Board of Education - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone and welcome to the March 23rd meeting of the Ann Arbor City Council. A work session to discuss and hear about fiscal year 2027 budget planning. Mr. Deon, you have the con. Good evening, Mayor, members of council. Welcome to March Madness. All all regrets. Yes. [laughter]

Uh, a couple of things you've heard me say before. Uh, tonight you will hear information from not all of the service areas, but several of them. And some of the things that you will hear tonight may not actually be in the budget. The administrator's proposed budget will come to you on April 20th, but we do encourage people to always talk about things that they need even if it takes two or three budget cycles for us to be able to address it so that we sort of lay out a direction that we need to look at. Uh you're going to hear eight presentations. We do not plan on having a break. Just push through so we can go home. If you need a break, let us know. We'll stop. We want to start before we get into the eight with um some comments around something that we're doing. One, it's helpful for you to be informed about it, but two, you may also be able to communicate out to some of your constituents. So, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out we're still in winter and we have definite winter here every single year. And what that means from a construction standpoint is that we have to do a construction surge every spring and every summer in order to get all the projects in because once it gets to November, it gets too cold to do certain kinds of construction. So, we had to cut it off. So, we have a surge that is about to take place and we've been doing a lot of uh thinking about how to message that, how to communicate out about it. Uh progress

does come through inconvenience sometimes. And so we've invited Sky to come here and talk to you this evening about our construction coordination and sort of preview what the season is going to look out look like. So Miss Stewart,

thank you.

Good evening. Uh I'm Sky Stewart, chief of staff for public services, and I'm here to provide a brief uh preview of the upcoming 2026 construction season, particularly downtown. And while it doesn't feel like it today, spring, I was going to say spring is here, but construction season is definitely already underway. Um and just like every year, there are dozens of street and utility infrastructure projects planned across the city for 2026. We are implementing projects programmed in the city's uh 5-year capital improvements plan. We [snorts] are improving our infrastructure by resurfacing our streets, replacing our aging water manes, lining sanitary pipes, installing new sanitary sewers, extending two-way cycle tracks, repairing sidewalks and catch basins, building new sidewalks, and more. Most of the larger projects most of the larger projects have a dedicated project page on Engage Ann Arbor. As a reminder, engage Ann Arbor is a city's engagement hub for projects planned around the city. [snorts] On the project pages, you can find details about project designs, timelines, and stay upto-date as projects progress. And you can sign up to receive project updates. The web address for that is engage.at2ggov.org. Construction activity in the downtown core though [snorts] is going to be particularly busy in 2026, and it will need to be dynamic to accommodate transit circulation needs and special events. the convergence of several city projects, DDA projects, and Arbor Housing Commission projects, some DTE, um, coordinated gas projects, U ofM projects, and private development projects, just all coming together this year. And many of these projects are expected to require some full or partial road closures at uh different points during the construction season, and others will require one or more temporary lane closures. The image on the slide here is a screenshot from an internal mapping tool our GIS team has developed to help our

project managers map out possible project closure timelines and anticipated private development closures um to share and coordinate with our partners like the ride DTE U of M etc to identify potential conflicts and I'll share more about this tool and how we will u be able to share a version of this out to the public a little bit Also, these closures and detours will make the bus routing and transit logistics particularly challenging this year. [snorts] Starting May 3rd, the rides bus stops that are currently on Fourth A and at the Blake Transit Center will temporarily temporarily move to three and a half blocks of Fifth A and Washington Street with the intersection of those two streets as the anchor. The Blake Transit Center will be closed for public access. The temporary relocation is due to the complete closure of fourth a for pedestrian and transit improvements as well as significant utility work. This is a DDA le project in close collaboration with the ride and the city. Closing fourth completely to bus traffic gives the contractor the best opportunity to finish that work in a timely manner so that operations can fully resume at the Blake Transit Center in Fourth A hopefully in late fall 2026 uh or in winter 2027. Curbside use of the blocks on Fifth A and Washington Street will be reserved for bus traffic only. There will be no vehicle parking and will include some basic transit customer uh amenities. TripleA is working on a solution to offer sales and information at this location as well. Most routes will maintain the same or nearly the same schedule, [gasps] though one route will need to be temporarily suspended for the duration of construction. For the rid's boarding locations at Fifth A and Washington Street and to stay up to date

[laughter]

uh for the Blake Transit Center's closure, um folks will show should visit the ride.org/btc. So this coordination has been critical uh as we've been working together to achieve achieve this shared goal. This project the fourth ad project has been a project that's been in the works for many years. There's a ut it's utility, it's transit improvements, it's public art, it's uh road, it's storm water, it is all the things and we also have been able to coordinate with DTE to get their gas work happening at the same time. It's also in um adjacent to the 350 South Fifth affordable housing project. So lots of things are happening here. This has been really great collaboration, but it is going to be uh it is going to come with some pain uh and some inconvenience. So um we are thankful for their close coordination with us. Uh and we want to share out as much of this information as we can. Also, um, one time in one time and recurring events in our downtown are important part of the social fabric of our community and staff have been working to limit the impacts of closures on these events like maintaining access to parking garages, phasing projects wherever possible to minimize the direct impacts and the duration of impacts to adjacent property and business owners and to um, deal with the general downtown congestion. staff have been coordinating with destination Ann Arbor, Main Street Ann Arbor, U O U of M, and also other community partners. Um whether that might be with targeted project specific impacts or broader district-wide impacts for different projects and staff have also been closely working with private development projects that have planned work in the right of way this summer. There's an example um that I'll just highlight here isn't quite figured out yet, but just to bring it up for your awareness. Um there's a private development project planned at Bron Court and also another project at Detroit Street. They're both needing to work and utilize the rightway. Um there may be some impacts to access to the farmers market. Obviously that is

not a desire that we have but it also is um sort of the give and take of how they need to access the rightaway to build those projects that have been approved. So we are working closely with those developers, those contractors. We are asking them to give us a plan how to do that they can do their work and also maintain the access um for that important um service in our community. But those things are the kinds of things that we're coordinating and trying to figure out sort of on the fly. I mean not on the fly but it takes a while. So this to that point ongo the coordination will be ongoing around closures and detours. We know this progress will be inconvenient at times and we are coordinating to minimize the impact and pain as much as possible. [gasps] Even as project managers were designing and preparing these projects to go out to bid late last fall and in the spring, there has been significant coordination all along the way um among the various project teams as well as with internal and external projects uh internal and external partners and stakeholder groups to identify the various uh and minimize the various conflicts and closure to the closures and impacts. Um another peak behind the curtain here is uh another view of that internal tool that we've been developing which is this is the sort of the closure side the sorry the detour side of that tool which is trying to understand well if this detour for this project runs into another closure for another project [laughter] that doesn't really work for us. So, how do we sort of map those out and try to understand where there are conflicting [snorts] detours, timing, things like that? And so, um, obviously construction won't go perfectly to plan either. And so, and this is not a perfectly precise tool. We, if you look at the top, it says, um, we have it as a like a month by month. It says July 2026 post artfare. So, [laughter]

um, we try to get some precision. Um but we know that construction um those exact closures will um will have to sort of adjust on on the fly and so this coordination will continue to go on. [snorts] Um just a couple other updates um for two projects that are actually underway and you probably saw some of the closures and um the construction signage even on your way to city hall today perhaps is the Ann Street improvements project has gotten underway [snorts] early. This is uh we're happy to be able to get started early because hopefully that means they can wrap up early. [snorts] You can see on the phasing map here um that this project's going to happen in three phases. Again, the goal here is to try to finish one phase, fully pave, fully open to traffic [laughter] before moving to the next phase. And this again is something that we're not always able to do with all projects in the city, but particularly downtown, we want to do that so that [snorts] the whole space isn't people aren't impacted the entire time. So um upcoming and current impacts the parking garage access for the Anna Nashley garage can only be accessed from Miller from now until midmay phases one and two will be completed before artfare and each phase will be paved and open to traffic before the next phase begins. So that is good news and we are excited that that's getting underway. The other project that I just want to name and give a couple updates on is the highle sewer trunk line capacity improvements project. And as a reminder, this is a critical path item for the U of M dorm project at Hill and Division. Couple upcoming items. Um, a 3-week pedestrian detour around the northeast corner of the Washington of Washington and First begins this next week, and that is a safety detour. Um, we don't have a lot of ped detours in this area, but this is one that does have to happen. So, there will be additional signage in addition to the the the

vehicle and the bike detours. There will be a PD detour. Um, and there will be signage beginning beginning in April. First Street between Hiron and Anne will also be closed for a deep manhole installation. This is like a 36 foot manhole installation. Um, soon after that, First Street north of Miller will be closed for the installation of the micro tunnel receiving shaft. So, they've been working on the first shaft and this will be the receiving shaft. [gasps] And once those two shafts are completed, then we will be scheduling a community event to um to actually for like the launch of the micro tunnel cutter head that will be like doing the micro tunnel. I think we get to put like our logo on it. Um details to come. It will be our first time doing micro tunneling in the city. So um we'll share more of that information as we get closer. So um what we're asking people to do and how you can plan ahead and be prepared. uh biggest takeaway is um visit a2gov.orgs org/roads bookmark it starting tomorrow we will put up a version of that monthby-month um anticipated closure map again I will my c caveat here is that it is a highle look ahead with anticipated information um it is subject to change and as we get further and further into construction season it may become less useful right now it's like it would be good to be able to look ahead if you know you're going to need to be getting certain places or you have certain routes that you need to go um through town, this is a good planning tool for you. Um and we want to share it, but and there will be continued to be updates. Um but as we get closer into construction season or into projects, going to those actual project pages would have more um specific information about closures. And then just sign up for alerts so you can get new information about closures. And my very last slide is this is my favorite dashboard about construction.

um because I find it to be the most satisfying which is this is the road and utility project dashboard that we put up every year and it shows all the projects all around the city not just downtown and you can click on it and learn about each of those projects. Um but this one as the projects are complete they go gray. So at the end of the season almost all those projects are grayed out and we have completed them and we have done the work that we planned to do and it's very satisfying. So, that one you can find at a2gov.org/2construction status. Thank you.

Are there any questions, council member?

I don't have questions. Um, I wanted to say really quickly, um, I never thought I'd be a cool mom for knowing what the for being able to point to the engage shaft layout photo [laughter] about. We walked downtown and saw, um, the giant boring machine this weekend, my kids and I. So, that was pretty cool to watch our work in progress. And I just want to thank you. Um, I think the city, um, and and you in particular have done a really amazing, excellent job of communicating proactively with the businesses downtown, making sure that they have, um, input and feel informed and can plan ahead. Um, and it it has not gone unnoticed by the downtown business community, and I want to make sure that you get credit publicly for just doing an excellent job and in being proactive and um, sharing information in real time and being super receptive to meeting and hearing feedback. Thank you. Thanks.

Additional questions or or wild praise? Thanks a ton.

Thanks. All right. Good evening. I'm Marty Pashan, uh, city's chief financial officer, and I have the pleasure this evening of reviewing the city's budget calendar, budget process, and covering some of the conditions and assumptions that are impacting the development of the fiscal year 27 budget. First, I'll quickly go over the budget calendar, which should not be new to you. Um just a few reminders that we start our official calendar with tonight's presentations followed by uh the city administrator's recommended budget on April 20th. On that same evening, you will consider the first readings of the ordinance necessary for the utility rate changes followed by the May 4th consideration and public hearings on the second readings of those ordinances and public hearings for the budget and fee and rate changes. And then finally on May 28th, city council will consider the final budget adoption along with the fee changes that go along with that budget. Uh the development of the budget is a team effort involves many city staff members. We develop two types of budgets. Um one is the operating budget and as guy just mentioned and covered uh very nicely is the capital improvements budget. Um, two budgets are uh adopted

simultaneously on the 18th. Oops. Um, city policy, strategic plan, uh, various adopted plans, staff expertise, and public input all guide the development of that recommended budget that is considered on the 18th. Uh, some of those policies include our fund balance policy, which for the general fund is uh, requires a 15 to 20% fund balance for the general fund. our pension and retirey healthc care funding policies, our capital improvement program policies, our capital repair and replacement, enterprise capital repair and replacement and the parks fairness resolution which requires the general fund portion of the parks budget to be increased at the same rate as the average percentage of the total general fund budget. The city's financial policies directly impact the city's financial performance. We demonstrate fiscal control by balancing recurring revenues and expenditures and maintain our fund balance within policy requirements. Our funding levels of both our pension and retirey healthcare plans are well above the state required minimum of 60 and 40% respectively. This performance is a testament to how we do business and contributes to our AAA bond rating. We are one of less than 10 communities within the state of Michigan to carry this rating. And it not only gives us bragging rights, it also lets us benefit from receiving lower interest rates on debt, which in turn allows us to undertake more work on the project level basis. A couple reminders for the night of the 18th. It requires seven votes for adoption, only six votes to amend the the recommended budget. However, eight votes during the fiscal year to amend the budget. If for some reason we can't get that budget passed at that meeting, the city administrator's recommended budget is considered adopted.

Budgets are not adopted um by line item but in fund total with the exception of the general fund which is adopted by service area. And each year, likely in June, you will see a resolution that um approves an amendment to the budget to avoid any overruns, which would be against state law. Um one of the first steps in the budget process is making some financial forecasts, which ultimately helps us determine our assumptions as we move forward in the process. Those assumptions are based on historical data and trends and current information. As I'm sure you're all aware, currently um we are experiencing some economic volatility and we are using that information to update these assumptions. Um however, at some point we have to stop making changes and we move forward with a plan. However, rest assured that we can continue to make adjustments to the budget if something goes south. So if we adopt a budget and revenues are not coming in, we we make adjustments on the fly. So we will stop or slow spending if the revenues do not materialize. So where we have drawn the line this year for fiscal year 27 is we are anticipating a just over 4% increase for real and personal property tax which equates to about $2.8 million. Um on state shared revenue, very modest 1% increase due to the state budget changes, and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a slide or two, which is about $100,000. And parking continues to rebound from COVID, and we're anticipating about a 6.8% increase. So, we're going to take a look at a little further the tax levy history. uh real and personal property tax represents about 50% of the general funds revenue stream. So it's really important to our revenue. Um if you take

a look at this graph um it gives you the historical actuals um that represents um economic conditions and current development policy. We can see continue to see an increase in tax revenue which is represented by the blue bar there and you can see that represents both all taxes including millages and you can see that number continuing to rise with the dollar amounts on the left axis. If you look at the orange bar that represents a general fund portion of the tax collection and the right axis with the percentage that will that correlates to the blue line and that equates to the increase from year to year in the taxable value. So if you look at fiscal year 25 to 26, you can see in fiscal year 25, we experienced just over a 7% growth rate in taxable value. Whereas in fiscal year 26, the taxable value did not decrease. It's just the growth rate was only slightly below 6%. Um, as I mentioned, there were some changes at the state level regarding revenue sharing this fiscal year. Um, House Bill number 4183, which was effective January 1st of this year, changed the motor fuel tax rate. Um, essentially the sales tax was dropped. Um, and it was changed where this the tax goes directly to the road funds opposed to the general fund in in state revenue sharing. It also added um a CPI which we have not had uh previously to weight and gas tax. So that'll that'll help in it'll annually increase with CPI. House Bill 4951 which imposed the marijuana wholesale tax and also created the neighborhood roads funding for local streets.

Essentially it created a new fund that will be um tracked separately from our current major and local street funds. And then finally, House Bill 4961, which amended the income tax act and redirected those funds to that new established neighborhood road funds. All of this is to say most of the revenue that we are shared with the state of Michigan is dependent on consumer behavior. So at $4 per gallon, we are seeing that impact households and their buying power is less and they're purchasing less gas. Um the same will be true of our friends who choose to partake in um the enjoyment of marijuana um with a wholesale tax that will ultimately be passed on to them. they may be choosing to enjoy that recreational marijuana on a less frequent basis. Um so we can what we need to be able to do here is understand that that may be those revenue streams may be um volatile maybe not come in as originally estimated due to the current economic conditions. So we need to be a little bit flexible and um be able to amend what our plans are going to be. So, I'll talk a little bit more about that as we move through, but as I mentioned already on the marijuana side, without even seeing the impacts of the wholesale tax yet, you can see that we have experienced a decrease um in marijuana revenue. So, this fiscal year in 26, we received $270,000 less than we did last year. um that's a result of um falling prices driven by increased competition and excess supply. Um so there's less revenue to share. Um so

that will impact the programs that we fund with that revenue which is uh mental health and substance use disorder programs, substance substance abuse intervention, treatment and recovery support services, education and enrichment for at risk youth. crim criminal diversion and expungement and support for formerly incarcerated members of our community. On April 20th, um the city council will also cons also consider an amendment to the um DDA's development and tax increment financing plan. Um, this plan calls for a change of the gain of the capped model to a 7030 gain share model and it also includes an expansion to the north for an expanded boundary. Um, we went ahead and on the conservative side included this in our in our budget revenue estimates. Although the impacts in the fiscal year 27 are are quite minimal. Um, larger impacts would be um for the anticipated growth out in the future. Um, if so approved by council, we would move those into our financial models. If the changes are approved, that would impact the July 2026 tax bill. Also, in our proposed budget, we are anticipating utility rate increases. Um again 6% for the water fund which is mostly dependent on the need to reinvest in a new treatment facility and modest increases in the sewer and storm water funds at 3% each. And then you will um see under a different presentation our pilot rates for our um SEU [snorts] on the expenditure side. Uh we are anticipating just under 7% in personnel services which is mostly attributable to wages. Um medical insurance at 14% due

to rising medical costs. And then in other services a 9% increase for um other services which includes things like natural gas, electricity and fleet charges as we consider uh fleet and equipment costs. And I think you'll hear a little bit more about this from um Chief Kennedy when he he addresses you. Um we are anticipating higher than anticipated replacement costs when we come when it comes time to replace these vehicles, especially large equipment. Um there's some stabil instability in the market remaining from COVID. There's more demand than supply. Tariffs have impacted pricing. um the city's choice to move to EV and then also emission regulations changing um have made replacement costs higher than we anticipated. Um so we will continue to see those impact our budgets um in the short term. U going forward our budget plans will increase will include a higher increase for replacement costs than we previously built into the budget. And then finally, um this year's budget will include a new enterprise fund as we stand up our sustainable energy utility. It'll have a small budget which includes a a revenue stream from um our first uh SEU planned customers and a corresponding budget to to get that off the ground. And we also will begin to establish a balance sheet by transferring some existing city assets over to the SEU. Um those assets will be existing city solar assets that are up and running uh that have been previously paid for by grant funds mostly namely ARPA. So we will move those assets over to the SEU and then we will begin to leverage those assets for more installations. Um and I will let uh our

director Shashana Linsky um give you some more details about that. And she's up next. So um that's all I have for now unless you have any questions. Are there any questions? One question with respect to uh our expenditure uh projections. I see that we have you know 7% here, 14% here in the saga. Then I noted in your 28 through 31 fiscal years those were uh anticipated to be uh less. Can you describe that articulate the thinking there? Um normally we try and in in future um expenditures we keep within CPI unless we have information that gives us more detailed information. So we'll hold those at CPI unless we have something more specific in nature. So that's what we usually use for forecasting.

Thank you. Further council dishes. Um thank you. That was extremely informative and very fast. So, [laughter] um, could you remind me what you said? We're one of how many Michigan cities to have? Less than 10.

Less than. Okay, that's pretty amazing. Um, and then I I'm sorry that I didn't quite understand what you were saying about the road tax that's going to go straight is it straight to city's general funds or to the state's general fund? I I just didn't. So, I'm not what sure what portion you're talking about, but previously there was a sales tax charge at the pump that went to the state's general fund that now will go to the roads directly to roads and it won't go to the general fund. Oh, so that's why our state shared revenue on the general fund side will not be growing because that money will be reallocated to specifically to roads.

Okay. And but they're also spending the state also approved spending more money on neighborhood roads. So they're kind of moving money around and giving it to us. Thank you. Yes, that was so helpful. Council member Cornell. Thank you, Miss Pashan. Um I would be interested in understanding when the budget comes forward if there's um what cost analysis has been done because you mentioned the shift to EV being um a having financial implication but is that a one-time upfront cost and what does that look like downstream when we look at operating costs especially in light of volatility with gas prices if I think that'd be helpful information for us to have. Yep. Thank you.

Other questions? Thanks a

great good evening. Hello. All right. I just have a short presentation for you today about the sustainable energy utility. Um as I've previously shared and as we should all celebrate, the SEU has been fully grant funded to date. So this is great. There's been um three grants really. the a $250,000 grant from uh Ichley Smith, a municipal investment fund that gave us startup funds for uh staff cost, contractor engagement, developing a financing plan and other kind of startup work. We also have $5 million from the state of Michigan's Department of Labor and economic opportunity that again is funding some of our administration startup costs and will fund our first capital assets, these pilot installations that will go on uh go into the Bryant neighborhood this summer. and uh the $10.8 million from the Department of Energy for the geothermal uh system in the Bryant neighborhood, which um as you may recall, also requires us to uh find and finance uh a 50% match for whatever uh dollars we spend on that. Um these funds are um instrumental and really truly grateful to have them to help us get started here. Um now for fiscal year 2027 um most of these grants will be ending one of them is ending at the end of uh April the other one uh at the end of October and then the geothermal grant will continue on but of course only covers a portion of what we do. Um so we will continue to seek additional grant opportunities and um look for philanthropic support. Um, but we also need to find sort of um revenue that we can count on that that's not going to be purely dependent on on the good graces of our our uh grant funders. We also in fiscal year 27 uh will begin collecting some modest earned revenue from our

pilot installations that will be uh going in this summer. But uh you know in full transparency that will not be enough to cover SEU operations. We couldn't possibly charge sort of all of that on the backs of our first 100 or 150 customers. So as we get up to scale um it becomes a self uh funding uh or organization or entity but uh early on we we simply can't put that all on the backs of a very small number of customers. Um now when we reach scale it becomes self- sustaining. So one of the things we need to do is try to grow really fast. Now that we're here we got to just speed deployment and that's going to take additional staff capacity to make us successful in doing so. Um I know you all already approved. Thank you very much. operations manager position that's going to help us really make sure that we actually, you know, get installations in and run a really efficient uh good utility here. Um, we also are looking at probably in fiscal year 27 looking to bring on a second FTE that will be more involved in sort of the outreach and engagement side of things, connecting with residents and businesses, signing customers up for this, and then providing support for our existing customers. Um, so those two those two staff will be an important part of our budget. Um, and then lastly, you know, we're just as a as any sort of entity, we're going to need a modest lean budget for just sort of general expenses, right? Um, our municipal service charges, staff development, office supplies. We're going to be a lean entity for a long time here, but some of those basic expenses, we will need to have um a small budget for that. Um just uh a little bit of an update on what's on our agenda over this coming year. So we are acquiring and installing our first uh pilot assets right now. You all approved uh thank you very much our equipment procurement. So we're getting those supplies in and we are currently enrolling customers for the pilot in the Bryant neighborhood. Um and between April and October of this year we'll do

all of those installations and commissioning those systems. Then of [snorts] course we have to have our systems in place to operate and to maintain those assets. That includes um process and procedure sort of development in collaboration with our uh colleagues all across the city. We need our IT systems, our asset management system, our billing system, all of that. We're going to leverage um some of the existing city systems as much as we can and bring on new systems where it makes sense given the SEU's sort of unique operations. We're developing our rates which we'll bring to you at a work session um in in April for the pilot customers and then later in the summer for our sort of market rate customers and regulations that will govern the terms of service for customers. Um and while we're doing all of this to get the pilot running, we also have to prepare sort of in parallel to scale so that we can offer uh services all across the city. Um, and that includes customer interest and marketing and um, of course securing capital so that we can continue to build many many more assets over the coming years. That is all I have for you. I'm happy to take any questions.

Are there questions, Miss Lensky? Thank you. Thank you. sink.

I think it's me. Yeah, look at that. Yay. I've never gotten to go this early before. Usually they put me on the end because I go fast. Um unlike a lot of years, we don't have a multitude of ass around the budget this year. Um the biggest thing we are moving forward with and I think will suck up a considerable amount of time in our service area is obviously the implementation of the comp plan. We know that every every time we do this and every time we move in this direction, there's always a lot of conversation about the utilization of consultants um to do some of this work or to assist staff in this work. Um, for us, consultants are are a way to have a capacity relief valve for staff. We do not staff up departments to handle the one-off big projects that come every few years. Our staff is is put in place and designed to handle the day-to-day operations of what we do. Um, we do not have planners and planning staff that can be moved to comp plan implementation without taking them away from something they're doing right now. Um, I know everybody would be surprised, but there's not a lot of staff sitting around really with a lot of extra capacity right now. So, it is always a push puller trade-off between how much internal staff do we use to do these projects and what is that trade-off when it comes to customer service with people who are trying to do business in the community. Um, we have no shortage of people right now who want to build or do development in this city. Um, and there is a desire for us to see us do that better, quicker, more efficiently, which that comes with some allocation of staff. And every time we pull them away from that, that end of the job suffers. So, we are asking um in this budget for a placeholder. Right now, we're not sure what that implementation is going to look like. I'm sure everybody in this room has had some kind of conversation at this point about what that imple

implementation should look like, the size of the in size and scope of the initial interp uh implementation, and how much of that are we going to bite off in chunks. Um, I think we're putting uh 300,000 in right now as a placeholder until we can have those conversations with the planning commission, till we can formulate what that contractual assistance will look like. But it is designed not to just advise staff but is actually designed to play the role of staff so that we don't have to pull that capacity off of other projects. We also need and use often our staff are generalists. They are planners who do work in city planning. They manage projects, present projects and do evaluations compared to an existing set of standards. They are not expert codewriters. They are not architects. They are not spend their days doing professional urban design. They are not professional community engagement specialists. They do all of these things as part of their jobs, but the ability to bring in extra capacity depending on what the community wants as part of that implementation is incredibly important when we decide to do it. So we do think it's important to put this money in the budget to have those conversations with the planning commission, the city council if necessary, the community at times regarding what level and type of engagement will be involved in it. But these consulting contracts can help us specifically design the additional capacity we need based on those projects. That is why we ask for it. Um, and it is to keep us from having to staff up to a level that is big project driven and not day-to-day driven. So, and this is a big project. So, we will be looking for some assistance at some point for this project. Um, the comprehensive plan there's a few slides up here is a living document. A perfect code can't be written. We've talked all about this during the the process of the comp plan. We think it's important to to be honest and upfront that some level of

consultant assistance is going to be necessary for us to implement this project. Exactly what it is will depend on what those conversations that take place between the planning commission, the council staff, the community will kind of forge what that looks like. It could be a very small detailed uh sections of that implementation or it could be a bigger broader chunk that's designed to be done over multiple years. We just don't know yet. So we want to be upfront and transparent about what it is we may need um for that. Uh I should move the slides here so we have some of the information. Uh consultant assistance a hybrid approach balance staff and consultant times that that's what we talk about. They provide expertise or capacity. Uh relief valves for when we need things done quickly or when we need someone to go into a room and provide us tech technical documentation, architectural work, other stuff. Um things we've talked about. All right. um a supplemental team of experts helps keep that implementation moving so that if we reach a point where some level of expertise is h is needed that we don't have we don't have to stop the process and go seek that at that point it doesn't mean we'll spend all the money in the contract but it gives us alleart services for that implementation process that we may need to address issues that come up as part of that process If we don't need them, we don't spend them. Um, and that's often times how we set those contracts up is a alleart version. If we need them, this is what it costs per hour per expert for us to make that work. So, we think that's important. Um, as part of the comp plan, um, the same stuff we've been talking about, can readily research and share case studies from similar, we ran into that with the comp plan. There was a point where there was a a desire to see studies and other academic information that needed to be curated and and evaluated in comparison to some other information that was being

put for. It was very easy for us to turn that over to a consultant without pulling a staff member off of projects, have them do that work and then provide that information in a timely manner. We feel that's entirely possible as we go through the implementation process uh for this too. And then obviously we can get broad ranging skills that we don't have on hand um or aren't readily available in the city. Architecture, graphic design, software regulations, all of those things that we normally talk about. Um I did not do a slide. The only other big thing we have or it's not even really a big thing, but um we have been working I think and and I think some of council is aware and we've been working with HR and finance to evaluate where we have multiple temporary staff. We're starting with the parks department that can be converted to full-time staff and where we think that would be a benefit to the city. We have currently we're looking at four to 14 uh parks temp staff that we feel like some combination of that four or 14 can be converted to four full-time as staff. Um and that that work can be brought in house and turned into and lessen the amount of temp staff we use in the city. So we're we're going to propose that as part of the budget. We've worked with finance and Milton to kind of make a a first attempt at that to see if it works. We think it'll provide better service and provide us more flexibility. So, the numbers are approximately a trade-off. We're working on that right now with finance, but it all depends on how many temp we reduce that by to get the four full-time. So, we're looking at exactly how to do that, but we are going to bring something forward that talks about how we can do that in this first year in parks to see if we can start to move away from temp staff and utilize full-time union staff to make that happen. So, you'll see that in the budget as well once those numbers are moved on. And that's really all we have this year. I mean, we're obviously we have housekeeping items. Those are the two big items and and we are here to answer any questions you guys may have

about it. Questions? Any council? Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, you're back. Just a thank you for that. Oh, thank you. No, that's it. Thank you.

Ready?

Okay. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, thank you for the opportunity to allow the clerk's office to present our 20 fiscal year 27 budget impacts. Um, for anyone watching at home or online who doesn't know me, I'm Jacqueline Budrey. I'm the city clerk. Um, tonight I will briefly review the clerk's office responsibilities, the growing demands on our office, um, as context for the two budget requests that we are asking for. Um we're submitting two requests to help ensure we can continue meeting um the clerk's office statutory responsibilities as well as continue the high level of performance that the Ann Arbor community has grown to expect from our office. Okay. The clerk's office plays a key role in the transparent local government with three major functions. First, we support city council directly as well as provide support and guidance to all city boards and commission liaison, ensuring compliance across the city's boards with the open meetings act. We administer all elections in the city, including national, state, and local. This includes voter registration and outreach, poll worker recruitment and training, and processing and receiving absentee ballots. The third major function of our office is records management which includes records retention, licensing and permitting, cemetery administration, freedom of information act or foyer request. These responsibilities are expanding each year both in volume and complexity in all three of our major responsibilities. In the photo representing our office, I included two pictures um of our team, one accepting petitions at the front counter and one of our team showing off the city's new flags that are for sale to the public. Both photos highlight the fact that the city clerk's office is a front-facing department. Our team is accessible to the public in person, on the phone, and via email every day that

city hall is open. Our first ask for the fiscal 2027 budget is for increased funding for our voting equipment maintenance. Additional voting equipment was acquired in 2020 as a response to increased demand for vote by mail and has reached the age where the annual preventative maintenance is now the city's responsibility. The 2020 equipment was previously covered under a 5-year warranty. The requested increase of $32,330 annually is significant due to the 2020 acquisition, including a new high-speed operation for high-speed scanning of absentee count board um ballots. Our second more critical request for fiscal year 2027 is a request to add one new full-time staff member or FTE. This position is being asked to support our FOYA, elections, customer service, and some new program responsibilities. The cost would be approximately $100,000 reoccurring for salary and benefits plus $15,000 in IT charges. To offset the addition of a new FTE um understanding budget considerations, we are also proposing to launch a passport acceptance agency. The passport acceptance agency could generate approximately $50,000 annually based on estimates we have received from other cities who provide this service. Becoming a passport agency is not guaranteed and does require state department approval. If we are accepted, there will be an imple implementation period, but we if we are able to successfully launch the program, it would offers a sustainable revenue source and it works well with the cyclical nature of city clerk's office work. Um, passport agents can allow for flexibility in scheduling, including appointmentbased services, and other clerks um indicate they black out

specific dates or weeks for elections. So, it's a nice match um for our slow and busy times. So, why do we need another person? Foye processing has effectively become a full-time job. We completed 937 FOYAS last year and that was a 25% increase from 2024. And this responsibility is almost entirely assigned to one non-UN deputy clerk who also has many other duties. For comparison, we looked at the police records unit who handled nearly 2,000 FOYAS, twice as many as the clerk's office, but with an entire unit dedicated to the work. This compares to roughly 500 requests per person compared to our 900 for one person. Elections also require significant support. Recruiting and training inspectors, managing our new permanent absentee ballot list, and coordinating special roles like absentee count board, early vote workers, e- pole book, and receiving board staff. Early voting has expanded what used to be a one-day election day. Um, activities that are now include nights, weekends, and even holidays. We can and do hire temporary workers to support our operation, but we still need managerial oversight during all of these expanded hours, days, and locations. An additional full-time staff person is essential to continue to deliver the award-winning elections Ann Arbor is known for, including managing our campus satellite operation and our now extremely popular early vote sites at the Ann Arbor district libraries. Finally, our new staff person would be charged with um supporting the management and implementation of our proposed passport service. So, just a little background on Michigan um elections over the last few years. Our election environment that we work in, which you may know, has changed significantly since the passage of

proposals 183 and 222. Proposal three of 2018 brought same-day voter registration, no reason absentee voting, and thousands more requests for absentee ballots. Proposal 2 of 22 added the permanent ballot mailing list, additional days of early tabulation of absentee ballots, expanded dropbox requirements, and 9 days of early voting. More than 75% of voters now cast their ballot before election day, which just changes the nature of our work and how we operate elections. Simply put, election day is no longer a single day. It has become an election season, and it has created more and more demands on our very small team. So, how have we been getting by? Our team has been meeting these new demands through extraordinary effort. We've relied on hundreds of hours of paid salaried or excuse me paid um hourly overtime as well as un unpaid overtime from our salaried employees. We lean heavily on personal and professional relationships for help especially during election cycles and we are very grateful to the other teams in the city who have answered the call to help support us. Our permanent and temporary teams are high performing and deeply dedicated. Under new election laws, for 40ome days each cycle, we have daily deadlines under the law. There's no allowance for backlog. This means that we stay every day until the work is finished, often well into the evening. This constant pressure, demands, and long hours is taking a toll on the team, and we feel it is no longer sustainable at the current pace. Another full-time team member would help to ease these pressures from the rest of the existing staff. And that's all I have for the two requests that we are asking for. Um, if anyone was curious, this is what 23,000 ballots looks like. Um, with the permanent ballot mailing list, you no

longer ask for a ballot. And so whether it's a presidential election or a special millage election, um, everyone on the permanent ballot list gets a ballot in the first um, delivery, which is 40 days in advance. So, just wanted to show you that's what that looks like. and I'm happy to take questions now or um at the end, whatever is preferred. Thank you.

Um thanks. I was just uh looking at an article the other day about kind of the increase in foyer requests that that clerks are seeing as a result of AI. And I guess I wonder to the extent that you're seeing some of that here and whether or not you think that as AI continues to kind of become more prevalent if we're going to continue to see that kind of increase year-over-year. I know that we've seen it already um year-over-year increases in FOYA. So the um another we do have um interestingly purchase um requests for proposals are what um AI has started scanning and asking um uh one of the frequent requesters that we have created an AI bot to um alert him every time there's a new request for proposal and then he seeks out the responses that the city received. I think um that what he tells us is to then you know sell that information to other people looking to make presentations or proposals. So um purchasing is a big one that um we have regulars that want that as soon as um a new bid goes out. And then the other thing is in the um election world that we're in and the you know um kind of the national you know political landscape we get a lot of um foyer requests related to um the election work whether that's wanting to see ballots or you know applications um so a lot of requests related to 2020 and 2024 election as well. Council member Dish. Um,

thank you. And this is an amazing picture. You've got to put this up in the lobby or something. I mean, this is really graphic. It's exciting. It's exciting for democracy, but it's a huge amount of work. And so, I am just a a tiny bit nervous about um you're having to propose to take on extra work in order to get an extra person. And I understand that this just may be the way it is, but it sounds from what you are describing that um there's already an extra person's worth of work on you without starting a passport issuing service and so I wish there were some other way to find this money for you. Um thank you. Um, we did propose that because we were tasked um with um when we were making budget requests, especially for something um reoccurring, you know, that an FTE is obviously a long-term investment um to try to think creatively about solutions for how we would find, you know, an offset for payment. And that's what we came up with. Other um city clerk's offices do that work. And um one of the things that we saw as beneficial to us is that we could amp up that service in um January, February, March when we're a little bit slower and then we could slow down particularly, you know, September, October.

Ah, that's very good to know. Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you and thank you for everything you do. Thank you, Council Member I.

Thank you. I have a question regarding the uh steep increase in FOYA requests and um if there's anything to be learned by doing an analysis that like for example you said that it seems like there's an AI bot that's generating requests for bid proposals. Is there anything proactive that the city could be doing to just make some types of those things public from the start so that people don't have to ask for it by request or any other strategies you because it just doesn't seem like this is going to let up and uh aside from hiring an FTE which seems wise. I just wonder how we're going to cope with the increasing volume. Um the law did change a few years ago for Freedom of Information Act and um it was actually an election related FOYA that um triggered the interest in changing the law but it was a major major FOYA um after the 2016 election. I believe it 2016 um where a person requested um all of our election statewide um records and all the foyer was signed by Emily. no name, no address, and there was nothing in the law that said we would not respond. Um, so now there is a requirement that there be a real person associated with it, a name. So the the AI generated request that I talked about, there is a person behind it. Um, so a name and address is required in order to submit a FOYA um, under Michigan law. What was the second part of your question?

Well, I mean it it was less about that. I mean, I believe that it's going to a real person, but clearly it's allowing somebody an exponential amount of uh efficiency to make the requests. What are we doing to more efficiently be able to respond to their request? And some of it, I think, is about like is there information we should be proactively making public so we don't have to deal with it through request like maybe the bid proposals. I'm not sure if that's appropriate or not, but um yeah, I just wondered what kind of analysis has been done.

Yes. And um over the last several years, we've done more and more on the website. Um it's an online request to submit a Freedom of Information Act request. [snorts] And right on the submitt page, um we don't know how many people are redirected and never submit the request, but we have a link, you know, are you looking for the city's financial records? They're all public and online. You know, the A2 open books. um here's the assessor page if you're just looking for property tax value. And so we don't have a good way to um measure how many people were going to submit a FOYA and found what they were looking for through those links right on the um Freedom of Information Act page. But we do the best we can to direct them to more and more of the information they're looking for might already be public and accessible.

Additional questions? Thanks so much. Thank you. Next up is Chief Kennedy.

Uh good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh Mike Kennedy, fire chief. Um I think tonight the the reigning champion of the police fire hockey game got to go first. So just uh just throwing that out there. Kind [laughter] of. All right. Um so as um uh uh Miss Pashan had mentioned uh fleet is a huge issue. Um it is across all all markets. Um it is particularly uh uh exacerbated in the uh fire service. Um this is the reason that the city of Ann Arbor is part of a class action lawsuit against two of the manufacturers. Um what you're seeing there are two fire engines which is the backbone of our fleet. um they went in service in 2011. We have a uh 18-year replacement schedule uh for these units. We try to have about 14 15 years of frontline service um followed by four to 5 years of we call it reserve service, but they're in service more than they're not. So as as uh fleet goes down for maintenance, we need to have a ready reserve fleet to be able to to rotate in. Um, so the quick math 2011, these would be replaced in 2029. In addition to the um significant doubledigit year-over-year increases, there is also a significant delay in apparatus. So a order today we would not receive for 3 years. So we can't wait till 2029 to be purchasing the these apparatus. We have to purchase it now. Um the other part too is we're trying to lock in the best we can at a 2026 rate versus the the 2029 rate. So we we want to be proactive with this. Um uh this is a national issue. This is not a city of Ann Arbor issue. Not only the delay um but also the increases and again part of

the um the litigation. Uh these rigs are nearly double excuse me they are double for what we had forecasted back in 2011. And so basically whenever we purchase a rig, finance projects that out. What's the life cycle? What do we expect that that to be? No one in 2011 was expecting these double-digit increases. So um this is uh the the core of our fleet. This isn't expanding the fleet. This is just simply uh replacing what we have. Uh the other uh one that we'd like to bring to your attention um really circulates around employee wellness. Um just as Ann Arbor really prides itself on its bond rating. Uh one of the other things that we are very very proud of is that um in the last 8 years we haven't had a single firefighter leave the city of Ann Arbor to go to another fire department. Um that is an incredibly rare feat. Um it speaks to the uh quality of the the the contract that we have, the labor relation um um environment that we have and we're very grateful for our our um relationship that we have with local 693, the support of US council, the support of the city administration. Um, but one thing that we're starting to deal with is we have minimum staffing of 18 on duty and that allows us to keep the amount of fire stations open uh to provide citywide coverage. Um, with sick time, vacation, those sorts of things, basically 18 people have to show up to work for 18 people to have to go home. That balance had usually worked itself pretty well. Um, previously about one to two times a year, we would have to do what's called inverse overtime where somebody that was scheduled to get off couldn't go home because only 17 came in that day because of a a family issue. Um, we have had that now happen 17 times

since October of 2025. So, this has become a dramatic increase. Um, some of the underlying issues for this is we're a young department, which is great. There's a lot of benefit with that. Um uh twothirds of our department's under 40 years old. Um we've had 14 pregnancies [laughter] in the last 18 months. So it is quite the baby culture. A lot of a lot of diapers being bought um at the fire department. So which is which is wonderful. And the city has a very wonderful generous parental leave. But that 14 pregnancies times 12 weeks of parental leave, the the math isn't mathing anymore in terms of people being off and us needing that minimum on duty. Um, another part that was in our contract, which was a a huge benefit around was was mental health leave. That added additional leave time. Um, and we're also seeing change in the workforce. Um my generation in the fire service was kind of one of the last where um there was a lot of kind of more more single earner households and a lot of us had kind of side jobs where um most of our firefighters now actually don't have side jobs. It's the partner is also employed and so our firefighters have to get off to go home to do child care on their off days. And so it's much more that the their their partner has another job as opposed to one person working two jobs or being available for overtime. So there's just simply a less of a pool of people that um want to work or or not only want but can work because they got to go home to hand off the kids to so the the the partner can go. Um and again and we're just none of these are Ann Arbor things. the these are kind of generational issues and and across the fire service. Um so what we are proposing and this is to add we have

three shifts and this is to add a firefighter to each shift and this is to address that inverse overtime. So um having more available people there would be um overtime reduction with this. So um again a firefighter per shift is going to add more basically hours work hours available. um to help address those uh leave deficiencies uh that we were dealing with. And uh for each firefighter, it's about $113,000 a year. So it' be one per shift and that would address um those leave issues. Uh the next is is more of the uh kind of the horizon issue. Um so our current deployment, we are we are set up to uh deal with a basic the house you see there um uh right off of uh South State Street. So, kind of a single multif family house. We have 18 firefighters on duty. We have three engine companies, two ladder companies, uh, one ambulance, mainly EMS focus, but those firefighters can be used for suppression, uh, and a battalion chief. Um, that operational model is is based on a fire in the in the house that you see in in the picture there. Um, we can do that. We don't require any mutual aid. Um, a fire of that magnitude will will tie up all of our city resources. So then we do have to have the surrounding communities come in and back fill. We do the same for them. Um but we can handle that that fire by ourselves and and that's what our current operational model is set up for. This is what Ann Arbor is growing into which is wonderful but this is it's a gamecher. um we are we are dealing with very uh urban issues that that metropolitan departments um deal with. And whether or not you're in Miami or LA or or New York, um a fire on a on a 10th floor apartment is a is a much different

animal than that single family house that we previously showed. Um granted, these are safe buildings. They have alarms. They have suppression systems. Sprinkler systems are not engineered to put out the fire. They are engineered to give enough time for occupant evacuation and for us to get there to do fire suppression. Um now that there's the National Fire Protection Association um for any any fire over 75 ft which is most of what's going up well exceeds that. Um their recommendation is a initial deployment of 42 members. Now, with 18, we're we're a long way from that. And and and I'm that's not what I'm advocating, but we need to try to make some deliberate movement to be for us to be able to deploy those resources as soon as possible um to get ahead of these incidents. Um, when we talk about high-rise firefighting, again, this is a it's a very different thing just due to the time of it's not just a matter of we show up, hit the parking brake in front of the house, pull the hose off, us getting there. It's then a matter of, okay, we got to get up to the 10th floor, and that's even hoping the elevators are working. If they're not working, then we might still have an additional 10 minutes just to load up and and huff up the the flights of stairs. um dealing with uh possib the potential of windows breaking, communication, security, um water supply issues. We're relying on on what's called stand pipes, which is hooking up to water systems in the stairwell. Um uh just it's a lot more physically demanding of not only are we having to get up to the 10th 12th floor, well, the work hasn't even started at that point. So then then the actual firefight begins. um dealing with the potential of uh elevator failure which is the

electrical systems removing uh patients um smoke wind. So it's uh and we we've done a lot of training on this. We have the equipment on it. So we we've met that we've really done a lot internally from an equipment and training perspective. These are just staffing intensive issues and this is where again we need that we need that kind of that that forward push to be able to get ahead of these. Um so with this it's it's a um again long-term request. This would be an additional vehicle. That's about 1.1 million. Um this vehicle would have an enhanced pump on it. um are not to get too technical, but um this vehicle would be able to pump pressures beyond what our current fleet is able to do. So if we lost the fire pump of a building, this would basically be able to take over for this and and a lot of metropolitan areas have these kind of high high pressure pumpers that are able to do this. Um the struggle with fire is that um we staff a minimum of three people on a fire apparatus. And so to do that with three shifts, that's nine people. And then just with baked in vacation and then everything else, we really need 12. So it's it's four people on each shift to just account for the normal vacation and that s. So it's 12 FTEEs, 1.6 million recurring. Again, I I get that that's a really big nugget. Um and uh but that's just really one that that as the as the horizon increases uh we really need to increase some of our fire department staffing. So thank you. Happy to answer any questions. Questions for Chief County. All right, Chief Anderson. Thank you.

Well, good evening, council. Um, you probably shouldn't mess with the man that gets the mic last, should you? [laughter] That's kind of the rule. I appreciate you all having this opportunity or giving us the opportunity to talk about the needs of the police department. And you know, I think uh what you've heard me say over and over again is how um how I feel that our our council has been very supportive of our police department and we really appreciate all the efforts that you provide in order to help us continue to maintain our momentum. But as Ann Arbor evolves into what we see as a metropolis, because we saw that in some of the viewings here, we believe that our our direction remains lock step with the city's commitment our commitment to be a progressive planning organization that benefits not just now but our current and future needs and to maintain our reputation that we have in Ann Arbor as one of the nations nation's premier places for families. It requires the police department to continue to excel. We believe that the police department must align its resources and planning to meet the potential needs. And as we look at the development of our city, we're looking at those projections. Some of them over the few years that we have will be over 111,000 new housing apartments. Just think about that. Over 111 over 111,000 housing departments. Just in one location that's now added to this is the University of Michigan, which will have a housing development that I have over 2,300 units. That's a lot. [clears throat]

Not only are we serving the 123,000, but we have a metropolitan service need area of over 340,000. Ann Arbor is a place of destination. Yet today, what I'm hoping to provide is a forwardthinking strategy that moves simply beyond just staffing. You know, our goal is as always is to be collaborative. It is to as we move forward to look into a multi-approach that integrates traditional policing, but also using alternative partnerships. Our goal is to shift from a reactive models to focus on outcomes. The outcomes that reduce unnecessary arrests, un unnecessary actions that cause problems while also advancing our efforts to embrace community policing. Today, I'm going to talk about prioritizing in four areas. The four areas that I'm going to talk about will be mainly our patrol area, our detective bureau, community standards, as well as our traffic unit. But we understand as we look at what I'm going to ask for, we know that simply freeing up police officers from 911 calls will allow us to shift to what we believe our efforts to prevent calls for service and to build better trust. Now, as I move into this, I want you to know that as as your chief, um I have tasked our department to remain deeply connected to the residents. I hope that you see that. I hope you see that our police officers are truly committed. But I'm going to talk about what we've done over the past two years as an opportunity for you to hear firsthand

what we've done. Our typical deployment for the entire city is about a 7 to 11 police officers. That's what we have on the street for the entire city responding to calls. And despite those numbers, our officers have responded to over 119,000 calls for service over the last two years. Beyond the routine responses, our officers over the last two years conducted over 14,000 business outreach efforts and they've logged over 1,700 dedicated foot patrols in our neighbors neighborhoods, parks, and business districts. Our detectives, which we have 14 of them, have managed over 3,600 cases over the past two years with a clearance rate of 33%. The national average for the types of clearances that they have in calls related to the crimes is 41%. Yet, we're working diligently to close that gap. The 10 community standards officers that we have have amounted to completing 178,000 points of activity in two years. They've specifically handled 15,000 specific code enforcement actions that would include parking enforcement, snow, ice, and vegetation compliance. Our traffic area comprised of three officers that work for the traffic unit. They've been guided by the changes that we see with our driving equality ordinance and a directive that was provided to them in May of 2025. And they've achieved since that time 10 consecutive months without a fatal,

which is a record. By pivoting their resources, they've been focusing on our forwardthinking response to high-risisk traffic. Not to deal with individuals that align that are aligned with committing low offenses, but a dealing with driving behavior behavior by reducing impact on minor infractions. Our traffic unit is placing a focus on being both equitable as well as life-saving. And that's critical for our area, for our city to be a place where you can transverse through the city without being involved in significant incidents such as traffic fatalities. Yet, we are seeing ourselves as evolving into not only a an exceptional city, but one that recognizes special events. Special events is critical to Ann Arbor. And last year we have managed over 260 26 special events. So what we believe our employees have been doing is they've been creating an immense pride with respect to balancing the response. Now I believe that they've been doing pretty much everything we've asked them to do. We've had less arrests than last year, less infractions for minor violation stops, less use of force, more engagement with the community exponentially, and we reduce crime. So, with that, I'm going to be asking you for the following FTEES. And I believe in my I believe this is a modest approach to where we see ourselves, but also considering the future. I'm going to explain to you why there's a need for us to enhance and add

a community standards officer and two municipal officers that are unarmed. I'm going to talk about how they augment our policing service while also increasing the number of police officers we have by four and the associated vehicles that we we used to op to to allow for us to maintain their status. Now, we recognize that our shift from traditioning command and control requires us to be more reactive. I've kind of indicated that. And by building these personal relationships in the community, we want to be viewed as not enforcers, but rather true partners in solving crime. The one-time full the one full-time community service officer. What we see with that nonsworn unbadged civilian person to is a individual working to optimize our response to code enforcement because we're receiving a number of resolutions that we believe we can handle. But by relegating or dedicating a police officer or a community service officer specifically to code enforcement, we will be able to manage the number of code enforcement related resolutions that we see on a regular basis without spreading them out to the other individuals whom seem to be stretch stretched. In addition, we want to bring the municipal officers as I indicated and we believe that these municipal officers will serve as kind of like ambassadors or navigators that would serve in a role that's outside their traditional response. Quite [snorts] frankly, they would serve in a role where they would be perhaps here during

council meetings. They would serve in a role where they would expand outside the normal traditional area of the city and be downtown to learn how to navigate when we come across unhoused. And these individuals would be what we call non-threatening engagement personnel because they're not police officers. They would not be wearing a gun. They would not be having a badge, per se, a police badge. and they'll be there to augment policing services. Learning more about how these municipal officers can learn what is needed to do to talk to the unhoused, to talk to the business merchants is an innovative approach that will that will take away from some of the some of the calls for service that our police officers respond to on a regular basis. Being able to work with Czech welfares, many other things that we're called to do will allow the police officers to respond to the calls that we need that are important. But adding to that would mean increasing the number of police officers that we have. Increasing them by four police officers would help extra exponentially. The reasons why is because we have moved police officers from patrol in order to work in our downtown response team. By allowing us to bring or allocate those police officers back, we can continue those services, but not only are they working with our downtown response team, we've we've identified a beat specific for downtown and one for the Brierwood area. So within that area, we are seeing the need to to address the influx of business that we know is coming. You know that we're having the

Harvard market which opens about 6,000 square foot. We having green the green space which is another 4,000 square ft and the list goes on and on. Having police officers that can work downtown on foot, create the visibility we need, also working in the Brierwood area, allows for the proper community policing concept while also allowing for them to be visible to deter and prevent crime. We believe that our efforts will serve in a community oriented policing facet. We believe by allowing these opportunities to flourish, you will see an even greater response than you see now. Demand is high and our police officers from the chief standpoint is to set the stage where our police officers are healthy. They're not working as hard, but working hard, but doing so in a way that they get enough rest, that they come to work fully charged, and that they continue to do what to continue to carry out our community policing efforts. As you've seen, my last statement before taking any questions is kind of reiterate what I've stated. My hope is that you have seen that when you've asked our police officers to make adjustments, whether it's bike lanes or other things that we have asked, they have responded. They have responded without complaint. They have responded in a way that has demonstrated an exponential amount of resources and activities by increasing what they're doing without causing more harm to the community. I believe that the police officers here in Ann Arbor under your direction to our

city administrator and their commitment to this department have proven that they're above reproach, but we're still not perfect. We still have a long ways to go. Those are my requests and I'm asking if you have any questions. Questions from council. Okay, thank you. So there is council Harrison. Thank you Chief Anderson for your presentation. Um you mentioned arrests being down. Mhm.

Do you know what the um number is and the decrease of arrests or the do you have the percentage per se? It could be percentage or even Yeah, it's not down a whole lot. Hold on. Let me see if I can. And if you don't, you can you can follow up with me later.

In 2024, we had 1,573 arrests. In 2025, we had 1,497 arrests, but we also increased the number of contacts we had by over 20,000. So, we contacted a lot more people and had far less arrests. percentage is left as well. Yes. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Council member Adena.

Thank you. Um if I'm remembering correctly, I believe in the last budget we approved an additional community standards officer and authorized a second one depending kind of certain circumstances. Did that second community standards officer ever get hired in this last week? The second community standards officer is being hired now. So, as you obviously, we allocated in July and it's taken some time. We've had a few people that just didn't make it. Um, but we we've just hired a second one. So, we're fully staffed. Um, so that will help quite a bit.

So, this would be a third person in the last two years. This would be a third person. But keep in mind this person, the community standards officer, this community standards officer would be only um assigned to just code enforcement. So they would be handling all the code enforcement assigned to the police department, which is not what we're doing with our current community standards officers. They're they're still handling the other roles related to community standards. And then could you go into just a little bit more detail about the um municipal safety officers and kind of what their role would be in unarmed crisis response? Do they work with them? Is this kind of the initial uh the initial portion of that? What I I guess could you just give a little bit more detail on what those roles?

The way that I see them right now is they would have a number of different roles. Um, first and foremost, um, to be a presence downtown that is not a sworn person with a gun and a badge that can relate more closely with the community. So, they would be the eyes and ears of the community downtown that are not police officers. And because they're downtown, they will get additional training because they will receive or come into contact with many of the unhoused, which would mean that they would learn to navigate them the resources. This would not be they would not be individuals that would be part of a co-response. They would be individuals that are downtown that are creating high visibility and can connect very closely with the community. So, they're walking around, talking, developing relationships, and also being able to walk around the city hall, our area, as well as being available to assist with some of the security related issues we have here inside the building and outside. Councelor Gazian,

thank you for that additional clarification. Chief, I'm wondering um would those municipal safety officers also coordinate with other like uh supportive connections or other county services that deal with the unhoused? Um what what are you guys envisioning? I I definitely believe the part of the navigation piece is learning how to communicate with community mental health. I mean uh community mental health and learning it's not just them but also learning sometimes you come in unhoused that are veterans um that lose their identification learning how you can connect them to services. Um there's just a myriad of different things that we would have them learn in order to assist the people we come into contact with uh in the downtown area and in close proximity to the city hall. But there are things that we would train them on. But the but I think it's what's really important is when we've seen this type of concept, community members feel more comfortable talking to them as opposed to talking to the police and of course there's a savings in salary with respect to having them uh augment our role because of what they do.

Further question Harrison. Yes. Um, thank you, mayor. So, in regard regarding the municipal safety officers, um, I believe during the, um, the e work the planning session that we had on December 8th, I I think. Did you speak to those about those officers at that time? Are these the individuals that would like like what would their uniform be like? um their uniform would certainly be different.

Um we didn't speak specifically about them. We spoke spec about um our um community our um I'm sorry um uh CIT, right? Uh but not specifically to about them, but but they already wear a different uniform. So we would certainly have them wear a a nonp police uniform and they would be in this instance unarmed which is different. So in a sense it's civilianizing the rank and file as opposed to putting more sworn police officers downtown augmenting sworn with nonsworn to create a more balanced approach. But yes, their uniform would be different. And perhaps the community's approach and their response would allow for them to be more approachable is what we've seen in the past. But the last ones were their crisis intervention team. Johnson and Regina.

If I'm hearing uh what you're saying, I think it would these officers, it would be a way for when the community sees them coming or or sees them downtown, it would be a way to know this is the officer that's here to have a conversation. Like they're here to assess, you know, if if I'm an unhoused individual, they're they're more going to ask how I'm doing. if if it's a business, they might be asking what's going on and not looking to initiate an investigation or something like that. Is that, you know, is that on the right track? I mean, I I think there's something there to just visually having someone who has maybe the authority and the information of the police, but not that sort of escalation or what, you know, whatever implication that somebody puts or association someone has with the uniform. I think that actually is pretty powerful and you separate from maybe the mental health intervention and separate from other kinds of intervention just as a presence that can be informational. I don't know. You're right. Um it is that balance. Obviously, there is a need to have visible police officers downtown, but creating that that collaboration between a police officer and a nonp police officer affords the community the opportunity to actually navigate both ways. And so naturally when you have individuals that are not police officers that are downtown on a regular basis, they develop different skills from police officers and they bring to the table different things that they have to do in terms of navigating resources and the police officers generally will work really well with them to address some of the concerns we have. But the greatest portion of this I believe is how the community or merchants downtown will

view them. They can see both the police response but then they can see a more approachable response which sometimes it is difficult for us to gain gain momentum with respect to the community members not the community members getting past the fact that they're dealing with a sworn police officer. Our officers downtown do an outstanding job, but we also know that there is a segue to the community that cannot get past that uniform. They can help bridge that gap with respect to getting the community more buy in to the police department. Councelor Reena then Harrison.

Thanks. I I I won't try to be with this too much more and perhaps we can have more conversation as the budget develops if these come forward. Um, I guess I I still would just like to learn a little bit more about kind of the vision for what the job actually entails for these individuals. Um, particularly I mean I think I've heard you say a couple of times now that there are folks who are just kind of more comfortable approaching the vision that you have for this that there would be people that are maybe more comfortable talking to them than an armed or sworn officer. But I guess I also am just trying to envision what the role is that makes me not question whether or not then this role should whether it should live within the police department itself. And and so I guess that's where I'm trying to figure out the the responsibilities that this person might have that would have them housed within the police department but not actually be a sworn officer. and and and really trying to grapple with kind of if somebody feels comfortable talking to this person because they're not a sworn officer, is by nature of the conversation that they have going to mean that a sworn officer might show up next, right? Like I I guess those are the types of questions that I have about where this role might go and and develop into. So, um I don't you don't have to answer all of that right now. Perhaps that can be a follow-up conversation that we have. But those are some of the questions that I still have about about those two positions in particular.

One, I do want to make sure that we understand that it I believe it's okay not to understand exactly what they're doing because that's by what they're going to do because that's by by design. We know the vision they have, but in order to really craft out the response, we have to put the scope together and let the community and the individuals downtown modify their approach. That is the best response. The best response is getting them to talk about where they see these individuals working and what they can do. So, we [snorts] don't want to have a regimented response in terms of how they're going to do things because it will evolve. But having the police work in tandem with them, as we all know, there are times when the police are needed. And so, um, that's the balance we have to take. And there's many people in merchants downtown that feel comfortable with the police, but there's many of them that don't have another response. So, they would like to contact the police, but what alternative do they have? So I believe if we get them in the right space, working [snorts] with the police officers and doing the right things, we can gain the momentum we need to build that trust that shows them the difference in our approach.

Councelor Harrison.

Okay. So I will I also won't Thank you. Um, this may be kind of um adding on to what or maybe the same thing uh, Council Member Watson mentioned, but I I guess my question is um, do you see uh, this individuals in this role or these municipal safety officers policing the community or do you see them being more of a support? for example, individuals that are to individuals that are experiencing homelessness or like you mentioned business owners. I mean, I and and also a follow-up question I have to that is I know you said they will not um have firearms. Will they have a taser?

That would be something we would likely have to discuss, but I think that the more you look like a police officer, the more challenging it is. So I don't I I I I don't I don't think I'm not looking for police officers down there. Um I am looking for police officer but not in their role. And so what I'm looking for is ambassadors, people that the community feels comfortable with that they can talk to that they do not see as a person that is going to arrest them that is going to create a situation where there is a use of force. But at the same time understanding that we know that there are sometimes the need to have a uniform police officer. So having the culmination of both would be ideal, but getting them out where you really don't see them in a in a role that allows them to socialize themselves as individuals arresting people is where I'm going. It's partially the civilianization of policing in one aspect. It is an alternative response to the community while recognizing we still need the police, but we don't need the police doing everything. We have other people that can serve in roles that the community feels better with better about. That's that's that's how I view it and that's what we would make sure that they're doing.

So, but thank you. Um and and I just really my question or I guess suggestion or comment is that there are there are folks in the community that do police people, right? like

right they and so that the distinction that that's why I asked the question of do you feel like this role would be policing right or or more supporting and helping those that are struggling which those that are struggling often are are individuals that are business owners you know are finding you know, issue. I mean, there's, you know, there's there's that somebody's struggling and then as a result, if they're hungry, they might take something from a business because because they're hungry, right? So then that creates a problem for the business owners. And so so yeah, I just I guess I'm thinking about um people being policed over or you know, policed even if it is not a sworn or armed officer. We have found that um when you start to hire people that consider these roles, you're hiring people that do not want to be police officers. They actually want to go and help people in the community. And that's what we want them to do. So, we hire people that can fulfill their passion while also creating a path forward to the police. But in all we do, we always want to create an avenue where people can see the police as less threatening. And whether it be through the individuals who are doing a great job connecting with the community or perhaps maybe members of council who do a good job or other individuals to humanize the police department's response. And that's what we want. We want a balanced approach, but people that are committed to helping. And the police officers are

committed to helping, but the uniform is the impediment. The uniform stops. I know I'm committed to helping. I know many of the police officers are, but I'm aware that the fact that I'm wearing a uniform creates an an inability for me to connect. Having someone that doesn't wear that uniform that has that role is the bridge. Thank you. Councelor,

um just a comment, you know, as this makes it its way through the process and potentially comes forward to city council. I think I would be expecting to see what specific metrics we expect to improve. And you kind of um brought up some qualitative things, but um you know, every year that I look at the budget, I can't help but notice what a big portion of the budget that policing takes. And I think we always have to ask um where it makes most sense to invest the money to have a safer community for everybody. And so I would I would be wanting to know what that was. So, I hope you'll take it into consideration as you think through this more. Thanks. Yes.

Other questions, chief. As always, thank you so much.

Thank you. I'm not going to cover this one. There we go. Um, hi everyone. Joe Giant, economic development director. Uh, so last week marked the year since I started. [snorts] Um, over that time, we've begun to address many of the priorities that were set forth in this uh for this department. There is one change um that we want to make in how this department functions. Um, to to do this type of work, you have to be where the action is happening. Um I put up this quote to emphasize that economic output is driven by interaction uh stability for people businesses and the idea is to kind of collide in ways that increase productivity. Um when that productivity is weakened it creates friction and that slows uh exchange whether it's between staff and other staff or between staff and businesses or residents. Um, I do appreciate some things about our remote work culture, but if proximity drives productivity, then economic development needs to be located where those interactions are happening. So, rather than move out to the new election center, we've decided to stay downtown. Um, it will take some minor reconfiguring, but we're planning to make uh city hall our permanent home. Uh, there will be a modest budget request to support the move. uh desks, chairs, basic office setup, but we wanted to at least let you know that that was happening. Um many of you probably know that we've been temporarily lo temporarily located at Ann Arbor Spark. Um wanted [snorts] to take this opportunity to sincerely thank them for giving me and Jenna a great landing spot um in Ann Arbor. [snorts] Um it's a great example of how partnerships should work and it gave me a chance to be embedded with uh many of the people that are doing economic

development in the community already. Um, second item I wanted to highlight is um, funding for due diligence and site assessment, which is essentially procuring information so that we can make informed decisions on things like property sales and acquisitions, participation in things like tax and government financing deals. Um, one of the challenges of uh, taking a more active role in economic development is that you typically don't know when the opportunities are going to arise. So, you can't really budget for them in the same way that you can for like a capital improvement plan. Uh take 415 West Washington for example. Um to move forward on that project, we needed to make sure that the project complies with FEMA because part of the site is in the flood plane. Um that required us to procure a topographic survey and some preliminary engineering. Not major costs, but they are necessary. Um but it's not something that we had ever budgeted for. So it was a challenge to find funding to take on that work. Props to our CFO for making that happen. Um so moving forward we want to make sure that we have some funds available so that we can op um evaluate opportunities as they arise. Um this could include something like thirdparty financial analysis if we're evaluating something like a brownfield request. We can do a lot inhouse but it's hard to know what a reasonable return looks like across different projects and market conditions. Like an arbor south would have a very different risk profile than 415 West Washington. Um but in either case, if the city is going to participate, we need to ensure that participation is both necessary and appropriately sized. Um it could include activities related to site acquisition. Um uh so we're in the process of developing a site acquisition strategy, but no matter where that lands, uh we still need to fund the basics, appraisals, environmental review, geoteex, survey, title, and we currently have no funds dedicated for that. [snorts] Um it could look like handling certain pre-development costs. Uh this is the 415 West Washington example with

the top too survey and the preliminary engineering. A lot of times these items may be reimburseable um whether from the developer or through tax increment financing, but no matter what we need to be able to act quickly when they arise. So one of the reasons this department was created was to help grow the tax base. Um due diligence and site assessment funds are a small upfront investment, but they will have outsized returns. Uh, for example, sale of the client's lot might generate upwards of $17 million. Awesome. But what is even more impactful is it'll generate more than $2.5 million in new tax revenue every single year. [snorts] Even a project like West Washington could generate over $700,000 annually. Um, so a few other benefits. Uh, having due diligence information strengthens our negotiating position. Um, for instance, on brownfield projects, we're typically evaluating data provided by the developer. Um, it's usually high quality data, but third party information helps to eliminate that information asymmetries to make sure that we're on the same page as them when we're negotiating a deal. Um, this helps to identify risks and reduces uncertainty so we can be so we can understand um what risks we're taking on or in some instances give a quick no. Um it increases uh competitiveness. Um knowing what we have is an extremely valuable position. If if like for instance on on client's lot we received a lot of questions like do you have soil boring information? Do you have a site survey? It would be so great to have that stuff at hand. Um a lot of developers would look for information like that when they're evaluating opportunities. Um having funds dedicated to this allows us to move faster. Um timing matters a lot in development. So responsiveness is also a big part of being competitive. So all this taken together supports a more pro more proactive economic development

strategy where we're prepared to evaluate opportunities thoroughly but also efficiently as they arise. Um our department does do a lot of other things to grow our tax base. We're working to approve our development review process. We troubleshoot on current projects. We engage directly with businesses and we're partnering a lot of other initiatives. But this work really is one of the most direct ways that the city can ensure that growth aligns with our policies and priorities. And I do want to point out that this is a way that brings revenue into the city. But having safety, whether it's fire, police, roads, being sustainable, democracy, parks, efficient planning processes, all do drive investment. So the there's costs associated with all these things, but they also are things that make this city have an exceptionally high quality of life. So definitely worth pointing out in addition to some of these more direct tax generating um activities. Uh with that um happy to answer any questions questions from council.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening council. I'm Jordan Roberts. on the public services uh administrator. Um I think I'll be last tonight and um just going to go through uh the general requests we have. Uh I'm going to list some specifics, but um give you an idea of what we're doing. And I'm going to start with talking about what it is public services is doing. We review plans for private developments that want to connect to the city's infrastructure and transportation network. We plan, design, construct, and manage capital roadway and utility and transportation projects. We fix roads, plow snow, clean drains and pipes. We manage our urban forest and maintain infrastructure assets, including nature-based solutions. We treat and distribute clean, safe drinking water to our residents and customers while also collecting and treating the used water to be safely returned to the waterhed. Might be uh a little interesting for you to know. I just learned today that we test water over 200 week over 200 times a day. We do 100,000 water sample tests a year. We collect recycling, compost, and trash. and we run programs to keep things out of landfills. We test soils, monitor groundwater, maintain dams, collaborate with outside agencies, govern the use of our road road rightway, and do all of this to further city goals and keep Ann Arbor a great place to live. So, a little bit about our request. First one is for some human capital to address single point failures, cost inefficiencies, and increased service demands. Um we are asking for a private two private development engineers and a capital projects engineer uh to increase

our internal capacity and uh with reviewing plans and managing projects. Uh did I also mention a capital projects engineer uh for the same thing? Uh and a construction inspector for uh the internal capacity for inspection inspecting all these projects. uh the cost of these positions will be offset by bringing this uh work inhouse as opposed to using consultants like we are now. We're also looking for a solid waste driver to uh to take increase our capacity. Uh [snorts] front load pickups have increased by 2% a year every year for the last five. Uh, and we currently have over 1,200 hours a year in overtime for our front load waste drivers. We're looking for a solid waste assisted manager to help planning with our uh resource recovery in uh going into the future and as we densify and build up, we need to really understand what that means for solid waste generation. And so this person we hope to help us plan for those things going into the future. We also want to address a single point failure at the wastewater treatment plant. Uh the we have a software program that runs all of the water treatment. We call it SCADA. I do not know what it stands for right now, but I can find that out if you're interested. Um, basically there is one analyst monitoring all of this software uh that was identified as a security concern by the EPA, Eagle and Department of Health and Human Services. Plus, we were relying on this one person to uh monitor all this. They were taking their

laptop on vacation uh which we all know we need time to disconnect and this person literally could not. We're also looking for equipment and investment to increase service quality, enhance safety and replace aging systems. We want to expand our testing for emerging contaminants and microplastics at the water plant. We are already ahead of the curve, but we want to stay there. We'd like to uh replace our traffic signals video wall. Uh it is aging and has reached its max capacity. We can't add any new cameras to it. And this system is mission critical for uh it provides live feeds and real-time adjustments to assist during large events and responding to road conditions. We want to bring handwork pavement markings in house. This would be a one-time investment for capital equipment to provide safety markings for crosswalks, intersections, and bike lanes. It will allow us to be more responsive and reduced by the offsetting reliance on contracted services. Yeah, the cough offset is reduced by that. Um, additionally, the protected bike bike lane network is growing. We currently have just over 13 miles and that's anticipated to double over the next two years. And we'd like additional winter maintenance equipment to more effectively remove snow. We also want to upgrade some of our equipment to increase [snorts] our worker safety, such as uh a wood chipper with new safety features and a sweeper that can access uh hard-to-reach locations like bumpouts uh that a normal standard sweep sweeper wouldn't be able to do. We also have about uh over 190 locations that we need to make permanent street uh

cut repairs. These were repairs for utility pipes underground that were temporarily fixed and just the amount of workload. We've not been able to uh put the permanent fix in place and we're asking for some help catching up with that. We also have some programmatic funding to implement study findings and increase our transportation safety which is leading me to our coming soon in 2026. One of the things we hope to bring forward is some funding to enable our transportation team to capitalize on opportunities beyond quick builds and uh take advantage of opportunities that may present themselves as they arise. and uh administrator Dehoney will be presenting more detail on that when the budget comes forward in April. As you heard earlier, we also will be hoping to leverage new state road money. We don't have the amounts yet, but we are preparing to capitalize on different opportunities that this funding may provide while letting us stay flexible with the adjustments and money until we understand the distribution routine and the uh the likely amounts we'll be getting. And we will also uh be bringing forward later this spring to council a request to renew the street, bridge, and sidewalk and sidewalk gap millages. Those are expiring at the end of this year. And we'd like to bring some language forward on the ballot and the uh use resolutions and those will be later this spring. Uh with that, that was just a very brief overview of all the things that public services is has going on and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions from council?

Thanks a 2 hours and 1 minute. Uh, thank you for your attention this evening. When we actually do the budget in April, you'll hear me say this again. We have a process for dealing with budget questions. It's on the screen. We're asking that you provide questions to Sarah, to Miss Pashan, to Miss Buselmeer, and to me. uh we will combi compile those questions into a single report and so everybody will see all the questions that were asked regardless of who asked them and everyone will see the answers to those. Do you have any questions for me for right now? Splendid.

Is that all? It is excellent. Well, I think I can say without fear of contradiction, Mr. Deon, thank you very much. Staff assembled and distant. Uh thank you very much for your presentations today. More crucially, the work that's been done uh to get us here. Uh there are, you know, a lot of uh challenges that we as a uh community face, but we are fortunate uh uh and uh grateful to have a staff that is looking forward trying to uh to meet them uh as best we can with uh within the context of our legal and economic resources. So, one and all. Thank you so much. Motion to adjurnn. Move by.

Ah, thank you. My apologies. Uh, we now can public comment general time. Public comment general time is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to council in the community about matters of municipal interest. To speak at public comment general time in a work session, one need not have signed up in advance. Speakers in all instances will have three minutes in which to speak. So, please pay close attention to the time. Our clerk or the time clock will notify you when 30 seconds are remaining and when your time is expired. When your time is expired, please conclude your remarks and seed the floor. Is there anyone who'd like to speak at public comment? To do so, just come on up. Thank you. My apologies. Uh thank you, council, for allowing us to make these comments. Be really quick. Uh my name is Myron Michael. I'm a mentor with the student advocacy center. um here to just say thank you um to you all for your past support for uh funding programs like ours. Um your past funds allow allowed us to launch CH and connect for the first time and it's in uh Ann Arbor. Uh and we appreciate that very much. Um a little background check and connect it's an evidence-based academic mentorship program that supports students to succeed at school and increases their chances of graduating. Um because the mentorship is relationship focused. Uh it allows collaboration to work. Um as students explore ways to improve their academic engagement. Uh weekly connections with the mentor allow them to also explore uh hobbies, sports, um any interest they may have to strengthen their sense of belonging at school. Um there are many challenges that interrupt a student's sense of belonging um and engagement with school. uh mental health, um substance abuse, uh chronic truency to name a few. Uh without persistent support, these challenges uh get the

best of our students. Um and when that happens, uh we know that it costs the community lots of money um and also uh potential. Your funding however allowed Czech and connect to launch in Ann Arbor uh to disrupt those challenges and not only improve students academic engagement but help them envision success in their lives and make progress on um their life path. And we just wanted to come in tonight and say thank you uh and to share uh some of that impact with you all and uh in hopes that you would consider reinvesting. Thank you. Hello. Greetings, city council members. My name is Sam Brown and I am actually also I'm an intern at the student advocacy center supporting students in the Ann Arbor public schools. You already heard from Myin um who spoke about the check and connect program, but what I want to share is one of the is a story from one of the students who participated in our program. We did have a family member who was going to come tonight but they were not able to make it. So I will be sharing a story. Um as I have started my internship I've gotten to know students personally and seen the impact of check and connect on the students. Um so these are direct quotes from the student when specifically asked what the most significant change has been since participating in the program in 2024 and 2525. The students responded that I'm happier. Being at SACE has has made me grow as a person and has made me more independent. Transportation was a huge barrier, but y'all would still come together to help me. This has helped me not give up. Even though I couldn't make it to school, I still communicated with you and you were there when I needed. being an adult that I needed, being someone that I could talk to if I had

questions, and that meant a lot for someone to have in my corner. I felt more powerful and felt like I could always have a say in making decisions about my life. And in 2025 and 2026, this student said that my mentors helped me with school. I reached out for support and so I noticed I've been losing weight. Couldn't fit into any of my clothes. So, I was trying to go to school more, but I just couldn't do that. So, she helped me reach out to the school social worker and helped me get more stuff. And now I've been at school way more, and I just got student of the week. Y'all see my name up there. And now I'm way more motivated to go to school. This is significant because it's important for me to graduate. Feels like I'm going closer and closer to my goal. I feel like it's way different. Last year, I was all hung up over graduation because I wasn't graduating with my class. I was trying to drop out of school. Thought that I couldn't do it. And now it's like, you can't do this. Everyone has seen a change in me. And I've been coming to class, doing my work, and not being on my phone. And that sounds like progress to me. This story and the many others like it just show how important Czech connect is in supporting students in their education. It creates a bridge between students and families, schools, and the resources they need to be successful and thrive while empowering students to take their lives into their own hands. My ask is that you consider future funding for us and support the Student Advocacy Center and the life-changing work we do with the students. Together, we can make a difference in the schools and communities of Ann Arbor. Thank you so much for your time and allowing us to comment.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the house who would like to speak at public comment? Is there anyone online would like to speak at public comment? Mayor, I don't have any callers online for public comment. Seeing no one and public comment is closed. May I have a motion? Oh, I'm still sort of trying to get out of here. Are there communications from council? Is there anything that needs to be said that has not yet been said? Councilor Watson, no doubt.

I'd just like to thank the commenters from coming out from Check and Connect. We were able to fund them through the council directed uh youth services funding uh past couple fiscal years. Um so just thank you for coming down and it's great to hear for from community members when it comes to budget priorities. Further communications. May I have a motion to adjurnn, please? Moved by councelor Watson, second by councelor Malik. Discussion. All in favor? Opposed. We're adjourned.