City Council - Regular Meeting

Mr. City Manager, how you doing over there today? I am good, thank you. Good, good. Today is the 10th day of March. We're sitting at the Emerrella City Hall Council Chamber. We're going to walk ourselves into um a budget workshop here where we're going to discuss some directions and some things. So, I'll officially call us to order recognizing a quorum and hand it over to you, sir.

Thank you, sir. Uh, mayor, members of council, I appreciate your your attendance today. I know this is earlier than normal for a council meeting, but I I appreciate you all uh being here today so we can cover some some a lot of budget ground and preparation for the budget process this summer. Uh, also in the room today, of course, we have our city management team, but also behind me, we have a lot of our experts in our departments. Department heads are here today. Eventually, when we get down to the cost recovery section, uh I've we will cover specific department recommendations or or suggestions or ideas for possible cost recovery opportunities and I will I will try my best to power through those on my own. But as you have questions, things that I can't answer, I'm going to quickly quickly defer to the expert. And so they are here to help us with that. So, with this, um, I think you'll recall, uh, back on February 12th, I gave you all this, uh, this report, 23 pages for for the budget pre-budget workshop. I sent it back out again Friday. Uh, my goal today is to kind of go in order of that. Uh, those are the topics we will cover today in today's presentation. So, uh, looking at looking at, of course, I sent these slides out to you all on Friday as well. So, I know you you guys had a lot of things to look over before today's council meeting. So hopefully you had a chance to glance over the slides, but hopefully you had a chance to glance over the report before this. My my intent today, I I'm not going to I'm not going to regurgitate everything in this report here. Um I I'm I think I'm just going to try to power through it. Um uh and try to get get to the highlights. My I have a number of slides today. Um I'm going to do some talking, but my goal is is to at at certain points in time stop and get your direction. Uh, one of the things I am asking for today as we look at several of these topics here is direction, tangible, specific direction so that we know as staff where where you want us to go, what you want us to do as we prepare for the budget process this summer. So, that's what I'll be asking today. Now, obviously, I'm I'm never I'm I'm not going to I'm not going to force you I'm not trying to force you to give

me a decision. So, if you need time, you need additional time, we can come back in a couple weeks or or four weeks and we can do that on some of these topics here. Uh, but I think um I know you guys have had a month or so to work on this. I know many of us have talked one-on-one on about many of these topics here, but whether it's Vader, whether it's cost recovery, whether it's presentation this summer. So many of y'all had have been talking about this for about six months or so. So I'm hoping today we might be able to cover a lot of ground and get some good direction for staff and myself. On the agenda today, a few of the topics we're going to cover. Again, following along with my report, uh I'll be um again discussing about a new chief financial officer. uh we look then we're going to work our way backward in time. We're going to go back we're going to go forward to fisc year 2728 two years from now. I'm going to give a little bit of conversation a little bit of vision when it comes to that budget process that that assumes a new CFO in place and having her having had about a year under her belt. We're then going to back up a few months and go to November and we're look at a possible voter approved tax rate election or what they like to call a vader and we'll be discussing that. That has been a topic that several of you have talked about with me. That's something that we even talked about in last year's budget cycle as we looked at the constraints that were up against as a city while trying to provide services to our taxpayers and our patrons of our community. We will then back up even more to the budget presentation this summer. As you know, under state law, um we will present to you all a budget around July or August or so. But my my goal for today is to get some guidance from you as to what you would like us how you would like that to be presented to you. whether it's whether it's certain types of reports, data, information, even even specific like actuals, percentages, uh uh forecasts, those kind of things. I'm my goal today and we have people here taking notes today is to get from you all some some direction that how you would like to see the budget process work this summer. Now, with all that being said, and I'll talk about this in a moment here, uh we have a new CFO coming on board and

she'll be taking lots of notes. to be a lot lot of lessons learned this summer. Her goal is to use this year as a bridge year to get us into a new budget cycle next year, a new budget process and I'll talk about that later on the slides as well. Then we'll close today the majority of my slides about over half the slides are on cost recovery opportunity. So the first well the middle three op top topics there about property taxes primarily and budget and then the last one is non-propy tax uh looking at uh other revenue streams to help subsidize or or or diminish the the need for property taxes that is cost recovery opportunities. One of the things this comes back to the famous golf ball discussion and so council press I I appreciate you for that. And so and so the conversation is what are we what are we what services are we providing that have a revenue that is not keeping pace with the expense. So we'll be talking about those and staff have done an excellent job of giving us some ideas that we can consider today for for possible cost recovery opportunities. All right, moving on to chief financial officer. So, back on February 24th, I was pleased to announce that Lola Olen Remy has has agreed to take on the role of chief financial officer for the city of Amarillo. We're excited about her coming here. She is tentively scheduled for April 6, I think, as a start date. Uh she is moving from Buoie, Maryland, so a long trip to get here, but we're excited to get her started. A few of the things that I've be I've begun to relay to her, and I think actually she may be even watching us today. And so, I didn't ask her to come today. Uh it's another big trip. So, she's either going to watch, she's either watching right now or she said she would watch a recording afterwards so she can start getting her mind ready to go for the budget process this summer. Some of the things that I've asked her to be prepared for and same things that I'll be sitting down with her more so that her immediate task, immediate responsibilities uh starting in April when she gets here is of course the budget. Uh uh the she'll be leading

that process as a CFO. I do expect the CFO to be the point to be the point person for budget preparation and budget process. that allows me to continue to do my services to the council as city manager and she has been busy behind the scenes working on budget getting all the all the work done with departments and with all the all the numbers together like parallel to all this uh she'll be she'll be working on or maybe towards the end of budget process working on completing our workday transition. We've been doing that for a few years as we take it in stages and so there's a lot of work to be done to finalize the workday financial system transition should be working on that and of course as always uh one of the key finance is one of the backbones of the city it connects it touches every department and so coordination is critical so she will be making connections forming relationships getting to know department heads and so she will have a full plate on her she'll have a full plate basically So with this, I would like to just go ahead and ask on her behalf. This would be a a big learning curve for her this summer. I I mean, obviously, if I could have brought her here sooner, I would have. She's she's got a lot she's got a lot to learn in a short amount of time. So, as much grace and flexibility the council can give her, that would be that would be much appreciated as I will be giving to her as well. She comes to a great team. uh we have a great team of staff here from from the CMO to the finance department to the staff in the departments and so they they will do a great job of helping her but again she has a very critical role that she's taking on that she has to shoulder herself but we will be right there to help her as much as we can along the way so be excited to have her here and she has a lot lot to to learn and I know she's more more than capable of doing that so we have a good person coming to work for us um in addition to that uh looking to the future Again, this is goes into the next slide here in a moment. Uh, one of her one of my goals for her is to be thinking about the next year's budget cycle. Obviously, right

now we're we're in March getting in going into April. We uh we're this is we're not in final hour, obviously. Uh uh but at the same time, we're a little late to my to my goal for a future process for budget. My my vision, my goal for a budget process is to get us out of the summer compressed period and more into a January to September timeline. Obviously, audit takes priority during January through March. That that is high priority. We have to get that done, especially under SP1851. We have 180 days to get audits done. And so, that has to be the priority. But parallel all that, I would like for her and her team to be looking at a calendar, a new type of calendar than we have than what we have right now that brings council more involved in the budget process. And I'll talk about that more more shortly. All right, moving on to our next topic here, which is that very thing. So my vision again, my goal for the CFO is to look at developing a new calendar for the budget process starting in 2728 cycle. not this summer, but the next summer. So, she'll be as she goes through this budget process this year. I'm sure she'll bring some great ideas with her, some different some different ways of doing things. But a lot of this is going to come from talking to you all, getting to know your preferences, getting to know what you all like to see done, and talking to myself as manager and staff and uh and getting some direction, getting some ideas so that that come next year, she can come with a different different way of doing things, a different vision about doing our budget process. And then the key point here that I like to see more of is more council engagement, more city management engagement along the way. So that way come come summertime when you all are given the budget. Again, this is my vision, my goal. When the council is given the budget, come summertime, starting next year, you will have already had a few touch points in the process to help influence or guide it toward that point. As you all know, at budgets, we have over a thousand line items. There's a lot of busy work to be

done. uh council's time is not best spent going line by line. Council's time is best spent giving policy directions so that so that we can guide this ship into into the harbor. So, but with this staff are busy um doing all the little things in order to keep this boat rowing and keep this boat going forward. And so, but with this, it'd be nice to get council engagement along the process along the way. So, to do this, um again, I see this summer as being more of a bridge year. Uh she will be coming in again a big big learning curve, a big a lot to learn in the process. She has to learn Texas state law. She has to learn our process. Um uh we still have a fairly new team. They're doing a great job um than finance, but still many of them are less than five years of experience. And so you wouldn't know that by looking at them, but boy, they work hard and they're doing the best they can to to bridge that curve as fast as they can. Um so again this year this summer uh she'll be bringing ideas but we will get through this the summer year but then looking at ideas to how to redesign our budget process starting next year. All right so moving on to my third topic today. This we'll get this have a few slides here. During the last budget cycle, the city council uh we discussed uh some of the constraints that we experienced. Um and there were there were certain goals that council would like to have seen. There are certain goals that staff would have liked to have seen, but obviously money was a problem. We didn't have the budget room to get everything done. As part of that process, the council did discuss the voter approved tax rate election, which is a vader. And so that was discussed and council um as I recall they they did direct that uh that we would have a conversation early this calendar year in preparation for the summer so that we can make some decisions on are we going to do this or not. So I have a few slides here to talk about evader and then at the end of these slides I like I like to then help facilitate a

conversation among you to kind of get some direction as to what you would like to do when it comes to a vote a voter approved tax rate election. Little bit of context. SB2 2019, Texas truth and taxation law. A number of things came out of that legislation. Uh but the main thing that impacts us today is a voter approval tax rate caps annual property tax so that it cannot grow beyond 3.5%. That's on the M maintenance and operation side. Now, it is not a it's not a simple clear-cut 3.5%. If you look at the truth and taxation form, it's it's almost 90 lines of calculations that that that the comproller and them expect you to complete. So there are certain exceptions that they apply to that. There are certain I mean this is like when you do your taxes, there are deductibles. There's there's different things deductions. There are things there that you do that that impact that. But overall, for simplistic purposes, 3.5% is the figure they gave us to work with. Any rate above that must go to the voters for approval. So, let's say that the council one year says, "You know what? I've I've seen our expenses. I've seen our goals. The council has a vision for the city and we don't have enough money. We need 5%. 3.5 is not going to get it done between what we want to do for public safety or streets or recreation. It all adds up and I need more money." Well, again, you can do 3.5%. But if you want to go to five, that extra 1.5 has to go to the voters in November for an election. They have to approve they have to give you permission to go beyond 3.5% for the M not INS but M. Now with that the proposition goes in November uh citizens review it they decide whe they like to prove it or not. If they approve it you then have the the increased property tax value going forward. That is your new base going

forward. If it fails you go back down to the 3.5 voter approved tax rate point. So you fall back to that point. That is the context of the truth and taxation law. Why does this matter to us today? Why does SB2 matter? Well, as I think all industries, all businesses, all homes, everyone with a budget understands today, particularly during times of war, during times of economic uh instability, during times of political shifting back and forth, a different president, different president. Costs change, inflation occurs, business does not cost for business changes year if not monthtomonth. I mean, I drive a diesel diesel truck. I'm now paying almost a $150 now than I was a week ago in gas. And so we can see how things change quickly. Unfortunately, so with us, SB2 caps our ability to raise revenue, nothing caps your ability to control expenses. So if one year as simple simple example if you were to buy 100 tons of asphalt at a certain price and you do the work the next year if costs go up 10% for that same 100 tons you may be buying 90 tons instead. Our costs are not limited to the revenue cap that we're we have. So part of that we hope we hope and pray and we do the best we can through other through other programs to try to encourage sales tax to try to encourage growth and so forth. But those things as you know you cannot set a sales tax at a higher rate than you want to. We already we're already maxed out. You cannot control certain elements. Property tax is the only thing that you have a direct control over. So if sales tax is flattened out, if other

revenue streams are flattened out, and if property tax is capped at three and a half% and your expenses go up 5, 10, 20%, whatever it is, you're looking at either cutting to maintain other services or doing less. That is the simple truth of it. So part of the problem we have with this is as we have come into as cities in Texas are seeing more and more is it is becoming harder and harder to just maintain existing services. It is hard to keep existing staff. It is hard to continue to provide the same service. Contractor prices go up. Consultants go up. Consumables go up. Software is really going up. So, it's one thing we're seeing in IT. Rich has told me here recently that we have some renewals that are 50% increases next year. We're scrambling to figure out how we're going to do that. And in today's IT world, it is now becoming almost the new backbone for entities. If you do not have a strong backbone in it, you're your your body's going to fail. There's a lot of hackers, a lot of dangers out there. So, we have got to stay on the cutting edge when it comes to it. Otherwise we could be compromised and our and our operations could fall flat. So with this the one mechanism we have available to us given you are capped at three and a half% for M the one mechanism you have is a is a voter approved tax rate election is what you have and we will be covering that more in the next slides here. Some more why does this matter? Um looking at this as you all know you got into office with the goal of serving the public. uh you're I I think all all of us here today from those who are counsel to those who are staffed we are here to serve the people. We are here to better their lives. We are here to provide the

foundation so that our community can grow, can thrive, and be the best that they can. That is why we're here. No one is here today to make things worse. No one is here today to see our community fail. So with this we understand that citizens have expectations of us. They expect certain things from the city as they do the county, the state, uh the schools and so forth. We have a role in their life whether they realize it or not, whether they appreciate it or not. We have a role to play. And with that, as you know with citizens, um they expect the best. They expect things they expect things immediate. They expect things to be to the highest quality. They expect professionalism, respect, integrity. Those things unfortunately in today's economy are not cheap. Those things are not easy to come by. Those things come with expense with that. So, as we continue to see expenses rise at rates that are not subject to the same caps that we have, as we continue to try to maintain services, let alone grow services, as I know one thing that we wish to do is to make things even better, to be able to respond faster, to do more, to be to be more on point as we try to do these things as sales tax mean sales tax is growing, which is great, uh, uh, but it's not growing as fast as we want it to. as other fees are either stagnant or flat or have not been updated in years and years. We'll talk about that in cost recovery a little bit later. Um though as those things are stagnant our only opportunity available to us is property tax but again that is capped. So that is one of the constraints we are experiencing. So a few a few tangible impacts this has given to us. I know people people are want to know. Okay, Grayson, tell me what tell me how. Okay, you say

we're constrained. How? I got a few on your screen. I got a few more to tell you today. First off, as you if the council knows last year, given our given our requirement for a balanced budget, given our limitations on property taxes for three and a half percent, and given trying to maintain services across the board, uh we are unable to budget police overtime at where it needs to be to the sum of over $2 million. So what that requires us to do is that in the other non police department, other general fund departments, we have to as a year goes on find savings to try to bring that number within budget. Sometimes we see succeed and sometimes we don't because again we're trying to maintain services for our community. Um last year the council I know there were some goals some vision for what raises to give public safety and we were unable to achieve that last year. We had goals for what to give for our compensation study for the non-public safety employees. We were unable to achieve all of that last year. We have goals for IT department. We, as I said before, we are falling behind in IT. Software is increasing. U as I think Rich has told many of you, we cannot do certain things that we need to do today because we were we were unable to afford what needed to be done in in the IT budget. We've had to close facilities whether it's parks, whether mean whe whether it's park restrooms or whether it's pools because we've been unable to maintain those services with our with our revenue stream. Our CIPs mostly depend on the fact that we have interest each year. We're unable to even plan on there being revenue streams to fund CIPs. We have to rely on on the hope and prayer that interest rates will allow us to have CIPs. We have to now, as we will see later today, we have to now rely upon cos to fund streets because we can no longer maintain streets at the level we need to using our operating funds. We have to now depend on the INS to maintain

streets and let's just maintain streets. We have to also subsidize our general fund with our enterprise funds, water, sewer, drainage. Without those funds, general fund will not float. All these things are examples of how our revenue general fund is not keeping up. Our costs are outpacing our revenue. So with this um one of the things that we can always look at is I know there's those eupheisms about tightening our belt, cutting cost, doing more with less. I appreciate eupheanisms, but I'm tired of eupheanisms. I need tangible direction from from people. I need to know what it is that we can live without as a community. What can we do without? What are we willing to let go? What are we willing to cut? Because until I can receive guidance from citizens, from council, from anyone, from anyone who who knows these things, until I can receive guidance on what to cut, then I'm left I'm left to to to the inevitable conclusion that we don't have a cost or expense issue. I have a revenue issue. And that's what we need to try to address. So with this one of our recommendations, I know going back to the Vader, we'll be talking about cost recovery items opportunities later today, but looking at property tax, one of our options available to to us today that we can look at to address property tax is a voter approved tax rate election or evader. Again, as I said before, we're capped at three and a half percent. The citizens would have to give us more than that in order to go beyond that. And so, uh, again, as we've talked, many of us have talked one-on-one, uh, during during the last se six months or so. I know many of you are familiar with what vaders are. We have talked about ways of what what would what would make the most sense to take to the taxpayers when it comes to a Vader. So, with this, my recommendation to you today, if we were

to pursue a Vader, is to make it about public safety. And I'll explain why. Going on here, of course, we talked about some of the holes we have in the budget. talked about some of the compensation limitations we have and so forth. We we've discussed that. Um I know people may ask today, what did a three and a half% give us last year? So Grayson, how do you already know today that you need a Vader this summer? Why do I already know that? Well, last year I had staff run me the numbers. And so last year a three and a half% gave us $2 million. thereabouts. The police overtime alone is over two million. Compensation, it all these things. You start adding them all up and we greatly exceed 2 million out of the gate. That's why I know a Vader we needed this summer if we wish to fund everything. Again, I'm only saying that if our goal is to is to fund all the goals. I'm not saying we have to do all those goals and I'm not saying to what level of Vader we need to pursue. All I know is that that given the previous discussions, the goals, the vision that council has had that staff would like to see that citizens have demanded of us, we already know that in order to achieve these these combined goals, we would need a VA to do that. Public safety includes police department, fire department, emergency management, Amarillo communications center, which is our dispatch, animal management and welfare, city marshall, municipal court. Those are all of our public safety departments. That is a significant part of our general fund, a significant part of it. Most of the employees resolve are in those areas. Most of our funds go to those areas. A lot of our IT needs are in those areas.

Those are very very costly but very needed departments that we have there. With this my rationale um I think this aligns with the council of strategic pillars uh financial uh responsibility and public safety. Um I believe this addresses some of the core services that many of our residents prioritize that we hear a lot about and as I said before this relieves budget pressure in the across the general fund for other for other departments. a few advantages and some challenges to a Vader. Again, I'm not telling you you need to do a Vader today. I'm not doing that. I'm just here to relay what Vaders are and the situation that we're up against as as based off what I've seen and what I know. So, a few advantages to doing a Vader. Again, as I said, it relieves ongoing pressure across the general fund. It allows us to properly budget where things should be at so other departments don't have to come in under to make certain things happen. It aligns with your with your strategic pillars. Uh, I believe based off of based off of history with voter turnout when it comes to bond elections and some of the caution the count that citizens have had towards tax increases, I think this would best align with voter interest for a potential tax increase if they so wish. Um, I think think this also leverages our associations and fire. I'll be open and blunt about that. you I mean I as staff and you to a certain degree are limited as to what you can do for an election. I cannot go out there and say vote yes or vote no. I have to be neutral. So I cannot champion or campaign any type of election whether it's a bond or a tax increase. I cannot do that. Associations can and they have become more active in recent years which which is which is their right. So there's an opportunity here to partner with existing associations if they so choose to to participate to do that. And again this addresses substantial portion of our general fund. Some challenges

um the mechanics of this we would need to prepare two budgets. You have to have the potential vader budget that the citizens give you in November but you have to then have the fallback budget in case that does not work out the three and a half percent uh budget there. So, we have to prepare this summer two budgets to present to you all this summer. Again, as I said before, our ability to advocate is limited. I cannot advocate for or against a tax increase or or election of any kind. You to a certain degree possibly can. We can discuss that, but even you have some limitations. Uh but we as a city cannot do that. So, there's a challenge with that. We have to basically present the facts and then hope for a champion to rise up among the community to then champion this. Um elections occur in November. We have to then get through two months of not knowing if it's going to happen or not. Our our fiscal year starts October 1st. So we have to basically assume October 1st under three and a half% November three and a half percent and then it gets approved then we can then go up from there. So there's some unknown there for two of the months. Um voters have historically been cautious on tax increases. So as we see elections in prior years for bonds those tend to be voted down across across the region including Amarillo. So that's one thing you must bear in mind. If you were to pursue a Vader, you have to you have to understand your citizens and whether you think they would do this and for what purpose. What would they be willing to go to the ballot and say yes to all this vaders require a significant amount of planning and careful execution. As I said before, logistically, we have to prepare two budgets. If we do public safety, uh we have to then coordinate a lot of departments. We have to get a lot of council input. I need to then know from you. I'm not saying today, but if we were to pursue this, I would need to

know from you all what's your parameters like say staff don't go beyond 5 cents or don't go beyond or whatever it is. We'll need to talk about those things. There's a lot of coordination to be done. And again, I remind you all I have a new CFO coming on board and so there's some there's some challenges we have with that. So with this, this is my final slide on the Vader. Um I'll be seeking some direction from the council today. Um, again I'm not telling you I'm not asking you today to tell me sense or those kind of things but more or less I am seeking some guidance on do we should we or should we not pursue a Vader. If the answer is no then it's business as usual. We will then go through the budget cycle. We'll prepare one budget and we will go from there within our current constraints and under under revenue revenue and law. If you were to if there's an interest in pursuing a Vader, I would then ask, are you are do you agree with a public safety direction or would you like to see a different direction? If you pursue the public safety direction, I would then turn this to my deputy city manager, Andrew Freeman, to work with his staff. He oversee the public safety departments to then coordinate what is this what what what are we going to request of the citizens this upcoming November? And with this, if you were to approve this, if you if you were to do a Vader, if you were to say yes to a Vader, uh we would then get to work uh designing two parallel budgets. As I said before, we will then have to work our calendars around that to figure out how that works. We'll then have to probably have some touch points with council between now and July, kind of get some direction from from council about particular Vader Vader points. And then we'll have to have clear contingency plans as staff, as council, as as budget on if it fails or if it does or if it succeeds. And so with that, um, I'm going to pause for a second here. I'd like to get your feedback on what you think about a Vader, answer your questions to the best of that best of my ability as I can and, uh, and hopefully get some direction today on whether to pursue a Vader or

not. So, I'll be quiet here and take some notes. Um, well, Grayson, I appreciate uh the effort that you did on um giving us this information prior to this meeting so that we could review it. Y

I think this is a great step forward for us as council and also as a city because um it outlines the problems, the issues we're facing um but it also gives us a chance I think to take it one step further. When I read through this thing, I re what you ask staff to do, you're getting close to doing zerobased budgeting because they had to go back and they had to look at their budgets and they had to see where they could either increase fees, make cuts, and do that type of thing. So, I think that exercise was very important. Um, one thing I've I've found out as I've walked uh traveled around this city and talked to different groups, um, it's not that people in Amarillo are opposed to a tax increase. Nobody likes a tax increase at all. None of us. They want to say in what what that is. So when we do fees on a utility bill or we just make it an increase in taxes even though they know by law we can do the three and a half%. They feel that they've been sidestepped as the people who pay the bills. And um I think uh as we talk about this uh personally I like the idea we're giving them enough time on the front end. Here we are in March and something that we're going to walk through. I think it gives us enough time uh to prepare the public for what it is we're looking at. Um hopefully as we talk about uh the public safety end of this that we're not just talking about um salary increases and benefits that it's it's it's a all-encompassing for the things that we truly need as a city. Yes. uh whether it's the animal welf uh welfare and management um as well as our communications department that they are getting things that they actually need as opposed to just salary increases.

Yes. So I think that's an important thing. I I uh I think we're headed in the right step. I think the I think the public has to have the say in whether or not they're willing to pay uh those extra taxes for the services that they want want from our city. Yep. And legislation obviously agrees with you. That's why the Vader option has been made available. It it requires voter approval, so they would agree with you. Yes.

Hey, Grayson. And maybe um coming up, we'll discuss this, but do we have or is it is it even doable to um find the cost per household? Um when we look at the budget that it requires to run our city uh from from top to bottom uh streets everything do we have an average cost per household? We can develop that. I'm sure we can. So

okay so we could we could see you know what based on previous numbers I know we have housing starts and we have that kind of thing. So I mean we we will show a little bit of growth but with growth there's additional services required. There's add I mean from everything. So each additional home, that's great that we provide additional revenue, but but I would love to see the amount per household that it takes to run the city. Does that make sense? It does. Yes.

And I think that um you know, based on what you were telling us just now, uh with inflation, with the increase of cost, whether it's asphalt or whatever it is, it's I mean, we all know, anybody that owns a business knows that we're we're paying our employees way more than what we used to. We have to uh to just maintain good a good workforce. uh if we don't your business isn't going to survive. So not only wages, you know, wages and, you know, benefits, everything is going up, but um I think that that number would be really useful

uh to see, you know, where are we? I mean, if we don't use cos, if we don't use debt, if we don't use these things, what is the cost per household that we need uh just to maintain what we have? U to your point, parks, um you know, whatever it is. Y uh everything. I think if we can figure out that number, I think that would be a good number. Yep. We can work on that for sure. Yes. To look at. Okay. Thank you. Now, I appreciate the uh the overview of this. A couple of things for me before we can get to the Vader. There's a couple of questions that I would want to have answered. Um

one is I I think we need to look at all the options that are on the table, including this. I think it would be I I don't think it would be good leadership if if we're not looking at all the options that are available to us. So, first of all, I think you this and whatever other options are available. I think we should I should as a as a council, I would hope we would consider these and not just say absolutely not. We can't do it. looking at all the options that are available either for now or for in the future because I I agree with you that these, you know, we could solve this problem if the state would just let us keep all of our sales tax instead of sending 75% of our sales tax to Austin.

That would solve our problem immediately. But they won't do that. They're taking our money down to Austin and using it. You know, I don't know whether we get our money's worth out of that, but the state takes 75% of our sales tax. But a couple of things that I and you're going to go over one of these today, but what what I've got to have a good understanding of uh a couple things that you could answer and then one thing that we've got to answer as a council. One is what are what is our cost recovery? I mean, how much could we mitigate a Vader based on cost recovery? Yep.

And you're going to go over this today. The other thing that I think we've got to be able to answer and and it's it's now and it's in the future. What can we look at at savings? I mean, okay, we're we're looking at, you know, raising fees to to pay for certain things, but what other areas of savings do we have that again mitigates the amount of evader that we would that we would need? So, to me, it would be, you know, what what are the the savings because the amount of the evader needs to be coming in after cost recovery and savings. I think we're going to hear about cost recovery today,

but what are we looking at to be able to mitigate that on the savings side? What are we being able to to do? Um, I'm I'm I I hope in the budget this year we're gonna look at overtime and being able to take a look at that because I think overtime and again I've I've got a better understanding of how we have to pay overtime in certain budgets when we're having having to cover uh 247 365. But but overtime is somewhat of a controllable expense. So, you know, that would be part of it. I I think what we have to to answer as a council is what are we willing to let go? What what are you know to me core services are things that we can't let go. Cities can't run without streets or sewer lines or public safety. But I think we're going to have to begin to answer the questions. what are things that you know that we can let go of or do we want to let go of uh to be able to continue to do this or uh because I think it's going to be a continued question that we're going to have to face the challenges of of you know is there anything that we want to let go of uh or we can let go of or do we want to continue doing all the things and so I think there's two buckets I think there's those things that as a city we have to be able to provide nobody else will provide them and you can't have a city without it and then what there other things and where where do those things lie?

Can I ask you I mean I love the open discussion. Can I ask like what would those things be? Because I look at the city I'm thinking okay so what can we do with that? What what category of things would you be would be in there? Great question. Don I'll ask you what I mean what I mean if you if you were looking at things that we have to have as a city that no one else provides. What would those be?

I mean that's a great question. I mean I look at our budget. I don't see anything in there that's just fat that we're like, well, this is great that we have. I mean, that nobody else provides. I don't really see anything. So, I'd be curious. I'm not coming at you. I mean, I'm truly curious of um with our core functions we the bare necessities for sure, but what is in there? I mean, I don't know if this is just an open discussion. I think it's a great question for all of us to answer that is to be able to say what are the things because uh I I think it's and and to me the the questions you got to ask are what are what are things that we have to absolutely have y

as as a municipality that we can't function without them can't function streets improving streets we can't function without that public safety we can't function you know without that

uh and and yeah you know those types of things and you know What are some things that um um that others are providing that because I think the question is what what do we absolutely have and what is it that nobody else is going to provide unless we do those are the two questions and maybe we look at the budget and we say no everything in there is is is just like that but I think it's and it's questions that municipalities are having to um ask themselves not only here across the state but across the I think when we uh we look at what are the the criticalities of the city, it's important. What did we need 75 years ago? What did we need 80 years ago? I mean, it's clean water, it's fire, it's police force. I mean, what are the basics of Maslov's hierarchy that we need as a society and as the human condition to live? And then what is above that? that is I mean it's it goes back to just the basic fundamental tasks that we need. So there is fat there are things that are not critical to the human condition for the city to operate and that's how you have to you have to take a hard look at it.

Okay. What are those? What are those to me? What can I mean we keep saying it but but what's in the what's there that we're saying is fat? I mean are parks fat? I mean, there's parks and w at the end of the day, what are the what are the priorities for for the TIPS household to operate? Electricity, water, sewer, fire, police. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get it. I mean, do we need do we need tennis? Do we need golf? I mean, I'm not saying get rid of tennis. I'm not saying get rid of golf courses. I'm not saying any of that, but I'm saying it is very simply defined. What are the criticalities that have to be provided for the citizens to live? And then you break it down by tears to move forward from that point.

And then we decide I guess that's the question like Grayson proposed is what is in there that we're willing to give up if there's not enough money to provide. I mean back to what Les said. What is there that we can give up? I mean, you know, would it be a a terrible city? We don't have any quality of life. Absolutely. It would be greatful. Yeah. So, but what you're saying is technically I guess what less was saying that that's fat. I mean, we don't have to have those to live. I mean that no citizen has to have those things to live when you have to make the hard decisions, right? When and and and we we get to we get to celebrate the wins, but we have to make hard decisions up here.

Like you're saying in a household, if if somebody loses their job, what things go by the wayside? Yeah. You're not going to dinner. you're you're not you're not doing a lot of different things as you have to tighten your budget. And so that is I I think that's what you're saying. What are the critical components? I just want to say Grayson, thank you for bringing this discussion to council early identifying this. Uh you know, you've defined our responsibility to define the priorities and where we're going to go. I think it's critical whichever direction this vader goes that it is communicated very clearly to the citizens. the citizens have the right to to interact

and and it's critical that your staff and and all of the departments are aligned with this initiative to find these dollars. I mean, what are we going to do as a city? How long has it been since we've actually approved monies a as a community, you know, for for initiatives? Now, I'm not saying I know people out there are going to say, "Oh, David's saying that that we're only going to do water and and sewer and police and you know, those things." I'm not saying that at all. But I think that we dive in and we really take a look at it. And I appreciate the forward thinking. It's easy to look in the rearview mirror and see where we've been, but this is this is a move forward that we're all aligned. And as we communicate this and the cost of of what it takes to run a city and how we're being hampered by Austin, it's it's a great discussion and I thank you for for putting this out.

Absolutely. I think um we are also making a mistake here because government's never the answer,

right? We're five guys sitting up here and we're trying to make decisions for the whole city and one that puts a lot of pressure on us. Um because none of us are perfect in making the right decisions all the time. So when we're looking at what we need as a city, I call it needs plus, right? Needs versus wants. There are things I would love to have in the city and I know we I couldn't get anybody to agree to vote for them. So um those go off the those go off the table. Um we we have to look at our basic structure of things too on how we how we operate. Um you know we're trying to come up with answers. Innovation never came from government except I I can only think of two things. Maybe the railroad and and space what we've done there. Government came up but they didn't have the answers. They fueled it and asked for innovation. And I don't think we rely on the people that we have in our community. We have we have experts in all these things whether it's road construction, water maintenance, uh uh wastewater, all of those things. We have people here in town that we can rely on. I go back to looking at the committees, why we point do all those appointments in one place. That's an intricral part to what we do as a city and how we make decisions up here in the DAS. Do we have the right people on those committees that are looking at the things that we need in our city? Because you get the right business people on there that have that right attitude that this is what we want to do and this is where we want to move our city. That makes it easier for our our job. So I I really think that uh we have to step back a little bit and instead of trying to find all the answers ourselves, rely on what experts we have out there. And we have we have some time, right? Um as as we look at the uh the Vader uh it's going to deal with uh

public safety. I think you listed about six six areas that are there. Are all of those areas necessary for the city? Is there something we can do without? Is there something we need to add to that? I don't have the answer for that. Right. So I I really think that uh uh getting our citizens more involved in this process than just the five of us trying to make decisions uh what we think is important. I think we all agree and I think the the people out uh here in the audience and also those watching would agree on what the basics are that we need as a city. I don't think anybody disagrees with that as far as uh uh water and uh wastewater, our infrastructure. um public safety. I think we all agree on those things. It's the other things. It's the plus that I think that we have to start looking at. Um and if it means we need to cut things and did people tell us in sincerity we can live without this then we have to take a serious look at it.

Uh are you going to ask him what the pluses are? Council member Tips, you've asked this side of the dis. Yeah. No, it's the right side. We're We're good. I I would say, well, going back to it, I just think the cost recovery, I'm looking forward to that. But the other thing that I think it it it's like

before we go ask for more money, what what are we currently doing? So, the cost recovery I like, but what about on the savings side? And being able to to look at that, that would be something that I think would be beneficial for us to know what, you know, what have we really looked at because it's it's And I think it's a question we're going to have to continue to have to answer. Uh e I mean even if we have a Vader this one year, you know, if we don't have it in the future is, you know, we're going to have to figure out where where are the savings in the future? I mean, and that is my question for council. Yes.

Yes. And and so but but I I I I would also say challenging everyone where can we figure out because when you're forced, you know, when you don't have the money to spend, whether it's a household or a business, you you have to figure it out, you know, and and what I'm saying is, you know, if what are things and and sometimes you figure out, wow, when I when I have no other choice but doing it, I figure out how to do things that maybe otherwise that I, you know, would not have, you know, figured out that, wow, I I really could do that. So I just think that's the other thing is you know the cost recovery I think is good to say look look we've looked at you know the the the Vader could be lower because we've looked at cost recovery and being able to you know to do that or but again what what is on the savings side that we could say you know what here are some things that we figured out how to do more efficiently. Here are things that we figured out how to uh uh to be able to to be uh to to have a savings on that uh to be able to be effective. So that that would be and and I I agree. I think it goes both ways. I think we need to provide them some direction, but I think the challenge would be to all of us, you know, how do we, you know, how do we get there?

Yeah. And staff, we we we make those decisions daily because obviously we're trying to stay within a budget. And so as as again as I said before trying just trying to maintain police overtime within our budget requires all departments to look on how do we how do we save and talking to HR we do we do freeze positions from time to time in order to try get ourselves within budget. Um I have those conversations with staff about about as they look forward. Hey Grayson I'm I lost a position but I'm I'm seeing them high over here. I'm going to have to freeze this for a while. So we do those kind of things. Uh processing fees you have on your budget later today. Municipal Court Internal Audit has done things in order to free up money. Um, Golf is an excellent example. We'll talk about that later today. Golf has done an outstanding job last several years of becoming more and more efficient in what they do to try to cost recovery. So, so and then SB2 has naturally forced us as staff to constrain ourselves year after year after year. So, it is it is working like that. One thing I'll say is that um if you like to um as we as we if we were to pause this then we could come back to the end after cost recovery because cost recovery there's if if you depending on what things you nod your head towards that you that you accept there could be some significant revenue generated through those through those fees then you can then decide at end this conversation you know what um let's try that this year let's do the cost let's get our fees let's let's get other other nonpropy tax revenue revenues lined up, see what that does this summer and then decide for the next year if if if that's still not enough. And so so again, I'm not telling you you have to do a Vader this year. The council wanted to talk about it, so we want to talk about it. Uh but cost recovery, again, given the numbers I have seen and some numbers I put in the report, again, we need to we need to vet those through and clean and scrub them really good, but there could be some significant money there. the even a million or two dollars easily that could happen. So you could see how

that shakes out this summer and then decide that wasn't enough either. We we've we've we've we've we've fixed our fees sales taxes what it is. Um we've we've maxed out our our our M for for three and a half. You can then decide then come August September that that still wasn't enough. Next council, next s year we should look at a Vader. So, so you you could revisit this at the end of this end of this day today and decide yes or no after you look at cost recovery things is what I'm trying to say. So, if I could I'll jump in here. So conversation today is um established that's a good word on on an assumption that we know what we know right we know our actuals we know our expenditures we know our revenues I do watch the revenues pretty closely I love the fact that we're trending high on sales tax sales tax continues to come in ahead of budget um I haven't been presented with the actuals so my favorite five words. How do we know that? Right. So, like you you started the conversation with $2 million shortfall with potentials in in the police department based on overtime. So, we have scheduled budgeted positions that are unfilled. So, we have those expenditure budgets that that we're we're not expensing. Um they're offsetting the the overtime by how much? Um, we we have now a really good practice of keeping departments in line with departments. I don't like thinking that, you know, department X is working really hard to come in under budget just so whatever their fund balance is is taken and given to department Y that didn't necessarily uh care to manage overtime or whatnot. All right. Now, police is the one, well,

one of two where I think we get to say that's not necessarily a uh a you know, a science that can be practiced. I mean, it costs what it costs to run a police department, right? So many different factors. Um, one one gentleman makes a mistake over there, one lady makes a mistake over there, you're talking tens of millions of dollars, potential liability, you know, to the city. So, all that being said, do we do and and if not, should we council look at a midyear um budget uh review and and get an actuals and then why are we as a as a council asked to look forward 6 months, 12 months, 18 months without being given actuals within the recent 30 days. So, like if if we ask you today, are you over budget? I think the answer is no.

Correct. Okay. So, nobody is coming in here today saying we're way over budget, right? Yeah. Because we're only halfway through the year. So, I won't know until September. Okay. But are we trending on budget? Are we trending under budget? Or are we trending over budget? There are line items that are trending over, line items that are trending under. Okay. And do we know what those are? We can get that information for the council. I don't have them. I don't have them today.

I think that's what I would like. So I I would like to see if council would like to initiate a policy or a procedure that allows for not only this council but future councils to have something not not a zerobased budget but a step towards that in getting actuals because I think even in previous years budget discussions in July we're being told we don't know yet you know we'll have to wait until September gets here. Well, right now, if I look at my actuals for 2425, not even current fiscal year, I'm still waiting on an audit to to show me where the actuals landed. Um, I'll point to CIP, a good example of um midyear look, do we have amendments we need to make? Did we budget a CIP project for $5 million that we didn't get a ride of way? We didn't get easements. We know that it's not going to happen. bringing that back early, being able to do a budget amendment, reappropriate that money by the appropriations committee up here so that you guys can push that out and get to those next projects. So, efficiencies matter in that. We could take care of quite a few things if we did a mid-year budget with a mid-year budget amendment. Um, what I what I would ask for though is hard and fast actuals. And so, does our departments I believe they do. I mean, I think our department heads do a really good job of managing their own budget. Where I think we're losing that is when we're trying to bring it all together. And maybe we just limit it for the first step. And you know, all you're talking about here as far as evader is general fund,

right? So, all we're looking at is just general fund departments, correct? Property tax departments. Yes. Um,

yeah, we'd be happy to bring you guys at at the next meeting or so our actuals as of as of date and so we could bring that to you if you like. Okay. I think that would be great because I think those actuals are really where I'm hoping our new CFO is is going to be pretty uh strong in in tracking those and and having those. And then um are we through with all of the software issues that we constantly have had to point to to say, well, we we don't know because we we're transition we're migrating data. Well, we're having to hand enter these numbers. Like there there's so many things I can imagine if I'm trying to run a department, you know, and I'm responsible for the care of 300 men and women that are providing public safety running into a burning building and and like I'm trying to get them equipment and I'm trying to do all these things and what I'm asking for are actuals from from you know upstream and I can't get them because well we're we're having to go back and we're having to like compute and and we we can only give you a one-year look back. So h what's the status on on that issue?

It is incomplete. That's one of the things like I said in my earlier slide, one of my immediate goals for the new CFO is is to define a a closeout plan for the workday transition. So that's one of the things I have for Lola on her plate to work on over the next next time period is is to work towards what is it what do we need to do to close out that project and what's the timeline for that.

Super thankful that you um have hired very well. I think one of the things that we will see looking back and it may take five years to see some of the the benefits and and the strength that you you've done in your job uh of putting good people in good places and so I think you've hired very well. I'm I'm excited about her. Uh I hope she runs you know 84 miles an hour barefoot because like she's got a long way to go quickly. So, I think she can do it. But, but all of this stuff that we're talking about, um, we we can't we can't put council on the fast track here and then throw all the cargo on the train, you know, at the last depot. And so, we've got to get council these these factual information so that we can adequately, accurately, uh, help to steer the ship. So, um, one other thing that we will need, we not only have the ability to look at growth in our building safety department. Um, we have new projects that are scheduled under construction that are coming on the tax roles, we have existing projects that just got on the tax rules. So we don't necessarily when we come in and we talk about we got to raise you know uh our revenues we need to go out there we need to increase uh property taxes we don't necessarily do the same effort of work in saying okay here's the tens of millions of dollars worth of valued property that's coming on here's the additional increases that that we'll have what we've done historically we've kind of waited until we run our budget we get through the budget and then we report back like a year later. Hey, those th those revenues came in a little higher than what we thought. So, so what we have seen is an under uh projection of sales tax conservative um and then a a a lack of consideration for for growth. Um not only sales tax growth, but user growth, additional water uh users, all

of the all of the components that function in the system. So, can we do a better job of of maybe tracking that, projecting to that so that when we do go to the voter with this very important question if we do um we have the most up-to-date comprehensive data?

Yeah, Pratt is responsible for for calculating those figures and so we do make estimates based off what our best judgment and so we try to work with them but but but unfortunately that all Texas cities are up against. uh appraisal districts do not give their data until August. So, so we we as you when you are first given the budget, we give you all our best guess based based off the very thing that you said based off what we see as growth based off it's always it's always looking at today backwards. Valuations are not forward. They look at today backwards. And so, so we can give you guys a reasonable idea, but we will not have numbers until practice. But we can but we can definitely give you guys if again part of the goal today is is to help identify what do you all need to know to decide if you want to do produce a pursue a Vader or not. So yes we can pursue we can get you guys actuals uh for year to date and we can also give you guys kind of a possibly from planning department an idea as to what we know is in the is in the cooker right now for for property tax growth if you guys feel that would help you in making your decision. I think so. And I think what I'm what I'm describing here would just be uh maybe named or labeled like a growth rate. And so we should be tracking what our growth rate is through our building safety department and be able to see what those projects are that are in the pipeline because you you are looking forward as much as we've asked you to. I love the fact that you're considering not only 26 27 but 27 28

and so you've got projects that are in the pipeline over there that are expensive projects that are coming online. We've got a huge growth component to the city of Amarillo. Um, and we have entities out there that that some we pay like Pratt, we pay them to do that job, but others that um are are in the community that can help. So, um, let let me let me speak to real quick if I could. Andrew, do you have any clarifying questions in that you need to ask or Well, I was just going to mention, Pratt, it's like a January one snapshot. So anything going underway right now, we can't factor in until next year and it'll be halfway under construction, halfway valued. So you're really talking probably two years out if you're looking at building safety permits.

So I think we we look at building safety so we can project to that 2728. Thank you. Um one thing that I would Yes, sir. on if if we've agreed that we think actuals would be a good thing to have, can we be in agreement? is that I I would I would agree but not only actuals and this is going to go back to our budget but forecasts

so so actuals are are good up and and and really I don't know I mean but you know maybe six months in the actuals will really mean something but but to me the other part is not only the actuals but then forecasting out for the rest of the year and update you know saying you know here because I think that's going to be important across the reporting as but es especially on the budget

with known expenses because I know there's some departments that we know are uh very expenseheavy towards the back end. So I'd say any actuals that we have sometimes it doesn't give a perfect picture of actuals versus budget. We think man they're they are on trend they're way ahead. Uh but when we know that there's some known expenses coming at the end of the year which we know there's a few departments that are very heavy. I would say in that if we do this that we need to factor in the known expenses that we know are coming up because I think a snapshot sometimes is very misleading.

Sure. And again, as as I will caveat when it comes to forecast, the forecast is not the new budget for this year. So I I have to always caution council that I've had previous councils in the past. Whenever I give them a forecasted number for let's say line item X, we forecast to be $90,000 end of the year, but I spend $100,000. The budget was 105. Council said, "Well, you said you said 90 and said council, my budget was 105." We thought 90, but it came at 100. We still came within budget. So remember, forecasts are not the new budget. We we understand that and I think it's it's a good um it's good faith on both our ends. I mean, you trust us to to manage that information as well. Um Councilman, did you have anything else before I move on?

Um real quick. Yes, sir. Why historically have we not uh had actual or the the uh the actuals?

The actuals. Um I think that we currently let me just point to like current uh state. Current state when I when I ask hey how much do we have here? How much do we have there? Mayor we are working through an audit right now. We got all hands on deck. We are jumping through ourselves to get the auditor all the information that he needs. Um okay. So we're going to wait until after the audit, right? And then we'll get into kind of budget season and then you know the the issue has been antiquated systems uh fat fingers and and manual entries um lack of communication. So these are all the things that you're addressing. These are all the things that you're putting you know separating and putting in components. And so uh I'm just I'm just asking are we there yet like I think we we hope to be.

I would I would I would like to know why we actuals are not a new new phenomena. And if it is a software issue, why have we not done this in previous decades? We we provide actuals during the budget process. We do, right? We've just not since I've been here, I know we've not had council ask for actuals earlier than the budget process. And so, yeah, we can give you all a monthly snapshot one. If if the council would like to have it, we can give you a monthly snapshot month to month or quarterly or so forth saying, "Hey, this is where every budget's at. We can do we can do that for you all." I just have not been had that asked of me.

Well, and I'm not I'm not pointing fingers at current staff or anyone. I'm just curious as a city why we've not ever I mean this isn't a new accounting phenomena. I mean we've been here for a long time as a city this group is I mean comes and goes and I'm just curious historically why the city has not not done that from previous councils and and I guess the answer is that previous councils have not asked for that. I couldn't answer that question. Well, I think historically with the budget process, we'd usually get January, February actuals, then we have to start our budget. So, we have those actuals and then we estimate or forecast through the rest of the year, right?

But we can of course get actuals as we go. But to build the budget, you got to start somewhere. So, staff usually start with actuals through a set amount and projected forward.

Let me point to one thing though, Councilman, that'll help you. Um, we updated our financial policy and we updated it very well. So, previous financial policy allowed for, you know, entities or departments within the general fund to pass costs and share costs back and forth. And so, the tendency for staff was to look at the total fund and say, "Well, we're within budget and and we'll just move this to from, you know, this department over to there to cover." Now, we've restricted that. So, it's department by department, you know, so you're getting a much closer look where where those departments actually can run their actuals. I think two things, one financial policy, the other thing fund balance. So, so you got to keep in mind if you're running a department and you start reporting those actuals, your fund balance becomes more appealing to council to go and pull money out of because it looks like, well, there's going to be a balance there. We're going to need that. Let's use that money. And so, um, I'd say historically the the tendency just human nature, not any one person, but is to reserve those. you know what if I need it, you know, I mean, you're responsible to run that department. So, you wait until you get to the end of the year and then, you know, report and and quite honestly, like if council doesn't ask, we don't tell them, you know, and so it takes a minute to get on council and learn it, figure it all out. So, I think that putting in a mid-year look council would be very, very helpful. So, I'm not saying do it monthly. We don't want to we don't want to put another burden of paperwork on the efficiencies we've already gained. But a midyear look would be twice what we're currently doing. We're only looking at it one one year. And even then we're having to look back with, you know, estimations. Still didn't have we did not have actuals in our last budget workshop. So I mean

you had actuals for prior years. Um well no the the current year that we were in we didn't have an actual.

Yeah because Yeah. So we had I think we had as of a certain date like probably was it April 1 may maybe maybe March 1st we had at that point there because we we provide you reconcile because again as as Andrew said budgets we have to when we prepare a budget you have to you have to eventually put a bookmark in the process and then you have to start the budget calculations otherwise you never get it done. So, we we every city does this. Um you you decide, okay, we're going to get actuals through March 1st, April 1st. Now, we're going to start a budget process to figure it out. Now, if we if we can update it along the way, we can. Uh but but but we have to get the budget started at some point.

And I think our goal with workday and our budget software is that those those data sets are supposed to sync up so we can more quickly update the actuals. In the past, we didn't have that capability. Yeah. So for for the sake of time council, what we can do is um yes, we can bring you guys back actuals as as reconciled actuals that we have to date. And so we can bring that back to you all. We can also bring bring you back to some growth projections and uh for what we we see happening. We can also come back to the VA at the end of today decide if you guys want to then look at it again or not. And we can push it back to a future date. And so uh but but if if you'd like, we can continue on to other topics today because we do have a significant amount of cost recovery things to cover as well.

Sure. So before we do that, let me um make my next two points here. So on the uh on the ballot proposal, um I I love business because business can be very um you know, take it or or or give it. So if you give an offer, you may also be expected to take it. So if you're in a partnership with somebody and you know, this is what I say the company's worth, well then my business partner can also make me take that offer. And so I think with you know staff saying you're giving us you know the position of take this to the voter. Um you know we're all saying the voters's voice matters the most. I think it's wonderful that the voters even though

you know there's there's minimal trust in in our society right now. The voters trust us to work within the existing budget and we manage we help to manage that budget. We don't go over that budget, right? And so when we want to go over that budget, we we have the option to go to the voter and ask them, do you want me to go over your budget? Well, the way we represent that and we have in the past um in one way that really bothered me when I was a councilman uh first elected was we asked the police and fire to carry the water and so we kind of put them on the chopping block, but we didn't we didn't as an entity put anything else on the chopping block. So we're being asked to come up very directly. What are you going to cut? What do you want to lose? You know, this is these are the hard decisions. We got to make the hard decisions. What does it look like if you put a ballot proposal with certain programs that you ask your voter, do you want to lose this program? So, you know, I'll pick on one just because I really like him and he does a great job, but you know, uh, pools, inspection of pools. So, you know, I mean, we we're going we're going to talk about a budget of of here's how much it costs to inspect all these pools. Here's how much more we need to charge to go and inspect these pools. I mean, have we ever had a a loss of life due to, you know, a chlorine issue in a pool? I don't know. But, I mean, that would be something you could ask your voter. Do we want to spend your money in pool inspections or is that something that's being, you know, required by the state? Maybe. Maybe there's a minimum, you know, standard that we have to. But, but then you look at a lot of the departments that are grant funded and all of the education that goes through that. Like if we start showing programs that we're paying for out of the general fund and then we show programs that pay for themselves, this pie gets way smaller, way easier for your public to digest because they think we pay for everything out of their taxes. They don't realize that community development is 100% funded by grant funds. So, um, I

would ask as we walk through this conversation, if we are going to put something on the ballot, you know, here's your 5% your five cents that we're asking for for our local heroes to do their job. Here are the five programs that we're asking you to tell us if you want to remove because it is it is our budget. And I think that leadership, you know, if you say you're you're willing to make the hard decisions, I mean, that's a hard one. Are you willing to actually go and ask them? So, um, if we did that, would we restrict council's use of cos? So, if we're going to go to the voter, we're going to say, look, we need 5% because we've done a good job of making sure we mapped out all the year. Are we going to turn around 6 months later and then have council look at an option of, well, we also need to borrow $12 million here for that? We also need to borrow $10 million for that. because then what we've done is we've misrepresented to our voter what our actually need was. And so would we as a council and perhaps a policy um restrict those cos to like strictly emergency use where you know the the police department has to burn down before you would go and borrow that money and and are we then going to hold ourselves accountable through those 12 months of hey we got all we got we got to make it work you know. So, um I know emergencies and and the whatifs can come in there, but as a as a stipulation of of selfaccountability, council, this is your question. Um you've you've forecasted, you've spoken to your voters, hey, here's how we're going to get to streets. We're going to try to borrow $12 million every year in order to go and get those additional streets on top of our street fund so they have consistency so they know that they can plan two years out. We've been willing to take that hit. Some of our voters don't like that. But but it is us managing within what they've given us. We only have so much money and this is something that we can do. Now unpopular

or not, it's benefit uh the city greatly in in how we're planning. So if we want to remove that and go to the voter and ask them, let's represent that adequately. So I just want there to be a risk. I want there to be a caution or a cost to going to the voters. I want us to understand as a body if they say no, they meant no. We we don't have that street repair, right? And so that's the risk that we're faced with. I want to make sure you guys feel that same risk. So if you want to continue on with your your program

absolutely this point here my what I have so far is we will bring back to you actuals and at a future council meeting we'll bring back to you some some growth projections and so for for that we can do that. So, all right, council. I'd recommend it is almost 10:30. We're halfway through our session here. I recommend we take a short break. So, so we can freshen up and get ready get ready to come back. So Yes.

Heading back to our seats, please. We'll start in one minute. Okay. Are you good to go ahead? We'll kick it back off. All right. Back in session. Thank you.

All right. Where's my slide? Get back to the right slide here. Yes. Okay. All right. Next topic I have for the council is to discuss uh this summer. And so we we've already kind of discussed a few of these things here. I think we have a few general ideas from the from the council about a few things we can bring back to you. But one of my goals uh for today is to kind of get some guidance on what would council like to like to see presented this summer. So how would you like the budget to be presented to you? Whether it's how many days do I budget for the initial workshop? Three days, five days? because even that plays in that helps staff know, okay, I've got one day to get this done or I got five days to get this done. So that's those kind of things. Um what kind of reports, forms, data, those kind of things we can we can be we can be working on. Um uh what kind of columns, what kind of percentages, um uh forecasting values, those kind of things. So um anything you don't want talked about, anything Grayson, don't even think about bringing that to us or or Grayson, we'd like to kind of see a a direction toward this. So this this is just one slide here. So my my request today is to kind of get some guidance from the council as to as to flow as to order the presentation this summer. These are things that I'm going to I'm going to hand off to Lola when she gets here, but it will help Lola and her team help build the presentation for this summer uh to kind of know from you all what what would you like to have in front of you, what in what order and so forth. So with that, I will again stop and kind of get some feedback from you all. And again, you don't have to necessarily all agree on something and uh necessarily and but uh but just kind of getting input from everyone to kind of know what you'd like to see.

Well, I mean, I think we had a good discussion of this last year. Uh so, do we have all the notes from last year? We have lots of notes. Well, I think we I think last year we really lined that out for what we wanted to see. I think actuals was the biggest thing. And I know come budget time there's some numbers we don't know right like you just said we're forecasting but we want the most current numbers y and then I think uh one thing we want is the variance from last year. Yes actual budget where they were to where they are this year. Um I'm trying to think what else what other columns did we request?

CIP CIP um on as far as the projects on completion. Is that what you're talking about? budgeted versus completion.

So, um, one thing that's been very difficult to track and I think you've done a good job of heading up a committee with staff, which is going backwards and cleaning up the CIP projects by bringing them forward, closing them out. But then where we where we really ended up is that exercise is bringing us to a place to where council is waiting on a like we'll call it a CIP update so we can uh accumulate all of those projects that were completed. you know, what was the budget amount or appropriated amount versus what was the actual and then that money that's left there if if there's a potential or like if we had a project that didn't make um the reappropriation of that

and so hopefully we could do that twice a year midyear as well as uh budget but CIP actuals be very important

on top of that um what I would say is that quarterly investment earnings or holdings report that says here's where all the money sits you know here's all your cash. Here's all your CDs, your your treasuries, your notes, everything like that, because we we want to be able to see that interest growth. And so being able to track that interest earnings every year um and not kind of let that get washed away in the overall budget would be very helpful because a million dollars worth of interest earnings are very, you know, easily uh potential and and the way in which we're reporting that. Um, those would be the two that I I'm keying in on on top of what Don would say would be to go back and look at the the rest of the the notes. I remember trending was a big deal. You know, being able to see what the trends look like. That way we can see why did we jump 20% in one year? What happened in that department? Right. So, Councilman, did you have anything on your end? Yeah, a couple of things uh I ju I just want to mention is one thing I would like to see at the very beginning is is because I think you know I I don't think we can ever hear it enough just to remember how this orders but also to remind the public of how our finances and budgets work which is just going over again how M and INS work. Mhm.

Uh that that that you know just primer doesn't have to be that long but just to make sure that that we know how the M and INS works. Also just just for you know the the the M we have a three and a half% cap. I think it would be good to say let's just say for example we didn't want to take three and a half percent. We took a million less. We took two and a half percent or 2% or whatever. What's that? What's that the compounding impact years from now? I mean, yeah, we want to keep an eye on, you know, obviously keep an eye on taxes, but but but if we do not take that every year, what does that what does that cost us longer term? Um, and and then just just a reminder because I think there's a you know, the first two the first two years that I was on council, our tax rate went down. Last year, our tax rate went up. Uh, but the first two the first two years, we were taking in more dollars, but the tax rate went down. I think just a reminder of how those things work

valuations. Yes. Yeah. And particularly and again you know there's no limit on the INS side uh you know and the and the M side. And then just a quick look at uh all of our debt status.

In other words, where are we on what debt have we issued that we're still paying on? When does that roll off? Again, that's that's something that I'd like to be able to uh uh to take a look at. Uh, I do want to and I think I I I emailed a copy of this to um and I'll I'll pass a copy down for everybody to take a look at, but uh to the mayor's point because we've talked about this a couple of times. Uh I had something that I just wanted to share as something that would be a format if we could get it worked into our budget. And this would be um what I find sometimes is while there's a six six seven 800 page budget that that's not for us to live on page 289 of looking at how many pencils are spent or the office supplies. What what I would like to see is something that provides us u a good general overview of the various budgets. And so this one here would just be and these are not actual numbers but just to show you what what I I think would be most beneficial. I know for me I don't know for council but uh this would just be a general fund uh summary but I would like to see this for airport for parks and recreation for you know the other departments which is uh and it takes and the top area is revenue. So this takes FY23, FY24, it has FY25 budget. Uh and then to your point, this would be the forecast. So this would be at whatever point it may be seven uh months of actual, five months of forecast and then what you're looking at the budget. To me, the most important uh part of this is the last three columns, which is looking at a percentage difference. Back to that trend of being able to say, okay, uh property tax, we were up 4.92, up 7.53, 6.53. Does that cause us any concern? Wait a minute, let's go down to

uh to transit. We were down 11%. Now we've been up, and these are not actual numbers, by the way, but 15 or 14 uh percent. Why is that? To me, it just allows you at a snapshot to really be able to take a a quick look at what are the trends on, you know, the spending in these areas because I think it just allows you to very quickly be able to say, "Oh, here to to ask questions pretty quickly."

So, quickly, just as a point of order, we've got a document here that's being shared online, and we've got a handout to make sure we we record it correctly in the minutes and for everybody to hear. This is an example or a draft of the template that Councilman Simpson's presenting. These numbers are not referenced to existing actuals or projections. So these numbers are just examples.

I just tried to put some numbers in. I started to put in the actuals but then I have a life. So it would have taken me uh uh about 10 years to do that. The other area so revenue is an area I would like to see expenses by department. So you know just a line item that says quickly I can say all the departments that are in you know the general fund and then expenses by category. So this would be okay all together what are the what are the personal services overtime pay this would be for everything that falls under the uh uh the general fund. And then the last two uh are employee cost. Again I think if we look at uh the municipality our I'm sure our largest expense is probably employee cost. Correct.

Uh I just like to kind of line this out to to be able to better track this as an organization depending on you know which one it is. And then the other thing that I think would be beneficial is just full where are we on full-time equivalents. So FTEES which is basically you know uh you know some of them may be part-time some of them may be full-time but ultimately you're you're adding them up uh you know dividing them by 40 to determine the FTE so that we can see the trends on that. So, don't know if the system will allow us to do that by by the time we get on this year's budget, but boy, this would be I think it would be really beneficial.

What we would need to do if if council were to kind of in green spirit to this kind of format, what I would want to do is we we have a third party that designs our reporting out of our software. Uh that way the uh because the software it's a bunch of data. You have to design reports that that I want this report that has these columns from these locations and then it prints prints out that way. So, so we would we would need to engage with our third party right away in order to have them start preparing some kind of reporting mechanism to do this. Otherwise, we have to look at Excel. And my preference would be something that the software can produce that that would pull from the software to prod do something like this. I

I'd rather have I'd rather not have Excel. I'd rather have to me a number in Excel really doesn't mean anything. The number in the system is what matters, the budgeting system. Uh, so if if if we could look at that. Yeah. And again, I I'd have to give with staff. I I I believe this is possible. So with our with our third party. So, but I let me confirm with them, but I can head that direction if council were to spirit to this kind these kind of columns, these kind this kind of category type approach. Is this Rich? Is this doable with these columns? Yeah, it should be doable as as within the system within our software.

Yeah. once they get to the point that they're seeing um actuals and that reporting is done, this is just another form of report. So, it would be something we'd partner with, you know, our workday consultant to do. So, Rich, can this tie back to the account balances? So, like the one thing that I'm hearing Councilman Simpson bring back up again is that in previous years, the budget was never tied to the actual account balance, meaning it was a a product that had to be produced manually. it wasn't it wasn't exported into that. So if we create this system right here on a template, can we export directly from our account balances into these to to reflect the totals?

I'd look to Katrina to just from a process standpoint what they have already to answer that because I'm going to tell you yes, anything is possible.

Okay. I I think one other thing that is absolutely crucial in this and we've talked about it before but it I mean the actuals are the actuals we'll have those but to me the most important column is the forecast because the to me forecasting as accurately as possible makes it it's going to be crucial to be able to have a a forecast because if you don't really have a forecast that's that correct the the percentages really don't mean anything. So, you know, just making sure because I think we kind of have navigated for that over the last couple years. But I think making sure that the forecast, I think, would be u u would would would be the the most important part of that and making sure that forecast is as accurate as possible. It may start out at 7 plus 5. You know, we may come back to look at the budget again, it's 8 plus 4, you know, kind of continuing to go through that. And then the other thing is uh and and I don't know h how to to maybe put this but I felt like our most productive discussions on last year's budget was kind of towards the last day when we kind of looked at the big items. I don't know if you remember that but but to to me the the more that we can stay at a higher level uh and looking so we were looking at okay here's here's the gap that we have to to fill on the budget. here were some of the big items. The more that we can kind of stay on those larger items, I think would be more beneficial. So, if there's something that just says, and again, I don't know when we go into this budget if we said here are the 15 items that are having a significant impact on the budget because there are new items this year, there's something that we changed and we had uh you know, we had positives and negatives. I mean, obviously, if there's revenue that we went in and and adjust, I think that would be beneficial as well. And then just for format, uh I would throw one other idea out is would it be beneficial to to look at our revenues first?

Absolutely. In other words, before we even start expenses, I mean the the revenues are your your expenses are going to be determined by the by by the amount of revenue. And if you don't have your revenue correctly, well then you've got to go in and be able to do that. So maybe where we can to maybe start off by looking at okay are we are we okay with these revenue numbers. Do they do they pass the smell test? Are they too aggressive? Because that again is going to give you some indication of whether your expenses are you know or whe whether we're going to have to get more out of expenses to be able to do that. So um those are just some of the things I I want to bring up. Very good input. Very good.

So I I really appreciate this. want to make sure council has an opportunity looking at this. What we are doing is directing um staff to implement this based on this template and and it's pretty uh I'd say exhaustive like I think you've caught all of the line items and done a pretty good job. So, I'm not I'm not saying there's anything missing, but if you had something in addition to So, as an example, um once again to to kind of go back to the CIP, what would be great is to see CIP uh line item um in all appropriations of CIP, $250 million of projects that are sitting there.

Closed CIP, right? on this summary. Well, we we capitalized $50 million. Uh CIP meaning construction in progress, not capital improvement project, but here's your CIP construction in progress, $200 million moving forward. You you would be able to track that number a little bit better. Right now, we're having a harder time. You know, we we issue the money and it it sits for a couple years. It's cumulative. Um the other thing would be if we could define other revenue. Um that's one other area that we can get lost. So, let's say we had a lawsuit settlement um and proceeds that came in from there. Can we track those revenues there so that we can make sure we're adequately accounting for all the revenues? And so, sometimes when it just says other, we don't know, you know, did we sell a property? So, well, we sold that building million dollar value.

Yep. Absolutely. And remember, of course, as I mean, the budget is very big. And so as as you when you get the budget, anytime that you have a question like that like you see and an unknown what's the information here, please ask and we will get you the information. I think the other benefit of you know having this again as early as we possibly can in this format. It just, you know, it allows us to have a little bit of time to be able to look at it and be able to formulate those questions or it may be something that's just like I can get an answer to pretty pretty quickly. But I I think the more that we uh you know kind of stay u

at the higher level and then dig down if we need to, I think it's just going to allow us to be a lot more efficient uh and being able to make the best use of our time when we're reviewing the budget.

Absolutely. This is all very good input. I think this will really give Lola and her team some some good guiding parameters to work with and uh so um unless council has any other ideas, we can move on to cost recovery items. We have another We have one more hour left before for lunch and unless there's more input for the budget this summer. Very good. Thank you'all. All right. Our last topic we have today for our final hour. Again, just this for our for our timeline today. Um again, we have we roughly budgeted a hour for lunch for you all for the council. Then we have executive session beginning at 1:00 with of course regular at 3:00. All right. My final set of slides, which is half the slides still, are cost recovery. As you recall, last year, city council discussed, okay, Grayson, u we've been talking about property tax, we're talking about sales tax, we've been talking about utility revenue. How about our other revenues, the other things that that help make up the budget? And so, how about how are those doing? Are those keeping up? Are those appropriate? Or or are taxpayers subsidizing services that they may not necessarily be using instead other people are using? So, again, the the thought was the golf ball idea. So, so with this um uh I I uh I tasked staff over the last last several months with going back to the budgets and looking at looking at all their programs, all their expenses, all their everything they've got and identifying things that that that what are services we're providing that have a revenue toward that. Again, example like permitting. You go in to get a permit, there's an expense for that. Does that permit cover the cost or are taxpayers subsidizing that permit for that developer? Those kind of things. That's the kind of things we're looking at. And so, um, so with this, again, the whole point of all of this conversation now is

to be looking at nonpropy tax revenues, things that right now the property tax and sales tax are having to make up ground for. So again, a lot of the process here with this was we're we're not looking at C. We were looking at again cost recovery not cost cutting. Again that's our our earlier conversation which as I think as a council saw it's a very challenging topic to to tackle. So what it is that our citizens don't need and don't want. So all right the approach as I as I received input from the staff I began to see some patterns as we looked at uh what what were we identifying. So um we were seeing again examples of where where uh fees have have been outpaced by cost as as inflation occurs as as prices doing business has increas increased our fees have not kept up. I mean there are several examples of fees that have not been changed in 20 years. I guarantee you costs have changed in 20 years and so there's examples of that. We're looking at uh aligning our practice with best practices. What are our peer cities doing? What's the industry doing? what what it is what it what what how does our fee compare to those to those um uh uh uh standards. Looking at uh legal constraints, there are some fees that you cannot touch. Uh for example, vital statistics of birth and death certificates, you cannot increase that fee. State sets that rate. So if you take a loss there, the state says tough, we don't care. Just be blunt like that. So and so that's some things that we have had to deal with in some of our fees. Uh we also have to consider public and political sensitivities. There's one thing like example we'll get to environmental health the daycare fee legislative has said you know what we're going to we're going to help we're going to we're going to encourage local governments and I say encourage you know local state always forces you they say you know you you will be you will subsidize the this area here and so there are some things that politically and socially in our community that the

citizens just you know what put it on my tax ro instead. I don't want to have a fee towards that. So we have to bear those things in mind. Um so how so u so with this as staff are look we're looking at this. We brought you all concepts. We did not sit down and and work out every logistical factor here. We don't want to do that until council says good idea flesh it out or bad idea. And so with this as you the next several slides here we're going to be having you're going to be getting some concepts. Some staff did a little more homework, but overall I I t staff, don't figure out the exact recoup amount of money because again, we don't that's that's to come. Let's figure out let's let's give me some concepts here. Let's do some pros and cons. Do a little bit of analysis. Then once I get uh interest from the council, then we'll go to work doing those things. The scope here uh general fund. So I did not look I I I did ask every department to look at look at their budgets but the focus today is general funds property tax is that's my focus today and so while while every department did participate for sake of time I am not going to be covering airport community development public health or wick those ones they have their own revenue streams like airport they're already cost recovering uh the other three they have federal funds while they do while while a couple of them do have some general fund assistance uh there there's is recent council direction behind those that I didn't I didn't tackle today. So again, my focus today is general fund items, general fund departments, property tax departments where property tax is making it the difference where fees are falling short. So getting into the departments, we're going alphabetical animal management and welfare. Um as you look at their budget overall, full cost recovery is not feasible. Uh, I think it's around $4 million expense around$100 to $200,000 revenue. I I I cannot bring to you a

legit a realistic option today to make up $4 million. And you're going to see that through a lot of the lot lot of the departments today. So I again I asked them, okay, look within your budget. What are certain things you're doing that have a revenue associated associated with it where the revenue is not keeping pace with the expense? So that they got specific granular like that. Again, while I can't while I may not be able to make up all the ground, what are what what are some things that I can at least have small victories and make up ground in those areas? They gave us four options here. Good options. One is our daily shelter care fee. Uh right now, if costing us about $13 to to shelter and care for an animal, we're charging five, which means taxpayers are making the difference for the other 10. So, with this um uh we've not raised our fees in over a decade. So, one of the options we have here is to increase our shelter care fee from $5 to $15 per day in order to reflect actual costs that we're seeing in the shelter for carrying these animals. Adult animal surrender fee. The recommendation here is to increase from $25 to $50. Again, very similar to the last one, our costs are exceeding our ability to in order to in order to bring in these surrendered animals. So, when a person drops off an animal, there should be a higher expense versus the taxpayers making the difference for that. Option three, adoption fees. We This is actually an interesting one. We currently have an ordinance says $50 for canines and $30 for felines, but back in 2020, I'm guessing for COVID, we I'm not sure if it was council or staff or whatever it was board, we discretionary lowered that for I'm I'm sure for sensitive reasons. Um, our recommendation here is to put it back to ordinance values. mean again this is not an increase to what's what's in the ordinance this is actually going back to the ordinance value and last on option four re repeat empowerment policy so we do have unfortunately some citizens who do not manage their animal as well as others do and their animals get out repeatedly and so part of the thought here is in order to try to try

to incentivize or encourage encourage them to take a little more responsibility with their pet the feed doubles and then you have to then spay a neuter animal because as you all know a loose animal is probably possibly a procreating animal. So which adds to the issue there. So those are the four options here. We would re I would recommend all four of these is what I'd recommend. Now there's some in some departments that I I will say that I recommend some not all. This is one area that I'd recommend all four. So uh we can either come back to this or if I get nods affirmative um we can do that. But otherwise, if there's if there's a willingness with council, I would recommend all four and I can send staff on work on these for the budget. Any comments or thoughts for animal management and welfare? I I wouldn't I don't think I'd have any problem with any of these, but I I there there's a couple that I could see where uh I'd probably like to get the a little bit of feedback from our animal welfare management board. Yeah.

Just to kind of run this by them. Um I I and and let me apologize. I should say I mean for all these things my goal would be that I would I would have I mean every one of these things is going to involve certain levels of communication input board input education for the public. So yeah these are not like we're going to start tomorrow. These things I would I would ask staff to between now and October 1st to get the to get the appropriate process per that fee started whether it's a a notice or whatever is required for that. Yes, we would be doing that.

Okay. Yeah. Because a couple of these I I could and again I'm sure every one of these we could have exceptions. We're going to have to make some tough decisions on this, but on the animal welfare management board people would probably wonder well are people less likely to surrender their pet or surrender if there's a cost to it if we increase the cost adoption fees would that mitigate adoption? Not saying that we shouldn't do these and we're going to have, you know, but I'd just like to kind of run that through and kind of see what the feedback is from there. And that that's the reality. For every fee you look at, um uh you're going to have push back. And so again, this was this was a this was a a an exercise that council requested. I think the council knew that every fee you increase, you're going to have push back. There's always a pro and a con to that, but I think the mentality was look at it simply. What is not cash flowing right now? And let's look at those.

Grayson, I think this this is absolutely where we need to be as a city. I mean, if it's $13 a day to take care of them. Why are we only charging five? You know, there's a lot of people in the city that don't have dogs and cats, why are we supplementing that, you know, that fee? It needs to cover the cost. Fantastic job. And I would support all of these, but with a roll out with the with the the committees and different folks. But if it is if it is this cost, then we need to charge it. Absolutely. Y Hey, Grayson, where did you come up with these fees? I mean I'm just curious like option two increase from 25 to 50. Why why didn't we choose 50?

These are looking at peer practices as well. So I know when a when um um Victoria was with director Medley was here she gave me kind of a a table of other cities and so forth. I think this is one of the ones but she looked at other cities looked at their fees and again she looked at she they did some again I didn't ask staff to to actually sit down okay figure out well Sally charges $13 an hour. So, but but they gave the best overall guess because again directors they understand their budgets and so these fees were based off of that in-house knowledge of what does it cost to me? What's the peer practice and so forth but again if you want to do a different fee again the recommendation is this but if council would say you know what $30 instead again we had to just give you something.

Sure. Okay. And then the the daily shelter care fee I guess that was based on some type of cost. Yeah. That was an easier one for them to calculate. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I'm I'm good with these fees. I think um as we look across the city because you're going to go through each of these uh areas um at this point those who are whether it's golf, tennis, uh the swimming pools, whatever, those are the people that are using those those facilities. Correct. Um I know I played golf, I played tennis. I never looked at the fee that I was paying because I wanted to go play.

Uh and it was still cheaper than going to to join a a private club. Uh so the city still is offering that that quality of life service. Uh but I think these fees are are in line. Um and I don't think they're just numbers that have been thrown together uh to appease us, but I think that the department heads have done a good job in in really looking at what that that uh should be. And I think it uh that most taxpayers would agree that if you're the one that's using that service, you should be the one that's paid.

Yeah. Very good. So So for what I could do today is um I um what I would like to do is as we work through these slides, um I kind of may as I think about this, if there's any option that anyone's like, Grayson, absolutely no. We'll get those. And then what I will then do is bring back the ones that we've recommended and then I could tell from council there's there's positi towards I will bring them back as a resolution to you all and so that you guys can then vote on those at a future meeting and that way that way there's that we have more time to think about this again as part of the resolution there'll be part of the okay there's going to be a rollout process a study process and so but that way that way there's some action tied to this and you have some more time to think about this as well. So with this I will move on to the next one. I will I will plan to tendly move all four options forward to that resolution.

And Grayson, I guess when that resolution comes out, I guess it's maybe a no-brainer, but I guess you will show us from uh previous numbers the the dollar amount of impact that that would have to the budget, right? We don't need to now, but when that resolution comes forward, just basing it on previous numbers. What what I would say logistically is I would like to bring the resolution to you like the next meeting or so. I won't have the numbers then, but then I would then as part of the budget process, that's fine. We would then bring them back to you then because again,

you're not locked in at the resolution there. You could always in the budget say, you know what, Grayson, now that I've seen the number on the on the adult animal surrender fee, it's just not worth it. And so, we're going to have too much push back, it's just not worth it kind of thing. Scratch it from the budget kind of a thing. So, so I I would prefer to as as one as one unified process bring back to you the numbers during the budget process itself. That's fine. I just think the numbers are important. Yes. Absolutely.

All right. City marshall uh again full cage recovery is not feasible. Uh so their focus was on the abatement fee. The baitment the baitment work they do as you know city marshall they go out there they look at nuisances from tall grass to dangerous structures to those kind of things. There is an administrative fee to that. Uh we do have we have by law we have required to certified mails. There's data entry. There's contractor coordination. There's contractor expenses. there's lean preparation and then the occasion we have to issue warrants and so there are there are legitimate costs tied to doing abatement right now the taxpayers are having to make that up for those who are having to be abated and so with this um uh Jacob and his and his team they looked at we have not raised our fee since March of 2012 so the $75 administrative fee has not changed in over what 13 or so years 14 years now so with this looking at looking at peer cities they range from 125 to 250 administrative fee. The recommendation here from staff is to go from 75 to 125 in fiscal year 2627 and then to 150 and 2728. A phase approach there. Again, you're not on the high end, but you're doing more to cover the cost so that those who are having to be abated are covering their cost and not those who are actually doing doing a good job of maintaining their property. So, and I would recommend that approach. And he also recommended an automatic 3% increase in our ordinance. We have a few other permits like building building safety. As costs do do go up, we went ahead and put in place an automatic adjustment. That way we have to come back every year and council has to wait every year. We have a natural inflation built into the ordinance there. So my recommendation would be the phased approach 75 to 125 and next year uh to 150 the following year with a 3% automatic annual adjustment thereafter. Any concerns with that? Right. Now, civic center, this is a bit of exception here. I put it in here because I know I've had some conversation with

some council members about this topic. I know council would at some point like to discuss cost recovery here. U so I again all departments did this exercise. Uh this is not a general fund department. This is funded through their own revenues and through hot and and other funds like that. Staff do review fees and so forth. But council my request given it is 11:13 today. My request, I know this is a challenging complicated topic to discuss. There's been a lot of political discussion, a lot of lot of a lot of of other discussion with this one here. If the council would wish to discuss cost recovery, I would recommend we not do that today, but we would set that aside as its own standalone topic. Environmental health, there are two slides here. So, there are a number of options here that environmental health has has come up with. This is actually a department where I feel that cost recovery as a department may be achievable in the near future. And so, uh, they currently have a $2.3 million budget. They are at $1.8 million revenue. It's a $500,000 subsidy from general from general fund. And so, they've identified several items here that I recommend. Some that I'm not going to recommend, but some that I will recommend. One change in your code in your slides today. What that should actually say is actually grease trap uh program revenue realignment. staff got with me yesterday and said, "Gayson, there's actually a wastewater and utilities. This is actually grease trap program." And so uh environmental health uh administers this program for grease trap in inspections, but all the revenue is going to utilities. So with this uh Thank you, Stephanie. With this uh uh this is more of a budget realignment that I I prepare that I'm planning to do for the upcoming budget year. I will be moving that revenue from the utilities over into over into the general fund. And that's actually a very substantial revenue stream based off history there. So that's one that unless you unless you say no, I plan to move from utilities into the general fund because that's that's the department who's doing it. Option two, again, the council asked me to bring all options to you, uh, good

and bad. And so I know we've talked about vector fee before. Again, this is an option the council can consider. It's not one that I'm recommending today. And so, but if you so wish, you could you could fund the vector fee through a fee on the utility bill. Again, based off council discussion before, I am not recommending this one today unless council says otherwise. Option three, tattoo and body piercing inspection program. Um, one of the NIH core programs is is to do inspection services for tattoo and body piercing. We have exist staff feels that they can take this on without additional staffing to do this program here. So there's revenue that could be be had from this one here. I'm actually not recommending this one today. And so I I appreciate staff willingness to pursue more revenue streams, but I'm always a little cautious about adding more work without adding additional staff. And so that's one that I would have some caution with. Next slide. Three more options. Uh recreational water program versus pools and spas. It is currently recovering 50% of its cost to do this do this program. So the recommendation here is to double the permit fee from $500 to $1,000. so that the taxpayers are not making up the difference for for for inspection services on pools and spa pools and spa services. There is an option for phasing if council so wished. I would be recommending the full cost recovery route at this time. Option five is a group daycare program. It is only recovering 34% of its cost. Uh this is one like I said before that legislation has stepped in to kind of put some caution towards us. I would not recommend full cost recovering this program here based off legislative action that's been taking place in Austin. So, but I would maybe perhaps a modest fee increase, maybe 10 to 15%. Again, just trying to in good faith recoup some of the costs that it takes to to provide the service. And lastly, this is one we've already taken taken action on from with council. Uh the public health district cost sharing. As

you know, um, we do service Randall County, Potter County, City of Canyon, uh, Lake Tanglewood, a few other areas there, but currently the city of Emerald taxpayers are paying all the cost, not the other individuals. And so with this program, Anthony and Casey and their team have done a great job of going to these boards and they have agreed tentively to come to come to terms with us in order share of the cost on a PR rata basis uh, based off their populations with that. So with this um looking at looking at both slides, my recommendation would be option one which which is an easy one. It makes total sense. Option four uh the full cost recovery. Option five a modest increase. And option six we continue with that. But I this point here I am not recommending option two or three unless council directs otherwise.

So couple questions on eh. Um currently tattoos not being inspected. Tattoo parlor. Anthony, if you could please come forward. This would be an additional program that you guys would be recommending. That's correct, mayor. It's uh currently regulated by the Texas Department of State Health Services, but they have one inspector from Dallas up to far north Earl. Tattoo body piercing facilities rarely get looked at. Okay. A lot of local entities are are having their own programs. TDLR as well, right? I don't maybe licensing side but not on the actual facility side.

Um okay. And then do you feel like this is pretty exhaustive in and you know like this is a good find in how we're utility billing those revenues. Right. So the way you're taking the the option one I think is is u definitely in line with balancing the budget. But then do you feel like this is pretty exhaustive? you've looked at um other and and there's no other recommendations out there as it pertains to eh in the way you guys bill for your services.

We're we're pretty limited on our our food hygiene program. That's 60% of our entire department and there's there's been some state legislation out there that's limited how we can cost recover that. I think I can do a little better on recreational water, realign some um program expenses to to help cost recover that program a little better. I think our two biggest swings in my personal opinion is option one and option two. We could essentially recover our entire department by those two options. On the on the recreational water, is that something that's mandated by the state? Uh the swimming pool and SP it is a state law. Yes, that's correct.

Do does the state provide that service in some form or fashion? They don't in areas with local jurisdictions. So they they essentially give it to us if we were to give it away uh back to the state. I'm not sure if they could pick that up again. They're very limited in staffing. Do you know what the current expense is on that on that program?

Yes, sir. I think you had it separated out at one time. I'm just curious. And then is there a potential to go to a responsive uh protocol versus a a calendar or a proactive? So you guys have to work the entire list. So new hotel comes online, new recreation pool, let's say public pool. You guys are inspecting everything. A lot of time expensed for that. Is there a way to make that responsive? So you guys allow for the public to operate with kind of good behavior, good results, but at the point where there's a complaint or an incident, then it becomes something that you guys would would uh oversee. And would the state allow that? I think anything's possible, but not one I I would essentially recommend. That program has a lot of enforcement action that it's taken in there. We we often see water chemistry out of balance, electrical hazards, drowning hazards, uh pool permits typically get suspended quite often. I think if we go to a responsive uh position, we would respond all the time. We would essentially be running a program. Can you see those even though those are going through building safety and and inspections

all the time? Okay.

Um do you have some data because I think it would help for us to to be able to um address this in the future. Do you have some data on uh incidents or or um you know like so you have a I don't even know if it would be just a chlorine burn or whatever where where there there have been because I think the feedback that I get probably from more of the hotel years and some of those pool operators is that they're being regulated. They've never had an incident. We you know we really don't need this level of local regulation. They're already being regulated enough as it pertains to their other business. I we could probably come up with some um some some sort of data. We we have um violation data that I could pull fairly easy to show the number of times a facility has been marked for a certain number of violations.

I think that would be helpful especially if we're looking at increasing the budget or the uh the fee to perform that regulation. We need to be able to show the the public safety aspect for sure. I will also tell you this due to state law changes. So, a lot of hotels serve food as well and their food costs used to be one of the higher ones because it was based upon uh the size of the facility. Due to state law changes, that has gone down tremendously. So, they they will see quite a bit of savings on the food side. So, if you increase it on the recreational water side, they will still be a net savings to a facility.

Okay. Does any other uh municipality operate without breaking out their revenues like this? Are they ever somewhat encapsulated and grouped together and then build accordingly in a percentage? Oh, uh, for a hotel, well, um, you do a really good job of breaking out fee structures for each independent thing you're looking at and then billing those. Um, you don't have any, uh, global fee, so to speak, that you could pay for, uh, as an entity where it would just be per property. Simpler. Correct. Um, for I would say all my colleagues across the state, it's all all environmental health programs are ran this way. Okay. Per program.

Thank you for letting me deviate on that. Appreciate it. Quick question uh on the on the grease trap. So, how does that tell me the benefit? So, we're not generating any more revenue out of this. We're just shifting it. What's the advantage of doing that? Well, right now the revenue is going to the utilities but not to the general funds. This would be a new revenue stream in the general fund. Okay. But it's but it's not it's not netting us as a total organization anymore.

Again, yeah, today's focus is general fund property tax base. And so that today's exercise is on that. So yeah, it would be a deduct from utilities. But again, the focus today is is is about is about trying to address the property tax subsidy. Yeah. And the expense where where's the expense on that recognized? Environmental health general fund. So, so okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's why this makes sense to me is the expenses in general fund, the revenue is in utilities. Thank you.

That's that's how it's explained to me. So, so with this um I I'm sorry I stepped out for a minute there. Um um um my recommendations were options one, four, a modest five and six. And then was there was there some direction possibly on three? Maybe some more information coming back or is that did that not go anywhere? I'm sorry. No, I think I'm good on three. I think you're not recommending it and so we just move forward. I asked for a little additional information as it relates to recreational uh waters. Very good. So one, four, five, and six we'll bring back to you all for a resolution. All right. Why not Grayson? Why not two? Yes.

Why not option two? Well, I'm mostly just taking my guidance based off the last budget workshop and and the concern council had with putting things on the on the utility bill.

If I could speak to that real quick, I think just um colleague to colleague, um I I want to continue to stress that the utility bill, the water bill, um is a is a dangerous, slippery slope to start putting fees on. So as a regulatory body, right, we we administer all sorts of core services that are regulated by the state. So we can only raise tax this much. When we put a fee on a utility bill, it's totally unregulated. Meaning we can say it's 50 cents year one, but we could turn around year two and raise it to to $5. Now, I'm not saying we would ever do that, but um that is what the appearance looks like um I'd say to our constituents in general. And so like the street fee was the one we were really looking at. The the mosquito or the vector control is is pretty small. And I do see a lot of benefit in the vector control and and having that maintained. But I'm I'm just leery u until you get to your last resort where this is what it's going to take to run the city. Um I hate to allow for the thought process that we would go back to a utility fee and just put an extra fee on your water bill. and and it really is something that is an easy target for taxpayers to shoot at, myself in included. Um, I want to see accountability in finances. I want to know you did everything you could and you ran your budget super tight before you ever just find the solution, which is, well, if I can't raise your taxes, I'll just put a bill, you know, a fee on your water bill. And then there is that single mom of three out there where you know an extra10 $15 a month bill is uh I mean that's lunch for you know one of those kids going to school. So um that's where we've been. Do we want to redirect or are we okay to look at that as the the very last option?

And the vector program could be one the council could consider dropping entirely altogether. So, I'm not sure what regulations are with that, but if you're looking at ways of in order to save cost, you could say since you could say that could be an easy one. $313,000 that the city could could not spend right there. So, this would be one of those like they last brought up, it would it's not one of the core functions. So, this is one that is droppable. I mean, you think keeping people safe from mosquitoes is not a core function. I'm sorry. That was less Simpson stated that not dog tips.

Y but again I'm not saying we should I get I'm just saying that that could be an example of one you could do. So uh moving along for fire uh again full cost recovery is not feasible given the nature of what they do. Uh so looking at some some targeted ideas. So the chief and his team gave gave me four options for this one here for y'all to consider. An update to the fire marshall's inspection and plan review fees. again in introducing a tiered and or risk based charges based off of higher risk. And so if if you have a more higher risk occupancy, they should perhaps pay more than those who have lower risk. Uh this and then add reinspection fees for those who are continually getting continually having trouble getting them passed. And so instead of instead of the the taxpayers having to pay to send an infection back over and over again, the person who is not getting it right will pay those fees. Option two, third party insurance billing. So for this is for I want to stress extraordinary cost. There are situations we come across that that require a certain level of response above normal for fire for fire service. And so there are so there whether it's hazmat, whether it's some insured loss auto, there are certain things that that are a bit beyond normal. And so the thought here would be to uh to pursue insurance companies and who or the responsible party to help pay those costs. And again, this would be avoiding billing routine calls. I know we're we're not going to send a bill to every citizen for every time the fire shows up. This is extraordinary situations and so not many people have a hazmat caught. This is a unique situation. Option three, graduated false alarm fees. We do tend to have individuals who have alarm systems who do have a lot of false alarms and so then we respond because you don't want to be the entity that does not respond and you should have been there. But that comes a point of responsibility and accountability. If your system continues to give false alarms over and over again, it shouldn't

be the taxpayers's responsibility to come every time because you won't fix your system. And so the encouragement here is to add fees so that it encourages those. If you're not going to fix your system, then you're going to pay more every time we have to show up and it's a false alarm. Every time that squirrel runs across there, I'm sorry, the the the the million-dollar fire truck shouldn't show up every time. Option four, special event standby charges, full cost recovery for optional standbys at private events or high-risk operation. And so there are times we are requested to do standby services, then it shouldn't necessarily be free. And so if we are going to provide standby services there there it'd be reasonable for that entity that program to maybe cover some of the cost to have a a a unit standing there for that. I did that in my last community. We had we had standby service for ambulances and fire trucks and police and so we did that if if you want the taxpayers necess shouldn't necessarily be subsidizing a private event security and so forth with this again again as cary Simpson addressed some of these would require some careful uh careful uh explanation education and so forth again we're not just going to just throw the fee out there and just let it swim uh we're looking at a lot of lot of explanation here but I would recommend all four options in this situation I would I would just like to speak to the third party insurance billing. We've been involved in several instances where this occurs and that can get into, you know, five, six, seven million on a big hazmat issue and for us not to be able to recover that, that would be be very detrimental.

Yes. And I'm and I'm guessing uh third party billing, that's not something we're going to put in the budget. um third party I mean I mean we we don't know whether it's going to happen or not and there are potential service providers that'll just take a percentage to actually do the billing for it versus us having to hire staff and bill insurance agencies. So there's some options out there but are you saying like put a revenue figure in the budget for that because the unknownness to that correct? Yeah. Yeah. We we could do some reasonable historical analysis to see what it would have been if had had we had this in the past and put maybe put a figure to that, but it this is one where it may be best to leave it low and see how history going forward gives us on that

and it may take us more time than we have to actually get this thing build out figured out as well. So, all right. Thank you.

All right. Internal audit. Uh and this is more of an FYI for the council. This department does not produce revenue. who is strictly a a cost department, but they have been busy trying to find ways to, as the councelor Simpson addressed, to try to find ways to to cut costs. And so, one thing that implemented already this year, just for your awareness, is we were we were paying for a third-party service to do a hot audits, but we have taken that over and and we're saving about $100,000 a year to do that ourselves. And so, uh, Unil Gerber and his team are doing a great job of of now working with hotels. And from what I've seen based up based on the information that's been given to me, our staff is a bit more friendlier than I think the third parties were. So the hotel years have have more enjoyed working with our staff. Our staff, they show up, they go on site, they work at arrangements and so forth. This has been a good thing for us. So this is a already implemented cost savings for the city. Just for your awareness, it again this is not a revenue generating department, but this is but this is a critical component of our city. But and so there are a few things they're going to be doing. Again, they do not provide frontline service to the citizens. They are they are purely inward-f facing. They they provide the backbone for all the departments to operate uh with this um um they're looking at two things to help help kind of uh adjust uh how how money is is being allocated in the budget. First one is it is looking at re at at um at um re-examining their fee model. So, it builds departments uh based off of their usage, based off their their their hardware, software, the demand and so forth. Uh looking at general fund, utility fund, drainage funds. So, they want to make sure that's properly re properly aligned so that non-general fund departments are paying appropriate share of the cost for it, not being heavily burdened in in the general fund. So, they're working on that. That's that's currently in works with for them.

and also kind of similar to the public safety district environmental health and and and and wick and and public health department, but they're looking at uh the regional radio system cost sharing. We do we do assist other entities with with radio systems. Um but um we want to make sure that they're paying their fair share as well. So Misty and her team are going to be re-evaluating what we're billing these entities, these other governmental entities to make sure that they're covering their prora share of the cost. So again, it is working on ideas to um to help make sure that appropriate revenue from other bits are coming in for that radio program as well as we're making sure that the general fund is is being built fairly versus other departments. So no action I would say for council. This is one that I think as manager I've already tked staff with doing because it just makes sense. Library u again not not full cost recovery is not feasible. So again looking at targeted adjustments to improve fairness and cost recovery while again preserving access to individuals. And so library is one of those quality of life programs that that that is there for all individuals of all capabilities and all economic statuses. And so that is one of the charters of libraries across the nation is being open and available for all individuals no matter how much money you make every year. So with this they did they did identify three that I brought forward to you. They identified a few others that they brought to me that uh that just I think I had in my report that were a bit more challenging. So I brought these three to you today and I do recommend all three here. First one is um um whenever we have material that's damaged um uh we do ask a person to pay for that. If if you borrowed a book and you destroyed the book, you should pay for that book. Uh when you have a more more newer book, we we kind of know what the value of the book is, but we do have a lot of material. It's been there for a long time and so what is the value? So we've we have what's called a default replacement pro price that if we don't

know what the value is, we will we'll we'll charge a default price. That's not changed since 2005. So the the the thought here is to is to is to update that value in order to make sure that we're keeping up with current market. Option two is uh copier and mobile printing charges. I know these are small things for this year, but again we try to bring to you all the all the different options we're working on and and recommending. Um u we are increasing the 20 cents per page. I think it was like 5 cents before, but the actual cost is oh I'm sorry 15 cents before. Actual cost is like 19 cents or so. So we're going to looking at doing 20 cents per page. Again, not again we're trying to bear in mind the clientele and their ability to pay. But at the same time cost covering these services here. So a 5 cent increase per page for that. And then lastly, non-resident card fees. Um libraries are open to all. Um and so even individuals who are do not living in Amarillo paying taxes in Amarillo. So with this we do charge non-residents a a card fee to to use a library. We've not changed it in a number of years. And so doing some math staff calculated that our library given current budget it cost about 2126 per resident. Our current non-resident fee is $18 per individual and 33 per family. So, the proposed increase here is to $25 individual, 45 per family to make sure that non-residents are are recovering more from them to make sure we're covering costs there. With this, um, I recommend all three options for this. In fact, option two is already in the works um to this unless council says otherwise, but I recommend all three options.

Grayson, I have a question. What non-resident card fees, when were those last uh increase increased? Amanda, do you know the answer to that?

Morning. Good morning. It would have been prior to 2015. Okay, thank you. Very good. Thanks, Amanda.

Municipal court. Another FYI, municipal court is an example of a department that exceeds its re that exceeds its cost of the revenue. Now you look at in the grand scheme of things, municipal court is directly tied to police and other services. So that revenue is going towards court related expenses. And so but with this we were not looking at this is not a situation where we're trying to realign revenues with costs. But at the same time, what are things we can do differently or better? Uh first one is actually on your agenda today this afternoon at 3:00. staff went to work looking at our processing fees and identified that that we were we charged 9% processing fee for credit cards. We've re renegotiated that to lower than 3%. That is nearly a $300,000 savings uh based off current usage of credit cards. On top of that, we would like to suggest that given we're down to now 3%, we would like to now recoup that 3% through a fee to the user of the credit card before we were eating that cost. So our recommendation is basically go from nine down to basically zero almost. And so that would be a recommendation for the credit card usage. That's a common practice in entities across the nation is if you use a credit card, there's a fee to use a credit card and the user pays for that. Last one here um is a staff have actually already implemented this but they want to make it make you aware of it. They have they have do done a new docket call for self-represented defendants. Basically, this is more efficient. And so, there's a process they put in place that allows us to along along the way get involved with the with these with these individuals and then and then get things uh uh decided earlier or smoother in the process. So, then then there's some there's some cost savings through through backend if if instead of having all hit at the very end, we're doing it along the way. It's a little more efficient. So, with this um for these two things, again, item number two there is already implemented. Item number one is on your agenda today and I recommend approval of that later today.

Okay. On that one, um, we we allow other payment options. Yes. So, we'll take checks or Yeah. Yes. Money order, whatever. Yes. And then can we go back to library real quick? Did you have something further on that one? I just wanted to have clarification if we're moving forward with the three. I know option two is already in place, but what about option one and three? Are we moving forward with that? That was my recommendation. I didn't hear otherwise from council. So, I'd be moving forward with option one and three. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any any concerns on option three, the non-resident card fee? No. No at all. All right. Thank you. Very good.

Parks and Recreation. I'm going to break them up in a few different divisions. Golf. This is a success story. And it is a success story. Um, looking at the history, this is actually, this was actually I enjoyed looking at this one here because it brought me more up to speed of what the history of golf has been. Uh you go back to about five or six years ago, the general fund sub was 1.9 million. The council at the time said, "Let's jump let's jump rates up." When they did that, it was more of a cliff climb and talking to staff, we lost golfers. And so they exited from us and so we ended up having a higher subsidy the next year to 1.9 million. So since that time, the golf division under under Michael Schuba's leadership has been systematically increasing fees, look keeping up with inflation cost, moving the golf ball price up, looking at things that that that gets us more towards cost recovery and things that the golfers could find palatable step by step by step. So we have gone from $1.9 million subsidy to $370,000 subsidy. And the trends so far this year that staff have relayed to me is we're going to be even less than that this year if trends continue for the rest of fiscal year. So with this um they've done things again they've incremented fees over time that the golfer community can absorb them more easily without exiting us and vacating us. This is one of the things where we have to be sensitive to to the clientele. If you increase prices too much, you lose them and your subsidies even greater because your costs are still fixed. You still have to have certain costs to exist. They've done things like new programs like happy hour, explore the four. Uh they they've been re they've been reexamining their staffing. They've been looking, okay, is this staff person correct or is this position correct? So So talking to Kashuba and his team, they've been re-examining their staff structure there. And they've been doing targeted capital improvements. Uh I know one of the things we looked at recently was pump pump stations and so forth to make sure that that we're doing things that further the goal of the golf course. So now because the thing about golf courses

of all the things that you do as a city, golf course is one that can be and is private sector in our community. So this is one of the things that that councils I'm I'm sure in the past have looked at that should we or should we not be in the business of doing this. And so if we're going to continue to be in the business, we should be caut recovery because others are doing that. And so with this, my recommendation is there's not to make any additional changes here today, but to allow staff to continue their process of marching us towards cost recovery step by step. And based off what the trajectory they've given us, it does look like we should hit neutrality in the in the next year or two or so. So again, I can't give you I don't have a crystal ball. I cannot tell you what it would be like this upcoming fiscal year, but it does the trend is there. We have been systematically marching towards cost recovery. So, at this point here, I would not recommend a definitive change from council, but to allow staff and to empower staff to continue to make those changes as they've been doing.

Yep. You've got you've got on here continue steady approach of gradual fee adjustments. I mean, is that I mean, seems pretty arbitrary. I mean, is that just to get to cost recovery? Yes. Again, again, that's following the same pattern from 1.9 to 370. So that they've been doing that every year, looking at cost, looking at pricing for merchandise, looking at food, looking at membership fees, what's the market doing? They've been looking at the whole spectrum and then they've been increasing fees. I think I think the council even approved a fee increases last budget cycle. So they bring to you ideas to get you to that next step to keep the golfers interested and involved without losing them.

And I'm guessing we've done I mean just like we do in every area. one of our not peers necessarily, but the other golf courses, our municipal golf courses are incredible. They ranked, you know, top in the nation. Um, you know, so what where are we on that? Kuba, I mean, Michael, here. I mean, how do how do we compare to the I guess the private courses the um

I don't have the specific numbers, but I would say we are lower than a lot of our competitors. Um, again, we've got really great courses. One of the things that obviously council approved a fee increase as a part of the last budget. The challenge with golf and with a lot of our programming is we won't see that till right about now. We'll start seeing those fees take effect March through the end of the fiscal year. Uh but right now the trends are very positive. Uh we've gone up 12,000 golfers in the last two years which is a very positive thing and that's where we start to see that revenue and that cost uh recovery increase. So, uh, again, we're seeing a continuous growth on the golf side in terms of attendance. We're also seeing now that we're actually covering and exceeding the cost on the golf course improvement fund. So, that's actually money that will be used to make more improvements in the golf course and continue to make it better. So,

and a lot of this is uh dictated by weather. We've been pretty blessed this year, so I'm guessing we had a lot a whole lot more golfers, right? But we've seen a trend. So, uh, 18/19 we had 67,000 golfers. Last year we ended up with 98,000. So, we're we've seen a continual trend. Um, again, George and his staff have done a really good job. Uh, we saw significant increases in those prices, and we did see a pretty good dip in golfers, but we're seeing that consistent trend upward, which is what we slow, steady growth.

So, you said we're lower as far as you think that we're lower. Is there harm in taking a a little bite of this and and getting us there? I mean, I know he George is doing a phenomenal job, probably one of the best. Um, but still, when we're talking about other you, you know, taxpayers subsidizing the other the the ones who are actually using it, why would the users not pay? Again, clarification. Yeah, our plan is to bring to you back a fee increase this budget cycle. So again, so we didn't bring it to you today, but we but but staff will be bringing back to you the next stage of that incremental increases for the next budget cycle. That's my understanding, is it not, Michael? Yeah. Yep. So we would we will be bringing back to a fee increase, but again it's part of our budget process we've been doing there. So

Okay. Did I hear correctly 68 to 93,000? Yeah, we well we were 67,000 in fiscal year 1819 and fiscal year 2425 we were at 98,000

with the increases with the improvements. And I think that's one of the things that we've been trying to manage is continuing the growth of rounds of golf while also increasing those fees. I think the biggest concern if you jump fees too much then the golf rounds drop and so you end up back where you were. So I think Georgia's done a good job of kind of keeping the golfers happy, continuing to move towards cost recovery um and and still increasing those rounds of golf. You know, this is one of those times when you have to make the hard decisions. And if we're doing it across the board and we're doing cost recovery, we don't want to make money on it. We just want to cover the cost. And I don't know why we would allow one group to not recover cost when we're requiring every other group to recover crop.

No, I agree. Again, we're we're heading there. So, I I I think we're getting to that point very soon. But but we don't have the the luxury of time. We have so many things that this city needs and I it is my recommendation that we recover the cost if we're going to do it. I mean we haven't touched it since 15 at the library '05 on something and as as we just go back this is an incredible exercise in efficiency that we need to continue and it is my recommendation that we we cost recover all things we don't pick winners and losers in cost recovery.

Yep. Yep. So, as part of the budget process, we can look at that. I know staff is going to bring again the 370 was last year's last year's uh subsidy. We do we do plan to have a lower subsidy this year. And so, I I my goal would be when when you get the budget this year, we will have a fee increase attached to that. And I I I we can definitely try to bridge that extra little gap there to get try to do that full cost recovery so we can work towards that. I I would say I mean I understand but this is a department that's done it right. You know I don't know if I'd want to be messing with any what of the the I mean I think we're heading there because again you know to me the key on this and of course this is the last budget that we'll have a shot at this council will have a shot at. To me, the most important incremental annual fee increases. I I I think I would start looking at that across the board because if you do it incrementally every year as opposed to these other things where we haven't, you know, increase something in 10 or 15 years, uh it just it makes it easier to absorb. It doesn't stand out as much. So, I think I think they've done a good job here. And but I would say these other fees that we're looking at, it should be something that we're looking at every year to keep pace with the cost because if not, we're just going to be back in the subsidy game again.

Yep. So we'll do we'll bring back to the council the fee structure for fee the fee adjustment for this upcoming budget cycle and then at that time we can see do we believe that recommended fee increase for the strategy would would bridge that final gap or if not if council wants to take that extra step and and and and discuss will that will that cause a deficit because people leave or do we think that that they won't do that. So we will work towards that. uh tennis. Again, we have been making current progress on that. The council just recently approved a new tennis instructor contract. Uh we've we're le leasing this out uh to to to an individual. This contract um as I understand from Michael, this has a it does a better job of defining incentive base to where the more revenue she brings to us, the greater the incentive it is to her. And so, so we've been seeing some some great trends so far this fiscal year already. So, we do believe that this department with this new contractor is heading in the right direction for cost recovery for this. And so, with this, I would once again re I would again I would once again recommend that we allow the existing process that council recently approved to start playing itself out as we start heading towards cost recovery in tennis athletics. A few other ideas that that we have for parks and recreation and cost recovery. Uh a few things here uh that I'm going to let council decide on what they want to do with. Uh one is to expand field and facility rentals. Uh broaden the access for associations and leagues to all use that the the assets. Uh two, develop new or expanded sports offerings and so we can look at other other recreational things we can offer to the community as a new revenue stream to to provide our citizens. Again, uh using existing staff to try to manage that as best we can. Option three is to discontinue the kids inc payment of $36,000 annually. We currently provide

all the all the work in order to maintain those fields, but we also on top of that subsidize them $36,000 and they're the only entity that we're giving revenue to like this. And so these are all three options for the council to consider. They all come with complications uh based off I know from council conversations I've had one-on-one. So with this, I would seek council direction on any of these three options, but Um, I'll jump out there. So, option three on the discontinuing of the payment to Kids, Inc., I know we had looked at that previously. Um, we were still relying on them to perform and do some things that that was benefiting us um as a city and and some of the the stuff that they were doing. Uh, I believe our conversation was to um get the new Kids Inc. uh program up and going, let them build their facilities, and then revisit that. So, um I would just ask not to look at that. Um in this current year, uh maybe you put that on a 2728.

Sure. I I was unaware of that information. So, yes.

Well, and I think it's good that you guys are looking underneath every rock. Um also, once again, as we're going through all these, I think it's going to be really important to have those actuals so that we can see, are we already at cost recovery on golf? We we may be. We don't know, you know. So, um, if we're not, then I I definitely if we've got a $3 increase, maybe it only needs to be a dollar and a quarter. So, those incrementals, like if we can just continue to go back to those actuals once we get there. But, um, the other expanded sports offerings and some of those other things that are more conceptual, um, I wouldn't want to give kind of a blanket agreement of move forward. I would want to hear more. So, identify those, bring them to us, let us understand the impacts before we pull that lever. So this point here uh I think that could be the direction we take on on that item here. But otherwise I would not bring these three forward otherwise. And so lastly for parks and recreation some cost savings here that they that they that they gave to me. Um some so some cost reduction opportunities or some realignment opportunities here. Some no MO habitat areas. And so we do know we we have a large area of land that we that we manage as parks and recreation. And so uh some of the so we it probably requires some ordinance changes, but we can look at identifying areas that are off off to themselves that we instead of mowing them every few weeks, letting them go back to more of a natural habitat. That would save cost and expense doing that. Uh two, as the council is aware, we've been working on working with our with our school partners to try to better define and better clarify our role and the school's role for maintenance of of of park land for for uh for uh for city parks. I know Michael and Donnie have been working hard with ASD on that effort and so they've had some meetings on that and that's ongoing. So I have asked that we try to get that thing done this calendar year so we can finally put that thing to rest and uh and get get more of a unified agreement with with because right now we have many agreements for

many parks. Each one has its own flavor. So we'd like to kind of know what is our overall responsibility and that can better define our expense on that. So not necessarily an action for that today. And lastly, one you're already looking at. It'll be on your agenda today, the Amir Zoo lease. Again, we we we prepared this over a month ago. So, thankfully, it is happened to coincide today. You have an agenda item today to to officially lease the Amarillo Zoo to uh to a nonprofit, a part of the Wild West Wildlife Rehabilit Rehabilitation Center. So, that is one of those incremental steps of heading towards cost recovery. It won't be immediate cost recovery. As you know, in the budget, you will see a a step down of 50,000 a year, but in about five or six years, um assuming all goes well, that item will be gone from the budget.

I would I would like to uh just go back. Can we go back to the slide? I would really like to see the school park maintenance agreement in place within 90 days if we can get that done.

I cannot promise that based off interaction with the school. And so, we've been working on it. So there's there's challenges with getting some meetings scheduled, I guess. And so we we're working on it, though. We're heading in a good direction, but I cannot I cannot guarantee you 90 days because I I can't control the school on that. So, but but I do I have asked staff and I've al talked to Dr. Parish. I've not talked to the CID yet, but I've talked to Parish that it is my goal, my hopeful, my my I'll say expectation that we get this thing done this year. Okay. Can we at least get a uh a cost of what that is costing us to take care of? Something you can work on, Michael? Yeah.

Yeah, we already have those costs because that's our landscape maintenance contract. So, we could get those numbers right quickly. But with this, I mean, I I I have no trouble. I have no problem trying to push to school now that I have from council that you want this thing done immediately. I just from past experience given this has been a problem for decades and and talking to my pred talking to my staff from from other predecessors I think we've already gone far further far faster than we've managed to accomplish in years past I think good leadership right now from from the ASD and our side is is coming together to get this thing done it's just we're trying to finesse this because they also have a budget they're trying to manage as well but the cost is coming to us correct

okay but we will not drop that item planning again full cost recovery not really realistic. Uh thank you Michael. Um and so look at this looking at some targeted uh fee alignments for direct cost. They given me a few ideas here and overall um I don't have for you today a a fee adjustment yet. They would like to do a full comprehensive fee schedule review looking at all their fees. They've already identified a few that are cost recovering based off there are certain services that we provide developers and everyone else and that that we we we feel that are already the fees covering cost but there are some that we can tell are not and so u uh Cody and his team would like to take some time to uh to revisit our fee schedule. This is something you should do every few years anyways to make sure that fees are keeping up with with cost. And so I don't have a re I don't have a number to bring to you today, but I would I would say that I would recommend that the council um uh be authorized that we do proceed towards a fee review schedule review and then we'll bring back to you fee adjustments. It won't be massive dollars, I don't think, but it'll be something again every little bit counts of trying to make sure that we're cost covering on on user services. So unless council says otherwise, we will continue with that study towards bringing back fee adjustments.

I mean it should be every year we should be looking at this. Not every year we need to be looking at at these fees is we it increases in in our businesses. It increases in our homes. We should look at this every year.

Yeah. One thing I would say um some some of our fees have a built-in inflationary building like like I said earlier for one of the fees 3% and that's same thing with building and safety and so having a automatic fee adjustment in there. So I'd have no problem with doing something like that. Police again full cost recovery as department is is unrealistic. So looking at specific areas, the shooting range, um the shooting range serves both law enforcement entities as well as public and so the public do go out there and utilize the shooting ranges, which is great. Uh with this um um we would like we our recommendation to the council would be to to uh to initiate a cost recovery on the public side of of the spectrum. I mean, we have partners for law enforcement and so um um uh we can try to cauture cover, but that may drive away business there, but we our recommendation at this point here is to try to cauture cover on the public side of the usage for the facility.

Let me jump in there real quick. Go ahead, Councilman. Just on the the shooting complex, I've I've talked to staff at the complex. It's one of the few places in the uh in the city that we don't charge uh 18 and younger to go out there and use which is they I mean that's 33% of their their population. It is a huge draw um for individuals on I40 to go and and shoot as they come through. A lot of foreign uh folks, a lot of international travelers. And so by all measure, we need the staff is asking for it to be able to to increase the the service offering. I agree.

Um on the shooting complex, could we get um and I think we could get it pretty easy as far as the the wants and the needs out there. Um definitely would like to look at uh changing the rates and and the billables out there, but also improving facility. And so, um, this is something where if we wanted to compete with private, because there are plenty of private, um, let's look at upgrades out there at the same time and let's see if we can calculate an ROI on that, especially if we can go through some CIP monies and be able to find, um, that is a good way for us to not only improve APD operations, but also for the public. Um, you know, Chief Loftess has a really good skill set and and he's currently uh heading up, I believe, most of that budget approach. So, this council direction needed to proceed with a detailed cost analysis. Is is that all internal or do you have anybody else working on that?

That that would I would lean to staff to to head that up? Okay. So, that would be Chief Loftess, right? I assume I mean obviously I would I would direct Chief Hoverver and then Chief Hover would direct his staff from there. Okay. But it's all going to be internal. I just wanted to make sure we house that in inside of of themselves and that they take the lead on that that we weren't relying on, you know, maybe general metrics or or a third party.

No. Yeah, I I don't think they were going to do that. So, okay. But no, I I think what you said the prior prior to that last item there, I do think that yes, improvements become more realistic once we start to recover on the public side. I think now that you have a revenue stream coming in uh instead of tax dollars having having to pay those improvements again so many CIPs so many needs so many ideas but I think when you have a revenue stream coming in that becomes more realistic I think I would agree. Okay, thank you.

Public works. Uh, first off, solid waste next street. Uh, solid waste when you look at collection and landfill as a as as a whole, it does net positive between the two of them added together. But again, I I went ahead and asked staff, okay, go ahead and do the exercise of looking at the landfill. Landfill is a negative is a negative net. And so it does cost us more than the revenue in order in order to manage the landfill. With this, there's a lot of considerations to be had with this. We do have competition in the area for landfills. Um, we would recommend a modest 5 to 10% landfill tipping fee increase. Our concern based off of conversations with with with third with vendors and so forth is that given given the market, if we begin to meet or exceed market, we will lose customers, which then increases the deficit. And so our recommendation here is is to do a five to 10% landfill tipping fee increase in order to again move towards competitiveness with locals without giving the giving the vendors too many good options to choose from. Again, I need them coming to my landfill, spending money there. I don't need them weighing, well, it's only a dollar cheaper to go over here. It's only a dollar more to go over there. It's closer. I'll go there. So if I get too close, you could see an excess of vendors and that could be very detrimental to landfill. So that's my recommendation for that streets. Um again, as with vector fee, you asked for all options. I brought you all options. I'm not recommending this option. And so but with this uh again, the option here is a street maintenance fee on the utility bill. Again, you don't have to do the entire department. You can do you can do targets toward like pavement markings, signal and sign maintenance, pay pavement repairs and so forth. But again, given given council council discussion on this, I will not advance this one unless council clearly tells me to do this in this next year. Hearing no otherwise direction, I will

assume we're not heading in that direction.

Thank you, sir. transit as the council's aware this last year um one good thing our population is increasing the bad thing it costs us more money now uh we have been reclassified as a large urbanized area so we lost over $2.1 million in federal assistance that's almost half of of the funding they were getting before so with that la this last this current fiscal year was our first fiscal year where we had to subsidize that through general fund property sales and so forth um with this three options that staff have brought forward to us. Again, you have to remember transit services a very specific clientele. And so this is not this is not a clientele that will allow us to cost recover. That's just the that's just the truth of the matter with that. And so with this option one is is obviously we're always looking out for more grants, trying to look out for more options. So staff said there are a few things that we'd like to try to pursue to see if we can't recover some of those costs through through grant programs. So that's always an on. We're always looking for grants in all departments. We're always looking for grants. So this is one we like to try to pursue. U option two is careful fair adjustments. As I said, trying to bear in mind our clientele and what they can reasonably absorb. I don't I don't believe we can realistically expect 2.12 $2.18 million of revenue from the from our clientele. So with this, we'd be looking at some some some reasonable fair adjustments to try to help narrow that gap. And lastly, option three, transit advertising expansion. As you as you go to some cities, you will see advertisement on the side of the bus or on on or on their facilities and so forth. So, one option here is is to allow managed managed would have to be some policy tied to this because it is still public property, but allow for some external advertisement for a fee obviously on our facilities including our buses. And so, but that had to be carefully vetted out,

carefully thought through because there there are certain challenges, you know, that come with opening up to everybody. So,

so I just want to speak to that briefly and um I think our rider participation and the way in which we compete across the state. So, do not look at this bucket as a bucket that was emptied and then um is not going to be filled back up. you will make decisions council on eliminating services or just pushing the cost share. And then as a whole um as a growing community that struggles with affordable housing and all sorts of issues, you need to be able to provide this service and it may not be a a true core service, but it is a vital service. So as you look at that bucket, you need to look at it as though it can get bigger um when you get qualified for additional grants. So, um, our population growth has pushed us up into competing with larger cities and so their rider participation demands more dollars. So, ours was restricted. As we continue to put pilot programs in, partner with PRPC, look around the panhandle and be innovative, which we have already done. Um, our writer participation numbers will continue to look better and better and we will see some additional grant funding coming. Mhm. Now, that being said, yes, I I understand if you've got some incremental things, but maybe the best idea today we've heard is is, you know, Councilman Tips face on the side of that ACT as it drives down. And I don't know. I mean, 25,000, you know, maybe a good starting point and then put a a 3% increase on that annual with a 10-year contract. I mean, we're we're going in the right direction. So, um I I think you guys are working well. Well, I just want to make sure we look at transit as a as a particular

um item. It's not necessarily uh like we can look at tennis, right?

Mayor, you said it correctly. Every one of our departments has a uniqueness that makes it difficult when it comes to just blanket decisions. And so there is every while there are certain citizens in our community that don't use a certain service, there's always someone who does. And so we have a very diverse community, we serve all the citizens. And so just because one person thinks I can do without something doesn't mean I can actually do without that thing for someone else. But I think you're exactly right. Transit has a very uniqueness to it that we have to be very mindful of. So I would recommend all three options in this situation. Utilities again not a general fund but they did participate in the exercise as well. And so um this is just this is some ideas. Again, this will impact the general fund, but given utilities is such a large component of our budget and given we have increas we we are going to be increasing our rates for wastewater treatment plants, it's always good for for staff to be looking at how do how do we how do we increase revenue for civic users who use certain services so we can maybe diminish that rate increase when the waste treatment plant comes online. So, a few ideas that staff have brought for you today is increase tap administration fee to cover inspection costs. right now that based off staff staff review uh the the utility rate payer is is paying to subsidize the the the inspection fees for tap fees uh create industrial waste permit fee for sampling site visits and compliance monitoring. So again for industrial users to absorb right now our residential and commercial users are absorbing the cost above what our fees are for for for for doing site sampling and compliance for industrial waste permits. um address septic dumping and and manifest fees. So to better cost to better cover costs and then decouple our environmental laboratory fee from the ordinance and then that will allow staff to make adjustments uh based off of based off of environment and regent fees and b things that are going on in in in

in the in the environment. So with this um I would recommend all four options for our utilities so that they can better manage their revenue to help us as we look forward to our utility rate increases increasing for the waste treatment plant. We're almost to the end. Vital statistics u this department is a small subsidy $18,000 gap in the budget. As I said earlier on, this is one area that state law says thou shalt not touch the birth and death certificate fee. So if I have a subsidy there, I got a subsidy there. That's just that's just what the state has said. They don't really care about whether we can float. They just like getting elected up there. And so with this cost recovery options, non looking at non-refundable search fees when a record cannot be located. And so right now, if you come in and you're requesting requesting a search and you can't find anything, you're not charged, but it still costs us to do that search. And so instead of only positive searches getting charged, all searches getting charged. That way, if you request a service and manpower is used, there's an expense. There's a fee tied to that. Ensure city recoups state fees associated with searches on like. So we do have we do have certain fees with the state that we have to pay. We want to make sure that we want to we want to add a fee to make sure that we recoup those costs for those searches instead of the again the taxpayer eating those costs and then covering ancillary charges like postage and handling. So looking at our fees and make sure make sure that those fees we we apply a postage fee to cover those costs if mailing is is is is required for that. So for all three of these, I don't know if we would fully cover the $18,000 cost, but I think this is one where we could once again get to full cost neutrality for his division. And I'd recommend all three options in this situation.

So I definitely would not speak for council, but I would speak um to try to persuade council not to take these up just because the $18,000 gap is the smallest thing that we're looking at. Um our time and energy is going to be better spent on much larger items. um this even though it is a small subsidy um I I just think you're it goes to our customer service pillar and and you're just looking at additional um time and energy spent with these are taxpayers that are already paying their taxes and so I think they're going to look at this the wrong way. So council can you give direction uh get a consensus on whether we want to move forward with this or not? Again, where do you make the choices? I mean, it is 18, but you do 18 time 10, do 18* 20. I mean, at what point do you do you choose? So, if we're in a cost recovery thought process, then everything should be looked at.

So, in favor? Okay. So, I mean, why why just let me get clear. Why why would we not do that here versus what we're doing in other places? I think we just discussed it on transit and how like we do provide certain um services throughout the city that are just involved in a general fund offset. And so, it's a subsidy. It's not a uh and and we're being mandated to do it. So, I mean, it's it's a standalone. It's separate. Yes, ma'am.

Clarification, too. And Andrew, thank you for this. Um this is not just Amarila residents using these services. These are these are Texans, Nebraskans, New Yorkers, uh people from other countries. So there are some of these fees will be recouped from non-Amillo taxpaying residents that we're currently not recouping. Okay. Do you have any idea how the fee structure would be set up? Would it be just based on time that it took for a search to take place? Are a lot of these searches available online? I mean, is that I mean, what does that look like? Is Jennifer here or Stephanie? Do you have some?

So, I can speak to that. They have to use a specific system that the state of Texas provides. And so, when they do a search in that system, it's costing. So, it's not anything that that system. It does. Yeah. Oh, so it's not public record. No, it's not something you if you want your birth certificate, you can't go out and search for it and find Don Tip's birth certificate. If I want a permit to see if a permit has been pulled, that's a different this is a for vital statistics. We are just talking about search of birth certificates and death certificates. Okay. So, thank you for clarifying.

So, we've got one in favor, one one against for this year. Council, would you just want more information to be brought back later? we could make this decision at budget maybe after we get some actuals you know um I I don't know I I like looking at things departmentally of course but then um I don't feel like we're being 100% cost recovery we are taking into account that there are items that we perform that are not cost recovery uh vector program being another one is there any so just make sure we're just charging the minimums in these areas our maximums according to we're not charging at all.

We're no we're char we're charging and like like for the for the search fee we charge if we find something not if we don't find something but we still had to pay a fee to access to look for that and so but right now we're eating that cost but there's some of these things here um yeah this in the second item again we're we're not charging that one and the third one instead of charging this is more of postage and handling. So, that's one you that's one you could drop off because that that is a little more of an arbitrary one. But the first two are a little more precise because there's a fee associated with that. I'd be fine looking at it. Okay. Bring it back. Uh direction for right now would just be to bring it back. I think look a little further into it once we get closer to budget. Okay. Very good. Thank you.

All right. That was everything. So, and and we we tackled them all as we went. So I don't I don't think I need any more guidance unless council wants to revisit anything but I think we have covered every department. Um and it is 12:15 and so unless council has more question. Will we be able to see with the uh the direction given today? Do we have any idea what those dollars the total sum of those dollars is?

Yes. So I'll be bringing back to you in the budget. Again, my next step I I asked staff, we didn't go into a full depth calculation. And so my goal as part of the budget process, not not to get out of line here, but with with the process, but stay stay in our in our current form to bring those back to as part of the budget, but we can line item those for you all. So you know, okay, we did the math. We we we looked, we did the analysis. This is what this feed animal management vector, whatever, or not vector, but but but vital, whatever it is, produces. And so I would recommend councelor Tis brought this up earlier. I will I will bring those numbers back to as part of the budget process.

Thank you. One last thing, Kashuba, I love what you do. I promise you I love what you do for the parks. So thank you. It always seems like we come back and forth on the golf deal, but I I really appreciate what you do. I I do have one one more thing. Um how much empty space do we have in this building? Andrew, can you speak to that? Maybe Jerry Jerry probably knows better. It's around 40,000 50 35 35,000 with the basement and a couple other floors. Right. So, are we looking at consolidating some of our office uh city office space like the Sims building, bringing employees over here and closing down that operation?

We've had lots of discussion on that. And so, again, departments are located with departments that they interact with. And so, to pull one is to pull four. And so he's trying to manage, okay, if if how can I fit all four or all five or all six over here? So I've Andrew and I have had many conversations about this. If I pull this one, what does that do to the efficiency of that department? And so a lot of our a lot of our departments are located in areas where they can be efficient each other. It's I get it. I we're all downtown, but at the same time, it's more efficient to walk across the hall than have to go across go across to the downtown every there. So, but again, that's the problem we're up against is is there's not quite enough square footage to bring all that need to stay together together.

And the initial goal wasn't to fill the space up immediately. It was to allow for growth potential in the future 10, 20 years out as well. Yeah. Very good. Any other questions from council? Yeah, I was going to say we did along those same lines. We've talked about EDC. We've talked about some other Yes. entities that were paying uh rent that maybe we bring them in house. I mean those things are being looked at. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's I know there's different opinion among council about that one. Uh but that is one area that I'd like to look into is is maybe encouraging those those partners to come join us. Okay.

One one other thing I know we talked about animal welfare management but as I look at these departments I think parks and wreck would be the only other department that I see that we have an advisory board to us. I don't know if any others would fall under that, but as we're just like with animal welfare management, I think we we should uh present what we're talking about to the parks and recreation board as well just to get their input, feedback. They may think of something that we're missing. I don't know if any other of these departments have an advisory board, but if they do, I'd run that through them as well.

Yeah, like I said earlier, yes, the plan here again, we're not going to start the fee tomorrow. The plan would be to start the process because some of these fees are going to require a good education, OEI involvement, notices to to to clients, uh, board involvement, and so we have a board. Yes, this is, but I do want to I I'll bring a resolution back to probably the next meeting or the one after that. I would then task staff with starting those processes because I don't want to wait till October 1st to do that. I want to get them moving so that when October 1st hits, we're in full stride. So, question on implementation of the fees. Do you have the intent to implement any of these additional fee increases um prior to August 1?

Uh there would be case by case possibly. Yes. And so if we did identify a case that council wanted to move forward on prior to that um would you do that in the form of a budget amendment and amend current budget? You would just do that in the It would be I mean we'll bring back to you one big budget amendment when it's all done because the these by the time we implement these fees again given the realistic revenue they're going to produce you'd be amending the budget for a few thousand dollars and that's not good use of your time. Okay. I I would I would request though since we have advisory boards I I would like to get their I would I would like to run those two things through them before it comes back to council.

Oh yes. Yes. Again, yes, we're going to run those those those departments that have boards, those ideas through those boards. Again, we're going to when I bring a resolution to the council, it's going to state there that this is going to be explored and and vetted, not it's going to be done. This it's it's given me marching orders that I know officially that you've all voted on because today you can't vote.

But my my goal would be to to bring you an action item to where okay, Grayson, go forth and and explore these or do these or whatever it is. And then some of those will be a natural bring back to y'all. Grayson and just all the staff. Thank you. This to me feels really healthy. Feels really like we've done spring cleaning like really got in and clean this up and I I look forward to it moving forward as we really tighten down where the monies are are being lost.

Thank you. Yeah. No, all all everything goes to my staff. I I really appreciate they did all the work here. I just put it together in one report. So, they did all the hard work doing this today. So, I I thank my entire team for everything they've done to get us to this point. Well, I think you definitely have a strong team that supports you and this is good leadership and setting us up for success um as we move forward into this next budget cycle. And then I I believe it all comes down to expectations. I think we are communicating very directly what we are asking for and and we look forward to letting you guys deliver on that. So, thank you for your time today. Um, do you have anything further before we adjourn? No, sir.

Okay. Uh, greatly appreciate everybody being here. We won't delay anyone any further. I do see a couple citizens that are our taxpayers out here that don't work for the city. So, I'll offer to hang back um if you guys want to offer any feedback on on your thoughts on today's meeting. And then, um, at that council, we are adjourned unless you have anything further. You're adjourned. Thank you.