Music We don't have an on-air signal. I don't know whether we're on air or not. Okay, we are. All right, good morning, everybody. For those in our viewing audience, this is a meeting of the Council Committee of the Whole to discuss the budget for fiscal year 2010. Jerry, are you here? You want to, why don't you take us through the agenda? Do all council members have the packet? I've got extra copies if you need one. No, it's this. Okay. What's on the agenda today? The first item, Bill Ameri will be making a presentation on revenues, updating revenues with May's experience in it. After that discussion, then we'll continue with the council review and approval of each of the items from the links, the general recommendation, then the individual recommendation. And then finally, what we've included, budgeting has provided a summary of the late items, which there's not many, and And the good news is it looks like it's increasing fund balance. So that's a welcome experience today. So those are the things. All right, where did we get to last time? Where we stopped last time. If you look on Schedule 1. Yeah. It's page 4. We stopped under the E, Office of Policy and Budget. So there's what we'll pick up today on Schedule 1. Pick up on E, right? Yes, sir. We did not do partner agencies yet, right? It's Mr. Myers here. There was a, well, I'll let Mr. Myers. What's the situation? Thank you. There was a partial report out last week. I'm losing my voice. I'm not sure if it's losing or coming back, but there's a partial report out. There were two agencies that we talked about last week that we had further questions on, and we are going to be meeting Thursday before council meeting, so we'll be able to get back into the next meeting. Okay, so report out would be on those two would be when? Tuesday morning. A week from today. A week from today. Okay. Where does that – okay, remind us, give us our schedule. What was the proposed schedule? We have a meeting. Proposed schedule. I don't have the schedule with me. I didn't bring it today, but here we go. Thank you. Let's see. Today is the 9th. We have a meeting on the 11th to continue to talk about the proposed amendments. And then the last meeting scheduled prior to ratifying the budget placed on the docket will be on 616. That's Tuesday. We could actually probably be ready to report out Thursday night at the Cal. We're going to meet before the Cal. We've got a committee of the whole meeting Thursday night? Yes, at 5 o'clock. Yes, 5 o'clock. And is that also budget? Yes. They're all budget until you write. All right. What's on that agenda? What's that scheduled agenda? The reason I'm asking these questions is we are bumping up against that schedule with more data, more information, and information that hadn't been exactly on the schedule. And what we did in the previous years was adjust. We added a couple of meetings. Everybody on the council needs to be aware that that may happen. This time, it's very likely that it will occur, so it won't be a surprise. Next Thursday, we will continue to talk about the issues and recommendations if we do not finish today, which in all likelihood we won't. All right. So we'll continue on the recommendations. Okay. This Thursday? Yes, sir. This Thursday. This Thursday and also the Tuesday, the 16th. What's scheduled at this point, the 16th at 8 a.m., that's the last meeting to get everything wrapped up. That doesn't mean you can't add additional meetings between now and then if you feel like you need them. But the 16th, we actually have to have all recommendations and basically the Mayor's proposed budget ratified so a motion can be voted on in that same Tuesday. Oh, I'm sorry, Tuesday, the 6th, what, Tuesday? Yeah, okay, okay. So on Tuesday, 3 o'clock, there should be a motion to ratify the Mayor's proposed budget. Based on this schedule, and that doesn't mean you can't add things, but as it tentatively is at this point. Okay. All right. Thank you, Chair. Any questions? All right. Mr. O'Mara. Okay. And, Bill, will you remind us of what you were requested to give us an update? Will you remind us of in the context of the past? So the headlines I think we are looking for, or at least I'll speak for myself, is a comparison of the last report you gave us and what was reported then in terms of the most recent revenues and how that compares and contrasts with the most current data that you have. And anything you want to expand and embellish beyond, of course. Well, I will try to explain rather than embellish, but you all have to decide how that's interpreted. I think I have prepared the information that you're looking for. We have May actual revenue numbers as of Friday. So this isn't old information. This is new information. And first, you'll see my challenge with technology. First steps first. This worked. And I'm hoping that you all have an actual copy in front of you. We did copies last night instead of this morning so that we would have copies done for your all's reference. And so the – Excuse me just a second, Bill. Yes, sir. As I'm looking at this handout, this gives us May. And at least, again, from my point of view, it's helpful to know what April was, what you just told us about April, and highlight that as well as May numbers. Because that gives us the most current, would give us, in my view at least, the most current trend for two months. So you're giving May here, as I'm seeing it. And I realize April's back in the back bar graphs. But you're going to give it, you know, just remind us of April as well. Okay. I brought year to date. I don't believe in the stack of reference material. Hold on. Let me see if I brought April. If not, I will send somebody to get it. Okay. I don't see April as, I don't see April in here. And April was where we had some big declines, right? We did. So, excuse me, let me try to explain where on my desk that information is, and we'll try to get it here. Just a moment. Thank you. Okay. I will get April information so that you can compare April to May. If you would like, I could go ahead and talk about May and year-to-date, if that would be productive. Yep. Okay. Here are the May revenues. The withholding came in at a little over $16 million compared to last May at $15.1. That's $880,000 to the good. The net profit came in a little over a million against $1.5 million of last year. So that shows erosion in net profit for the month. Insurance shows up and franchise fees show up. So if you look at just the month of May, one would feel comfortable. But as Vice Mayor is pointing out, we cannot look at a single month because our experience has been something of a roller coaster, one month up, one month down, one month up, one month down. So I have the next slide as year-to-date revenues in those four major categories, which is much more explanatory from my perspective. It shows that the 11 months ending May of 2009, employee withholdings are at $135.9 million compared to $135.2 million. The top 30, and that gives us a year-to-date of a half a percent ahead. The net profits are at $28 million versus $28.3 million. Insurance at $20.5 million is virtually flat, and franchise fees continues to show a positive trend year-to-date. One of the items I'd like to point out to you is on the year-to-date withholdings, we have been tracking the fact that people are paying us slower, that they mail things in absolutely on the date that it's due, which is just smart business, and then actually some of them are actually paying us late. So slow pay is basically a reality for our withholding payments right now. We do track the top 30 employers and see how they compare year to date this year over last year. And the top 30 employers through May total are up 2.2 percent over the same withholding revenues of last year. Now that represents about 45% of our withholding revenues. The other 65% is medium to small business. So we are very lucky to have that institutional government and health care base to rely on, but it's still less than half of our total withholdings. The other thing I'd like to point out with net profits is we're currently showing year-to-date 231,000 below where we were same time last year. At the end of December, it was a totally different look. We actually were $2 million ahead for the first six months, and so that has eroded to $231,000 less from the six months to the 11 months. So the economic trends have shown up in our net profits. The insurance is virtually flat, and the franchise fees, as I said, have continued to go positive. The other thing, to go back to net profits, is what are we looking at for year-end? and we already know that there are some very large refunds that are going to be processed in June against the net profit revenues. So we do not expect a turnaround in that trend in the June results. I did want to show you some year-to-date, and I had chosen to do it graphically, which may or may not be a good way to do this. but if I can I again try to use my technology but the last time we had a major recession was here in the 2000 range and you can see that based on our past performance we were virtually flat but still had somewhat of an increase, excuse me, sorry about the volume change and that the slope of the increase stayed about the same for three years, and then we have ended a much higher slope of year-over-year increases. And so what we're basically saying is that we think we're going to be flat, 09 over 08. Is that this flat, or is it going to be three of them that way is kind of the prediction that we're faced in addressing right now as far as payroll. The other thing I want to point out is FY07, excuse me, FY08 had somewhat of an anomaly in it. There were three months that had three pay periods. So there was actually an extra pay period for some employers, such as the University of Kentucky and Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, that pay on that ever other Friday sequence. Usually you get three pay periods in a month twice a year, and in 2008 it happened three times a year. So the comparison of 09 against 08 for some employers is 26 pay periods versus 28 pay periods. So we are very hopeful that even though we are having difficulty comparing against 08, that some of that, we don't know how much because we don't know how many employers pay on the same pay cycle as the urban county government is related to that extra pay period in the 2008 totals. Have I totally lost you there? Okay. So those are some of the points I wanted to point out on payroll. On net profit, here was the year of the recession. Here is when we felt the decrease in the net profit returns. So in the last recession, the payroll was the predictor, the net profits was the follower as far as revenue change due to the down economy. The other thing, again, we had a very strong trend going and we have flattened out. So are we seeing the opposite? Are we seeing net profits being flat at the same time as payroll, or are we having to prepare for an extended dip in net profits if we think it's going to respond the same as the last recession? Bill, question. Yes, sir. As a percentage, what is that? It looks like you were slightly over $20 million, maybe $20 million and a half in 01 in terms of net profit revenue, and it dipped down to, what, $18 million for the next two years, so it's roughly a 10%? I can give you the 01 was $20.9 million. The O2 was 19.2, and that was an 8% reduction. And then O3 was at 18.8, which is a 1% reduction from the year before. Yeah, 1% from the year before. The previous year, but for the two years, by contrast with the peak in O1 or O0, it was a 10 to 11% dip drop, right? Yes, sir. Tell us again what happened with payroll. Going back is my challenge. Payroll had a different, the year before was flat and then we had a lower growth rate before it started to build again. And the net profits showed their effect here, whereas the payroll showed it here. Okay, thank you. Anybody else got any questions while he's going through these numbers? This is insurance premium, and the only really thing I wanted to point out is the 08 is an anomaly. We are not going to see a large June collection. That was a one-time accounting change. We recorded, we accrued $2.7 million in order, based on the advice of our accountants, to make it follow the same accounting as we do the other two major revenues. So this is a one-time recognition, and this is about what we're going to get. There's very little that comes in in June. And I don't have the detail on the franchise back so many years, but this shows where we are already. And we're up 9 percent, and the only thing we can do is add a little bit to it. June is not a strong month for franchise fees. It's a quarterly payment. So where does that put us as far as we're looking at where we think we will end up? Yesterday staff in budgeting, accounting, and revenue met and we kind of approached this independently and then talked to each other and this is where we feel these revenues are going to end up. We think that employee withholdings will come in about $149.3 million. The projection from March data and that is in the budget book had employee withholdings at $152 million. The net profit we think will come in at $30.9. The March projection that is in the budget book at 33.5 as the projection for net profit. Do you have a question? Yeah, I think maybe you need to stop here. Well, just tell us exactly what you're telling us here. All right. In the March, the revenue, the budget book that we're currently operating from. Right. We predicted year-end revenues to be that middle column. The previous YE projection. Yes, sir. The first column is where we think they will stand after seeing May results. So we're all $5 million? Yes, sir. So there is softness in our major revenue stream. The insurance is virtually flat from where we were, and we think we will be higher in franchise fees because of that trending up. So let's let this kind of sink in. We looked at projections when we were building the budget, and at that time net profits were still strong. Both holdings were doing this, but they were still trending. Insurance was flat. The franchise fees, we weren't sure were going to sustain themselves throughout the second half, so we weren't as bullish on that. That's where we see ourselves today. Excuse Bill, just a second. Yes. Mr. Stenner has a question. So you're projecting for the month of June that we're currently in that we're only going to collect $17 million instead of the original $23 million projection, right? I'll have to look at the totals, but that's how it comes out. Have we ever collected $23 million in the month of June? In what category? Altogether. Looking back on your bar graphs, I can't tell exactly. Well, the bar graph is each individual of those four. Right. That's what I mean. Right. That's the item all up. I'm just curious, have we ever had a June? I mean, I'm trying to be optimistic here. Say we do have a June to get $23 million, and we'll break even, or even $21 million, and we're only $2 million in a hoe. I mean, I'm just curious about where our June numbers historically have been. Can you get us that? I can. So we know, is there a slim possibility, remote possibility? If we've never done $23 million in June, then we know it's no hope. Well, I can give me just a moment. I don't mean right now, but I'd like to see what happens in June usually. That would give us some, I assume you all looked at that and getting this final 218 number. Let me answer it by telling you what we did last year. Sure. Okay. 13.2 plus 2.8 would be 16. Right. About $100,000 in insurance and between $300,000 and $500,000 in franchise. So right at about the $17,000 that you're projecting we'll get for this June. So this is probably a pretty good projection, it sounds like, right at it. We feel it is. We approached it, three people, four people actually approached it their own way. We didn't come together until we had all gone through this exercise. and we were amazingly close. I mean, some were higher, some were lower, but this is kind of our mini consensus that we worked on yesterday. Because if I remember, Councilman Lane might have it. We looked at June before in the same exercise, and I don't think we ever had a June over $20 million. So our hope is probably slim and none on even making that goal. So we'll see. Thank you. We're giving it our best shot at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So those are the top four which kind of run, they're the trendsetters for all of our revenue. But to put it into totals, the 2009 adopted budget had revenues of 273.8. In March, we went forward and projected it to be 270.7. And that's 98.8% of FY09. What I'm bringing for you today, we think that total revenues for the general fund will be $267.6 million. And the current 2010 proposed revenue is $278.8. The proposed 2010 revenue of 278.8 is a 3% change over the March projection of 270. It now sits at a 4.2% increase if we come in at 267.6. I probably have your attention at this point. So I'm going to try to show you the half full glass next. This really, we did not back into this number. It looks like we did, but we did not. Because the next question I would ask, if we think revenue is going to come in at 267, where do we think expenses are going to come in? And we actually feel that we're going to pick up a little bit in the personnel as well as the operating that was put into place. And we're virtually there in total expense projections of 267.4. So our goal when we started the year was to have taken the same amount of money that we spent. And we're still hopeful, even though those numbers are lower, that we can manage this through this last few weeks and come in at 267 point something. The difference between 276.6 and 267.6 million revenue to 267.4 million, I call that rounding difference. So to me, they're virtually the same. So we are still hopeful that at the end of FY09 that we will have managed the expenses to be within the total revenues of the year. The last slide, I have one more, four questions. And this is just something I found on the Internet that I don't know whether you find interesting or not, but economists and geeky people that worry about predicting might find it so. This is quarterly GDP all the way back to 78, and it gives you some idea of what we're experiencing right now. Here is fourth quarter of last year, I think is where it ends. And if you look at where we were trying to compare, this is the 2000 recession, which had a much lower drop than what we've experienced here. But the one back in 1980 had much more severe. I don't have the data for first quarter, 09. This was what I could find out on the Internet. But really, from our perspective, it's not how deep this goes, it's how long it goes. So when are things going to turn around? It depends on which economist and which newspaper article you read as to whether the economic indicators are saying we're at the bottom and ready to trend up, so it's a trench, whether it's going to be one of the yo-yos so that it bounces up and back down and then up again. And if I could predict that, I guess I could retire by the end of it because I – so I don't know how that's going to happen. What we built the 2010 budget on was that the calendar year 2009 would be in recession, and we hoped that recovery would start in the second half of FY10 or in calendar year 2010. Now I'm at questions. Mr. Martin. As always, thank you, Bill. It's great that you have such command of all this and can help us understand where we're going to be. I guess my question is sort of a more bigger picture. On what basis do we think that our revenue is going to increase? I know you've been talking about that for a little while. Are you talking about 2010? Okay. Well, part of it is the institutional base in payroll. The government sector, we have the University of Kentucky, we have us, we have the school board, we have the state and the federal government, which are sizable players in our employment base. And then on top of that, we have a very large footprint within the medical profession. The medical profession is giving raises. We have a 1%. The state is talking about a 1%. And others, I don't know, I can't remember right now, but no one is doing layoffs in those sectors. So we hope that that employment base will stay steady. And tracking the top 30 employers, they are still paying more and withholding more than same time last year. So we feel that that 45% of our employment base is steady rather than large cyclical, large ups or large downs. So are you all anticipating that we're going to have less of a revenue hit than we did in the, I guess, 2001 or 89.90 or the 1980 recessions? And our assumptions are harder to achieve now, given that this fourth quarter of FY09, there's been erosion in our collections. So obviously we have pressure in order to make the withholding number. We have, I think, underestimated franchise fees, so that's a glimmer of hope. Unfortunately, if we underestimated a couple of percent in franchise fees, we get hundreds of thousands of dollars, and we're trying to compensate for seven-digit numbers instead of six-digit numbers. The other thing I didn't talk about was property tax. We had predicted a decline in the total assessments. The legislative body has chosen not to take the compensating rate in past years. That is still available in order to obtain a 4% increase in property tax revenues if assessments don't deliver that on their own. One of the other good things was in the past six months we were concerned about detention revenues because the state was paying us late, but it appears that they're back on track. So there's a small hole that's been filled. So we're looking for anything throughout the revenue cycle to compensate for the softness in the payroll and the net profit. I guess I would encourage you to review the historical numbers from the last three recessions so that we can maybe model better what our anticipated hit is going to be, because I think most folks think that this is probably going to be at least as bad as the 1980, perhaps. And so given that, I just want to say that I am astounded that with a fiscal year 2009 adopted budget of $273.8 million, that the administration brought the budget and $6.5 million under budget. That's a tremendous accomplishment, and it's just a hallmark of good stewardship. You had the permission to spend a lot more money than you did, and I just applaud you all for doing that. I mean, it has put us on the kind of even footing that we have and the fact that we're $6.5 million under budget. So well done. Thanks. Mr. Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. O'Meara, I was interested in sort of reviewing the future trend for revenues. If we were approximately $2 million ahead at the end of this, let's state it as the calendar year 2008, and now we're, I guess we're running about $6 million behind at the end of this fiscal year coming up, that's really an $8 million swing over a six-month period. And does that abode poorly for our future revenues for the coming fiscal year? Let me clarify my comment, Council Member Lane. I was only talking about the net profit line, not total. Right. So the net profit line was $2 million ahead at the end of December, and they're now $231,000 below. So it's not a $6 million swing. It's a $2.2 million swing. But, yes, it shows that the economy. we were perplexed the first half of the year why net profits were being so strong. And so kind of didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, so we upped our estimate on what our year-end take would be for net profits. Our original adopted budget for net profits was $30,900,000. and excuse me, I wrote it down. $30,933,000. Because of the strong showing in the first half of the year, and we were trying to get what we thought was a realistic estimate, we upped that to the $33.5. Now it looks like our original $30.9 is right on track. So we followed that anomaly the first half of the year. It now looks in retrospect that we shouldn't have. All right. Can you put your first sheet up there where it says the revenue fund, general fund revenue update sheet? That's probably one of the first pages in there. No, I'll take that back. That's towards the back. Third from the back. Now this one, yes. Okay, just looking at these numbers very quickly, the fiscal year, this fiscal year's budget was $273.8 million, and we're now projecting that our revenues will be $267.6 million. So that appears to be about a $6.2 million difference. Is that correct? Yes. All right. My concern was, in my recollection, I don't have the numbers for December, but it seemed like we were either even or slightly ahead in December. And that means that most of the decline in revenues have been in the last six months. So this would indicate that the trend line for the coming fiscal year is not – it's much worse than these numbers even show because it could be $12 million for the coming year if the same decline continues for 12 months. Let me put in one caveat. Yeah. $3 million of that lost revenue was no sale of any government property. Okay. So that cuts the trend that you're looking related to occupational tax from 6.2 to 3.2. All right. Just to put that in perspective. That's correct. I remember that number being in there. So that does help us. So that means we might be looking at $5 million to $6 million, $7 million, somewhere in that trend line for the coming year. which if that were the case, and we're currently projecting the year end at 267, I guess that technically would mean we need to be in the range of about 264 for our budget if we assume that we trend on the same ratio we're at right now. If we assume that a downward trend will continue through 2010, that would be a result. All right. And our current budget is at 278, so that's a differential of $14 million. All right. I think that's something we need to ponder carefully because if we overestimate our revenue then and we budget on that and we get into next year and the revenues are substantially down, that has to be a very serious position to be in, particularly after we've cut $5 million out of our operating expenses for the current year in order to stay within our budget. I'd like to also sort of mirror what Council Member Martin said. You know, I think it's a very good job of the administration to keep our costs as low as they have under the circumstances so we're not in the ditch right at this moment. That's all I have. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Bill, for the information. Issue I asked a while back in this back to refunds, and now I want to get back to revenues. How are we doing on that, and what do we expect in this last month? How are we? Through May, we've actually processed fewer refunds than the same 11 months last year in both number of revenues and in dollar amount. However, I already know that there's a very large refund that's going to hit June, so I don't believe that total dollars will come under by the end of the year. So how will that affect this year's revenues then? Well, that's why we have that projection in net profit coming in at 30.9, anticipating that revenues that come in in June will have to fund those refunds that we're processing. Okay, so then back to the revenue questions that Ed and Doug had talked about. And we haven't at this point accepted a revenue number here for the budget that Council hasn't yet. And, you know, usually that's one of the things we do first is we'll accept what we think we're going to be bringing in so we know what our expenses are going to be. but I guess at this point I'm glad we haven't because it looks like it's going to be less. And when you all made the budget for 10, you estimated that it would be 3% growth. Now to get to what we have proposed, it's going to be 4.2% growth, correct? That's correct. So do we see that that 1.2% increase is going to occur, or is that something that we need to now change our revenues instead of 278.8? If we go back to 3%, just doing the quick numbers, it looks like it would be 275.6. So actually we would be coming in 3.2 million short of what we had proposed. That's correct. So when we do our numbers up here in setting the budget, we actually need to use what you estimated would be 3% instead of 4.2. Would that not probably be correct on the growth that we're anticipating? Because we can set a growth rate whatever we want, but we need to make sure that we do it so that we hit our numbers at the end of the year. And what would you say from a conservative standpoint that we need to set our projections on our estimate on what we're going to grow for the 10 budget? Would they still be at 3%? Because it doesn't look like it's going to be going up. It only looks like it might be going down. So to say it's going to be 4.2 and to hit this budget probably is not realistic, is it? Well, this is where the prognosticating comes in. And my crystal ball is no more clear than anyone else's. But it's going down, so I don't think we should be raising our projections. If anything, we should be lowering them, I would think, especially if you look at the trends and the prior recessions. Let me answer that in a schizophrenic way. I'm the revenue director. Revenue director is very conservative. Revenue director would say that the growth and the number in the net profit and payroll would need to be revisited and possibly go down. I'm the Commissioner of Finance, and we have put a budget together that has a lot of assumptions in it, all of which we know are not always going to happen. So do we go ahead and approve this budget knowing that it's very soft and knowing that the administration may need to prepare plans for how to respond quickly and then come back to council after first quarter to revisit the budget. That is an alternative in how to approach this. So it's kind of a management... Personally, I would advise you, since we have the most relevant numbers, it's shown us what is coming in. I don't see things going up. If you look at the trends everywhere, it's going down. So I won't think we would try to be too optimistic that it's going to go from 3 to 4.2. When you made that assumption back in March, and now we're here in May and we're seeing it's going down, I would say we go on the more conservative approach to stay at 3 percent at best, hopefully, that it goes up. With that, I think we're going to have to readvise and lower our estimate for our revenues just by doing my calculation. It would be 275, so that's 3.2 million. I don't think we won't be spending money that we don't have knowing that in the future we're going to have to cut. I think that's the worst thing you can do is when you start adding money that we don't have and then come to the first quarter and say, well, we didn't hit where we are, now we're going to have to cut back. I'd rather do it on the front end than do it later knowing that we're going to have to do that. And that's a legislative or management approach. Cut now, cut later. cut in a week, cut with three months' worth of information. Thank you, Vice Mayor. It's how you want to cut the cake. Mr. Bearden. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Bill, where do we stand on stimulus money at this point? Have we seen any of it? Actually, have we been promised any of it? and will it displace any monies that we've had in this year's budget or next year's budget on projects that we had on the drawing board that we could continue to do? And I'm thinking of the streetscape, for instance, which we have kind of a deadline on that because of the question I'm getting. Well, yes, we have been awarded some stimulus money. It's on our website. I have seen the spreadsheet, but I'm not recalling the details. Some of it is for summer youth. Oh, good. I have an expert here. 267 to 278. It's 11 me. Hi. I can give you a ballpark response, Council Member. We've applied for somewhere in the neighborhood, if my memory serves me correctly, in total about $47, $48 million. We've been advised through the funding mechanisms, the normal funding channels, of about $21 or $22 million that is either flowing or will flow through the formula process. there is some streetscape, modest street state money involved in that and a homeless issue. Is that reflected, though, in the budget that you all presented to us in April? No, because we didn't know at that time. I think I already knew the answer to that, but I won't hear you say it. Yes, sir. Well, I mean, is there any gain? We're in a position now where we're going to get some money we didn't anticipate. We have to plug it somewhere because we're not going to spend it out of general funds. Most of it is project-related dollars like Newtown Pike or particular programs like the homeless issue. I think it's about $600,000, if I remember correctly, to go toward helping try to mitigate the homeless issues. So it's one-time dollars that are project-specific or program-specific that don't really help you in the general fund arena. It's not dollars that, you know. Unless we've appropriated money to do the same job in that budget. That's true. We've accepted that premise, and now we're going to get money from another source. I don't think that's the case. I can't say for certain because, as Bill said, there's a pretty substantial list of those things, and they are on the website, and they are current about what we've been notified we will get through the funding formulas that we normally receive funds through, and then what we've applied for, a lot of water quality projects that we've applied for funding that we may or may not get. Okay, thank you. Sorry, I can't be more precise. No, that's okay. I just, you know, didn't want that just to fall off the edge of the table. Yes, sir. Good question. Money is money wherever it comes from. Absolutely, and we're glad to get every dollar that we're receiving. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Beard. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This may not even be general fund related, but when we were getting the update on the cleanup from the ice storm, we heard that we had never even been reimbursed for the previous ice storm. Does that go back into a dedicated fund, or is there some access to that from the general fund? Where does that go? The reimbursement from FEMA. Right. I don't know the details from 2003, but to relate it to the details of 2009, it depends on where the expense was incurred as to where the reimbursement accrual is? Actually, the 2003 is sitting in a separate fund as a receivable right now. And we will be moving the costs related to the 2009 ice storm into a separate fund and booking the receivable as well at year end. And we'll be – we just bill signed those while I was out on medical leave. So we'll be doing those transactions now that we have the final costs during the month of June to move them. Does that make sense? So it's in the separate fund. Any other questions? Mr. Councilmember Beard. This question about the 2003 money, is there nothing we can do in Washington to shake FEMA up and get some money flowing? Or did all the money go to New Orleans? Well, I don't know the details in order to answer that question directly. working with the people on the ground to actually help us process the applications for the 09, we received some sort, I was told, some sort of communique saying that the 2003 payments would be soon. I mean, you know, this is 2009 going into 2010. It goes beyond the ridiculous that we haven't seen that money yet, and I didn't know how we might be able to. I know that in April, the governor had actually appointed personnel to work specifically on this issue to get us our money. We had received phone calls at that time to verify the exact dollar amounts and things like that. So I know that the governor has appointed people to carry that torch, if you will, on our behalf. What is the amount for 2003? I do know what the 2009 is. I would hate to say off the top of my head. I'm sorry. Let me get somebody to run upstairs and pull that number. I'm just curious because it was a bigger event I guess. I want to say that it's a little over a million dollars. That's completely off the top of my head and you got to remember I just came back from medical leave yesterday so I haven't looked at the at that fund specifically since I've been back but I want to say that that's about what it it was right around the million dollar mark that's surprising I guess when you take it into consideration well we received some payment we just haven't received all of it so and now as I said the governor did because we had a gentleman call us from the state and he specifically said that the governor had asked him to follow up with all the cities who had not been page yet to try to make that happen. So they have a task force or something that's worked on that? I'm assuming that he's internally with state employees. So that'll be only three or four more years? Well, hopefully we'll get it before year end. Well, hopefully, yes. Thank you. But it is just a cash flow issue. It's not a revenue. We've already recognized the revenue. You've got it booked as a receivable, I understand. Just like the private sector. Thank you. Mr. Lane. I have just a quick follow-up on the FEMA money. I guess Mary would be the one to answer that. My question is the account receivable is with the State of Kentucky and not with the Federal Government because the money was dispersed to the State to reimburse the cities? Well, actually, we recognize the revenue by who the source came from, but you are correct that the money will come from the state, but it is federal revenue. Okay. So typically it's 75% federal, 12% or 13% state on most disasters, and then the local government will have to pick up 12% to 13%. Okay. So in other words, write the governor. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I've got one follow-up question for you. Do we have time to adjust to the 2010 budget once we get into like the first quarter if we see that the trends are continuing down and particularly in payroll? We can come forward with a budget amendment at any time throughout the year. And that works for expenses as well as revenue. I guess my concern is that, obviously, if we lay a bunch of people off, and no one has said that, but obviously payroll is a huge part of what our expenses are at the city, that if we don't see this declining trend throughout the first quarter, we do have to go back and rehire those people, and we all know how long that takes the city to do. So I guess I know we have a lot of competing interests in balancing the crystal ball, as you say, with what we fear might happen. But do you have a particular recommendation about how to handle that possibility that we're going to be having less revenue and projected particularly in the first quarter? Well, my hope is that we will be able to glean the more information we have, the more data we have to try to glean where we are in this recession curve and how it's affecting LFUCG. We hoped that we would see it when the nation was seeing it in fourth quarter 08. and we're traditionally slow to go into one and then slow to come out. And so that's kind of what seems to be happening. We've been slow to go into it. So now the question is, can we accelerate to get out? So if we can get three months additional September information, I would hope that that gives us more information to make very hard choices and say that we waited as late as we could. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Ellinger. I guess just to follow up on that, what have you gleaned since March that now you have made that we're going to go from 3% to 4.2% and think that we're going to hit that? Well, the continued erosion in net profit. The other is that... I mean from a positive standpoint, because we're raising our revenues, not lowering them. We're raising them from 3 to 4.2 in expectations. So what have we learned from March to now in May that we think that we can hit this budget with more revenue expectations on our projections here? Because you thought 3% was the right thing in March. How can we think now 4.2 is the right thing? I'm just giving you the comparison to a static number, which is the current. Okay, I guess this is the 8.8. What would you say from your standpoint that we need as a council, if you gave us advice, should we go with 4.2 as our recommendation or 3.0 and continue with what you all projected in March when we set our revenues? because I think you have to set your revenues and then have to bring your expenses in. I guess one reason I'm not talking about layoffs, but I'm talking about when we're up here as a council and we're starting to talk about our council links and different groups want different things, we're going to have to start being a little more suspect of what we can add to this budget because we don't have the revenues that we think we're going to have. I think that's exactly correct. So you would still go with the 3% growth expectation, I would think, over the 4.2, would you not? If you had to sit in our position? I can't answer that because I really don't know what it's like to sit there on that horseshoe. But we expect your expertise on this when we make recommendations and estimates. What I would seriously consider is staying with the current 278.8 because a major change in that is a major change in the proposed budget. And major changes take time and analysis to do correctly. So to make a major reduction in the expenses with two days' time is very challenging and is wrought with do we really have enough information to make the best choice possible. Okay, but now we have clear information because you're going to tell us that this year our revenues are going to come in at $267 million. Is that not correct? I am saying that. Okay. And then when we predicated on 273, we did a 4%. Now we're doing our 3%. Now if we do a 3% on 267, that does not equal 278. That equals 275. And I'm recommending. So you're really recommending 4.2% growth then? At this point. and then watch and see what happens in the first quarter. The obvious thing is we have to go back and come up with a reduction plan for the 2010 budget and then see if we have to implement it. But you say go ahead and do the 4.2 and then we'll just come back after the fact and say now we anticipate it's going to be a 3% growth, but now we're going to go ahead and do the 4.2, knowing that we're going to have to eventually cut? Is that the process you would prefer us to do? I think that gives everyone involved the time to study and try to make the wisest choices possible. I don't follow that logic. When you thought that 3% was what the growth was going to be, how have you come up with a different approach that we're going to have more growth now? I just don't see that. I just can't buy into that. Sorry. Mr. Lane is then I'd like to follow up on Council Member Ellinger's comment maybe we're misinterpreting the data there were you putting the 3% and 4.2% just to show the difference from what you're projecting the revenues to be for this year versus next year's budget you were not necessarily recommending that we go with the $278 million budget When I made the presentation, I wasn't recommending anything. I was giving you the facts. Because, you know, my feeling is we need to reduce the revenue forecast because the revenue has been declining progressively worse and worse on a month-by-month basis in the last six months. It's dropped substantially, and it could continue to stay at that level or decline further. So I think the budgeting issue could be very serious for the 12-month period. Now, the only thing that we have really to fall back on now is our rainy day fund, because I think we've reduced operating expenses, personnel, all the costs that we possibly could. I think we've squeezed the budgets as tight as possible. So I would suggest to the council that we might want to look at tweaking the revenue estimate for the coming year to be better prepared for the downturn in the economy. Now, your concern about if we do tweak it now is that you would not have an adequate amount of time to make adjustments to the budget if we changed the revenue estimates? That really wasn't what I was concerned about. But I was concerned about what changes would be made to the expense side. I was assuming that expenses would be reduced by the same amount that you would reduce the revenue so that we would have a structural . And if you go back and look at the previous page in there, let's see. Maybe we don't have that data in here. I was looking at an employee. Unfortunately, employees amount to about 70% of our, yeah, there it is, personnel expense is a substantial amount of our expenses. So I think we have to be very careful on adding personnel in this budgetary period, too. Okay, I'm sort of talking out loud here. Do you have anything you would like to add, Bill? Yes, sir. I have to talk to rating agencies about our bond rating, and they're very much interested in what this government does as far as adoption of a budget. And they look for a structurally balanced budget, and they look for adoption of expenses expenses that can be supported by recurring revenues. And so if you wanted to go to the Rainy Day Fund, that would be a major signal that we were not doing that. And then we would just have to deal with that in our discussions with the rating agencies on our bond rating. And we also have the future year of we have this running rate, these total expenses, and that's how we paid for it in 2010. How do we pay for it in 2011 and 2012 and 2013? So I guess I personally, I see the rainy day fund as an emergency fund rather than a budget balancing funding. So does that mean you're recommending that we need to cut expenses to get our imbalance with our revenue? If you reduce the revenues, then I was expecting you to reduce the expenses by the same amount. And that's why I was saying trying to do that in two days and making wise, informed choices is a much higher challenge than trying to come up with it to put in place after the first quarter. Male Speaker 2, Lexington and Fayette County has the lowest unemployment rate of any community in the state and if we're faced with this type of budgetary constraint, I mean we should be thankful it's not a lot worse under the circumstances. Are you in a position where you would be willing in a short amount of time to actually project the revenue, do new projections based on the current data that you have as to what we might forecast for revenue for next fiscal year? Yes, sir. We can do that. Okay. I think that should be the top priority, and I'd ask you to do that as soon as you could. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Because this is my first budget cycle, being a council member, I'm kind of struggling with the timeline here. You're suggesting that we reduce our expenses to reflect the reduced revenue. Well, you're not suggesting it. No, sir. but that seems to be the reasonable thing to do. But I'm trying to figure out at what point do we go back then and reduce our expenses. Is it after we come back from break? Because I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that's when we determine the tax rate. And so are we going to be reducing these expenses before we set the tax rate or after? That would be the Council's decision. If you make reductions in the expenses this week, then they would be effective July 1, and they would be in place when you come back from break. If you leave the revenues and expenses as currently proposed and then monitor revenues, And those would be changes in the expenses probably after the tax rate is set for property taxes, because that is one of the first things that happen in August when you come back from break or in the end of August in order for property tax bills to be set and then produced for October 1. And at what point do you feel that it's important that we have this balanced budget ready for the bond rating agencies to look at? I mean, is it? They're looking at us every time. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Bill, thank you for standing up there today and shedding light on and answering all the questions the best you can because I know it's a tough job and you're being asked a lot of tough questions. Will you clarify for everyone what the balance is in the Economic Contingency Fund? I think there's some misinformation circulating around Council. I want to say last check it was around $13, $14 million. I think the $13 is close. Just so everyone's clear. Okay. Council Member Beard. Oh, I'm not done. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were. Forgive me. Forgive me. Go ahead. I'm waiting on the number. The current balance is $13,219,619. And in this proposed budget, we don't have the payment going in, the $50,000 a month proposed currently, right? Well, that is correct. The council passed an ordinance that suspended the economic contingency with the anticipation that due to the retirements that you would have to draw into the contingency in the FY 2009 budget. due to the economy or for whatever reasons there were so many fewer retirements that that prediction did not come to pass and we have not made a draw into the contingency. Which brings up the question of if we did not draw into it, the 2009 did not include did not include the $50,000 a month contribution, which is $600,000. And then we had fund balance of about four and a half. This is where I get lost. Sorry, excuse me. Oh, you're fine. There is a calculation of whatever fund balance is, less reserves for this, less reserves for that, less for something-something, then 25% is the addition to the contingency. And so that would be, if we did that from last year, that would be $488. And then if we owed the contingency $50,000 a month for 2009, that would be another $600,000 that would have to be... You mean for 010? For 010? No, I'm talking about 09, because we didn't go into the contingency. in 09. So depending on how that ordinance is interpreted, we're good at 13.2 or we owe them another million dollars and it would be, excuse me, it would be 3.7 million if we have to go and put those other deposits in. And then we have built the 2010 budget assuming that we were not putting the 50,000 in the contingency. Okay. Or the, I don't even know it's a rainy day fund. What is it? Economic contingency fund. I'm sorry. Rainy day. Couldn't come up with the proper term. On the positions in the budget, the personnel positions, the ones that we're projecting to elapse, are we projecting those to the vacant positions to go away July 1? Yes. So all of them will go away July 1, so there's no personnel lapse. Well, excuse me. I thought I was answering your question. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, where I'm going. No, go ahead. Well, we had vacancies, people that were not on the payroll in December, that are not funded in 2010. We also have, in 2010, the anticipation that there will be turnover and people rehired, but that's that $6 million I talked about last week. So that turnover is about $6 million in the personnel category. And that's additional cost or savings? that we're projecting. Savings. Savings. Well, it could be more. It could be less than that throughout the whole year. We just don't know on how those retirements or vacancies will occur. That's correct. So, you know, we're talking about the revenue number today, the 278, and that's what the mayor proposed in his budget. I don't think we're going to have the revenue discussion today. I think we're going to probably keep through all of our council link reports out. But when we do, there is one other option that council can consider, and that's raising more revenue, not by taxes, but there is a way to do that by cutting expenses, and you can increase our revenue number. And I'll be glad Bill hinted at it earlier, but just keep that in mind, Council members. We have a lot of things out there that we don't need anymore, and there are opportunities that we really need to take a serious hard look at. So playing with that number for 278 down $3 million, up $3 million, I don't think anyone's recommending increasing it, but there is a way to balance this budget and still keep a safety net that Bill's talking about, over the first quarter and not dip into the rainy day fund. So just keep that in mind as we continue our discussion. I assume, Vice Mayor, we're not going to have the revenue discussion today. We're going to continue with the council links. Okay, then I'll hold the rest of my comments until the end. Thank you. Council Member Beard, then Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Sure. Walk me through a little bit about what we would do at the end of the first quarter versus what we could do today as far as the expense process. I guess my concern is that when we only have nine months remaining to do anything for 2010, whatever we do is going to be more drastic than what we might do right now, where we have 12 months to do it in as opposed to nine months to do it in. Is that a reasonable assumption? I see where you're – I see your assumption. We have nine months worth of salaries versus 12 months worth of salaries. I was looking at it from a different approach in that we have from now until September to review and discuss where is the best place to do significant cuts versus between now and Tuesday. Well, with 68, 69 percent of our expense being in the salary and employee personnel expense, you would assume that that's where we would start. We'd have to do something in that arena, whether it be anticipated retirements or whatever. whatever. We'd have to model that, I guess, and see what that gives us. I don't know whether we've gone through that process at this point yet or not, as we did last year. You know, we had 205 people or whatever we were sure of going to retire, and it turned out to be 130 or whatever. We modeled what we thought would be a turnover, and that's $6 million. So that's already in there. I do agree with you that if you want to make substantial cuts in the total expense of the government that personnel expense has to be reviewed? Well, it's, you know, if we drive a stake in the ground three months later and then go through the mechanism of doing anything about it, it's probably going to be another three months before we're actually going to be able to see the benefit. and again then we're only going to see the benefit for six of the 12 months so the sooner we start I would think the better off we are if we're confident and I'm taking into consideration what Council Member Stendon has said but from the information I have at this point anyway the earlier we start the better off and the less deep we would have to cut to get where we need to get Please nod your head. Okay. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Beard, Council Member Lawless. So my understanding here is the Mayor submitted the budget to the Council for a review with $278 million projected revenues. Now we're looking at $267 million in revenues. Can I make a clarification? Yeah. We submitted the budget looking at 2009, coming in at $270, and we're now looking at $267. So $3 million. Is the mayor going to submit a revised budget with these figures? I mean, it seems that we're operating with very different information now, and I wonder is this even a good use of our time since whatever we do, you know, What's the mayor going to do as far as addressing this additional shortfall? Well, I think the additional shortfall is being addressed by management of the expenses so that we are not overspent by year end. No, I understand about balancing the budget. What I'm saying is his budget didn't address by the reduction of expenses. and this is maybe a question for Shea or let me see if I'll take a stab and then be glad to let anyone else do any lifting that they'd like. The mayor put together a budget based on the information at the time which was through March and proposed a total budget of $278 million I'm sorry what? The mayor proposed a budget that had a total revenue of $278 million. $278 million. Yes. Okay. That then is then presented to the council, and then the council makes whatever changes they deem appropriate and ratify the budget. In past years, this point in time, whether it's this week or the week before, there was an update on revenue, and revenue was more than what was projected when the mayor put the budget together, which made the review of late items and things that were before the council easier to decide and resolve on. This year the opposite has happened. The revenue appears to be less rather than more. So my perception from not being in the budget seat but just being a part of the government is it's the same process. It is now the council's budget to decide what to do. It's just that the revenue message is the opposite of what we have been so fortunate enough to see in the past. Yeah, that's precisely my point. And so, and again, this may be a question for Shea. We're looking at a budget with almost, I mean, $267 million is $11 million less than $278 million by the math I learned. That's correct. So now we're being asked to take the mayor's budget and trim that much out of it and expenditures and ratify it without his guidance. So I'm wondering, is the mayor going to speak to this and address this? Seems like the projections were very, very high. We've known we've been in a terrible recession and close to depression. So is he going to make some adjustments to the budget for our review with these newly projected decline in revenues? And again, I know that's not your, you can't answer that. That's why I say this may be a question for Shea or Mr. Kelly. I don't know. I agree with everything that Bill has said thus far. One of the problems that Irving County government has is we are required to present our budget fairly early. Other cities such as Louisville, you'll know that Mayor Abramson presented his budget just within the past few weeks. The luxury of having more time allows you to have this kind of information. At this point, the budget is technically in the Council's hands. The Mayor has proposed the budget. Just like in years past and just like we do now, revenue projections are just projections. And so we are forced to continually evaluate our revenue coming in based on our expenses. For example, this year, FY09, we started with a 10% budget cut at the beginning of the year. Towards the end of the year, the mayor put in an additional 5% cut across the board. And we had a hiring freeze. Last week we dealt with why aren't we hiring every single person. That's how we have to manage throughout the year. So we're talking about the potential to make significant cuts, which would be probably in the personnel area. We can make those decisions at any point throughout the year. It doesn't have to be within the budget cycle. So our recommendation would be to, at this point, go with the revenue estimates we've made. Which ones? The ones that we presented. Originally. Okay. And if throughout the first quarter or the following quarters we see that the revenue projections are not coming in where we had anticipated, then we can make adjustments at that time. So will the council have the opportunity to participate in those decisions about what is cut? Because I think the frustration I feel is that, well, one, that we're being handed a budget that's going to be significantly less in revenues, and we don't know what the administration has planned for meeting those with cuts and expenditures. and secondly that we spend, you know, hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours in studying this, and then whatever we pass, then the administration adjusts accordingly without our input, I guess. And so that's what I'd like to know is, is this an exercise in futility for us? Because if now we're looking, if you're suggesting that we pass a budget with the $278 million in revenue, obviously it's very likely by every indicator out there that that's not going to be realized. And so then the administration will cut that wherever they see fit and understand that you've explained that that's the administration's job. But will the council, if we pass a $278 million budget and put in expenses that match that and that is not realized, are we going to have another bite at the apple? and be able to weigh in on what of those expenses get cut? I think the answer is yes to that. And it depends on what type of recommendation the mayor is going to make. For example, if we wanted to do layoffs, for example, we would have to come, I believe, someone can correct me if I'm wrong here, but the way we do layoffs is the procedure is written into ordinance, and we have to actually come before the council to authorize us to make those changes. As it relates to operating, you know, the budget is just that. It's a budget that we operate in. And so if the mayor asks people not to do travel anymore, not to buy food anymore, those types of things, I don't think that would necessarily come to the council. But if it's a major change such as... Or if he decides not to fill positions. I think that is correct that we have the authority, if you will, to not move forward with that. However, for, I mean, just a basic good practice, I do think that the mayor would be very open to having conversations with council members and trying to take the temperature of the council of where you might stand on the decisions he would make as it relates to whether or not to hire people. That would be a welcomed change in opportunity. And I don't want to get into saying that you would necessarily, I don't know the legality of it, that you would pass something. But the conversation, the door is always open for, you know, just like with the directors and the commissioners who had to make the case for why, if we are going to add people into the budget, the mayor's proposed budget that we made has some new positions in it. That was based on arguments, proponents of adding the positions. And the case was made and the mayor agreed, which is why you see it. And so, you know, we're faced with all of the information that you are in trying to end the year with a balanced budget. And I know that he would welcome the input from the council. Well, again, the issue for me is when, for long periods of time, positions that the council and I think the community have deemed as very, very important don't get filled. And so if we pass this budget at this high amount and put those positions like code enforcement back in the budget, then we don't have an opportunity to say, okay, wait a minute. instead of not hiring code enforcement officers, which is critical to the neighborhoods in downtown and often a life safety issue, we're not going to have an opportunity to do that because the administration has the opportunity not to fill those positions and instead of making cuts that maybe we as the council might seem deemed more appropriate. Are you following me? I am following you, but I think we're also, and I think the best I can do right now is say that we'll just have to communicate throughout the budget year. But I think the immediate issue we're facing now is how to deal with changing information based on revenue projections. And that's why I asked the question. I mean, my original question was, is he going to, is the mayor going to give us some ideas of if he were sitting here today, what would he cut in those expenses? And, you know. Right. Because I would really like to know where he would be going with that. I think we're going to caucus for a moment. Okie dokie. I have exited the caucus before they finish talking because I have the information I have. The mayor has just been given this information as well about 8 o'clock last night, so he hasn't had time to fully examine it either. I can tell you in the past, both as Bill had mentioned, when we've been in the situation where once the council gets the budget, there's suddenly more money expected, we have made suggestions on how that would be spent. We've also talked collectively with the council before about working on a budget reduction plan in the event that revenues don't come out the way they will. So I think that we, and how detailed it might be under the time circumstances, I don't know, but I do think we have a few things we could recommend. end. And for example, one of our, and I'm not going to make this recommendation now, but if you see the cuts that we propose, they're around the 10% or less range. If you recall, we started off going up to that 15% range. And what we found in that 15% range was you're talking about laying off people. So you have that opportunity. We're not proposing that at this juncture. I don't want people to get all upset yet. And then as Council Member Elaine said. You've got the rainy day fund. So I do think that we will go back and talk with the mayor and come back as soon as possible with some additional thoughts. That would be really helpful for two reasons. One, the mayor has at his disposal a huge staff to do this. Comparatively speaking. Big, but staff not. And of course brilliant Mr. Kelly, but a lot more resources than we do, and I appreciate having this information, new information to deal with at the final hour because that's the position we're in. So, again, what I'm looking for is what his recommendations of cutting expenses might be because I don't want to pass a $278 million budget with things that this council think are extremely important that get cut through the administrative process as the year goes on without any input. I would rather know where we're going and how we're going to get there. So that's my point, and thank you very much. and hope you enjoyed your caucus and next time bring donuts for us. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member James and Council Member Gordon. Andrew, just one second beforehand. Just for looking at schedule and time, just a sense of the council, a pleasure of the council, So we may want to try to move on looking at these after Council Member Gordon's comments, looking at the link report outs. Do you all think we need to do that, or do we need to just stick with this conversation? I'm just trying to get a sense since we're 1030. My comment is very quick. Okay, and I'm not truncating either of you all's. I'm thinking after yours and after Andrew's that we would go ahead with that sense. Okay. So we can start chopping at these individual items. Okay. Council Member James. Thanks, Vice Mayor. A couple of comments and then a couple of questions probably for Mr. O'Meara. Um, uh, Shay mentioned that, you know, Louisville, Louisville's mayor just presented his budget recently. And the process, um, as we've heard before, urban county government is a unicorn in the way that we operate. And Louisville does a process where pretty much by the time that budget comes forward, there's been a lot of conversation between all the council members, the administration, directors, commissioners, and such, that there is a lot of agreement by the time that that budget comes forward, and it's pretty transparent, very inclusive in how they come to those budget recommendations. So that's one reason, you know, like I think within 48 hours of the time of which it's presented, it's passed by council because they have that working together collaborative spirit as they're creating it. That's not placing blame on one arm or the other. That's just stating that the process by which we do things here at Urban County Government do not necessarily facilitate a pleasant ending when it comes to passing something. So just a plug for restructuring right there. Also, Shay mentioned that last week we had to deal with why are we not hiring? And that was something that came up. It's not just that I think, you know, Shay, from my perspective, and what I found on our link, and what I found not even on the link, but on committees that I serve in divisions of government with which I work, we can see the results, we can see the negative impact of employees that are not hired for a particular purpose that really is a positive result for the government. So it's not just that we want seats or vacancies filled. It's that there's purpose that was intended. There are programs. There's reasoning and intent for which some people make those recommendations. Now, I do understand that there's vacancies that have been vacant for years and positions that are still in place, some of those funding gets put in year after year. Sometimes the funding does not get put in at all, but that position still sits there. Another plug for some type of restructuring or reevaluation of are there vacancies that have been vacant for five years and those positions still pop up on an org chart and we're still considering that their strength, full strength base or whatever. Do we need to start looking at how efficient our government is being run and whether we need to have less people with more pay? We need to look at that, especially if there's vacancies in divisions of government. So everything, I don't want anyone to get the impression that council members just want every vacancy filled. We are, many of us, probably all of us, have had some interaction with the division of government where a position has not been filled and they really need it. They really do need it. But then when you bring it forward on an individual basis to council, they go, oh, there's a holistic issue here. We need to look at everything as a whole. If we don't set a precedent for filling some of those positions, and really when we've talked to directors and commissioners and employees and we see the result of not having those people, we really need to start doing something different because every year we say, we need to look at it as a whole. We've got to do something different. If that means resolving that positions be filled, then we need to do that. If it's not going to be, if the first thing that we're going to do when it's time for, when it's time to see that we've got to balance the budget is that we don't fill positions, I don't know that that helps anything. So that's just kind of So to answer, you know, last week we had to hear why are we not hiring. That's why we have to hear it, because we are seeing the results of that. My question is for Mr. O'Mara. You mentioned that you see the economic contingency as an emergency fund. What constitutes an emergency in your definition? Catastrophic event would be the first thing that would come into mind. The tornado. Ice storm? Yes, those type of things. Okay. That's the first thing that I would think of is why it's there. Okay. And is there an ordinance or resolution attached to that economic contingency fund? Does anybody know? There is an ordinance. And the wording that goes with that economic contingency, does it define by which means that can be used? Does someone have that language they can share? Mary, you're shaking your head as if you know it well. It defines by which, how the calculation for the amount of the draw can, you know, what the parameters that can trigger a draw are. And it is a change in our top three revenues by more than, I'm looking to Elizabeth, But by more than, I think that, yeah, if the projected increase is less than the average increase for the past three years, I believe it is, then it will trigger a draw, and it's mathematically calculated how much the draw can be. Is that appropriate in this situation? I would think not. Okay. You know, not at this point. Now, after, you know, we're talking about revenues. This decline in revenues really has dramatically happened in the last two months. So do we want to take drastic action when our revenue, when most of our expenses are personnel related for a two-month trend? You know, I would think not. But we may, as Bill said, after the first quarter, we see if it seems like it's going to continue and that it's not just a late payment issue or things like that. Then we may need to take action. And at that point, we may do a combination. I mean, or you guys may want to do a combination. And then if you say, okay, we may want to lay off but use the economic contingency to fund, you know, the time period that it takes to achieve the layoffs, perhaps, then that may be appropriate. Okay. But I think that, you know, to just use it to balance the budget is not a good tactic. Okay. At some point, it would be nice if we could go over that language with economic contingency, because if that's an ordinance or resolution passed by council, we may need to evaluate that language and see if it's appropriate for the trends that we see and when we need to capture that and really look at that. Because I don't know if it's done at this point or if it's done on a monthly basis we look at that and kind of pull it in as we see it needed. But it feels like there's a flaw within our process flow because right now we're trying to project for the rest of the year, for the fiscal year, and we may make decisions right now based on assumptions that we don't know when we may have a policy in place that we could actually deal with those situations at the point at which they're needed. Well, and I would advocate that, you know, that perhaps maybe the economic contingency fund is not the one to use that, but maybe the unrestricted fund balance. But you're absolutely right, and as Shea spoke to, the timing that we are required to follow. You know, a lot of governments have the luxury of waiting until April results come in. And, well, April results are very, very important to us, and we don't have that luxury here at the Irving County Government to wait for those when the mayor is proposing this budget. I would also recommend that if you haven't already got this sitting in a file somewhere, bring forward to council recommendations for changes within our budget process that would make it more efficient so where we can get to a more balanced budget and a more collaborative budget better than this process, because I think it's flawed. I agree. I agree. Bill and I, it's first time through the process, and we both agree with you 100%. Thank you. I also had a question. I don't know who's going to answer this, but someone mentioned a budget reduction plan had been proposed at some point to get with council to talk about setting up a process for budget reduction. So if revenues don't come in as they should, what's our process, and do we have kind of a step, you know, if A, if step one doesn't happen, if this happens, then we'll do this. If this happens, then we'll do this. And something that council could agree to at the time at which we set the budget so that we don't feel like we have no idea what happens once it leaves our hands, does the mayor make a decision to not fill positions, does the mayor make a decision to not buy a piece of equipment, you know, or something like that that council has passed through. Well, there is not one on the shelf you pull off and say, here, read it at your leisure. I may, I don't know the phrase or who furnished that, but what I was saying was, instead of trying to make significant changes to the budget in a couple of days, that we work on that now over the summer so that when the first quarter results or after two months or three months, then we've already put the work into it with a lot of time and effort and thought rather than what might be allowed to be done in a very short period between now and next Tuesday. Okay. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to working with you on that to try to better the process and do whatever we can do because we, I think as far as I'm concerned, I feel like once, when it comes from the mayor, it's kind of, it's in our lap. And then once we get new information like this, then it's a whole other mind frame. So you've had all these conversations with directors and commissioners, even other folks trying to figure out what we feel like is needed. And then you give that back and now it becomes the adopted budget. but then you just feel like you're kind of walking around with your eyes closed for the rest of the year, trying to figure out, did everything get filled, and is everything going forward as we thought, because you have an assumption of how you think things will go. And I'm just looking for a way for it to be a little bit more binding in some way and not feeling like that we're giving it up as a council for whatever to happen. Thank you. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Blues is on the edge of his seat, edge of his perch, wanting to get ahead with his Council links reports. However, Councilmember Gorton and Councilmember Lawless have queued up, and Councilmember Gorton has already said she has a sound bite, not a soliloquy, and I'm sure it's the same with Councilmember Lawless, so then we'll move right ahead. Councilmember Blues, you're ready to roll. But Council Member Gordon and then Council Member Lawless first. Thank you. Thank you for the sound bite. Just a quick comment about Louisville's process, and I was going to mention what Council Member James did. I suspect that they do not have a charter such as we do, which requires the mayor to prepare the budget and present it, and then we work with it and approve it. And I have a feeling that might be the difference there is that their charter doesn't limit their budget process. And I think that might be one big difference. And so we're kind of in the middle of this process where we followed the charter and the mayor has presented us the budget. And so here we are. That's my sound bite. And we're working with it. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. Just one quick, and you don't have to answer it right now, but one of the things that has given me a great deal of stress is it doesn't seem that this budget addresses, nor have I seen a budget addressing the expense to the city for the World Equestrian Games. at the end of this fiscal year will be about six weeks away from thousands and thousands of people, which means code enforcement, waste management, police, fire, how we're going to address that, and if not in this budget. So, again, I'm not looking for an answer. I'm just throwing out a question and something I would like the administration and the council to take into consideration because I'm still very concerned about that. Thank you. Okay. All right. Council Member Blues, we know that you've been patient. And now you're ready to go. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. You're going to begin. You want to tell us where you left off and where we're starting and that sort of thing? Well, where we left off, if you look at the spreadsheet that Jerry gave us late yesterday, we are at E1, Office of Policy and Budget and Budgeting. And I won't recapitulate our report out of a few weeks ago, but our link does recommend, and I so move that the Office of Policy and Budget position be eliminated, and that the council fund the position of Director of Budgeting. So move it. Second. There's a motion and a second. So the floor is open for discussion. Council Member Lane is up, and then Council Member James. I would like to suggest to the council that perhaps we reduce the compensation for the Office of Policy and Budget position to, say, $123,000, the same as for the Director of Budgeting so that there's no budgetary issue here. But instead, to go ahead and fund the Office of Policy and Budget, which is a position appointed by the Mayor, whereas the Director of Budgeting is a civil service type position, but it's not appointed by the Mayor. Because I think as Mayor, the Mayor needs to have a lot of input on the budgeting process and have somebody that he can work with and has confidence in is very important. Therefore, there would not be any budgetary issue. It would just be a matter of it being a civil service versus an appointed position by the mayor. So I'd like to make a – I don't know how I would like to address this. I would just like to say that's my thinking on it. I would ask that maybe other council members can comment on that. Perhaps we can modify your motion accordingly. Thank you. Vice Mayor, if I can follow up. Yes, sir. Just for a second. In our link discussion, we felt that we had to make a choice between the advisor and the of the overall long-distance or more visionary position, and the need to restore a management structure and a hands-on director to make sure that the day-to-day work of the office is done and is participated in. So that was our rationale, that given the choice, we opted for the director of budgeting rather than for the advisory position. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Blues, just clarification. The link recommendation would be to absolutely eliminate this position from the org chart so it would not even exist on the org chart anymore. That's correct. Okay. Is there anyone that answers to that person? Is there anyone beneath that person, or is it kind of a standalone? I'm visualizing the org chart. Is it a standalone square? Are they in an order, ranking order or something? I'm a little vague on that, but I think it's a standalone and it reports to the mayor. Okay. Thank you. I was just going to add that there is one report to the senior advisor, and that's the director of budgeting. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Kessler-Lane, could you repeat your motion? You did make a motion, correct? You did not make that in a formal motion? No, I did not. I just asked for comment from the council because, you know, to me, you know, the issue is a matter of management issue and being able to get something turned around. I'm just curious about it. You did some math there, and I was just trying to verify those numbers, but that's okay. You know, one key issue regarding these two positions, This body voted two years ago in the budget to put the director of policy and budget in the budget. We did feel that, and unfortunately we lost that individual midstream. But, you know, some of the, you know, there's a lot of issues here at play. I think a hybrid between a budget director and a director of policy and budget is what we all really are looking for because we need someone hands on the ground in budgeting to work with our budgeting folks, prepare the budget, get those numbers to it as we need it. But we also need someone who can think about long-term policies. I mean, all of us have brought up a lot of great policies and budget, and we need someone who can also fill that role, too, and direct the city. And, you know, on the federal level, the president appoints his director of policy and budget. State level, the governor appoints his director of policy and budget. And there's no reason why it wouldn't be effective here on our local level. We just haven't tried it. We tried two years ago, but we couldn't keep someone in that role. And now is an opportune time to keep it in there and go forward and have that person on the ground in budgeting, but also fill the role of a director of policy and budget. You know, we can always go back the other way. We just haven't tried it this way in 35 years in this government. And, you know, now's an opportune time with both positions being vacant is to merge them into one and have a hybrid system where that person is over-budgeting, but they're also working on the policy issues. And, you know, I've seen it work both ways, you know, with the mayor being able to appoint, that works out great, and with the director staying consistent with government, can also work out too. But in this case, it is such a critical issue. Budgeting is such a difficult position to fill. I think being able to go out there and search and find the best person for our city to fill the budgeting and policy role gives the mayor the flexibility to do that if we leave it as a director of policy and budget. And I think it's a critical need that we would see a lot of benefit long term. So I would make the motion. Well, you already put it on a motion, right? I'll just leave that motion as it stands and then may make another one after that. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Meyers. No, sorry, Council Member Beard, then Meyers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Standard, you were suggesting then that we would have an individual who would actually work in the budget office and manage the staff of the budgeting, but who would also be a visionary and an advisor to the mayor on policy issues that could affect the budget? Is that what you're saying, the hybrid? That's what I would envision. I also advise the council. I mean, they work for the government and for the citizens, so I mean, advise us as well. It's no different than the mayor appointing a police chief, a fire chief, et cetera. They all still work for us, too, even though they get to appoint them and we confirm them. It's nothing different from this, nothing different from a CAO position, et cetera. I would agree with that, definitely. In other words, we're essentially going to be abolishing two positions and adding one. Is that correct, essentially? But I'm just trying to get what we're going to call this individual. We can call it whatever you want. Well, I wouldn't have a problem with the policy and budget advisor. You know, what they do on a day-to-day basis isn't necessarily mentioned in all the various job titles that we have. I'm just concerned that we do need a management on site for the budget office. And I would agree that we also need the visionary piece too. So however we get there, one person to do essentially two jobs or two positions right now would work. And I assume that's, you're in agreement, Councilmember Blues, or not? As Chairman of the Link, are you in agreement that we're talking about doing away with that job title, but not necessarily what the job entails, that that person could actually function as an advisor in addition to being the manager? Certainly the Director of Budgeting could function as an advisor as well. So I think we all would agree with that. Can I add something? I think that in the mayor's proposed budget, that's how he envisioned this position operating. I wasn't present for the links committee meeting. I was out on medical leave. But I think that inherently the mayor's intention is for the Office of Senior Budget Advisor position to take on the role of director in addition to being that visionary. So I think that's what he's planned in his, you know, when he proposed the budget. But in either case, one of the other positions would be dissolved. Right. I think technically we can't abolish the director of budget position because it's a charter position. But I think that you guys can make the decision to support the mayor in our recommendation that we don't fund the director and that we fund the senior advisor role. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Can you help with the – I think, Council Member Lawless, are you suggesting you can help with this question that's on the floor now? Well, I think my point was that we had gotten into discussing a motion that hadn't been made yet. But that being said, I think the key difference here is whether or not this is an appointed position by the mayor or is this a budgeted civil service position. And I think that's probably at the essence of the difference between the two. and so Okay, Council Member, thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. O'Meara, can you come up for a second? In the Council Link discussion, there's a lot of discussion about this and a lot of discussion about the two different positions and the two different roles in government that they have. We got a very strong recommendation from Mr. O'Meara as well as Connie Underwood that if they had a choice they would want to see the budget director hired, not this other position filled. And one of the reasons is because they need somebody on the ground doing the work and managing the day-to-day office. And so do you want to elaborate a little bit? You talked also about, and there's a reason why the number, excuse me, the dollar amount is there for the budget position because there's something else that's involved with that. And Mr. O'Mara talked about the need to have that 30,000-foot look at things and that visionary person, but that along with that, that's really a whole other, not necessarily a division of government, but several people that needed to be involved into that process. And that's another conversation that we need to have for another day on how do we get the... Boots on the ground person in the Division of Budgeting to run the office day to day and make sure the work that gets done needs to get done. And then at some point, we need to determine if we want to have this other person that is going to be involved with visioning and looking at future projections and a whole lot of different things. Can you talk about what we put some money in there for a study also to be done? Let me see if I can clarify. The conversation was twofold. One point that I was trying to make is that there's a difference. There's a lot of accounting, number crunching, paper pushing, and maintenancing a legal budget. There's a lot of volume there. And so there is that constant attention and administrative responsibility that the Department of Budgeting, the Division of Budgeting is responsible for doing. And that's a function of the legalities of the budget in our government. And so there's a lot of that going on. There's so much of that going on that everyone is involved in that piece. And so if you want 30,000-foot evaluations, if you want to try to develop an economist approach, economic indicators, more sophisticated projections, that type of thing, we need those skill sets within the urban county government in order to bring that value to both council and to the administration. So how do you want to accomplish that? Do you want to do it with an executive who is appointed by the mayor who has those skills to envision? You're still going to need somebody to crunch those numbers as to linear regression or whatever those – my mind's gone blank. But anyway, there's a whole body of mathematics for economic forecasting and that type of thing. That's a skill set that we don't have within the urban county government. We also need, and that is where the staff of budgeting needs, supervision and management of the administrative process and putting the budget together and getting it accurate. So we need that skill set and that work group for us to be a major city. We are lacking that. And so that is the recommendation for having the policy part added to the budget and policy department or division. There are multiple ways of doing that. One way, if council and the link was not comfortable with recommending the policy person, I did suggest that one way to put our foot into that pond was to put outside service money in there for trying to get that skill set from the University of Kentucky. University of Kentucky has a department, has a program going to advise and to done econometrics, I think whoever, and those type of things. And so that we could try that on for size and see if that puts some of those skill sets into the purview of the budgeting. But we still need someone to use that information after it's crunched and given to us. Does that help clarify what you were wanting to address? Yes, it does. Okay. Thank you. So the link then made the recommendation to fill the budgeting director position so they can get the boots on the ground person to help manage and also help do that work. And then there's also money in that salary. The money that you're talking about, Mr. Lane, you thought that there would be not a budget impact if we just filled the other position. So this one, what we don't want to do is advertise how much money we were willing to spend on the study. And so we were trying to link the two together. So that's why that number is what it is, and it's bigger than it looks like it would need to be if all you're going to do is hire a budget director with that money. But that was our way of doing both what the Division of Budgeting requested and needs, and that's a boots-on-the-ground person to manage and help them get the work done, but then also, like Mr. Amara said, put our foot in the other pond and get some real information from UK at a much lesser cost than hiring this visionary person and then not having any resources for that person to work with. And then down the road, based on what comes back in that report, then the council can look at next year's budget and determine what direction it wants to go. So that's the reason for our recommendation. Thank you. Mayor Redekop, Mayor Mrakas, Councilmember Beard. I just wanted to say that the mayor's staff, the commissioners, the senior advisor, all have a visionary function in and of themselves. And I'm not sure we actually need another visionary on top of that. So I want to reinforce the idea of an individual in the budget office. And the mayor, I'm sure, gets plenty of advice from the other senior staff. And I don't think we need another person. Maybe Mr. Kelly might have a different approach to that. If you'd like to respond, that would be fine. Thank you, Council Member. I would just say that when John Kubine was here with us a year or so ago, unfortunately he had to leave because of some personal matters. But he was on site. He was in the budget office, and he did bring a perspective to that office that had been, I believe, missing. Not that the folks who were there are not very, very fine, capable people who do a great job, but the fact of the matter is having someone who has other experiences outside of this particular organization, we found to be very beneficial. Mr. Kubine was a voracious reader and researcher, but he also was a numbers crunching maniac. He loved crunching the numbers and he loved finding out ways to do things differently and be a little more creative sometimes perhaps than the formula driven process that we had done, done, I think, again, because that's how we've done it. And generally that worked okay. But it's so important, I think, for whomever the mayor is to have someone in that position who they have confidence in, the chemistry's good, they understand budgeting, and they understand the mandates that are required to get a good budget put together and get before you and be able to talk to you about not only the numbers, but the policy implications of those numbers. So I think what we envisioned was this person that we respectfully ask that you support and fund would work in the budget office and would be providing that day-to-day supervision but would also have this larger role of advising and researching and working with whatever entities, UK perhaps, but whatever entities or whatever sources of best practices they can locate. The opportunity for John Kubine, I guess in my opinion, John Kubine was a great addition to the team without a doubt. He really was. But finding those types of individuals is not the easiest task on earth. And we may not be able to get anybody to replicate the talent and his approach to things. I always liked his approach to things. He didn't necessarily speak from on high. He had a down-to-earth approach, which made people on the council, I think, more comfortable in the role he was in. I could not agree more. I do think that there are talented folks out there who would be probably interested and willing. It's easier to find that talent if the senior executive, if the mayor is able to recruit and bring in and interview and come to a level of comfort, not only that they're professionally capable and gifted, but also the chemistry is good, and then they come before you for confirmation. You get a sense of whether or not you think they're a fit, as opposed to going through the other system, the other process, whereby the ability to test those intangibles, the chemistry issue, the things that you think would make them really effective, you're not allowed to do that necessarily. So being able to recruit what you perceive to be the best available folks and try to get them on your team, And then the next mayor, the next council might want to go a different direction. But we really, really would appreciate your consideration to allowing us to maintain this position, fill it, let them have responsibility for the budget preparation. There's a good team there who do a good job. And, you know, ideally you'd fill both positions, but we think we don't need to do that. We think that we have the ability to manage without filling both positions. Well, I mean, that's what the link was attempting to do is obviously to save some money. And we thought there was some redundancy there that wasn't necessarily needed, and we did need somebody in the office to actually manage the office. And so I guess the way I feel about it would be that we have to dissolve one position or the other to actually see the savings and see that the savings will be ongoing. The charter indicates that the title would have to be budget director. Now, how he functions and what the title is are two different things. And maybe we need to relook at what those salary levels are and readjust and come up with, again, a hybrid, as Council Member Stenet mentioned, that would fill all the roles that are needed and at the same time save the city some money. Thank you, Vice Mayor. If I could respond to that also. I think that it's important for the council to understand that what we heard from the link and Connie Underwood in particular, who has been a very well-respected member of our budgeting team for a long time and retired, that it was clear that what they need on the ground is a boots-on-the-ground person to help manage that office and be there day-to-day in doing those operations. And that when we had that other position, the senior advisor position, filled, although Mr. Cubine was excellent at what he did, it didn't provide what they needed in terms of that budgeting office. And so I would say that we need to do what the recommendations on LINC is, and that is to go ahead and fill the director of economic – or not economic development, but director of budgeting position, and then we can go ahead and abolish this position. The other thing that came up in this conversation was if you have the person that is the senior advisor and somehow you try to morph those two positions into one, the first problem with that is that the budgeting director is a civil service position and that would have to be dealt with. And it's not an appointed position. The second thing is that if you only have the senior advisor, then what you're relying on is the politics coming back into this person working for the mayor rather than being the budget director that is going to manage that office, that's going to bring continuity to government throughout time. So I see shades coming down. And I want to say also that I think we're also missing the point here is what we're here today to do, and that is the budget's been given to the council. So the council is supposed to be reporting out its links and determining what it wants to do with the budget rather than continuing to engage the administration back and forth on what the administration wants. We know what they want. They provided it to us. We need to determine what we're going to do and then move forward with that. So I think we need to call the question on this and move forward with the motion that's on the floor. So moved. Okay, there's a motion on the floor and a second. Let's call the question. All in favor? Oh, there's a discussion on that. What's the proceed? Is there discussion on the call of question? No. All right. So all in favor of calling the question, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. All right, then ready to vote. There is a motion and a second. All in favor of the motion. Yeah, Dr. Blues, would you repeat the motion? The motion is to eliminate the Office of Policy and Budget and to fund the position of Director of Budgeting. Okay, everybody clear? All in favor of the motion as stated, please say aye. All opposed, please say, all opposed say, or vote electronically aye. All opposed, no. Okay. The motion does carry. All right. Dr. Blues, you may continue. The other link, I'm sorry. The other link motion related to this matter as Council Member Myers brought up is the fund an economic forecasting study or studies and the amount is at $29.830. So moved. So motion and a second. Floor is open for discussion. And there is no discussion here. Okay. Council Member Feigl, then Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. My question would be that would this study be done with the goal of trying to identify the skill sets that we've been talking about this morning before we hired the person? So what is this study with UK supposed to achieve? Councilman Blues. As I understand it, these economic forecasting studies would give the government, both the administration and the council, some longer vision in economic development and in preparing future budgets. The study was not to look at whether or not we need the person to do the forecasting. It was actually to begin to do some of that forecasting for us. The study to do the forecasting. Right, right. Don't they already do that? Mr. O'Meara, could you come up and talk a little bit about... Don't they do that economic summit? I would suggest that the term study is creating confusion or might be an inappropriate description. I see this as an outside service agreement for services rendered, and those services would be determined by LFUCG. And the suggestion that I had put forth was, and I stumble on this term, econometrics, and to see what information they did have available, what they could develop, that could help us determine some forecasting techniques. So it's not a study. It's hiring them to furnish those services. So it's really more professional services. Does that help clarify? Yes, it does for me. Thank you. Council Member Stenet. I was just curious about how this would differ from what we just went through, the exercise with Ken Trowski and Merle High Barton folks on the Fiscal Policy Task Force. We got that free, and they forecasted for us, and there's some great information in there that was presented to this council. I don't know if everyone read it all the way through, but a lot of that work has already been laid into that report, and we just haven't digested it. I think there's a lot of information that we would be paying for that we already have received for free. So I'll vote against that motion right now going forward. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I had a similar question. Mr. O'Mara, I know that you have been around a little while, and I know under previous administrations, even going back to Pam Miller, we worked with a group of folks who would do forecasting, And as I recall, it was an informal arrangement. And so I have a similar question about, well, I guess, number one, are we continuing to do that with folks from the University of Kentucky and folks from the economic field? And number two, is there a way to do this without hiring out the service? because like Councilmember Stenet said, I know that the University of Kentucky, part of their, part of the requirement there is that you do work that is considered community service oriented. Well, I really feel that there's a confusion as to what we're talking about their services. So let me see if I can clarify. Okay, that would be good. Let me try to use the state forecasting or consensus group as an analogy. The people that go to the state and serve on that consensus forecasting are doing that pro bono from my understanding. But the data that they look to the staff at the state budgeting office in order for them to make educated and informed forecasts is what we're talking we're talking about getting. The data. The data and how it's compiled. For instance, the state, and I'm going to have to apologize, but I don't remember the name of the company, but it's a world-renowned company that does economic forecasting. You hire them. You get all of this economic data that they compile for you. Then staff takes that information and puts it into presentation material. can the economist use that information in order to make an educated forecast? We don't have those first two parts. So we're going to explore using UK to try to find those first two parts to obtain the data and to put the data into informational settings. Then whomever could use that data to make a more informed forecast. So that's kind of clarification. Now to go back, we have periodically since I've been here met with economists from the academia world to assist us with some forecasting. It has never been an ongoing and consistent group. That is one of the recommendations from that task force was to put that together and use it on a regular basis, but to also get the data that they could then use to make a more informed forecast. So would this amount of money, the $29,000 some, would that, and maybe this is more a question for the link, would that amount of money pay for the data for one year? I don't know. Is that the idea? That number is the difference between one salary and the other. And so it's a number to start with to start a discussion to find out what we can obtain for an amount of money. Thank you. You want to say something, Council Member Blues? You look like, Council Member Myers, I think you all look like you wanted to amplify on that. All right. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just to clarify, Mr. Amara, sorry. You need to sit closer. You said that this would fund the first two parts of a – basically this would fund the first two parts so that we could go to another company to do forecasting. Did I understand you correctly? No, ma'am. That is what I was trying to say. What I was trying to run an analogy with is what the State of Kentucky Budget Office does. And they actually have a contract with a third party to get econometrics. Then they have staff in order to interpret that information and present that to the consensus forecasting group. We do not have either of those skill sets or information within the urban county government. So what the 29,000 would be to try to see where we could best get either one or both of those pieces. We don't know. To be able to do this consensus forecasting? To get better information to a consensus forecasting group. Okay. Thank you. Does that help? Yeah, that answers my question. Thank you so much. Council Member Stenet. Mr. O'Meara, you hit on a point. You know, the state utilizes this information and budgets every two years on a two-year cycle. Because LFUCG, we budget annually, and we're practically working on the budget nine months into our fiscal year, or six to nine months into our fiscal year, how valuable would that data really be in balancing our budget on an annual basis? And don't we already get this information or have access to it from the ICMA that we paid for last year's budget, from other cities that are doing the same kind of analysis? Have we tapped into that data source that we're paying for? And there's some economic data I know in there. I'm just curious how valuable that data you're talking about could be to us because we balance the budget on an annual basis. Well, first off, I don't know is the correct answer to your questions. The information that the state gets, I believe they get quarterly. And then I'm not familiar with how often the consensus forecasting group meets, but I think it's at least twice a year. So it's not used once every two years, is my impression. Again, I'm not knowledgeable of the state policy. I'm not aware of us having access to the information that I'm not sure exactly what types of econometrics, because I'm not an economist, that we best serve us to do this. So this is the skill set that is not in the urban county government. Too late, the vote's over, but that's part of what that policy and advisor would bring forward that would have that kind of knowledge and know where to go and what type of information is needed in order to build this. Thank you. Council Member Beard. One more comment. And maybe this is more for Council Member Stenet, but we've already recognized the fact that Lexington is somewhat unique in how they react to economic downturns And to get information from ICMA that would be at all valid would worry me somewhat, because, again, I just don't think that blend of information we might get would be skewed toward what the general economy of the United States is and not necessarily what's happening here in Kentucky and especially in central Kentucky. so I still support the idea of approaching the University of Kentucky for at least one year and see what they can do for us. They're a little closer to us geographically and they're all residents of Fayette County, so I assume. and, again, I think money well spent. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay, Council Member Feigl. Just one quick thing. I've, on two occasions, attended an economic summit that the university put on here in town, and from my recollection, it was extremely specific information about Fayette County and about the state. and it is, I think, provided so that bankers and real estate agents and, I mean, brokers and everybody can kind of begin to forecast what the future looks like. And to me, that was a very valuable meeting to attend and watch the information as that came out. And I think if there was a piece of information that the city needed that's very specific and not included in that, And I'm sure that at least I would think that UK would certainly be amenable to including that in their next economic forecast because what they're trying to do really is to help us improve our forecasting efforts. So I think that that opportunity is already there. So I would be voting against this. Is there any more discussion? Hearing none, we have a motion to second and ready to vote. All in favor of this item, please indicate by saying aye, voting aye, and all opposed electronically vote nay. Motion fails. Okay, Mr. Blues, internal auditing is next. Just a little bit of housekeeping here. we're at 1130 I think some folks have ordered lunches they'll be in the caucus room between 12 and 1 intergovernment starts at 1 intergovernment committees schedules start at 1 I want y'all to be thinking I've been looking at the schedule I'm not asking for comments on it right now but just be thinking about this I've been looking at our schedule of the planned meetings the next planned meeting right now is for 5 o'clock on this coming Thursday. That's also when we have a council meeting that night. And I'm just thinking out loud that we might want to start that meeting earlier than 5 o'clock, depending on where we get along today. So I want to just deposit that for right now. We can talk about it a little later. All right. Council Member Blues. The next item is the Office of Internal Audit. As you know, there are three vacant positions, three auditor positions vacant. The Mayor's proposed budget funds one of them, and the link concurs with that. The link also recommends that the two other vacant positions be phased in, phased in, one for 10 months, the other for six at an amount of $140,000. So moved. Second. Motion and a second. Floor is available for discussion. Mr. Stennett. Council Member Blues, what is the full year fiscal impact of those two positions for a whole calendar year? Because even though it's easy to do the 10 and 6 months for this year, it's really next year we're going to get hit with a whammy on it. So what is the full one-year funding that's really going to cost us? I'm not sure of the number, but you're right that partial funding is going to mean full funding, two positions in FY11. I'm sure we can get that number. So this is going to be three positions added this year? Correct. And how many of these positions, are there all three vacant or these are authorizing new positions? No, these are vacant positions. On the books, but vacant. These are the same positions that we put in the budget last year that weren't hired. I just want to make sure all three were. Yes, all three were. Okay, very good. Thank you. Council Member Light. I was going to ask Council Member Myers, but I may have answered the question on this. We are adding a new internal auditor. Did that person go on to payroll this year, or is that what's already scheduled to go on for next year? Do you know the status on that? Are you talking about the one that the mayor proposed in his budget? Maybe that's it. So what we're doing here is we're adding what the mayor has, plus there's two more additional people on top of that. Correct. So this is going to fill all the vacancies that are not only there, but all the vacancies that we wanted to hire last year. Well, as you know, I'm new on the internal audit board, and I've served with you. And, you know, I was happy to have the new auditor added into the budget. My only concern is, you know, based on the forecasted revenue, you know, I hate to see us vote this in, and then we have to delete it. I would maybe suggest that we just sit on this for the time being until we get our budget numbers. Well, that's an individual vote you get to make. But the council authorized these positions last year. You're on the board. You know that the auditor has been screaming for these positions since he's been here. So I'm going to vote to go ahead and fund all these positions and then also come up to a resolution after we pass the budget to go ahead and hire these positions. At the end of the day, if we come up short based on whichever revenue number we use, it doesn't mean that these positions will be the first to go. We'll have to look at how it is that we're going to make whatever changes that the mayor can make, whatever changes he wants to make. But my recommendation is you've heard the same presentation from the auditor and how much money they think they can save, the opportunities to save money, the opportunities to stop things before they happen. But also the thing that he said was most damaging is the opportunity to damage our reputation as a government when things happen that ought not happen. So I think that if we're going to sit on something or not do something, this isn't where we go. We do something different someplace else. So I'm going to fully support hiring not only the person the mayor put in his budget, but these two that our link requested. Thank you. That's all I have, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Nobody else on the monitor here? If not, we're ready to vote. All in favor, please vote electronically yes. All opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Next item, Mr. Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The link recommendation is the correction to the next call staff assistant 107 to adjust the civil service salaries and benefits, which is a $10,227 correction. So moved. There's a motion and a second. The floor is available for discussion. All right. There's a motion. There's a move to call the question and a second. All in favor of this item, please vote electronically yes or no. All right. Motion carries. Mr. Blues, next item. That was to call. All right. Okay. I was interpreting that we were voting for it. All right. We're calling the question. All in favor of the motion. All in favor of the motion then to remove. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Tell us what we're voting on. Mr. Blues. Help me here. Help me. Help me. We're voting to make the correction in the reduction of the Lex call staff assistant position, which is a $10,227 savings. All right. So, Jeanette, can you reset? Okay, now we're voting on the question. Motion carries. Now, Mr. Blues, you may proceed with the next item. As you know, the Lynx Committee did not report out on the proposal from Pewter Services to create a new division of PeopleSoft Enterprise Solutions. We recommended that we have a presentation from the senior advisor who made that presentation last week. We still have some concerns about the new division, and you have the transition plan sheet, which was handed out at the beginning of our Committee of the Home meeting this morning, which would show you the positions that would be brought in from other divisions to staff this proposed new division. The rationale for this recommendation is to put it as simply as I can, that with the PeopleSoft system, we have a world-class technology system. But what we don't have is the organizational apparatus to adequately and most efficiently support it. That is the argument behind this proposal. The LINC does have still some problems with this. As you see here, it would require five reclassifications of employees who would be moved from other divisions. and it is also here recommended that this $188,000 number would also fund the commensurate raises. Council needs to remember that when our link reported out and recommended reclassifications for the coroner's office in order to begin the process of bringing the coroners closer to market rate pay grade, that the Council rejected that proposal, saying that unless we do reclassifications across the board, we should not do them at all. So I'd remind us of that, as you might say, as a precedent. Now, the senior advisor has sent us an email this morning So with regard to this, to our questions about what the $188,000 would pay for and whether this could lead to the need to hire replacement positions in the other divisions. For example, the transfer from purchasing, would that require a new hire there? Similarly, the transfer from HR. Here's the answer that we received. The $188,000 and eight existing positions provide the funding for the nine positions in the Division of Enterprise Solutions, what you see on the board. There are no funds allocated to fill any of the vacated positions, as all of those will be abolished. So we appreciate the need to, the perceived need to bring our staffing and our organization in line with our technology. But the link felt that this number was itself too soft to be accurate with regard to all of the costs that would be involved in this reorganization. So the link recommendation is to not fund this proposed new division. So moved. It's a motion and a second. Is there a discussion? Council Member James. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Blues, did the link have any recommendations or suggestions as to when we would see this item again? So my only thought is if this is something that could be done within the fiscal year to begin maybe January or something. I mean, I don't know. Is it just, you know, no, let's not do it, or let's figure out a plan as to how we can make this happen? I think it's safe to say that we're not opposed to a more efficient organization. but we feel that we don't have the kind of detailed information at this time. What's going to be involved? What are the costs? What are the movements? Will this 188 number be adequate to take care of the reorganization? So that is our hesitation here. It's not that we're opposed to reconfiguring. I think it's more accurate to say we need to see more specifics, more details on what the costs are going to be and what the benefits are going to be. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Okay. Council Member Lane has a question. Who else? And then Council Member Blues. Council Member Beard. It's hard for you all sitting right beside each other and both start with B. Council Member Lane. Vice Mayor, I'd like to ask Rama maybe to come up and just speak to this particular motion so I could get a little bit of input on what our CIO says about this. The $188,000 is in addition to the eight positions that's going to be moved to fund this new division. So the money is coming from the eight positions, and the 188, in addition to that, will form the nine positions that are in the division of enterprise solutions. So the 188 itself is not going to fund the nine positions in the new division. So you are actually looking at a figure much higher than that, Dr. Bluse. You're correct with that. But the funding is in place because these people are already there, so the money is there. Is this actually a reclass of positions? It's not a reclass. With the new division, there are new job titles, and we're going through a PAQ to put that in place. We will open it up, and people have to apply for it to get that position. And the process we're proposing we move forward with is a seven-day internal application process, and then if there are not enough candidates to fill that, obviously we would go to an external process. But do you feel that this is a critical redeployment of personnel for the operation of our accounting and software? I mean, I can't stress the importance of this primarily because I'm not sure how we would continue to take care of an enterprise-level system when we don't have people dedicated to this. We have made significant strides since, I guess, 2007, July, when we took over three months to finish closing up a year-end with all kinds of problems. and on the other end we have people that we're assigning or continuing to work on new modules and we currently have an implementation also in process day to day that we have to take care of. When testing is supposed to be conducted and we have to coordinate new processes, I mean you're looking at going through 10 business units that we don't have anyone coordinated to take care of that. So I have a lot of concern that if this doesn't go through, then how are we going to take care of it in the future? At some point, we have to transition from a project into a plan that can take care of this for the future. I was not a part of the Lynx Committee, so I don't have a lot of information on this. Did you actually meet with Lynx and explain the situation to them so they were aware of the issue? Sure. I think the confusion here is obviously related to the $188,000, and from what I understand from our links, that they feel like the nine positions will not be funded accurately. So is that correct? Well, and also the confusion, I think, is sort of exacerbated here because according to this document which was provided to the link which everybody has, it clearly calls for reclassifications. Reclassify incumbents, transfer to new division. In my presentation that I gave last week, we had proposed that the new, we met with HR and we were going to put, They were completely new positions, so we had to hire into that. So those are the positions that are going to be eliminated, in other words, to fund for the new titles and the new positions we're looking at. So, in other words, you're saying that the positions in purchasing, in HR, and so on, would be eliminated. The position in purchasing, out of the nine positions, eight are factored in here. The position in purchasing for the buyer will remain. the other positions will not be there in the future because those are people already working in Project Synergy currently. Is that... So there are no reclassifications then? There will be no reclassifications. These are new job titles and new positions, and these eight people we're talking about and the ninth person and we'll have to apply for all the nine jobs to get the new job. Okay, so it's not automatic that the incumbents from other divisions would be transferred? No, I mean, we could get three to five people who could apply for the job. I mean, that's a possibility. I have a question. Please. Vice Mayor. Can you just, can Dr. Blase repeat his last question? I think what we're hearing now is that these positions are all funded by vacated positions that would be vacated? These positions we have identified, for example, if this helps, the assistant or the deputy director in computer services position, the money from there would go towards the director's position in the Division of Enterprise Solutions. There is no increase or decrease in that. That's the same amount of money that we're allocating. I understand that, yes. So that is the same scenario for every other position except the finance information systems person in the Division of Enterprise Solutions, which would come from a portion of the 188. Y'all, excuse me. I'm trying to get our electronic. Jeanette's working on our electronic monitor. I'm not sure what sheet you're looking at currently. Just a second. Time out for just a second. In the budget, there was no, since the new division is not established yet, there was no place to put the money for all nine positions equally distributed or however it was going to be broken out. So for budgeting purposes, it was put in the new position that was going to be created in this, and all other positions are going to be dependent on whether you approve the budget. Then we will go through the PAQ process, create it, and the money would come from the other existing positions. All right. Look, just we've got a couple of things going on here. First, I think we're not, nobody's clear on what is trying to be communicated. And I believe, Jeanette, just for those who have queued in, I have Council Member Beard, then James, then Crosby. Okay. But our monitors are not showing this. So right now. Now, Council Member Blues, you're talking with Rama. Right. Right? Is that right? I'm sorry. Council Member. Yeah. I'm still not clear. The spreadsheet that was sent to you last night or this morning has the breakdown of the new positions. and I think what we're looking to do is create this new division with the new titles and new positions in place. So the funding for that has to come from somewhere, and most of it is coming from computer services positions currently in place that are funded. What about these increases? I'm sorry, that is to make up for the positions, the new position, the new title that's going to go in there. They figured that there would be some increases for that new position. So that's the amount to make the difference in whatever that is. So, for example, if a PeopleSoft developer here is coming from a computer service analyst position is taking and that money is being moved here, then a PeopleSoft developer technically makes a little more. So we are creating that position by putting the appropriate amount of money in that. If you look at that chart right there, the position on the far, I guess from your vantage point, the one on the left-hand side is the one that's going to be partially funded from the $188,000 you're looking at, the Finance Information Systems Manager position. Then there's an HR one, which is currently going to come from the current HR position. And the rest are all coming from computer services. Can I ask a question? Sure. What happens if – well, let me start with this. The people on the left column here, on this sheet here, Rama, are they currently doing work in the Synergy? That's correct. What would happen if the positions are opened up and these folks don't get them? Well, I mean, quite frankly, if they don't get the job, then their position is being eliminated. So they will be notified that they will have to look for an alternate position. Okay. Okay. And then the second question is, is there, I think you said that the money is going to move with all the employees except for one, the ninth person. But it also sounds like. Money is going to move with the position, not the employee. I'm sorry, position, not employee. The senior purchasing position or senior buyer, did you say that position will or will not be eliminated? That will not be. that is, in fact, that will be funded and purchasing will be looking to hire a person in there because we need to have some controls in place and meet our financial audits. Sure, sure. Yeah. So my question is then, will that position have to be backfilled then? That's correct. Is that salary, the backfilling of that salary included in that $188, or is it included someplace else in here? That position is currently funded, so that money will be there. And because we're not moving the money from there to the new finance information systems position, that is the position that is funded with the 188. That's the ninth position? Yes. Gotcha. Thank you. Council Member Beard, Council Member James, then Council Member Feigl. Thank you. I think I got my question answered just that moment. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Vice Mayor. My question is probably more for, I don't know who my question is for. I mean, we're dealing, again, with these positions that our sheet says they're reclassifications, and I think council members are struggling, Rama, whoever's listening, with the fact that our sheet says reclassifications. Is there some sort of priority that the administration has with whether positions are reclassified, whether are reallocated? I mean, I'm trying to figure out why would we, just like everybody is saying, is why would they support reclassification of one division of government versus another? Is there some kind of ranking order as to what priorities are happening? I don't know how to. I want to help Synergy. I want to help PeopleSoft. And I also want to help traffic engineering. And I also want to help the coroner's office with the positions that they need reallocated or reclassified. So how can we holistically figure out what's the best move for government? Because where we say council is micromanaging if we're dealing with any issues related to personnel, we are now looking at personnel issues. So we're being asked to make a vote on something based on positions, but then later on we're being told decisions will be made about personnel later on and that we need to leave that in the hands of the administration. I need some help here. Rama, could I – I think this might help. The question I asked about what happens if these folks on the left column and that other – and this is the problem. The issue here is that this says reclassifications. That's correct. It might be that rather than reclassification, it's abolishing and creating. That's correct. And thank you for bringing that up. I appreciate it. In fact, that's exactly what I was going to say. At this point, I think we should go with the new chart that's in place. I apologize that you're looking at the one that got the reclasses in there. And the creation of a new division, in my view, has new positions in there. So it's not a reclassification. And we're not taking the incumbents and saying, here, we're reclassifying you into this. You're applying for a job that is now created in this new division. Does that help? I'm not sure if that explanation is. Yeah, it helps. It just probably should have never been. That's correct. I agree. On a chart. I apologize for that. It does help. Thank you. We could have certainly made our communication much easier on this because that certainly made things harder for you to understand. Thanks, Rama. Thanks. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Rama, I just, I think I understand what's going on, so let me just see if I'm right, okay? The names associated with these positions really don't mean anything. I would ask you to disregard the names and the place where there are new positions that are going to be in place, not the same reclass titles or any of that. Right. So these are all new positions that will be created, and some will carry an additional, will carry an increase in the salary. The new positions will have new salaries. Now, since we're moving it from existing either a computer analyst or a database analyst, we take that, move it, and see what amount of money do you now need to get it to a PeopleSoft developer. And that, whether it's $4,000 or $12,000, that is coming from the $188,000. I hope. Yeah. So the term reclassification, which is inaccurate, though, So what you're doing really is apparently there are some guidelines on salary ranges associated with these positions. That's correct. So that if the current employee gets the job, and they may not, but if they should get the job, then it really would be a new title with additional salary. That's correct. And in some cases it might not be depending on who gets the job. if the current employee is making more and applied for a job to make less, which might not happen, but I'm saying there's a possibility. That's not likely, is it? Well, I mean, people saw on a development front it's cutting edge, so people might want to do something different. Yeah, the experience. Okay. So when would these changes occur then? If this was approved today, when would these changes occur? the new titles, would these current employees move into the new organization on a temporary basis? No. So they would stay where they are. They will be in Project Synergy working on the project, which is currently happening. Once, if you approve this today, the budget has to pass. Well, I meant after the budget passes. And then after the budget passes, you would look at probably a month to two months to go through the process of creating the position, putting it in place, then opening up the job internally. And at that point, we would take applications. So you're looking at a two- to three-month process. Okay, so you raised another point. These will only be advertised internally. It will be advertised internally in the beginning. If there are no applicants who apply for it, then we have to open it up externally to fill the position. I see. Okay. Thank you very much. Council Member Blues Vice Mayor what I'd like to suggest is that since we're getting new information and information that conflicts with previous information it's still something of a model here I suggest that we postpone a vote on this question until Thursday night when we reconvene And maybe by that time we can get some clean paper and some clearer, more specific information on these positions, on these what will be transferred, what will be new, what won't be reclassified, and what the budgetary impact is going to be. Is that in the form of motion then? Are you withdrawing your motion? I can withdraw my motion. All right. Okay. If my second approves. All right. The motion is... We don't need a vote on that, do we? All right. We can proceed then. Council Member Myers, you got something? Yeah. If I maybe probably should clarify one thing. And when we talked about those positions, Ramon, on the left, since we have a civil service position, I think that what would happen if a person that's in one of these positions didn't get the job, it wouldn't necessarily mean that they would be terminated. I think it means that probably the lowest, the civil service process would take effect. That's correct. And so I don't want to. Well, we'll go through the process on what's in the ordinance at that point. I mean. Right. And. We just kind of made a statement that they would be terminated if they didn't get the job, but that's not completely 100% accurate because if there's someone with less seniority in the same position, then that person would probably go before they. I just wanted to clear that up so that the people on this list weren't terrified by what we said here today. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right, I'm looking at the clock. Probably everybody else is. Well, everyone else is as well. Council Member Gordon has notified me that we have food in the caucus room. All right? And so... So, pardon, for those of those who ordered it, right, Council Member Blues, you're right on your microphone. Vice Mayor, the general government link has one item left, and if we could take care of that before lunch. There's urgency with Council Member Beard right beside you. When you're getting this fresh paper together, two things. One is that I'm sure that all these various individuals have already seen what the recommendations are. And maybe you've gone out and bought a new car or a refrigerator or whatever. I assure you that they have been busy working on the project. And so they don't know this and they've never watched television. We have, I mean, they know that there is a proposal in front. I've communicated that to them. They're aware of that. Well, if I thought a $20,000 raise was around the corner somewhere, I'd probably be out doing a dance. Yeah, exactly. Where are you going to house the folks? I'm sorry? Where are you going to house these people? Are they all going to be housed in the same area? For the next year in the same area because we have projects still working, but eventually we're going to work with General Services to find some space to bring them back in. Okay, but that would be a year off. That's correct. Okay. So we're looking by the next budget. So there are no dollars attended to that part of furniture and fixtures and all that. That's correct. You're a year off. I just want to be sure we get the whole picture when you come back with the rest of this, that we get the whole every dollar and cent drama thing. Thank you. I'm sure you understand at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Williams, you said one more item. That's correct. Yes. Item I, under the Division of Law, correction in subscriptions and publications, savings of $30,000 for the government. So moved. Second. There's a motion and a second. Is there discussion? Hearing none, if we're ready to vote, all in favor, please say aye. And vote electronically. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Dr. Blues, what about general services? That's you, Mr. Lane. All right. Mr. Vice Mayor, I think this will be fairly short if you want to go. or not. What's the census? Alright. Get as far as you can. We need to take 45 minutes before the intergovernment. So we'll get as far as we can in five minutes. Thank you. As you all recall, we've made a fairly comprehensive report on general services, and there are only a few line items that we have to approve. The one is to fund the Deputy Director of Enterprise this position. The position's already budgeted. It was allocated but not budgeted in this particular go-around. The cost of that is $95,000. And that is part of the reorganization of the Parks Department. In conjunction with parks, there's also been an increase in the revenue projections for golf courses and recreation paid into the enterprise services area. And these increases are based on the actual performance of the parks department during the spring and reflect higher levels of income. So, in that effect, with the Deputy Director position being Phil and the revenue increase, plus we are recommending security at Gainesway Community Building. This would be to extend the operating hours so that people come there after school. That's in George Myers' district and that is his recommendation. So the bottom line is with the revenue increase and the two increases in expenses we have in that, bottom line savings are additional revenue of $117,300. So I'd like to make a motion to accept these recommendations. Second. There's a motion and a second. Is there a discussion? Can we vote on these separately? Separately, yes, please. All right. I'd like to make a motion to find the deputy director for enterprise position at 95,000. So moved. Motion and second. Discussion? Is there any discussion on this? I would just make a comment if I can. I can't get it logged in here. All right. No. Okay. We're reset now. Okay. Okay, I think just to add a comment to this, this is a reorganization, and we'll put a lot more focus on the enterprise segment of the Parks Department, and we'll probably generate more revenues. But it is a reorganization, so it's not really adding a position. It's just a reorganization. That's correct. Yes, ma'am. Actually, there were five supervisors reporting to the parks director, and now there will just be three deputy directors, so actually it streamlined the operations. It's eliminating, yeah. And they have gotten the figures for April from the golf revenues, and they are up. It appears that people are staying home rather than vacationing out of town and playing more golf. So that's my comment. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Crosby. Councilmember Crosby. I'm not sure if Councilmember Feigel or Councilmember Lane will want to answer this since my question is based on her comment. Did they show you, I guess, any type of projections on how adding this position will generate more revenue for parks? I mean, were you showing any data or information on truly that this is going to generate revenue? Okay, the revenue estimates we have are not based on new revenue. Point of order, please. Are we not talking just about item one? At this point, we are voting on just the deputy director at this point. I think the question is in the context of the entire offer. The entire. Mine is specifically dealing with number one. Oh, I thought you were talking about number three. Okay. Yeah, no. My bad. They mentioned mine specifically because Councilmember Feigl said that this position would, in fact, help increase revenue for parks. Oh, okay. And I was asking whether or not they were shown any data or information proving that it's going to be a revenue, that a position is going to be a revenue generator for government. My apologies, sorry. That's okay. No, I'm sorry. They did not show any data, and I'll let the chairman mention it. Well, I was just going to say that the revenue increases that were projected were not based on this new position. They didn't make any additional forecast of revenue for that, but rather just from performance so far through this fiscal year. But the idea would be that the enterprise director, and I think they're seeking that person right now for the position, would be hands-on involved in promoting additional revenue through one of the recommendations was cross-promotions, advertising, marketing, corporate sponsorships, and those kind of things. It would be more hands-on in generating revenue for the Parks Department. Okay. I see nobody else on the, no one else has indicated they want to speak to this one, so if you're ready for a vote, all in favor, please indicate by voting aye electronically and oppose nay. So the motion carries. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Motion does carry. All right. The next one is the funding of, can we get a motion on this second one? Council Member Lane. Yes, sir. Let's say I make a motion to fund additional security at the Gainesway Community Building at a cost of $35,000. The motion and a second is there discussion? Hearing none, we're ready for a vote. All in favor, please indicate by voting aye electronically. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Council Member Lane. The last motion is to increase the revenue projections for golf courses and recreation paid into enterprise services in the amount of $247,300. So move. Second. Motion and a second. Is there a discussion? Yes. Mr. Stinnett. Councilman Lane, the number 243 or 247,300, where do we come up with that number at? Is that making the revenue projections flat? Yeah, initially the forecast for this fiscal year was a downtick in revenues, and then when the revenues actually went up some, then we've adjusted the revenues for fiscal year 10 to be more reflective of our current trends in sales. I mean, in the mayor's proposed budget, it has them trending down by $273,400. So we're not going to say they're going to be even if they were last year. We're going to say they're still going to be slightly down? They're going to be slightly down. That is correct. So we're not being overly optimistic. But maybe we would be lucky and we'll have a positive increase here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member McCord. No, Council Member James. Sorry, then McCord. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lane, just going back to the revenue projection discussions we had earlier today and wondering how you feel about these projections based on what we heard earlier. I mean, maybe projections for golf course and recreation is different than the franchise fees and net profits and such, but just curious as to whether you've had any thoughts on that since that early discussion. When we made our report to Council, we showed that the current estimate for golf course revenues was $3.7 million for fiscal year 10. And the new number with this change is $3.84 million, which is $140,000 more. In the parks and recreation area, the estimate was $1.3 million, and for the revised estimates, $1.41 million, which is $110,000. So that's how the $250,000 in additional revenue comes in. That's about 5% of the forecast revenue for the year. And as Council Member Stenet mentioned, that is less than the amount we did last fiscal year. So I think it is a conservative number and is realistic and in line with our current experience. Can we ask that this be evaluated, that we keep track of this maybe monthly to actually see if we're staying on target? Is that acceptable by Council that we make that recommendation, that we hear in budget and finance how specifically these specific revenue projections are coming in? So I see Commissioner. Commissioner Cove coming up. Thank you. Hi. Yes, the Parks already prepares a monthly revenue report that is distributed, and Budget and Finance can absolutely receive a copy of that. It is widely distributed, and it does give a detailed breakdown on all of these items on a monthly basis and compares it to the budget. And I do understand we receive a lot of data monthly, But I'm asking specifically if this can be something that's in particularly highlighted. So using this number that we're projecting, that we pay particular attention to this just to see if the trends are following. That way we know if our projections are on point or not specifically. Yes, I think that the current report does specifically address each of these items. I mean, it is what the report in its current format. So, yes, that won't be any problem. Okay. Look forward to getting that. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Yes, I'll be voting no against this because I think, as Council Member James just said, this is an area that we don't have any idea. And I think this is something that's going to come to light after the budget cycle is there's going to be a lot of looking at golf. I've said over and over and over that in parks you don't necessarily need new positions to make money and so forth you need to make money. You need to do what other communities are doing which is finding other ways to take in revenues to take in sponsorships and so forth. But golf gives me grave concern. And what I think we have going on here is there's a lot of activity but as Council Member Stenet says there's a lot of difference between activity and productivity. and with golf I think there's a lot of activity and what I mean by that is is that I've already been around folks where we're giving out discount cards for golf at Sam's Club we've got folks going door-to-door giving out discount golf and basically what that amounts to is is that I think we're trying very hard to get the amount of rounds up versus looking at our golf and how it makes money for us and so forth so I will vote no against this just because I I don't think that our own folks have any idea, have a handle on golf at all. And once we get past this budget, I think there's a number of folks in our community that want to see us take a long, hard look at our involvement in golf. And this body needs to be ready to take that discussion up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess my question would be, can we get an update on these, I guess, discount golf cards? and I don't want to do that now and I don't want to put the commissioner on the spot now but I guess maybe next question could we get an update from the administration on what those cards are and how many of them are being given out and who's given them out and under what circumstances they're being given out so I'll get with you later on commissioner I don't want to bring you up to the mic thank you Council Member Martin Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think that this is an attempt to sort of clarify where we are at this point in time. Revenue and budget analysis are guesses based on the best available information. And I think after talking with Jerry and Commissioner Cole, I think that this is their best guess as to where revenues are going in golf with the most latest data. The mayor's proposed budget obviously is the guess that was made at the point of time at which it was put in. And so obviously these are projections. The projections are going to be realized, and we're going to have more definitive data as we move into the budget cycle. So I don't think this is not a policy decision about whether or not we're going to fund golfing or anything. It's just an attempt to reflect in the mayor's proposed budget the most accurate information we have about this particular source of revenue. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Martin. No other council members wishing to comment. Ready for a vote? All in favor? All in favor, please indicate that. Oops, wait a second. Reset vote. Okay. So indicate with an I electronically or a nay. All right. Motion carries. Okay. I think it's 1225. I'd ask you all to, we'll take up the question and work session today in terms of the convening earlier on Thursday. My suggestion was that we'd start at 3 o'clock and work our way through some of these, more of these items. It's just a suggestion. We can talk about it. Pardon? Okay. Well, we can talk about it now then if you all want to. On Thursday? Okay. Right now we're scheduled to start at 5. All right. The reason I'm looking at the full schedule, which shows us discussing the proposed amendments, which is what we're still doing. And the next, I'm sorry, a review of the council links, which we have not finished yet, which was scheduled to complete today. Right? Okay. And we're not yet finished with that. Our next meeting is scheduled to begin the discussion of proposed amendments to the mayor's budget. We didn't get through everything on the agenda today, On Thursday, we're scheduled to meet from, right now, we're scheduled to meet from 5 o'clock to 6.30 because we've got a 7 o'clock council meeting, so we'll probably bump up against that 7 o'clock. If we start at 3 o'clock, that would give us equivalent to the time that we've used today, and we catch us back up. If we start at 4, that gives us less time than we've had today. Okay, just for context. Council Member Gordon. And what is the agenda for Tuesday at 8 a.m. for the Committee of the Whole? That's the next Tuesday. That is more discussion. But what's on the agenda? It's the discussion on proposed amendments to the mayor's budget. In other words, we're going to start reconciling all of our numbers, right, Jerry? Yes, sir. Okay. This is what we did last year and the year before, And the last two years, we didn't have as much of an issue regarding the revenue number itself and setting the budget number, which is an issue that we have this year that we didn't have as much of last year, the last two years, since I've been on the council. And we ran up, we pretty much hit the wall on it last year with reconciling all of the amendments. And that's the reason that I'm suggesting that we start as early as we can, but, you know, that's up to you guys. Yes, sir. Mr. Stinnett. Four of us have the stimulus meeting at 3.30, so any time after that would be much more preferable. Four o'clock at least let us be there for the beginning of the stimulus meeting, because we only meet twice a month. And we're trying to get all that money wrapped up, so it would be helpful if we could do at least four at the earliest. Okay. So what time are you saying? 3.30 or 4? Is there any reason why we can't knock out a few more? I mean, we still have some time left right now. I mean, I would prefer that we go ahead and try and knock out some more. Okay, I'm good with that. While we're all here and nobody has conflicts. We only have public works. That's good for me. All right. Let's continue. All right, so to resolve then, it sounds like the consensus is 4 o'clock start on Thursday instead of 5, right? And we're going to keep going now until we hit the intergov at 1. All right, next on the agenda is Public Works, and that's Council Member Crosby. Yes, sir. Wait just a second. Council Member James. Council Member Crosby has already reported on. That was public safety. Excuse me, Council Member James. All right. Just one. Yes, sir? If we could take five minutes before Intergov, I think it would be a nice little space. There we go. That's what I was sort of thinking, bumping up against Intergovernmental. So we're going to run up until 1255 or so. is another point of information. Council Member James, yes, ma'am. Are you ready for a report out? I thought that Council Member Myers had a question before. He's ready to go. You're ready. Thank you. Sure. The first recommendation the link has, I'll just give a little bit of background again. In the past, Urban County Government has had some matching funds to put towards large animal removal. There was some question as to whether this was, it was not included in the mayor's budget, and there was some question as to whether this was even needed or not. We did a little bit of research and did find that we are receiving calls for large animal removal, and this is when it's in the middle of the road. So we are, I make a motion that we supply $48,000 for funding for large animal removal. It's a motion and a second. Is there discussion regarding this item? I see none. Having seen none, ready for a vote. All in favor. Pardon? You do have discussion, Dr. Blues? I'm missing the question. The issue. Oh. One, two, three, four, five. We have a quorum, right. All in favor, please indicate by voting aye or if you oppose, nay. Motion carries. Council Member James. Thank you. The second link recommendation is not necessarily a funding issue, but there will be a resolution coming forward to hire the senior planning position, which has been funded in the mayor's proposed budget and I believe has been funded for, there was a, it was just vacated in January. So this is a needed position. So the recommendation will come in the form of a resolution at a later time. The third resolution is historic preservation folks were not aware that mileage reimbursement was available. They've been driving their own vehicles and were not aware that mileage reimbursement was available when they prepared their budget request. So we make a motion to add $2,000 to historic preservation for reimbursement of mileage. There's a motion and a second. Is there discussion on this item? Hearing none, we're ready for a vote. All in favor, please indicate voting aye electronically. Opposed, nay. Motion carries. The next recommendation comes from traffic engineering. In the past, we've had, usually have a little bit of money in there for neighborhood signs, assistance with speed bumps and speed humps and such. There was nothing in there in the mayor's proposed budget. The link had some discussion regarding this and felt as if we wanted to give something in that fund that's been there and is advantageous as far as slowing speeders and causing other problems in neighborhoods. So the link recommends $20,000 to go into the Fund for Neighborhood Development Traffic Management Program. Is the motion and a second? Is there discussion? Hearing none, ready for a vote. All in favor, please indicate by voting aye, electronically, and no, nay. Motion does carry. The last link recommendations for this division is the traffic signal tech senior positions. Here on our sheet, it says these are reclassifications. They are not reclassifications. They are reallocations, and this recommendation was based on a market study analysis done by our own human resources division. The positions for traffic signal techs have been posted or advertised five times from human resources. We're having difficulty getting those filled. Ron Harrington is here to speak on behalf of traffic engineering. But just to put it in context, there is one person in this position that has worked 640 hours of overtime in a year's time. And 640 hours of overtime. By funding at least, and Ron, if you want to come forward to the mic to help out just a little bit, but by funding at least, I believe, two of these positions, we would save how much. We had some conversation about some numbers, and just having the funding in for certain positions would help offset some of the overtime that is occurring and also safety as well. But, Ron, please speak on this issue. for us? The mayor felt that two of the vacant four positions that we have currently were important enough to fill, and he has included that in the personnel budget for the next fiscal year. So there's already money there for them. For two positions? Yes, for two vacant positions. As As Council Member James has mentioned, the market study showed that our folks were underpaid. We had qualified people who went through the process but failed to come on board because of the pay. So the market study showed what we already knew. The $35,000 is to bring those people up to a competitive level. we made a commitment in the last fiscal year with LYNX to take part of our overtime, which we have currently in general fund, and apply it toward this. So it would reduce the amount of that $35,000. At that time, we had said we would take $20,000 out of our budget. That is a third of our overtime budget. But it's a concern that I have that we're working folks so much that they make mistakes in the field that would really cost dearly in public safety. And so that was what she referred to. One of our fellows worked almost an eight-hour day every 365 days last year. So it's kind of a concern that I think is important for us to talk about, and I'm glad you brought that up today. Okay. I'm going to bring forward the motion, but if anyone wants to ask Ron questions regarding this, and it may be important, Ron, for you to tell us what a traffic signal tech senior position does so we know what positions we'd be filling. Recently, we took on additional responsibilities for all the fiber optic cable maintenance, installation and repairs that benefit 34 outlying agencies that are outside of the downtown. We have 90 miles of fiber optic cable that we're responsible for now. They are also responsible for all the maintenance, installation, and operations in the field for all of our traffic signals, which are 365 of them. We have a great number of cameras that we use to monitor the traffic, about 90 of them. There's also a number of video detection cameras that we use to help with the signalization. On and on, there are so many other things that we're using in this community to benefit the motorists that these folks are responsible for. We already contract out a lot of work. Over $600,000 last year just for fiber is contracted out. So we're using contractors to a maximum. We use the budget. I think we're good stewards of our budget and we get a lot done for the money that we get from general fund. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to address them. I'll hold my motion for questions if that's appropriate. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to, I did serve on this link with Council Member James and you, Vice Mayor, and I want to speak to this because I think this is a safety issue. when we have these techs working so many overtime hours. I think it puts them in some jeopardy. And these are folks who are out in our right-of-way, and so I'm going to be supportive of this. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just have a question looking at this spreadsheet. It says funding for 10. traffic signal senior positions, and it's only $35,000. It's for the reallocation. It's the reallocation of the salary. You mean it's an adjustment in the salary? That's correct, adjustment. Okay, so that 35 would give an adjustment for all 10? That's correct. Okay, thank you. Mm-hmm. Council Member Stennett? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Ron, you're saying all ten positions are not filled. You have four vacancies, but the mayor authorized two. Oh, exactly. So that's going to give you eight of the ten you need. So the additional $35,000 is to use to hire people or to pay the other six that are there now plus the other two more money? It's to increase that position to a competitive level, allowing us to fill the other two and to compensate the folks for what they should be making. So how is that not a reclass? Okay, so you're saying part of the issue is you've advertised for those four positions. You can't hire them because the money we're paying them. And if we hire them at a higher rate, we have to go back and pay the other six because of inversions that it creates. I mean, why can't you hire the other four at market rates? I think that's because the HR has a certain level of pay for that position. So these positions would be going from a grade 112 to a 113. And so that gives us more of a market competitiveness, and we'd be able to get those people in. Did HR do that market study for you? Yes, they did. And how long ago did they do it? That was in November. Of this past year? Yes. Okay, thank you. I guess, you know, I'm kind of curious about why we're doing market studies, especially since this body asked for no more reclassifications until we have a new payroll system or compensation system, which is in Intergov and Commissioner Coe was working on, and we asked no more reclassifications to come to us until we got a new compensation system for this very reason. Here he is. He needs these positions. He needs to be able to hire positions, but yet we've showed other departments not to do market studies, not to ask for these reclassification studies. But yet HR went ahead and did one much needed, not debating, Ron, and not debating the link recommendation because we do need this. This issue, though, brings up a whole other point. And we deny the coroner his market study reclassifications. But, again, why is HR doing reclassifications right now on market studies if we're not going to go back and do it for everybody? And I don't have a problem supporting this, but if we're going to support this, we need to support the coroner and everyone else that has asked for it going forward. because we set the precedent that we weren't going to have any more going forward. And I can justify all of them. There's a safety issue in all of them. There's a need in all of them. But we've got to be very careful on this decision. Thank you, Vice Mayor. That's move, James. I make a motion that we provide funding for the reappropriation or reallocation of the traffic signal tech senior positions and fund that in the amount of $35,850. Is a motion and a second? Okay, so we can continue discussion now. Council Member Myers? I guess I'm confused. One person said it's a reclass. Another person calls it a reallocation. I don't understand what you mean by reallocation of money. Ron, do you want to give what human resources talk with you about, about what the difference is? I probably will mess this up, but I'll try. Reclassification, the way I understand it, crosses boundaries of divisions because it impacts other divisions. When it's a one position title, it's a reallocation. Does that make sense? Respectfully, no. If you change pay grades, I understand what you're talking about. It doesn't go outside of that division of government, but it's still a reclassification because you're reclassifying someone from a 111 or 112 or whatever it is to a 113. That's still a reclassification. It may not have the same impact as one that would go across government, but I don't understand how you can – and this isn't directed at you because you're not an HR. I understand that, but I also see some people in the back of the room that are shaking their head in agreement with me. I don't understand how this one's called something different when you're moving someone from one class to another. Well, if I can speak a little bit, and thanks, Ron. Sorry to put you in the line of fire there. I believe what, from my interpretation of it, was that based on the market study, so a lot of this is just my total lay, I am not a human resource expert, but looking at it, it was based on the market study, so it's not a reclassification based on a PAQ or, you know, a change in responsibilities that I've given you a new assignment, and so I need to reclassify your position or anything like that, but based on the market study. And, again, this is all based on the information from human resources and kind of following the lead of that. So that market study was included in the packet that we previously gave you, so you should have that. And I believe within the market study, I believe it does not use the word reclassification. And we've been told repeatedly that the word reclass is not appropriate in this context. Again, that's just relaying what we've been told. I can look it up on dictionary.com if you want me to look at the terminology. I can look it up on mine as well. But I guess I would say that then the coroner's reclassification, if you will, was based on a market study. It wasn't based on a reclassification. And that's exactly why I supported that. Okay. So touche, because I supported the coroner. So I guess we're back to what Councilman Sennett said, though, that if we're going to do these reclasses, then we need to reclass everybody in government that needs to be reclassed. So we're back to the same dilemma that we had with the coroners. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Somewhere along the line, Council Member James, I don't have a copy of that market study. I'm kind of curious about how a market study is done for Lexington for traffic signal technicians. We're the only entities that have traffic signals in Fayette County. Do they go to immediate towns around us, communities like Nicholasville and Frankfurt, or do they go to Louisville? We always go to Louisville for something, don't we? And Cincinnati, or is it cities of like size all over the country? I'm just a little confused about how they might select. The way I understand it, Council Member Beard, is that they look at positions like positions. And if it takes you to Nashville or Cincinnati or some of the other surrounding communities that have those positions, then that is what is considered. Okay, so it's not necessarily Central Kentucky oriented. Oh, no, this is regional. Okay, thank you. All right. I see no one else signed on to comment. I would like to make a quick comment on this. I was on the link for this and I supported it. I think this also illustrates the value of the full council convening to discuss the budget and the consistencies or inconsistencies in terms of policy matters that we address. So I voted against the coroner reclass, and I'm going to vote against this on the same basis that this is new information that emerged and in order to be consistent and also reinforce what Council Member Stennett said, that as we look forward, it is an enormously comprehensive task. to do a salary and compensation review, but it may be the time for that. So ready to vote. All in favor, please indicate by voting electronically aye. And those opposed, nay. Motion. Motion fails. All right. Thank you. Council Member James, do we have any? Is there any more? Or is that it? All right. Okay. Just so we know where we're headed at the next meeting, general recommendations. That's Schedule 2 that Jerry, in our handout today. And what that represents is a collection of action items, if you will, that Jerry has recorded from our links report outs, which have no budget impact but which have policy implications going forward in terms of actions that we are requesting of the administration, especially or ourselves as well. It's sort of a collection of action items. Is that a fair statement, Jerry? Okay. Probably a better term. Pardon? Probably a better term. Okay. So it's a nice collection, but it's not anything that we need to take action on as a council at this point in time. Reviewing those would be worthwhile. Right? Okay. The next item, the individual council member recommendations, that is Schedule 3, That will be the agenda item which we reconvene on Thursday at 4 o'clock. Okay. Yes, Captain. Pardon. Do we not need to discuss and consider and vote on the Schedule II items? Well, Jerry was saying that last year we didn't have this, and his intention was to collect it. But then when would we act on it? Well, let's go for discussion. Council Member Stennett. Well, I think the emphasis at this point, and this late in the game needs to be on, let's get our numbers first, right first, and go through the council individual recommendations, because that's what matters when we balance the budget. the recommendations have no effect on the number side of it, but they have an effect on the policy side going forward. So, I mean, I do agree we need to go through them, but let's try to get through the numbers first and then go back through each recommendation because that may take a lengthy discussion, and if we don't finish by the time we balance the budget, we still have time to put forth those recommendations in the form of resolutions at any time. So I'd be in favor of going straight to Schedule 3 and coming back to 2, whether we have time during this Cal meetings for the financial side or not. Okay. Let me reset this. All right. I'm showing Councilman Gordon, Myers, James. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Some of these do have financial implications. and some of these do have financial implications. If you look through here, for instance, under Public Works, this PDR, there's a new million-dollar grant opportunity. That's a financial implication. So if you look through these, some of these are tied to money. So it seems to me we would want to discuss those before we do our final numbers. Or, Jerry, did you have a comment? But I think the recommendation on that was to kind of give the green light to apply for the finance, and there's an opportunity there. At this point, you don't know whether you're going to get it or not, so it's not as concrete as some of the other recommendations where you're specifying a specific amount that you want to either include or exclude from the mayor's proposed budget. Well, then what about under general services, item C? Is that the one that we just discussed, and so why is it in this part? So, C. Uh-huh. General Services Part 2, C. But there again, this was the recommendation and there was no specific funds attached to it that's going to impact. I mean, obviously the hope would be that if you did this, then Somewhere in the future there would be savings associated with it, but it wasn't specified. Now, when we say there's no funding attached to it, that doesn't mean, or financial implication, that doesn't mean at some point there's not going to be a financial impact. But at this point, we're capturing the recommendation from the link. So these are, okay, now I'm looking at the next page, the $4 million capital line for new City Hall. So that's not a recommendation. That's just an item for. Which one is that? What is that? Item M under general services. All these that have numbers attached, they're just in there for information. That was the purpose of this. It was, I mean, as I perceived it, as I was capturing and the information was also provided, it wasn't included as a specific recommendation with a dollar amount to be voted on. That's the intent now. Okay. So you're thinking. Certainly, as you go through, if you want to pull it off of this schedule and move it to another one, you're certainly, I mean, you can certainly do that. But the intent was to capture, you know, the recommendations from the links that didn't have a specific dollar amount attached to them. So, Vice Mayor, you were thinking if we wanted to pull something off of here to go on the budget recommendations, we would do that Thursday? Is that what I understood? That makes sense to me. I think that we review it. Is that what you're saying? I think that's fine. Yes. Okay. We voted on this 2C today. Why don't we, Kevin, what are you saying? I would think that anything under recommendation shouldn't have a monetary impact to them. If they are, an individual council member or link member needs to sponsor it and put it before this group. Otherwise, these are general recommendations that we need to see throughout the year, not just in the budget, I think, of what these should become proud of. I mean, if there's a budget recommendation for money, it needs to either come from an individual council member or a link. What Jerry, what you said offline was that he said he didn't do this last year and he got some pushback for not having done it, so he wanted to make sure that he did it this year. I'd rather give you too much information this year because a couple of, I didn't provide this listing. And they said, well, what about my recommendation for this and that? And I said, well, there were no dollar amounts. So I said, well, any recommendation coming from a link, I was going to capture it and then categorize it, you know, either with the way I've got it here. Now, I would say that we may want to take a look at council member under finance budgeting and social services. That is one, even when the motion was made, it had a specific time to it, and potentially there are some real dollars attached to this. But at the time the recommendation was made, there were no associated dollars tied to it. But I think this was probably one you would want to, from your discussions, move to the other recommendations, given the timing. I would agree, particularly since the timeline for one of those is January 1, and we want to give those agencies as much time as possible. Exactly. But also on O, right above that, it seems that there would be a budget impact to their recommendation. In their discussions, they weren't. The way it came down, it was just council would support it, but the recommendation never had a dollar amount tied to it. But if they're going to purchase the PeopleSoft Real Estate and fleet management software and accounting programs, there has to be a dollar amount tied to purchasing those. If it was, I didn't get any information on it, and it wasn't specifically presented in the Lynx meeting. Okay. Just a timekeeper comment here. Council Member James has graciously offered to back up on the comment. Intergovernmental committee is somewhat light today, and I'm willing to offer an hour of intergovernmental time. Maybe we could take maybe a 10-minute break and then reconvene at about 1.10. with the Cal meeting and then have IG starting at 2? I think that there's, it seems like that others have meetings that they're going to have to put in here. But just so we get a little bit of break here, Andrew, would it be okay to start maybe at 1.30? Yeah, that would be fine. That's more James. Okay, thank you. All right, but that doesn't mean we have to go up to 1.30 right now. I think the exhaustion level is way on up there right now. Let me reemphasize without beating a dead horse. If there's anything on this list that you want to move to another list, and let's try to get a dollar amount by the next meeting, we can certainly do that. That would be a large animal if you're beating the dead horse. Absolutely. Council Member Beard. Yes, Jerry, unless something's changed, I understood that the two modules for the PeopleSoft, we already owned, and any monies needed would be for implementation. I'm the wrong person to ask about that. Is that correct, Bill or Elizabeth? I think that Bill is nodding yes. And so that may be why nobody can come up with a fixed amount of money is because implementation is a little fuzzy compared to the cost of a specific item. But I think what the link was asking for is philosophically to get council to support the move toward this module. Exactly. I was just responding to Council Member Meyer's question about why there wasn't an amount attended to that. Council Member Crosby. Why, thank you. I almost forgot what I was going to say. The public safety recommendation. I guess I would just say that we might have a recommendation, and we put it here because we've been requesting, and it actually you have under deemed, but we've actually requested the commissioner to make a presentation on the PSOC, and depending on that presentation and what we hear from them, we might have a recommendation for the radios. So I've asked them now several times if we can get this done before we have to finalize our recommendations, which would be next Tuesday they'd have to do this by, yes, no, well, I guess by the end of the month. But they said that they could do this. So I guess we might have a pretty big chunk of money that we need to add in based on this presentation. So I'm clear as to when or where we would pull this out. I mean that's going to be a big impact depending on what we hear I guess we couldn't make a recommendation because I'm looking at Kevin but we couldn't make a recommendation because the whole council has not had that presentation yet two or three council members have so just throw it out there okay I think thank you council member cut there's a i was going to say i'll welcome enthusiastically a motion to adjourn there is one and there is a second thank you all in favor please say aye all opposed no we are adjourned Right. Council Member Martin, why don't you give the – there's just a public service announcement. We've already adjourned, but since we're still on the –