timeframe, but... Would the co- would the council be willing to let me finish my presentation? Very well. Thank you. Thanks. I appreciate it. So, we're on to the solution. Um, the solution is a dedicated fee, which is needed and required by the consent decree. This dedicated fee would be in a dedicated fund. It could not be used for anything else, other than water quality and stormwater. The mayor proposed it in November '08 and the task force was formed by the vice-mayor to make recommendations to you, the council. Now, many entities have asked, "Why do we need to do this now?" The consent decree is not finalized. And I know that bothers some people, but I will take you back to the fact that we have been violating the Clean Water Act for many years. This is not a new problem that just showed up, so we just got sued and have to fix it. Every day, we are violating the Clean Water Act. That's the first reason we need to do this now and not wait for the consent decree to be signed. The second is, it won't take effect right now. When the council acts, it will take some work by LFUCG and our partners to go ahead and do the databases and other things that are necessary to put it into place. And so, key task force recommendations. Number one is the proposed monthly fee of $4.32 for homes and farm parcels. Number two, the non-residential monthly fee of $4.32 per 2,500 square feet of impervious surface. Now, non-residential is everything other than a single family home, and included in a single family home is a duplex. These first two recommendations will generate approximately 30- 13 million per year. ... and will provide the dedicated revenue source to fund the water quality management, and fund the $30 million flood mitigation over 10 years. Number three, an incentive grant program, which invests $1.2 million per year into our community. Incentives will be used to target areas where projects will get the most bang for the buck. A million dollars of this incentive money will go to non-residential entities, that's businesses, commercial, to do water quality projects on their properties. And then, 200,000 each year will go toward neighborhood projects. Number four is a complete fund audit and a rate review conducted every five years and presented to the council, and that is built into the ordinance. Number five, uh, some of you may recall that a few weeks ago, I made the motion at work session to ask that the fund balance in the street sweeping fund be used to study a street sweeping plan geared toward water quality. We learned in the committee work that street sweeping is directly linked to increased water quality. And so, although it's not included at this time because we don't know how much it would cost, we have moved forward on the plan to study this and see what the cost would be. Number six is the low income assistance program, which is included. Number seven is that the fee will fund the water quality and the $30 million of flood projects, and the fee will fund water quality stormwater personnel costs. Now, currently, we're paying for them out of the general fund and other enterprise funds, but those costs, when they, uh, the fee gets up and running, will be paid for out of the f- fund. Um, the fee does not... the, um, proposal does not include current debt service on previously sold stormwater bonds. Here are the things that the community will get: improved water quality, more maintenance, better erosion control, more inspectors to find our illegal discharges, education, mapping, watershed modeling, $30 million of capital projects, and litter control. Um, and we, uh, will also get lots more than that, but those are just the highlights. Our next steps, I have asked Charlie Martin to blue sheet this for a new business item for April 21st, so that there can be discussion and bring it as a new business item. We will need to schedule public hearings, one or two, I think, at least. And, um, implementation we think will take at least six months. We have to develop a, a billing database because remember, nonprofits are not in a billing database currently, and we have to develop our public outreach program. So this pretty much concludes my presentation. I appreciate that you allowed me to finish it. Each of you has received a book with the, uh, frequently asked questions, the cost model, the task force motions, and the ordinance. And I, uh, did want to point out one thing on the cost model. Chris is gonna put it up on the, um, the cash flow analysis. You have this in your book, council members. I just wanted to point out that fiscal year 2010 is a partial year. Uh, if billing can't occur till January, then the first revenues will come in February. And so, I simply wanted to point that out. And the other, uh, piece that's in there that can be discussed, uh, at other times is that, um, we anticipate selling revenue bonds, uh, two different groups, probably 15 million each or some, um, you know, some other variance of that. And so, we have built in the debt service for that. So I thank you very much. I have my, uh, best buddies here to answer any questions, and, um appreaciate everyone who served on this task force and gave us their time and energy. Thanks very much, Council Member Gordon. And, uh, we'll open the door now for questions for Council Member Gordon, or any of her best buddies, as she described them. Council Member Lane. Uh, let me say, it's an excellent report, Council Member, and, uh, as I spoke to you earlier today and congratulated your committee on an excellent job on this. I just had a couple of quick questions for you. Would you consider, uh, the fee, the stormwater fee to be a tax or a utility? I think that, that people would like to understand that a little bit better. Well, from my perspective, and Bill America also maybe back this up, a tax, uh, is paid by taxable entities, which does not include nonprofits. It does not include the University of Kentucky and those sorts of folks. And so, this is definitely not a tax, it is a utility fee. Okay. Mm-hmm. Good. That was very concise. Um, that was the only question I had for you. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Um, yes, I have a question as it relates to, uh, specifically in the questions, the frequently asked questions regarding the proposed water, uh, quality management fee, and number 12. I might read this out because we don't have it for the ELMO. The question is, "Why should property that meets current stormwater standard- design standards pay the same as property that does not meet current design standards?" Is, is that the one you're looking at? Yes, ma'am. Mm-hmm. S- so the question says, "Why sh- why should property that meets current stormwater design standards pay the same as property that does not meet current s- design standards? Shouldn't newer development get a credit since they have constructed b- uh, BMPs to meet current standards, or best management practices?" And then the answer is, "It would be very..." Your, your, the committee's answer is, is, "It would be very difficult to analyze each property to deter- to determine the extent to which the property meets current standards and then to determine the corresponding fee. This would lead to a confusing and complex billing system that would be a challenge to manage effectively. Also, there is a general feeling that no one should get a credit for meeting current regulations and design standards." I guess my question and comment h- has to do with the fact that I have an area, obviously, that has some older development, but I also ha- have a district that has a lot of new development where the, um, builders have already paid, um, impact fees because they predicted that there would be these types of problems and so they've already paid these fees. So in fact, are we charging these... And it was passed onto the homeowner- homeowners, so not only did the developers pay these fees, so then passed onto the homeowners and so we're not gonna give people who have already paid these fees any type of credit or anything. We're gonna make them go ahead and pay even though they've, they've taken care of their problems. Is there not a better plan? It, we're just, we're just doing this because it's too hard on us and our billing system- I- ... to figure it out for somebody who's already taking care of their problems? I would presume that they want their stormwater system maintained for the next 20 years, and they have not paid for that. So we need to do any type of prediction- They paid to build it. Well, we're all, you know, the mayor, I think in his budget address said, you know, "We're all in this together." New development has to meet really high design standards, and that's important, but they have not paid to maintain their systems for 20 and 30 years out. Okay. My next question also comes... And I'm not sure, I'm not s- I'm, I'm really not sure if I can ask this question, um- Go ahead. ... because it, it would be directed probably to Jack Bender and- He's here. ... I know, and, but I'm not sure because a lot of this was discussed in closed session and has to do with language regarding number seven. And so I might have to... I don't know who to refer this to because it's regarding, um, the Clean Water Act and the EPA and, and how it deals with stormwater and, and whether or not the language, um, I, I, I guess since it's in here, am I allowed to ask the question? Well- Let's- ... I- ... let, uh- ... think Jack can probably help us out. Uh- I'm not entirely sure what the question is. I'm not- My question is, w- was, um, I guess I'm, I'm kind of hung up on something that I'm not sure we had to... Was part of the consent... The- Am I allowed- ... part of the cons- ... to ask the question? Part of the consent decree is that we must fund $30 million in flood projects, so in 10 years, we have 10 years to do it. So- I, I think I can safely say- Do, do you know the root of what I'm trying to ask? I think I can- With- ... safely say without going into the underlying reasons or policies relating to how the consent decree was negotiated, uh, the consent decree has provisions in it, in one of the supplemental environmental projects that requires a stormwater fee to fund future projects relating to flooding. So that is correct, and I, I believe part of this fee will go to that purpose. Yes. Does the, um, does the Clean Water Act and the EPA, does it typically deal with stormwater issues or is that something sometimes that... Well, they deal with stormwater issues. Um, the Clean Water Act primarily focuses on water quality issues, and EPA's view is there's often a very close connection between flooding issues, stormwater qualit- quantity issues, so to speak, and water quality issues. So there is a relationship there. I can't really ask my question that I wanna ask. I, I, I think with respect to what was underlying various- And I- I- I- just don't- ... negotiation positions- ... think I can ask it. ... that would probably be something we'd have to discuss in closed session because I think it relates to- I think probably we'll have to go into closed session to probably get to the root of what I probably need to ask. So, 'cause I ca- I, I, obviously I can't ask it the way that I need to ask the question and the way you're answering it, and I'm getting the nods that I can't a- cannot ask the question. So, thank you. Let me suggest that we, uh, take up on- We don't have to do that. I don't... I can find that out since it's gonna be on for... I can find that out later. Thank you. Well, what I was getting ready to say was there's no reason why we can't go into closed session in a moment to discuss, uh, those confidential matters. So to the degree, uh, to the degree it's something covered by the, by the, uh, exceptions in the Open Meetings Act, we can proceed with that. If it's not, we'll have to stay in open session. So what, what you may need to do is visit with... ... Commissioner, ask you or, or Mr. Gardner from the law department and, and talk about the precise nature of the inquiry and then we'll figure out where we go from there. Okay, I'll go do that. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Council Member Gordon, you mentioned a couple of things I just wanted to get clarification on. You mentioned that, um, the incentive program, I think- Mm-hmm. ... was it incentive and bonus? I can't remember what this last- Grant. ... grant. Um, a million goes to commercial and business- Mm-hmm. ... and then 200,000 for neighborhood projects. Mm-hmm. Uh, um, what was the discussion about how many neighborhood projects could be done for $200,000? Well, and keep in mind, this is annually. Yeah. This is every year. Um, we don't know yet how many neighborhoods will take advantage of this or what they will want to do, so we're not 100% sure whether they will use it all the first year or not use much of it. So that was a number that was chosen because it seemed like a number that would be ... you'd be able to do some fairly significant pro- projects in a neighborhood. Okay. I, I think after the first year or two, we're gonna have a better handle on what kind of projects, uh, businesses will do and what kind of projects, um, neighborhoods will do. I mean, a neighborhood might choose to get lilies for the whole neighborhood. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, and so we, you know, we haven't done this before, so we don't know for sure. Okay. So we put what we thought was a reasonable amount of money in there. For the first year? Yes. Okay. And that could be adjusted. Okay. You know, if we see that we need more in the neighborhood grant, we could do that. Okay. Um, uh, now, now, businesses, I'm glad you asked this 'cause I didn't have a chance to say it. I wanted to give an example. For instance, um, Lexmark might choose to take out some of their parking lots- Mm-hmm. ... and put in pervious parking and use this incentive money and that would automatically lower their fee- Mm-hmm. ... 'cause they would decrease their amount of impervious surface. We do know that there's some of those kind of things. Some businesses will have space to do rain gardens. Some neighborhoods- Mm-hmm. ... will have space to do rain gardens. Okay. So, um, I think we'll have a good, um, feel after the first year how this may start shaping up. Okay. Yeah. And then the litter control that you mentioned that community will benefit from, how, how much money's allocated for litter control? Do you- ... about 250,000. Charlie, my right-hand man, 250,000. Okay. As you all know, litter is a huge problem. Okay. Yeah. And how ... Who will determine where that litter control, um, will be? That's a program that, that is going to have to be developed. We felt like that there was a significant enough problem in this community regarding litter that, that a quarter of a million dollars a year annually devoted to leverage between prevention and cleanups was probably a pretty good number to start with. But it's something that we're gonna have to develop a program in conjunction with the Water Resources Committee that's chaired by Councilman, uh, Blues. Okay. Will administrative costs come out of that? I don't expect there to be any administrative costs associated. I'm trying to keep and w- would want to keep that as minimally as possible. It's, you know, it's- Mm-hmm. ... we said the difficulty is the leverage of doing the, um, preventative type of things as opposed to just going out and continually picking up after folks. Uh, uh, I'd like to ... I would assume there's gonna probably be a lot of that in the beginning, but I'm hoping that we'll have an inverse relationship and that we'll be doing more of a, uh, education and preventative type of thing rather than just picking up. Um, you know, the public- Can that be clarified? What did you say? Is it ... Can that be clarified in the language so that we're for sure that that doesn't go towards, you know, 10 people to decide how to pick up trash? Yeah, yeah, we can do that. Um, what I was getting ready to say is there's an adopt-a-spot program that's in public works- Mm-hmm. ... you know, and it's been kind of meagerly funded over the years and that would be one of the first places that I would look at is to try and to engage public, public participation and help them with the, the materials they need, the bags, the, all the things that they need to do to be able to pick up that litter with us coming around and you see it on the roadsides all the time where you see the bags have been neatly tied up and here somebody comes and picks them up and takes them away. Okay. You know, trying to develop those type of grassroot programs is that, you've heard me say this before is that, you know, the community is what's gonna fix our problem. Mm-hmm. And engaging the community and recognizing what the problem is, is a, is a big start for that. But we can, we can clarify that however you like. Okay. Thank you. Um, Council Member Gordon, um, do you know the, the total personnel costs are, um, that will be paid out of the fee? And it might be in the book and I'm sorry I don't- They are in the fee and I'll ask Charlie. Charlie has the detail. Just the total number is all I'm wondering. Looks like personnel is- It is- Hold on. It is spread out amongst administration, engineering, and operations, but in total, it's a little bit over $3.3 million of the total- Okay. What's the percentage? ... which is approximately 26%- Okay. ... of projected revenue. Okay. Is that, um, typical of stormwater fee, um, projects that you all use for examples is paying 26% in it, in personnel cost? I cannot say that we analyzed that. I wasn't uncomfortable with 26% given that a large part of the water quality program is inspect this, monitor that, and report that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, the -- the investment, if you look at the investment lines, I'm -- I'm referring to the cost of service module spreadsheet that's in your packet. And if you look at the things that, such as public education and incentives, the mapping, modeling and master planning, and the projects, that represents 45% of the overall revenue. Mm-hmm. So 45% of it is investments in the community and 26% of it was personnel. I wasn't uncomfortable with what, how that came out. As this moves forward, um, as we go on and on, should the, should we see the personnel cost increasing or decreasing over time? How will the, how will the fee, how will the appropriations for the fee change over time? Um, you know, I'm hoping that we're going to be able to keep the personnel costs level if not lower when there's opportunities to outsource work, such as maintenance on storm sewer systems, cleaning, televising, all those things. I look to outsource when there are available, uh, vendors out there to do it whenever possible. If I find that we have excess, uh, uh, revenue in the personnel allocations, working through the Water Resources Committee, I'm gonna look at either devoting that to capital, because that's where we have a huge need right now, but if the incentive program is cooking along and there's a lot of persist- participation in it, then leverage more money to incentives and -and grants in order to improve our overall water quality that was shown on the map. Okay. And my last question for you, I think, um, Charlie, would be, um, mapping was mentioned. Does that include the natural waterways as well? The streams? The, uh, yes, we're required under the, um, the, the language of the consent decree is to map everything that's 18 inches or larger, uh, pipe-wise, but because it goes from pipe to natural waterway, to pipe to natural waterway, I mean, obviously we have to have those in order to be able to have connectivity. Okay. So, yes. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Gordon, um, you mentioned the public meetings. I think you called them hearings, but they were called meetings on the screen. I, I think they need to be meetings. ... the level of importance was based on how much we wanted to make the fee. Was that taken into account? Um, well, as you know, the first proposal was not this fee. Right. This amount. Uh, the proposal that the administration made was for $4.16, and we very quickly discovered we would not get a lot for that. And if we really truly wanted to do more in terms of water quality, compliance, the stormwater projects, we could not go with that fee. So we had a set of criteria by the end that we asked our numbers people to build in. You know, build in an education piece, build in the mapping, the modeling. They had cut the mapping and modeling in order to go with the 4.16 fee. They had significantly decreased that. And so, um, we asked them to build in things that we thought were very basic, and this is the fee that popped out. Okay. Well, thank you, and- Thank you. ... and your committee for your work. Thanks for starting out with us. Sure. Thanks, Mayor. Uh, Council Member Lawless. First of all, I want to say this is really exciting. Um, I'm excited that it is about behavior change, and looking forward to, um, a cleaner, healthier community. While I realize that some of the newer subdivisions maybe pay, the developers paid for their sewers or whatever, they still tax our community and our stormwater and, uh, sewage facilities. And, um, our flooding and our pollution doesn't stop at the county line. So I really think that as a community, we are in this together, and it isn't an exorbitant fee. It is well in alignment with other communities that surround us, as I understand, and I thank, uh, Mr. Kevin Stinnet for starting this ball rolling some time ago. But I'm thrilled to death, and it looks like something that in five years or 10 years, we can be really proud of. And it's just doing the right thing. Mm-hmm. So, new neighborhoods, old neighborhoods, they all have w- water. Mm-hmm, thank you. Thank you, and thanks to all the task force and Commissioner Taylor and all your folks. Bravo. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, I would like to ask Jack Bender please to come back up to the podium, and I think I can ask this question regarding, um, number seven. Do you have it here? There you go. Um, regarding the $30 million worth of flooding projects, uh, was this supplemental environmental project related to the flooding required by the EPA? Uh, yeah, well, supplemental environmental projects, uh, all the supplemental environmental projects that are in the consent decree were not mandated by EPA. Thank you. They were proposed by Lexington in order to help settle the case. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Anything further? Um, yeah, Mayor, I was just gonna say, um, obviously, you know, a lot of these items we discussed in closed session, and that's part of where some of my, you know, issues come in where, you know, we had to vote against certain things that we discussed in closed session, and, um, you know, that, that's obviously one of them. I appreciate Mr. Bender an- answering my question. Um, you know, we obviously have a consent decree that's still not signed, and it is out there, so, you know, I appreciate you, um, discussing that, and, and obviously there will be a lot more discussion, I'm sure, next week regarding this issue, but, um, it puts us in a very difficult situation where we're having to, to, um, decide to increase fees on a lot of issues, particularly with things that, um, necessarily we've added that may not have been mandated. Thank you. If there's nothing further, we'll let you off the hook. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mayor. Um, thank you to all those who serve. Thanks, George. I think we're ready to move on to council reports. Um, Council Member Stinnet? Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of brief announcements. Um, again, I announced last week t- that this week we're celebrating 50 years of Brown Station High School. There's a lot of events going on, starting tomorrow evening at the Brown Station baseball game. I invite anyone in the community in the Sixth District and Lexington who, uh, attended Brown Station or have family that attended Brown Station to come out starting tomorrow evening, going through Saturday. Uh, actually tomorrow night, we'll be, uh, retiring the jersey of Doug Flynn, who played Major League Baseball and also attended Brown Station during the baseball game. We'll also, uh, I know Jay McCourt's coming S- Saturday morning to be running the 5K run at 8:30 AM at the high school, as well as a, uh, reunion celebration starting at 4:00 PM that afternoon on Saturday, going through the evening with a dance. So I invite any Brown Station alumni or resident that would like to participate to come on out this week and help us celebrate 50 years of Brown Station. Uh, also, uh, last week, we talked about another 5K run. Uh, the students at L- uh, Lexington Traditional Magnet School are sponsoring another 5K run this Saturday morning at 9:00 AM to benefit Bobby Wayne Covert II, uh, who was a student there, uh, at LTMS. So this Saturday morning at 9:00 AM at Master Station Park, there will be another r- 5K run. And then last but not least, Mayor, um, probably a week late from where we should have, uh, probably like to talk about this, but, uh, nonetheless, this week is actually National Animal Care and Control Week. I know we had the, uh, services committee had a topic dealing with animal care control last week, but I wanna wish all of our animal care control, uh, folks and the people out there at the Humane Society, folks that are in charge of the intake and kenneling, all the services that they provide, uh, for our city, I wanna thank them for the work they do and, and recognize them. I know we did a proclamation last year, we won't repeat that. But I just, if, if anyone on council has a time to go out there this week or send an email to the staff out at the Humane Society, please do so, because, uh, they do a job that very few people want to do, but it's a necessity for the safety and wellbeing of animals and, and our citizens. So we just wanna recognize them this week, uh, and w- and this week being the National Animal Care and Control Week. And then last but not least, last week we talked about a debriefing we're having with the ice storm. Mayor, we still have not been invited as a council to participate in that. So can someone please, um, from public safety, from public works, wherever, I know the council members were fr- on the front line getting the phone calls, being involved in what happened during that ice storm, we'd like to participate in any type of process rather than having the administration bring us some type of proposal. We'd like to participate so that the burden's not always shifted on you all, but we'd like to help you bring forth, um, uh, new policy going forward. So if we can participate in that and someone can share with us when the meeting is, that would be great too. Thank you, Mayor. If you would like to participate, let council member, uh, Commissioner Webb know, and if you could, Commissioner, come up and give us an update on, uh, that whole process so everyone will be aware of where things are proceeding. Mayor, the meeting is set up for April 20th. I apologize that I didn't realize that that was the intent, was to invite the council members. Uh, at the last meeting you asked me to get a target date for the report back, and that's what I was looking to bring back to council. Uh, spoke with Pat Dugger and their target is to have that report assembled by May the 5th. And I will get, I will forward invitations out to all of you all. That would be great. Th- thank you, and again, we just wanna be part of the process, because we do have information to share, uh, and things that we could improve on from our individual districts, and we just wanna help make that f- and facilitate that quicker. Thank you. So if any council member would like to participate, please let Commissioner Webb know and we'll get you plugged in. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a couple of announcements. Tonight, the Meadowthought Neighborhood Association will meet at 7:00 PM at the community center in, uh, in Louis Mack Park. This is a really important neigh- neighborhood meeting when the neighborhood association will make, uh, a collective decision on whether to recommend the, uh, the approval of, uh, of, of gas pumps in the, uh, uh, in the Meadowthorpe Manor, uh, Shopping Center. There's been a lot of discussion about this over the last several months, and tonight is decision night, so I'm hoping that all of my neighbors can come out and participate and, uh, uh, in that, in that important decision. 7:00 PM at the, uh, community center in the park. Then next Monday night, April 20th, Winburn Neighborhood Association will hold, uh, their monthly meeting. That's 6:30 PM in Martin Luther King Park Community Center. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Just two quick announcements. Uh, first I wanna, uh, move that we, uh, pass the NDF request for this week. Second. Council Member McCord's moved approval of the NDF. Council Member Gordon has seconded that motion. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor, and just wanted to thank all those who came out for the Reforest of the Bluegrass at Chilito Park last Saturday. Uh, we certainly appreciate all their efforts. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. I have just a few announcements. Uh, the Beaumont Residential Neighborhood Association is meeting tonight at 6:30 PM at the Beaumont Clubhouse. Uh, also tonight at 7:00 PM, the Dogwood Trace Neighborhood Association is meeting at the First Alliance Church on Old Higmy Mill Road at 7:00 PM. And then next week, next Tuesday, the 21st, the Firebrook Neighborhood Association's meeting at 7:00 PM at their clubhouse. And my son planted 30 trees on Saturday, and he appreciated Reforest to Bluegrass as well. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I had two items. Uh, the first is that, um, one of the things that I've discovered, uh, since I've been a council member at large is that, um, a lot of folks use the rural area as their dumping ground, and there's a lot of, uh, trash and debris and bags of trash that get dumped out there. So, um, I've been working with the state transportation folks out at District Seven, and we're gonna have some, uh, exciting, I guess you could call them exciting, cleanup efforts in the rural area. It'll be exciting for the folks who live there. So those will be, uh, coming up. And then, uh, secondly, um, I passed out an email to each of you from, it's from Jim Clark to myself and the vice mayor. Uh, it involves a, um, grant. Council Member Gordon, let me interject long enough to say that- Yes. ... I fumbled the ball here and they sat here for a minute. They're in the process of being circulated around now, the emails. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. That's my fault. Did everybody get a copy of the email? Okay. Um- Basically, uh, Jim is here to speak to this. Uh, Lexarts has applied for a grant through the, um, NEA, and, um, he can tell you a little bit about why he's here today asking us to, um, uh, m- make a motion to ask you, Mayor, to, uh, do an executive order. But first I'll let him speak, and then we'll, um, have the motion, and I'll explain a little more. Jim? Thank you, Council Member Gordon. Um, Mayor Newberry, uh, council members, uh, in the federal stimulus package, 50 million dollars was allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts. They can distribute those funds three ways. One is to State Arts Council, which the Kentucky Arts Council is receiving 300,000 to be redistributed, and then also to local, um, nonprofit arts a- arts organizations which have previously received NEA funding in the past four years. There are only four nonprofit organizations in Lexington-Fayette County that have received NEA funding in the past four years. The other, um, method of distribution is through local area arts agencies, which Lexarts performs that role for LFUCG. We can apply for $250,000, which we have made that application. When we made the application, the requirement that we have an executive order contract, um, ordinance naming us as the local arts agency was not a part of the requirements. On April 9th, we were notified that we needed such an executive order in order to apply for those funds. So that's why I'm here today. Um, this opens up the opportunity for us to receive $250,000, which would then be, um, distributed to local arts groups throughout Fayette County and our surrounding counties if they qualify. And the qualifications for that is that they've received funding either from Lexarts or the Kentucky Arts Council. So we are uniquely positioned here to, um, assess the qualifications and eligibility of these groups. And so, Mayor, what, um, what I would like to do is make two motions. I would like... I will go ahead and move that the council ask you, the mayor, to, uh, do an executive order declaring Lexarts the official local arts agency for LFUCG. Second. Have a motion in second, and I'd just acknowledge I'm quite pleased to do that. That's not a problem at all as far as I'm concerned. Discussion, Council Member James? Um, Mayor, Council Member Gordon, I, I do appreciate the motion. Just a couple of questions is, is this something that would have to... I mean, I guess an executive order would not have to yield towards other arts agencies or anything like that. Yo- that's the purpose of the executive order is you just make just kinda this decision to do so. Um, but I'm wondering if there are other arts organizations, and Jim, eh, are there other arts organizations that have also applied for this money that could just maybe not have come to us yet, asking that they be designated to receive some of this funding directly instead of i- being handed down th- through Lexarts? No, it's, um, we are the local arts agency in terms of distributing public funds on behalf of LFUCG and also managing two facilities. So that qualifies us in terms of how the National Endowment for the Arts looks at this, even though there's several cities that have nonprofit arts councils that perform in this way. Mm-hmm. Usually other cities have bureaus of cultural affairs, so there is no other organization that would be qualified to apply for this funding. So the other four that have received NEA money before are, are- They can only apply... Th- that would be Children's Theater, the Philharmonic, um, and Living Arts and Science Center. As a 501(c)(3), they can only apply up to $50,000. Okay. Um, eh, I can understand for the purpose of for this particular one, but I think we still have to... I don't know that folks knew that we were looking for a local arts agency. Right, and I think that's the next motion- Okay. ... that's coming. Thank you. Which is designed to have a broader discussion about- I'll pause, then. ... that on a going forward basis. Thank you. Any further discussion? Then those in favor of the motion which encourages the mayor to issue an executive order along the lines outlined, please indicate by saying, "Aye." Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Then, um, ahem, ah, b- we needed to do this today because we do not have a council meeting Thursday night, so we were up against a deadline. But my second motion relates to, uh, asking our... and I will just simply make it, um, asking our law department to come forward with a resolution which designates the Lexarts as the official local arts agency for LFUCG. Make a motion. Do I hear a second? That's a motion. Second. Have a motion and second that the Department of Law prepare a resolution designating Lexarts as the official arts agency for LFUCG. Is there a discussion? Mayor. And, and I guess, eh, to clarify the motion, it would be, eh, to place that motion on the docket? Mm-hmm. All right. Council Member James. Yeah, Mayor, a couple of things. Um, I know that through infill and redevelopment, um, steering committee, one of the recommendations was, um, an arts master plan. Um, and I think within that, um, it would deal with the variety of- ... you know, the - specifically from my perspective, the African American, um, arts culture here in Lexington, um, that in many, many ways is missing and has been missing for a long time. I'm really uncomfortable, um, at this point, um, moving forward with just designating, um, a particular entity. It's just like saying that we'll use, you know, Kinko's for our copy service. I mean, it feels like that's, this is where we, you know, money is given to organizations, um, and handed down to other organizations. I just think we need to put it out for some type of open request. I mean, I'm not really comfortable with this. I don't, I know that we know Jim's work is good for what he does, but I don't know that we have a clear vision on what our vision is for the arts community of Lexington and whether we have a particular entity that is to assume that responsibility without, youknow, investigating more. So I just, I cannot support the resolution in its current form. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Gordon, I think, has a quick response. I just wanted to quickly respond. Um, Lexarts is the official local arts agency for LFUCG. They are the only agency authorized to take funds, public funds, and distribute them. And this is simply, um, we, we asked the mayor's office, and I think Joe Kelly did some of the research, to research whether there had been a resolution or some, uh, codification of this. So, I just wanted to clarify that this is simply codifying what we currently do. It's not negating any other arts entity and the work that they do in the community. But no other arts agency has the authority to distribute public funds. All right, Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, Jim, a lot of people don't have the history of, uh, your organization. Um, I did spend seven years as a director of, uh, the organization in its early days, I guess, and, uh, was involved with the Fund for the Arts. Do you always still administer the Fund for the Arts? Yes. And that is where, uh, Council Member Gordon, uh, the money that we give to the arts is funneled through the fund, is it not? Correct. Okay. Uh, so, I, I, I don't think there's any argument in my mind that, uh, uh, you, uh, and your organization is the, uh, official, uh, I'm groping for exactly what the, the wording might be but, uh- Local arts agency. ... art, yeah, the local arts agency, and then you pass that on to people like the Philharmonic and, and, uh- Correct. ... children's theater and, and other entities. Is that not correct? Correct. We have two processes. One is through the allocations of general operating support, which tends to go to our largest arts organizations. And then we have an open process called Community Arts Grants, which, um, any non-profit arts organization can apply for those funds. This year, we're distributing $120,000 in project and program grants in that manner. But I do, with regard to Council Member James' comment, uh, there is always room for improvement. And I think recent developments in, with the master plan of downtown, with discussions about the Lyric Theater, have caused there to be a greater focus on those things that are being funded and new opportunities. And I think a cultural plan is, um, an excellent thing to, um, to proceed with and to throw open those doors to talk about the different, um, projects and programs that can be supported with public funds. But we also must point out that for the public funds that are, um, channeled through Lexarts, we raise two times that amount in private sector funds to, um, in order to carry out our allocations and grants. Uh, do you still receive funds from the state- Yes. ... entity also? Yes. And from the NEA on occasion? On occasion. Okay. Okay, thank you very much. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, uh, Jim, as, I mean, as we all know, Lexarts funds many local arts organizations. And as Council Member Gordon has pointed out, is a significant both recipient but distributor of city funds to the arts and, uh, and how the city funds, uh, and supports the local arts organizations. Um, in, in some ways, Lexarts sort of operates as a, as a local United Way for dis- for supporting lo- local arts organizations, both in fundraising, uh, but also in, in, in financial support. Uh, I think this is a very crucial opportunity, uh, to stand behind Lexarts as it makes an application for a sig- a significant amount of funds, uh, at a difficult time for our local arts organizations. Uh, so that, uh, both, uh, you know, the local lots, arts organizations, but also the city at large can, uh, can move forward and, and benefit from some of these funds. And so I, I would ask that we, uh, support Lexarts in this request. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lane. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Uh, I'm a past member of Lexarts board and I just thought a little clarification would be good. Lexarts is not an arts group that's actually doing performing arts or, uh, graphic arts. Uh- ... uh, it is an organization that basically supports all the other arts groups we have in our community. It, it does planning, it does fundraising, and makes these funds available to the different arts groups. I don't see that anyway that it would be competing with any other arts group in the community. I don't believe there's any other organization like it. And, you know, I feel it would be totally appropriate to make it the official, uh, agency, uh, for Lexington, which it has been, maybe we just never have passed a resolution in that regard. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Meyers. Thank you, Mayor. Excuse me. Um, I just have a couple quick questions. Um, when you apply for this $250,000, is it for specific programs or functions or are you just applying for grant monies? No, this is job retention and for artist fees for projects that have either been postponed or canceled due to shortfalls. So all those things are written into the grant? Sure. Okay. The, the rest of the money you receive, like from LFUCG, who determines how you distribute that? We have a allocations committee of the board of directors that meets with the qualifying organizations and those generally are organizations with budgets of 250,000 or more. Uh, they are- Professors? ... employ full-time staff, artistic and administrative. So that, that, i- in the allocations process, that's for the distribution of about 500,000 in general operating support. The Community Arts Grants is reviewed by an outside independent panel, it's usually three people and we have a moderator who, uh, oversees that process. It is a public process. The grants are reviewed at Arts Place, uh, which allows for, uh, questions to be asked of the applicants. And then those recommendations are up, reviewed and approved by our board of directors. Okay. Does Lexarts excuse me, retain a, a administrative fee for distributing distri- distributing funds- No. ... from LC... Okay. Thank you. Council member James. Never mind, Mayor. I'm sorry. Okay. Is anyone else... Uh, Council member Stennet. I'm a little confused. On this application, if the mayor recognized you through an executive order, why do you need the resolution still? You don't need the both for the, the application, correct? Um, it, it makes official the relationship. They... If we are to apply for more NEA funds, we would, we would need that resolution. Yeah, but no I'm saying not, we're not gonna have that done by Friday. Not... I mean that's- Okay, so you're just doing- No, the executive is- Just wanna make that clear. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? Then the motion on the floor is, uh, council member Gordon's motion to request the department of law draft a resolution and place it on the document designating Lexarts as the official local arts agency. Is that fair restatement? Any... If there's no further discussion, we'll proceed to vote. Those in favor of the motion, please indicate by voting aye. Aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion carries. All right. Anything further Council member Gordon? No, thank you, Mayor. All right. Um, does anybody else have a council report? Council member Stennet. Uh, I, I failed to, um, mention to c- my fellow colleagues again. Thursday evening at 4:00 PM was our first budget meeting. Uh, this is, uh, earlier in the process than we normally have done it, but, uh, 4:00 PM this Thursday we'll start our first budget meeting. Uh, and please refer to the budget calendar. We have several meetings already scheduled, um, 20-something. So, uh, we have a lot of meetings coming up, so look forward to seeing everyone here Thursday at 4:00 PM. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. That takes us down now to the mayor's report. Um, let me only mention that the Neighborhood Leaders Forum will take place on Thursday evening beginning at 5:30, um, with a tour of the Traffic Management Center. The program will start at 6:00 in the third floor conference room at the Phoenix building. There'll be a snack supper provided, and I hope you'll all encourage your neighborhood association and homeowner's association leadership to, uh, attend. That brings us down now to, uh, public comment section and the only person who I think is left, I don't see Mr. Pettit, Van, Van Pettit. All right. Jane Tiernan. Ms. Tiernan, if you'll step to the podium, you'll have three minutes. Yes, sir. Thank you. My name is Jane O. Tiernan and I work downtown at a local restaurant, at Alfalfas. Um, I have a question about the rain gardens and the narrowing of Main Street. And when I talked to, um, the newspaper, the person who wrote the newspaper article, she referred me to the call number that they referred me to, I believe it was Mr. Max Watson. He told me that there would be three lanes flowing... Three 11-foot wide lanes thr- flowing through downtown Lexington from 7:00 in the morning until 6:00 in the evening. And I was pretty sure I'd heard here at the county council meeting work study that there would be two lanes during the middle of the day of traffic. He said there would... To facilitate, uh, police and fire and turn lanes, there would be three lanes from 7:00 in the morning until 6:00 at night. When you do the math, he said three 11-foot wide lanes, plus a bike lane, and he concurred that there was no place for parking anymore on Main Street, that there would be no place for delivery vehicles and that when Limestone was also changed to 40 feet instead of 50 feet wide, there would again be no place for delivery vans or parking. And so, I'm wondering what's true? Ms. O'Tiernan, I would suggest you visit with, uh, Commissioner W- Mike Webb about the details of... If you'll visit with Commissioner Mike Webb who's in the back, he may be able to answer your questions this afternoon. If not, we can make arrangements for your questions to be answered- B- 'cause the plans that were shown on the city plans when you had the meeting a few weeks ago, they were different than what they anticipated. I, I don't think the way you outlined it is accurate, but, but if Mr. Webb can't a- answer your questions this afternoon, we can get you an answer fairly promptly about this. So, okay. But then, will the people of Lexington know whether they're either, either going to have three lanes of traffic or no parking? Yeah. Well, those, we've had a, a extensive series of public hearings on those proposed plans. And, um, um, after you talk with Mr. Webb, if you feel as though there's something that's been reported inaccurately that I'm not aware of, then let us know. Okay. And I had one comment to Ms. Crosby. And I guess I think that even if people have paid the sewer fees and so forth with their development, they probably didn't pay for the library and the parking garages and the shopping centers and all the roads to necessarily cover all those things. And so we all have to pay for those things together, even if we may or may not have a new house. Like you said, we're all together. Anything further? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Chief Hendricks, l-last week we had, um, I had a couple of questions for you guys. And I was wondering if you could give us an update. Oh, there he is. Okay. I didn't see the commissioner. Yes, sir. Could you give us an update on the answers that you found or... Bottom line is we believe we can use the 12 current recruits, uh, to defray overtime costs for the rest of the year. And I'll, I'll let Chief Hendricks give you the, the details on how we in- we expect to accomplish that. Uh, but let me, let me begin by talking about one of the options I think that have been discussed, which was suspending the recruits' training, uh, using them t- to eliminate overtime costs for the rest of the fiscal year and then resuming their training at the begin of the, uh, beginning of next fiscal year, uh, as potentially an, a measure that could save some overtime costs. In the end, that really doesn't save any money overall. Um, it would save overtime costs this year. It would increase overtime costs next year so that the money we don't spend this year that would be carried over would be expended next year. So if we went that approach, it would essentially be a wash, uh, because we don't have... When we put them back in training next year, we don't have enough people to fill those positions without filling with overtime. So it's just trading one, uh, three-month period for another. Um, however, the chief and his staff have gone back and taken a look at the training curriculum, uh, at what's, remains to be accomplished in their training for the rest of the fiscal year, um, with their scheduled, uh, graduation date, I think the first week of July, and have come up with a way we think that we can defray some overtime costs, uh, using those, those folks. So I'll ask him to give you the details on that. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, sir. Uh, at this point in their, in their training, they're, uh, they're winding down. I, I think we made that pretty clear from, from last, uh, meeting. Um, however, they are not completed and, and we think at this point to interrupt their training as the commissioner said would be, uh, totally, uh, a, a bad thing to do because of the potential for interrupting and perhaps preventing them from completing their training, uh, at this point when we've already got so much invested in them and in that specific training. Uh, what we've, uh, been able to do is to look at some alternate scheduling, which would actually, uh, allow them to s- to complete their training and yet still, uh, begin to staff the, uh, the units, uh, not on a, a full-time or normal basis, but on a, on a partial basis. And so it's, it's not exactly the schedule that, that, uh, I believe you or perhaps someone else suggested, but it is one that, uh, that will allow us to defray, uh, some of the, some of the overtime costs toward the end of the year. Okay. Do you have a rough estimate on how much it could save us? We, we're thinking about 100,000. Okay. That's fair. Okay. Thank you for that update. Council Member Stennit. Thank you, Mayor. Um, g- given some of the statements you just made on the, on the class, you know, I'll reiterate what I said last week towards the end. I, I think at this point, we're late in the game, um, to me making these type of changes. I think my main concern, I, I hope, you know, you understand what I'm saying is not necessarily the next 90 days as, as what Commissioner Bennett said. It's going forward. I know we got our budget today. And in this budget, there's another million dollars of overtime from what we had this year. And that's my concern. What we're keeping, adding more money, more money, but yet we're not adding personnel where there's no plan to add personnel, there's no plan to reduce that number rather than keep increasing each year. And that's what I want to see us work on. Hopefully we'll be able to do that through the budget process, through the links, but we can't keep throwing money at this. And that's what I want to see going forward, not necessarily a short-term fix. I'm not in favor of using the 12 guys at this point. I think we have to swallow, the, the budget amendment's already been passed on. It's on the docket as it is. Instead of having extra money for next year, we're going to have to bite the bullet and get it done this year. But going forward, starting July 1, we've got to make a different, um, either management style or whatever it is on overtime, but we can't keep adding money every year to it. Again, we've doubled... ... doubled the overtime since 2004, there has to be a reason why. And that's what I'm looking for, is what those reasons are, what our plan is to stop that, going forward. If we need to hire 35 guys, let's hire them. Let's do it, because we can't keep adding millions of dollars to overtime costs and, and keep going down this road. I- i- it's an endless pit right now. So that's what I'm looking for, from where I sit. I'm not sure what my colleagues feel like. But this year, I think it's a lost cause. We need to pay the 644 and move on. But going forward, July 1, there has to be a change in, in, in policy and management on overtime. Mr. Tenney, if, if I might respond, um, y- you refer to the '04 to the '09 differences. And as we, uh, e- have been examining for this last week, the, the clear difference in probably 90% of that is the contract issues. Um, the things that have been awarded through the contract, uh, in, in terms of rates of pay, in terms of days off, additional days off, that have been awarded through the contract. And I'd be happy to share those with you, um, um, you know, when you, when you have an opportunity. Y- yeah, I understand that a- fully, but we need to have a plan of, how do we hire people and balance that contract out? 'Cause that's not going away. We're going to have to deal with it. But we can't deal with it by just putting in millions of dollars of overtime. We need to figure out a staffing level that would be appropriate, that we can afford, long term. And, and that's all I'm asking. And I'd also like to see a policy on how we're giving out overtime. Um, I think there's some discrepancies a- and different management styles on how overtime's being given out. And, um, I just would like to see us really take a, a close look at it because it's another million dollars this year in the budget. That's a lot of money for this city and for other folks. And we need to make sure that we have adequate protection out there, but also are managing it appropriately. And that's what I'd like to see a plan going forward on. Council Member Beardsley. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Chief? Yes, sir? D- don't you need to have some backfill to take care of people who, uh, are injured or depart, uh, especially in the EMS arena? Yes, sir. Uh, we have, um, gosh, uh, just by way of example, we have, uh, two people on military leave currently, five people on disability, six on light duty, one on family medical leave, and, and obviously the 12 people in training. And those are, those are in excess of, uh, the vacancies that are caused through, um, um, retirement, either disability or service. So the 12, the 12 people actually are, well, will be sopped up a- almost immediately as soon as they graduate. Yes, sir. I think. Okay, I just wanted to make that point. Thank you. Yes, sir. Council Member Crosby? Um, yes, I have just a few questions. Um, last year on our link with public safety, um, we discussed the fact that there were trained firemen doing jobs like building maintenance and things like that. And, um, I was just curious, I wanted to make sure, are all of them actually out on the line now, or are they still currently doing those types of positions in building maintenance? No, ma'am. I mean, do... The question is, is everybody who's, who's trained, are they actually doing line jobs? No, ma'am. The- there was no change in, in staffing. Uh, we had no additional civilian personnel added to build the range position. So we have trained firefighters doing... I- it was that not, um, i- if somebody else from our public safety link last year, I, I thought that that was the understanding, that those people, or maybe the commissioner might be able to help refresh me on that? And, and how many people would that be who are trained firefighters doing... The one, the ones in building maintenance, I think we have three. Um, and if you'll recall, one of the management audit recommendations was to transfer the building maintenance function to general services. In- Part... Go ahead, I'm sorry. Oh, I was, go ahead. I was gonna say, and part of the reorganization that we did last year, part of the, uh, the process we went through last year was to establish those positions in general services. And the plan was, when they were, when the positions in general services were filled, then the fire positions would go back out onto the line. Uh, to my knowledge, those positions have not been filled yet, but that still is the plan. And then do we have any floaters who aren't assigned anywhere, who could possibly be assigned to help? Any firefighters who float or... I'm, I'm just... No? I, I'm not sure what you mean by a float- Anybody who's not currently, like, I, I don't know, uh, like people who might not be assigned to an engine or, or whatever. Um, I don't know all the terminology , excuse me, but, um, who may not be specifically assigned that could be assigned. Um... Well, we, we have people that work in fire investigation, in fire prevention, in community education. And all of those jobs are, are, um, not only necessary, but they're also protected by contract. Um- Okay. Th- those jobs cannot be filled by, by civilians by contract. The, um, the only other place that we have any, uh, firefighters that are not working the line, o- well, okay, training division, and, and that likewise is a protected area. The only, um, only other area is, uh, a few firefighters working in the, in the garage, in the vehicle maintenance division. Okay. And then, um, I guess, back to what, um, Council Member Stennet said, I would just encourage, because we will be looking at the overtime, and particularly with the additional million dollars, I mean, that, that may not be necessarily protected within the budget link. So I would recommend possibly coming to us with some recommendations on what we can do, perhaps, if we n- need additional people. I tend to lean towards what Council Member Stennet said, you know, let's look at alternatives rather than... ... continuing to pay millions and millions of dollars in overtime. Let's look at a permanent fix rather than, um, continuing to just dump money into overtime. And, and this I'm sure, I think you all are our first meeting, um, ever Budget Links, so I would hope that you all would come to us with some recommendations on what we might be able to do even looking at our, uh, recruit program and, and possibly our training program and revising that to where we can actually get people out quicker, um, you know, to, to get up to a full staff. Thank you. Vice-Mayer Gray. Uh, well, last week I had a couple of questions. Were you all able to get to them? The, the ratio of- With respect what those were 'cause there were a lot of them. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not sure I got them all. Yeah. That's how I'd ask about the ratio of overtime to total compensation and the trends associated with those numbers. We were able to do some of that, um, and I think specifically you were concerned about the difference between 2004 levels and, and current, current year's levels. Projecting at- Was it '04 or I think- 2004 was the first one- 1.2 million. ... I remember seeing in the chart, yes. 1.2? Actually it's a little over 1.5. Right. Uh, in 2004 this year with the budget amendment it's gonna be right at three. Um, so essentially we got a 50% or a doubling of overtime. Several things as, as the chief said contributed to that, uh, but one of the, I think the most meaningful measures to cut through some of the, the financial distortions that can happen with pay increases, with, with benefit increases or changes is how many hours in overtime because that, that gives you a consistent measure across time. And from '04 through what we project to be the end of fiscal '09, there will be about a 50% increase in overtime hours. Now those overtime hours are made up, uh, two general categories. Uh, they keep track of overtime in probably 30 or 40 different categories, but generally speaking there's the backfill, which is the overtime that we, that we pay people to ride the trucks, um, and the EC units, and then there's the overtime that covers special events, their presence at 4th of July, all the, all the different special events we have around town, as well as overtime to cover training requirements that they have through the year. The, the breakout between those two is roughly 75% backfill overtime, 25% for the special events, training, kind of all the other, the other catch-all categories. One of the other things that contributes to, to the increase between '04 and '08, in addition to just the increase in the number of hours as overtime, is the increase in the overtime rate due, due to pay raises, due to, to other causes. Um, my mind just went blank. I had one, one other example. Oh, the, the, the level of vacancies. Um, we've had two things that have contributed to, to the personnel side of things, the numbers side of things. Number one, an increase of little over 60 people in authorized strength through the opening of fire stations, through the putting of additional EC units on duty. Those additional people create additional training demands, so that's gonna increase the overtime. The other thing is as we've talked about fairly extensively and I'm sure we'll continue to talk about as we go through the budget process is the number of vacancies we have. Uh, as we talked last week, uh, we had I think at that time 38 vacancies. Uh, we've since lost two more people last week to retirement, so that put it at 40 vacancies, 40 bodies we don't have filling positions. We also have the 12 people in training, so that takes it to 52 people that are not riding apparatus or, or EC units, and then the additional people the chief mentioned a while ago that are on extended military deployments, disability leaves, family medical leave, which is a particular issue for us because it is so unpredictable, um, when we're gonna have those vacancies, as well as people who are on light duty, uh, due to injuries that may not be, uh, have progressed to disability leave yet. So when you take all those things together, it's go- it adds up to a lot of additional overtime just to keep the vehicles running and, and to deliver the services we're delivering. One of the other options, uh, if we don't do the backfill, we don't fill the positions, uh, that currently exist with overtime, there's a couple or three different options and I don't think any of us like them. One's closing fire stations and, and not delivering that service. One is to change the staffing re- uh, levels on the EC units which is, has received a lot of, uh, discussion here, going from three people to two. One is to take EC units off, off duty, not have as many of those. The other one is to pay for the people. So th- those are really the options when it comes down to it. Um, you know, what, what the mayor, uh, authorizes to do with, with through the budget amendment, what we're recommending to you is that we keep those stations open, we keep the EC units on duty the rest of the year, um, but we'll commit to you that we, we're gonna look at next year's overtime, we're gonna look at next year's staffing levels and look at anything we can practically do to rein in those costs. So is there a, um, this is a... The answer to this would be longer than we have available time I'm sure, but, uh, to me all these questions go down to root question of what's the management plan. And when we hear the routinely the same answers about some of these questions, it takes me to how are they being addressed systematically? ... and, you know, the overtime may just be, and I'm suspecting that that may be one of many, um, that are embedded costs in the, in the organization. Any comment about, any thoughts about that? I mean, overtime is, to me, is a symptom- Mm-hmm. ... of other issues that may exist and I think that's what Mr. Stennet was suggesting. I mean, costs of investing in equipment, you know, how are, how are those issues managed today? And- Go ahead, sir. ... you know, I'm, I just report, you know, sometimes I'll hear somebody say something once and I kind of listen, and I hear it twice, I listen a little more attentively. I hear it three times, I usually listen much more attentively. And it's kind of interesting when I hear folks say, "You know, we look for Lexington's salvaged equipment to buy in other counties because it's always good and it's usually close to being new and we can get it for a good deal." And often it's our, um, fire equipment. And so you hear, you hear those sorts of comments and then you put that on top of a, overtime rates like this and it starts begging the questions of, you know, how are we really managing these investments, these resources, these taxpayer dollars? Right. I guess I don't have a comprehensive answer to your question because there are so many different pieces that, that, that fit together. Um, I'll ask Chief to address some of the, the vehicle replacement issues, but just as an example, uh, we recently listed one of our, one of our, uh, surplus ladder trucks. Um, we got one inquiry at a, at a cost of $50,000 and you know the cost of a new ladder truck, roughly three quarters of a million. Um, that person didn't buy it. It ultimately wound up being listed with about a $20,000 reserve price before we were able to sell it. So that as a, as a recent example, I think would indicate that we're not surplussing effectively almost new equipment, uh, that we're giving away to people or that people are being able to get at bargain prices. Uh, there are vehicle replacement schedules and the chief is more familiar with those than I, uh, but they seem to me to be reasonable. We're talking in, in many cases, 10 plus years, uh, before we surplus a vehicle, depending on what type it is. Uh, if you want to get into those today, we can. If you'd like to get into them, uh, as we go through the budget process, we can do it at that time. That's fine, Tim. Thank you. Sure. Council Member Meyers. Thank you, Mayor. Um, as a follow-up to some of the things we've heard, Commissioner, you said that 75% of the overtime budget was backfill. Th- that's the rough current breakout. Yes, sir. And then 25% was special events and training. Special events, training, kind of all the other categories. Yes. So is it possible, can you provide for, or the, or, um, Chief Hendricks provide for the council, you don't have to come up to the, to a meeting every month- Mm-hmm. ... but can you provide a written document each month on what your expected overtime is? On what the expected is or what was expended the previous month? I guess could you do both? Could you do the previous month and what you expect it to be the next month? We can do- 'Cause some of that- ... we can throw something together, yes. You know certain special events are coming up, so you know that you're gonna have that coming forward in that next month. Yes, sir. Can you do that on a monthly basis for us? Yes, sir. Okay. And then also, um, how many of the vacancies that we talked about, I know last week we heard that I think 19 of those vacant or 19 of the, um, authorized strength has not been funded. How many of the vacancies are through attrition and things like that are actually funded currently? I will have to look because we just, we just roll those numbers into the new 2010 proposed budget. I'm thinking that there's an additional nine in the 2010 budget that are not funded, which would be a total of 28. Okay, then reverse question, how many are funded? So the people who have retired this year, how many of those positions do we have that are vacant that are funded? In, in other words, I'm trying- Go ahead. I'm trying to get at, we have a vacancy, I'm not sure what the number is, but that's based on authorized strength. It is- How many vacancies do we have that are from people who retired this year, meaning they were budgeted for the full year? About 20? Yeah, it's gonna be in the neighborhood of 20. Okay. What can we do, and I know one council member mentioned truncating the training process, what can we do to get people out on the street quicker? But also those vacancies that have left due to retirement, has the hiring freeze affected your ability to replace them? I mean, we have not replaced them and, and as evidenced by the, the proposed budget for next year, uh, at least a portion of those we don't propose to, to replace next year. So then it sounds like your plan for next year is just to increase the overtime budget and that's how we're gonna fund the program? Not necessarily, because remember, we have roughly 40 vacancies now. Next year's budget would hold o- open 28 of those. So there, there would be a plan to replace at least a portion of those, of those vacancies. Um, and we'll be working on ways to get them on the street quicker to give us some overtime relief when we do. Okay. I get, here's what I'm trying to get at is- There's-- there seems to be two different categories of vacancies. Mm-hmm. One, they weren't funded anyway. Mm-hmm. So they weren't gonna get hired. Right. But others were people who retired or for whatever reason they've attrited. Right. Do we have a plan for immediately filling those positions since we have the money budgeted to fill those positions? And I realize it takes a... You, you don't just hire people and, you know, two weeks later they're out there on the street. You want me to take that one? Well, let me- Begins? Let me offer a comment or two and then feel free to supplement as is necessary. Okay. Let me begin by saying I appreciate the council raising these questions, because they are very legitimate questions and the answers are very difficult. They're difficult in any agency. They are especially difficult, I think, in fire because of the minimum staff- staffing requirements, because of our commitment of, uh, substantial resources in the way of equipment and fire stations. And trying to figure out how to juggle all of those competing interests is, is very, very difficult. Many of the issues that we're talking about today have come to the surface over the course of the last two or three months, and we've got to have a lengthy conversation with you all about how we want to proceed to address that. And, and unfortunately, the answers are not particularly complicated or pleasant. We can find additional revenue someplace. We can reduce service, or we can do some combination of those two things. But that's about what it amounts to. And when we start talking about reducing service in the context of the fire department, we're talking about eliminating fire stations, fire companies. We're talking about reducing the number of people who are on the ambulances, or we're talking about finding some additional revenue in order to not only pay overtime to fill the minimum staffing requirements today, but also paying to put people into a training class so that for an extended period of time, the amount of time we have people in training, we're paying overtime and we're paying to have people in the training class. Very expensive proposition. No appealing options here. So rather than trying to answer all these questions in the context of the budget, we put some numbers in there. I don't hold those out as being necessarily the answer, but we gotta have your input because, um, i- if you all feel strongly that we've got to maintain service levels, then there's no point in me proposing we cut service levels. On the other hand, if you all feel strongly that we've got to maintain those service levels and we've got to find additional revenue, we need to have a conversation about that, and I hope doing it in the context of the links process will be helpful to us all. We, we, we, we clearly have some problems that need to be addressed on a long-term basis, as Council Member Stennet said a few minutes ago. There's not a right or wrong answer here, but we've got to have the benefit of you all's, uh, input about how most effectively to do it. And, and whatever that conclusion is, we'll find a way to make it work. Okay. If, if I could take off from that point, I think what... And I certainly speak for myself, but as a council member, what I wanna hear is from the professionals in the fire department, and you as the mayor, what your preference is. You're gonna get conflicting reports- ... because the professionals in the fire department are gonna say, "We need a lot more money in order to build stations on every..." Uh, that's an overstatement, every street corner, but to build more stations and minimize our response time. That's what you're gonna hear. Now, the rest of the story is, how does that fit in with the broader issues of, well, do we wanna just have fire stations and, and minimize our parks? Do we wanna have more firefighters and fewer police officers? Do we need to have, uh, uh, fewer lawyers, fewer accountants- ... fewer engineers, more firefighters? All, all of that, all of that has to be resolved in the, in the broad context of the budget. And that's right where we are now. And it is... That's why I said on the front end, I think these are great questions for the council to be raising, and at the end of the day, we've made a proposal. But I'm, I'm... As I said today, I don't hold the budget out as being... the proposed budget out as being an infallible document. Quite the contrary, this is one area in particular where we need your input and guidance about how most appropriately to spend the limited resources we've got. So, at the end, you've got here our proposal. Okay. Um, but I recognize that may need to be tinkered with, and that's where we are right now. And sometime between now and June 30th, we'll come to resolution about that, and I'm sure, um, it will, it will not be easy, but the end result, I'm confident, will be appropriate. Okay. Then I just have two more points. Mm-hmm. And thank you, Mayor. Um, so we looked to the budget as your proposal, as your recommendation. To, uh, the fire professionals, can you, for our link committee, and I'm not, I'm not on a link committee, but this is some information I'd like the link committee to have. Um, you went through, Commissioner, sort of a litany of options. We can do this or we can do this or any combination of five or six, seven things. Can you put together for our link a -- what your proposal would be to address the long term need for staffing and the overtime budget, and then also just the overall management of the fire department? And then the second thing I already asked for, and that is the -- if you could come back with a monthly report out on the overtime from that month, and then projected for the next month. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. Okay. Council Member Lange. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Uh, Commissioner, I got a couple- Yes, sir. ... more questions for you. Okay. Uh, who, uh, who's in charge of, um, authorizing and managing the overtime hours in fire? Ultimately, it would be Chief Hendricks. Okay. So do you have a plan? I mean, do you know exactly how many overtime hours you have, and how many you're authorizing for specific, uh, fire station, for example? I mean, how do you manage- For a specific fire station? ... the dollars that are available? Let me say first, uh, that we did a much better job, and it's much easier to, to make those kinds of estimates when you're fully staffed. W- we started out in a deficit this year, and we, together with the commissioner- Uh-huh. ... estimated what it would take in overtime to cover those vacancies for those years, but without knowing, without a history of being 19 people in deficit and still keeping all the services offered that we did, we made an educated- ... guess as to what that would be. That didn't take into account necessarily how many people would retire, uh, through the year, either through disability or through retirement. Uh, again, it was a guess. Uh, I feel like it, it was probably a, a pretty good guess, but, you know, th- the only thing that we really have control over at this point is, is knowing the, the number of special events, or knowing the, the number of, uh, educational hours that, that will be, tha- that will need to be covered by overtime, and we have those, those numbers, uh, down pretty well. Uh, in terms of, of staffing, uh, we have a minimum staffing per shift to keep everything on duty, uh, and we have been operating in deficit of that now, uh, I think we reported, uh, we thought we were at five. We're actually at about 7.6 people average positions per day, that, that we're paying people on overtime to backfill those, and that's just staffing. Uh, when we looked at the total cost of our, um, events and, and other things, and educational things, those were about $600,000, something like that. The rest of that is all staffing of backfill for the companies. Okay. Well, uh, I mean, my, my thought is, you know, I run a small business, it's not as big as the fire department, but you know, I have a budget I work in, and if I'm running over budget, you know, I look at, what can I do to stay within my budget? And you know, either I look at it or somebody on my staff does. Uh, can ... Do you have data that show how much overtime you have on a station by station basis to, to see if some stations are way outta whack and some are, you know, running within budget? It's not done on that basis. It's done on a shift by shift basis. Okay. And then, so each shift that comes up, do you, does the, who's in charge of the station call up and say, "We're short staffed and we're gonna, we're gonna have to do overtime." Or they just do it and you don't even know about it? No, it's done every day. There's, there's a person that calls every day through much of the day- All right. ... to get enough people to staff those positions. Okay. So you're in charge of it. So they call you and say, "I need to add overtime." Or do you have somebody on your staff that oversees the overtime? No, sir. Uh, each shift has a person that, that calls the overtime and the person- Okay. ... operating the shift, the battalion chief, each, on each day, uh, instructs those people that we need this many people in order to fill this many vacancies per day. I- it's my- ultimately my responsibility- All right. ... overall, but as far as the day to day calling and, and approving, it's done by the, by the shift commander. Okay. Well, just, m- you know, my closing thought is, you know, we need to, the council, I think, needs more in- input from fire. I think, um, listening to the questions here 'cause, you know, we don't evidently know all of the issues out here and why you're running over budget, and then, you know, we found out a little bit late in the year. There's not too much we can really do about it to react to it at this point. So I guess, you know, my thought is I would like to see something in writing that sort of does an analysis of the overtime. I know you all are working on that, and I would like to see it on a station by station basis, if you have those, uh, data available. And I would just encourage you to continue the- Okay. ... communicate with the council and give us as much information as you can. That will help us to get a better understanding of what the issues are. Okay. I- if I may, and ha- I think maybe some of the question is about, or, or some ... In fact, somebody said that somebody's getting more overtime than others, or it's being awarded differently. That's actually determined by contract, that it has to be evened out through the calling process. Um, so that, that's not even within our hands who specifically gets to work the overtime, but we, we designate that overtime is going to be worked, but is actually spread out, and there's a, there's a very strict list by which you must go, and, uh, if you bypass and, and so on. All right. Um, that said, though, the ... ... it really has -- has little to do with -- with the stations, um, the specific stations. There's a total number of hours- Right. ... that would be required to keep a shift on duty, and -- and those, uh, there's very little variant from one shift to the next. Okay. Well, then maybe you could put some explanation, you know, according to the collective bargaining agreement, you know, you allocate these in a certain way, and so we would understand. I was not aware of that. I don't suppose most of the other council members were either. But, you know, essentially just to inform us so that we can be collaborative and work with you and help work through this problem, because, you know, we just can't let the budget just keep spiraling out of control. We're on a really tight budget this year. One other question that seems to have come out there, there's been some requests made about who's getting the overtime, and -- and I don't know if that's headed the same way, but there are a number of people who opt out of overtime. Uh, about 60% of our force works out- lives outside Fayette County. There are people that just simply don't want to come back to town or not on a regular basis or -- or something like that. So just going by strictly who is awarded the overtime or who worked the overtime would not give you a true picture of who was offered the overtime. Okay. So I wanted to make that clear, too, that there are -- there are a number of people at -- at this point in their life that they either don't need to or don't want to work as much overtime based on other family commitments or -- or other things like that, so. Yeah. Thank you so much, Chief. I appreciate your input. Council member Vere. Thank you, Mayor. Um, while I recognize obviously this was all triggered by the budget amendment, uh, last week, but, um, if we're talking about overtime in general and we're going to ask for reports, I think we need to ask for reports from all entities within government rather than to single out the fire department. Just because somebody, um, misbudgeted and needed a budget amendment, that doesn't mean that somebody else didn't load up the -- the truck with a bunch of overtime, uh, and, uh, put it in the budget. And, uh, it's not, uh, justified either, if that's the question. Um, I know in 2006, the newspaper, uh, listed, um, the top 20, uh, people in -- in government in Lexington -- LFUCG government, uh, and their salaries, and three of them, as I remember, were either sergeants or lieutenants in, uh, the police department. And there was some question at that time whether there was some preferential treatment or the same individuals were always signing up to, uh, to do overtime because they didn't have family commitments or other... your comments about living outside of Fayette County and that type of thing. But they were making in excess of what the mayor was making at the time. Um, I hate to see us get into a micromanagement mode, and I think it's only fair that, uh, maybe human resources be the, uh, focal point for, um, re- reporting out overtime for all areas of government. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Any further discussion? I have one question- All right. ... please. Uh, we'll go Council Member Feigl, then Council Member Stennett. Council Member Feigl? Um, I was just, uh, trying to figure out how -- how we can generate more revenue, because obviously we need a certain number of -- of firefighters on duty at all time, or we begin to jeopardize the, um, the safety of our citizens. Yes, ma'am. Um, do you -- do you generate any kind of revenue from ambulance runs? We do, and, uh, I don't know that specific number. It was about four million. I think it's up from that, um, but I -I don't have a current to date in -- in this fiscal year. I know it was about four million last year. Are there funds that are... Are there s- are there significant funds that are not collected for those ambulance runs? Um, uh, well, yes, obviously there are. Uh, we are... the -- the billing company that we utilize, uh, rates very well compared with -- with other cities that offer a similar service and -- and bill in a similar manner. Um, I don't know the specific. It- it's somewhere between probably 60% and 70% of -- of what -- of what they bill that comes back in. That's -- that's a guess at this point, but many cities, uh, collect 50% or in some cases even less. So you're only collecting 50%? No, ma'am. No, I'm saying somewhere between 60% and 70%. We don't have that number with us, but, um, that -- that's pretty typical. If you can achieve- Okay, just- ... 70%, that's -- that's pretty good in the -- in the ambulance business. Okay. Just for my own information, though, does that fun- do those funds go back into your budget? No, they go to the general fund. Into the general fund? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. If I can, real briefly, just clarify one point, the fire- the fire department does not bill or collect those revenues. Uh, that actually goes through the division of... or is administered through the Division of Revenue, uh, and they use a billing agency to bill and collect. So, uh, the fire forwards information to them on runs, but they do not do either the billing or collecting. And I might add that we discussed this a little bit at budget time last year. As I recall, we made some adjustment in our- our, uh, EMS fees- We did. ... last year. Yes, sir. That's correct. And we evaluated the- the recovery rates. We probably have a little bit of that information we can round up for you as well. Council Member Stennet. J- Just to wrap a couple things up, one, I wanna reiterate, we're not questioning the performance o- of your men and then what we've done in this city, 'cause it's been impeccable. The job they do is outstanding. What we're worried about today is a long-term approach to how we're staffing the fire. That's the bottom line. I wanna see a proposal, uh, what we need to do to staff it. Tell this body, "I need 35 men tomorrow." And that, that's our job, as the mayor said, "We gotta figure out how to get it in the budget then." That's the kind of things we're looking for, is a long-term solve to this issue. You know, I, I know in years past, you've probably been told, "Don't ask for more men, it's not gonna happen." But this is the body that makes that decision, so come ask. I'm, I'm inviting you to come to that link meeting and say, "I need 12 men a year for next three years to get back up to where I need to be. It'll cut overtime." 'Cause right now it's 7% of your budget, overtime is. That's a big number. It's a big number to have o- You know that. So today is not a day to come and say, "Hey, we're mad at fire 'cause there was overtime." That's just the opposite, I want you to understand leaving here. We're looking for a solve to help you long term, to get you the manpower to do a better job. 'Cause your performance has been great, it's just, we have unli- we don't have unlimited money. And, you know, the next big issue is we're gonna have to find, one day, a dedicated source for public safety revenue. If this city is ever gonna survive the collective bargaining issues, the public safety being the number one priority of government, we've got to find a dedicated revenue source long term. I know it's on the mayor's mind, it's on our council members' minds, we've been talking about it for years, but that could be coming very soon, because that's the only way we'll really solve this problem with our general fund and the dollars it's taken. But please come to us. It's an open invitation to link, um, with a proposal for long term to fix this. Because you've done an outstanding job to this date. We're just saying we don't have enough money. We need help. So tell us what you need, and let us be the ones to do the cuts and try to figure out how to fix it. Thank you, sir. Any further questions? I think we're at the end of the agenda. Is there a motion that we adjourn? So moved. Council Member, um, Crosby has moved to adjourn. Council Member Martin has seconded. Any, uh, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. Thank you.