Board of County Commissioners Business Meeting - workshop

good afternoon everybody we are here for our second quarter budget with you at CIP update let's get started with some introductions around the room please start with you sir Todd Weaver from finance Michelle Hill State Commissioner Robin Fields Commissioner

Leslie Somi, Commissioner. Carrie Warren-Gilley, Commissioner. Lisa Starris, Finance.

Jessica Sopko, Finance.

Jessica Campbell, Commissioner of District 2.

John Christopherson, County Attorney's Office.

Jenny Pinchot, Open Spaces. Adam Burson, Sheriff's Office. Anna Quint, Finance.

Patrick Senior, Finance.

Ben Morris, Facilities and Fleet Management.

Hi Freddie.

John Frazier, Community Services.

and well wonderful wonderful so he is isn't he absent and excused and thank you so I would like to turn it over to director Weaver to set the foundation sure well good afternoon

They just joked it's annoying in the mid-90s today, so it's a little bit of a cool down. Everybody's excited about that. Welcome to the second quarter budget review NCIP update. I'll turn it over to Jessica here in a moment, but she's going to go over some of the projection assumptions, the projections for the key funds. We have a number of supplemental requests, and then we'll kind of wind it up with updates on where some of our capital projects are. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jessica.

All right, so we'll talk a little bit about the economic outlook. First off, real GDP is projected to be 2.9% for 2026. Normal healthy range is considered to be 2% to 3%. It's projected to dip a little below that and be a little slower next year at 1.7%, and then in 2028 back to 2.1%. Unemployment rate. You'll recall we typically have been lower than the nation, and then around COVID, the lines kind of crossed. And then you can see in 2024, our unemployment rate was a little bit higher than the nation. And then we were lower in 2025 at 4% when the nation was at 4.3%. For this year, we're projected to be at 4%. The nation's projected to be 4.4%. And then that trend is projected to continue through 2028, so we'll be about half a percent below the national level. For inflation, nationally it's projected to be 3.2% for 2026, and Colorado is projected to be 4.3%, and then drop down to 3% next year, followed by 2.6% in 2028. Looking at the housing permit growth, When we met at the first quarter, 2026 was actually projected to be down about 7.5%, and it's now projected to be slightly positive at almost 1%, with a slight decline in 2027 and then again in 2028. And then the non-residential building growth is projected to decline this year about 12.5%, and then increase a little bit in 2027 and 2028. So looking at the projection assumptions, first looking at property tax, which is our largest revenue source. If you look at the chart on the left, the green bars are reflecting our actual value. So if you compare 2026 to 2027, we have very preliminary data from the assessor's office. We'll get final information later this month. So currently, it's showing that we're going to increase about 1.9%. If you look over at the chart on the right, looking at the assessed value and the budgeted revenue, you'll see a decline. So based on the state projections, we were expecting we'll decline for 2027 about $2.5 million. Based on the current information from the assessor's office, we're projecting it'll be about $5 million. That decline will be larger than expected. So our assessed value is actually reducing about 1.9%, which is what the actual value is increasing. A couple things playing into that. This is an interim year, so typically it remains pretty flat, but there was the special session back in 2024 that adjusted the assessment rates so the residential side we were two and a quarter or i'm sorry six and a quarter percent this year that's going up to 6.8 but at the same time an exemption is now coming back on that will exempt the first 10 of your actual value up to 70 000 then on the commercial side um We started out at 29% when the legislation happened, and it's supposed to adjust down to 25%, so we have another year of decrease. So with that percent decrease and the amount of commercial property that we have in the county, that's what's driving the decline for 2027. Then you'll notice when you look at those couple out years on the assessed value and revenue trend chart, that that bar or the line stays pretty flat for the next couple of years. So the next reassessment, we're not expecting to see much of an increase. We'll have another intervening year that will remain flat. And it's the 29 assessment for our 2030 revenue. where we next expect a decent increase. So the revenue that we have currently and what we've set aside of the 1A funds is expected to carry us through those next couple years until we see another increase. And we'll see that a little bit more when we get to the general fund. And then looking at the projections on the expenditure side, we have the salary increases in the out years projected at 4.5%. That's just based on what the actuals have trended the last few years. Retirement is currently at 10%, and we have built into there a quarter percent increase each year through 2030 to get up to 11%, which was the goal of the retirement report. The health insurance increases are assumed to be 8%. Dental insurance is projected at 1% annual increase. And then everything else is held flat with the exception of we have the commitment to the $25 million a year going to the capital expenditure fund. Part of that is through the mill levy, but $15 million of that is through an annual transfer. So we have that built in through 2030. So you'll see that reflected in the numbers as well. But outside of that, no budget packages are included. So looking at the general fund, comparing the adopted and amended budget, the revenue is budgeted at $323.2 million. Expenditure is budgeted at $321.5 million, showing an increase to fund balance of about $1.7 million. That would put the ending fund balance at $168.3 million. And then looking at the projections, revenues projected to be $325.2 million. So that's not quite $2 million above the amended budget. That's largely due to charges for services and investment earnings coming in a little bit higher than budget. Then on the expenditure side, we're projected to be $310.1 million, which is $12.9 million under budget. A little over $4 million of that is due to savings and salaries and benefits from vacancies. Then we have $5 million in the services and other category that is not projected to be spent. But important to note, that is a category that we tend to have a lot of things reappropriated to the next year that's not completed this year. So a good portion of that, although it will fall to fund balance, could then be rebudgeted in 2027. But currently, that's showing that would put our fund balance at $181.3 million, and our designated reserve is $42.9 million. Madam Chair.

Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm sorry. In the previous slide, we were talking about the special session that happened with our tax revenues. Yes. Is next year the last year that we will see implications from that work?

That's the last set of those reductions. With the exemption, that exemption will continue to grow as inflation grows, but there aren't projected to be any additional adjustments to the actual... assessment rates.

And then the drop in the commercial property tax stays steady at that? Yes, that will stay at 25%. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would add, though, at that point it's still subject to approval by the legislature. So even though the provisions of the special session stuff will be done, the legislature could still change that going forward as they have in the past. Okay.

greatly discourage that.

So looking at the forecast period for the general fund, you'll see that property tax change reflected in the revenue where we showed decreasing from $325.2 million down to $322.3 million. And then that stays pretty steady until we get to 2030 where you see a decent increase of what we were used to seeing in previous years. On the expenditure side, for 2027, you see the expenditures projected at $315.9 million, showing an addition to fund balance of $6.3 million. That would bring the fund balance to about $187.6 million. Again, the fund balance is reflecting the one-time transfer of the additional $15 million to the capital expenditure fund to 2030. So you see the expenditures actually decrease from 2030 to 2031 because of that. But also important to note, at the bottom there's that line showing what the set aside of 1A funds were. So in 2025, we put very little of the 1A funds to work since that was approved right before the budget was adopted. And then in 2026, we started putting some of those funds to work. So we had about $35.8 million of that remaining. With the amended budget, we're at $34.9 million. And then with the expected decline in the property tax, that puts us at about $30 million. So we have about $30 million of those one-time funds that need to carry us through the next couple years. The last few years, we've actually added about $9.5 million in ongoing budget packages to the general fund. Last year was obviously a little bit higher since there was a big influx with all the investment of those $1A. But just to kind of keep in the back of your mind, What we've been averaging the last couple years is more than what we would have if we spread this $30 million over those next three years. So we are going to have to be cautious in how that's spent.

Okay, so what I heard you say is...

2030 is the first year we see any kind of increase particularly in our property taxes our income coming in and we've got 30 million to get us through those years

Of ongoing, yes.

Of ongoing for salary increases, all of those types of things. Yes. Health insurance increases that we anticipate. And that was why we strategically set those funds aside so that we didn't just blend it all last year.

Yes. And we do typically include budget packages for vacancy savings, so that helps offset the salary a little bit, but we still have the health insurance component of that. The salary and benefit projections, we do have built into those expenditure numbers, so you do see that reflected in that net difference, but yes, that does have to help carry all of that. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, moving on to the capital expenditure fund, comparing the adopted and amended budget. The amended budget.

I'm sorry, Madam Chair. Yes, Commissioner Campbell.

Yeah, SAFCO. Just to clarify something that I just heard. So you're saying the 1A funds, the $30 million that we didn't spend in the first year, We'll have to carry through until 2030, but we'll have to carry what with it? What all will that, are you saying that needs to cover?

The ongoing packages. The ongoing packages. Yes, so one-time packages will not be part of that. That will be part of the fund balance. Fund balance. Yes, but $30 million of that fund balance is the ongoing.

The 1A.

The 1A.

It will be used on an ongoing basis.

to use on an ongoing basis. Okay, so the 30 million for, okay, so then, there's one time set aside for projects. Yes. Okay, I just, so the 30 million ongoing is more like the FTE growth or whatever we would need for. Yes, or contracts. Yeah, contracts. Okay, good. Because the insurance got folded in there, and as important as that is, and increasing comp and everything we're doing, I don't know that the voters were contemplating us using 1A funds for insurance. And so what that means, though, and what sucks, just to put it where the goods can get in, what sucks is that it means with our barely increasing or even dwindling or flat property tax revenue, other packages and such would not be. I mean, we'd basically be paying for total comp and insurance with anything that came in for general fund.

We offset some of the salaries with those vacancy savings and budget packages, but yes, that eats a chunk of it. Yeah, got it. Okay.

I mean, I think the way to think about it is because of the way the property tax special session set out those rates that had essentially artificial decreases in some of those value, and now with the real estate market kind of flattening out, you had $70 million ongoing each year you could have spent on anything you want. So we spent about $30 or 33 of it in year one, right? Leaves about 35 million left. So whatever combination over the four years after you passed 1A, you could spend 70 million more on stuff. So we didn't spend all 70, because obviously that stuff you added last year is going to grow.

Is ongoing, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so it's kind of a dwindling amount of ongoing money. Right. So that's just something we'll have to watch. We don't know. What will come in the 2028 appraisal that we will use for 29 and 30 property tax, but it's anticipated to be relatively flat. Who knows? It could change. Got it.

Thank you.

Okay, so for the amended budget for the capital expenditure fund, the expenditure side reflects all the projects that were carried forward from last year. As you know, a lot of those capital projects end up being multi-year and moved forward, so that's a significant difference in the expenditure budget for the capital expenditure fund. And then looking at the projections, revenues projected to be $27.1 million. then on the expenditure side projected to be twenty nine point nine million dollars so about eleven point two million and projects are expected to follow the fund balance and then of that about nine million expected to be reappropriated to next year so it looks like we'll have a couple million that will be added to fund balance so that will put the ending fund balance at twelve million before we reappropriate into next year Here you can see in the forecast period what the expenditures are, and then since the current five-year plan is just 2026 through 2030, we have an average built in for some of those asks for 2031. But you can see in 2027 on the other adjustments line that $9 million worth of re-appropriation projects will fall into that, and it's showing that we'll have about $3 million left after that in fund balance. And then I'll turn it over to Lisa to talk about the other funds.

All right, so for the next fund, we're looking at the Social Services Fund. The amended budget is just about at the same for revenue as for adopted, and then they had a slight increase in the amended expenditure side. But for projections for year end, we are projecting to be about $5.9 million less in revenue. Um, and about 5.8 in expenditures, but that's due to lower reimbursements for contracts. Um, through their community programs, and just due to the uncertainty. Of all of their projects, and they do have about 2.3Million in vacancy savings, but then the rest of that 5.8Million for expenditures is from the community. programs. So that would bring about a $600,000 use of fund balance to bring that from 11.5 to 10.9 by year end with the policy reserve of about 3.2. Looking out at the forecasted years, again, because of the contracts and the uncertainty, the revenue is slightly going up from 96 million to 1.5 with expenditures growing at a much faster rate at 100 million to 116.5. But again, so it would have a much more use of fund balance but as the uncertainty of these contracts from the state and federal programs change we will adjust these forecasts and so that they will be constantly adapting to that based on what knowledge they have at that time but with the forecast we show starting the 2027 budget with a 10.9 million fund balance and having an expected drawdown of 4.1 and again this is just the forecast this doesn't include what's actually in the requested budget for social services yet the next fund is the road and bridge fund Road and Bridge Fund is seeing a slight increase in revenue of about $500,000. The SOT is coming in, I'm sorry, specific ownership tax is coming in about $649,000 more, which is helping to offset the decrease in the HUTF, which is the Highway Users Tax Fund. So that's kind of helping to offset that. On the expenditure side, they are looking at being about $28.5 million below. I'm sorry, to have $28.5 million spent by year end, about $400,000 below the budget. They have roughly five vacancies, and there have been so their salary benefits of $223,000 in vacancy savings. But because they also have several pieces of equipment in different vehicles that are delayed and being received, so their budget for central services will not be expended this year, but it will be deferred to next year. So that will be added to their 2027 budget. And the current projections show that the ending fund balance will be just above their policy reserve by about $59,000.

I think it's important to realize with that specific ownership tax trending higher or lower, we moved all of the specific ownership tax out of the general fund as part of the recommendation for 2026. So when I heard you kind of make a cut, like, oh, that there only used to be about $2.5 $1 million of specific ownership tax in there. Now it's close to what's over $12 million. So when we see a change in the specific, and keep in mind, specific ownership tax is the personal property tax on vehicles. It's collected through the Motor Vehicles Office countywide. And then we get distributed to us whatever our percentage of the total property tax distribution is. So as we've gone up in 1A, so is that. But as there's more vehicles purchased or more specific ownership tax collected, more could be distributed. But we're going to see that change in SO tax essentially now in the road and bridge fund rather than we used to see the trend indicator in the general fund.

Thank you.

And so as Todd was saying, you can see that in the forecasted years for 27 through 31. The forecast has the property tax at about an average of $5.8 million and the specific ownership tax at $12.8 million and an average of $11 million for the HUTF. And then on the expenditure side, again, this does not include any ongoing packages. but it's on average about $740,000 use of fund balance over the forecast period. And just to note that we added $10 million to the road and bridge fund to help with road maintenance. So in these outlying years, they'll have to kind of adjust that based on the increases for salary and benefits to help keep it above $10 million. above the restriction and their policy reserve so as it is right now their beginning fund balance for 2027 is 4.8 million and by the end of the forecast period it would be 1.1 million which is 4.1 below their policy reserve which of course as their expenditures grow that one-sixth of their budget that's going to grow in unison

Thank you. Lisa, I appreciate Jeff talking about the specific ownership tax and reminding us that we did that and now we're going to see that reflected. So not only increases but decreases will be reflected there.

What's going on with HUTF?

Do we just see a, I mean, is it just a continuing decline in that fund typically?

There is a slight increase projected in the out years for that. Not as significant as it had been in prior years because of the bills the last few years, but it does show a slight increase in those out years. Okay.

We had a slight delay in receiving it this year.

end of legislation recently around HUTF yes yes there's some yeah and there's some going on currently that could change there's a question a question yeah okay so that could I mean we've done anticipated you have an impact on County funding whether it be through HUTF or Or if they keep that money going to transportation, the impact will be felt probably by other departments in the county, community resources and public health and human services where that money might have to get drawn from. But to your point, HUTF, the distribution amongst counties generally is dependent upon the registration of motor vehicles and then lane miles of roads. other counties grow faster than ours and we're still growing but like you know there are some areas of the state that are growing faster than Arapahoe County and as road networks grow in other parts of the state incrementally our percentage of total roads and total motor vehicle registrations goes down slightly but the amount of money flowing in from gasoline taxes and registrations continue so it's it's hard to tell from year to year but obviously what happens in November with the ballot questions could have a bearing on what happens with HEPF going forward

Thank you. All right. The next fund we'll look at is the ALIA fund. Year-end projections are showing an increase in revenue to end with about $15.1 million, an increase of about $660,000. $314,000 of this is expected from interest earnings. And then on the expenditure side, $15.9 million is expected to be spent. And then you'll see the other adjustments. That's for the supplementals requested for a total use of $16.3 million with a $1.1 million use of fund balance, bringing that beginning fund balance from 8.9 down to 7.8, which is about 5.1 above the policy reserve. Looking at the projections for 2027, we have a revenue of 13.8. And again, you can see that stair step. So the 2027 to 2028, and then by 2031, we'll be up to about 14.5 million. This is only about 833,000 over that five-year period of increase in revenue. Yeah, that's really good. And then on the expenditure side, again, this does not include any of the operating packages and just has the same assumptions as the general fund. So we would go from $15.3 million up to $18.2 million, bringing that fund balance down from $7.8 million to negative $5.7 million. which we would fall below the policy reserve in 2029. A couple of things to note, a couple of years ago we moved eight FTE from the general fund to the ALEA fund to help kind of help with that. So we'll have to make sure and keep an eye on that as we look at the 27 budget and adjust for the forecasted years.

So you mean like we would transfer some of those back into the general fund? Because this fund wouldn't be able to possibly get...

Potentially. We transferred those over and then we had positions added last year and there's been requests and their plan is to request additional FTE the next couple years. So as we do that, you can see there's a much faster drawdown of that fund balance. So we'll probably at some point have to re-evaluate putting additional FTE in that fund.

Because right now it's averaging about $2.7 million per year use of fund balance for the next five years.

I think it's also important to note for ALEA that, you know, we used to talk about in the past that ALEA had a fixed levy, and now the county has essentially a fixed levy. So they float with the assessed value and the changes from the special session. It's also important to note that the ALEA fund was not part of our 2024 ballot question. Therefore, it is still under the provisions of that special session property tax limitation. So even if there would be a return to value growth, the ALEA fund would be constrained by that formula, right? and it's also important to note that in the unincorporated area of the county is where the largest outsized impact from oil and gas is compared to the whole county value as a whole and that's one of the areas that at least in the very preliminary set of values we got from the assessor's office there's a significant drop in the value of oil and gas property tax value right so if that returns to normal because of the events of this year that'll be factored in but then it could be capped by that formula

Did we just choose not to have that in the thing?

It's two different taxing authorities. So you would have two different voting groups, two different tax authorities. You would have had to ask a second question to only the unincorporated voters to exempt that from the provisions of that.

Thank you. And this fund does include the specific ownership tax also. So like in Road and Bridge, as you can see that, and they have about $645,000 annually in specific ownership tax.

Thank you.

All right. And moving on to our featured fund each year or each quarter, we swap this out. So this year we focused on the rec district. The recreation district operates in between the I-25 Smoky Hill Road and I-225 in Arapahoe-Douglas County borders. It has a dedicated mill levy of .585 mills for about $1.3 million. They also receive specific ownership tax of about $71,000. And then they have a IGA 2.00 mill levy with the Parker Jordan Metro District that brings in roughly $170,000 in revenue. on the expense side um we shifted five fte out in 2023 due to their capital projects costs but then we brought those back in 2026 and added an additional two fte so the actual and you can see the actuals expenditures kind of shift accordingly based on those And then in the 24, you can see the transfers, that transfer line, that 1.2, there's about $740,000, I think, of that that was transferred to the radio lease purchase fund. which was for the debt, and they paid off that Dove Valley, so that's how come we don't have that transfer out in those outlying years. So they have a pretty decent fund balance, and for 2026, we have a beginning fund balance of $5.3 million, and expecting to add $1.1 million in revenue for a total of $6.5 million by year end. All right, now moving into the fun stuff. All right, the first supplemental we have is from the Sheriff's Office. This is a request to increase the asset for the Polaris Ranger by $4,600 to cover the additional upfitting, lights and graphics. This was a one-time purchase in the general fund, so there's no financial transfer. It is just to increase that asset. The next request is also for the Sheriff's Office to transfer $18,000 from the General Fund to Central Services to retain a pickup that would be going to auction and instead swap out a Ford Fusion. So they can send the Ford Fusion to auction and keep the truck instead, and that's for the SWAT unit. And then the next request is by the Clerk and Recorder's Office to request a $60,000 increase to the election judge pay. This would be a one-time increase, and it would increase the pay by $2 an hour for each of those general election judges. The Clerk and Recorder's Office is also requesting $71,642. This is to true up the request that they brought at Q1. I forgot to add in the IG rents for all the election equipment. So this is just a line to add that to their budget so they can pay the IG rents for the election equipment that was approved during Q1. The next request is from the sheriff's office requesting $29,855 in the general fund and $16,593 in the LEA fund. During the 26th budget period, the budget package was increased by one FTE, but the ongoing and one-time operating expenses were not increased. So they are requesting to have that increased. recognized and increased and in the general fund twenty seven thousand of that roughly is one time and offset by three thousand ongoing and then in a Lea that would add roughly ninety two hundred dollars in one time and seventy four hundred dollars for ongoing operating expenses The district attorney is requesting in the general fund to recognize and appropriate $1,149 that was received from gym equipment that was sold and they would like to appropriate that into the food and beverage budget line item. The district attorney is also requesting to recognize and appropriate $7,651 from a vehicle that was sold that was originally funded by the DA and repurpose those funds for training budgets on a one, and both of these would be one time, obviously. There is also a request by the DA to appropriate $4,980 For the database subscription for the investigator team, I believe that's the LexisNexis one. And then they are also requesting to appropriate $9,096 for two CaseGuard AI software licenses. It's a redaction software. The coroner's office is requesting to recognize and appropriate a transfer of $7,850 from the central services fund. We transferred money over there several years ago for a new microscope, and that is not necessary. They received some other funds, and so they would like to move this back to the general fund to purchase two new replacement bone saws and fingerprints. fingerprint scanner that do not meet the asset threshold. Did you want me to repeat that one again, Commissioner?

Should we all just take a second to think about what a bone saw would feel like?

The DA is also requesting to increase their authorized staffing by one FTE by converting a temporary position which is a victim witness specialist to a full-time FTE and It is supported by the detailed caseload evidence. And then they are also requesting to increase their staffing by an additional one FTE and appropriate 32,775 for a partial year for the diversion team intake coordinator to address a 60-day case intake backlog. And both of those, the 32,000, that is both a partial year. And you will see those as part of the 27 budget. for the full year. The sheriff's office is requesting $12,475 to be recognized and appropriated for a federal reimbursement for the forensic software license renewal and upgrade. And this has already been paid for by the general fund, but to recognize that reimbursement from them. The sheriff's office is requesting to transfer $11,000 from the general fund to the central services fund to purchase an additional floor scrubber for the expansion of the medical wing, adding the 12,000-plus square footage. It's kind of... added a lot more workload for that. They are also requesting to recognize $10,115 and appropriate $20,037 in the transfer from the general fund to the central services fund for a trailer that OEM uses that is no longer rated to haul the Hagland snowcat after it was retrofitted and it became too heavy for the trailer.

And just to add a note on that one, that is one that the ABC asked for some additional information on as to what the retrofitting was that caused the weight issue with the trailer. So the sheriff's office said that back in the floods they were using that for rescue, had issues, and the motor blew up. So the replacement is larger and about 800 pounds heavier, and that's what pushes it over the weight limit. So they've had some damage then consequently to the truck hauling it. So they're wanting to get a larger gooseneck trailer to be able to haul that. And we do have chief person here when we get through the supplementals if you have additional questions that can address those as well.

The next request is for the county attorney's office to recognize and appropriate $70,600 for the implementation and the subscription for the rave alert system. The Sheriff's Office is also requesting to recognize and appropriate $67,000. I'm sorry, this one was actually pulled. I missed it, and they messaged me this morning. It was actually for a different grant that they received, and they've already appropriated or moved that money to the correct grant. So moving on to the next one for ALEA, the sheriff's office is requesting to appropriate $300,000 from fund balance to address their overtime needs. They're currently projecting to be over budget, and this would bring them up to budget. The Information Technology Department is requesting to appropriate $521,838 from the fund balance in the central services to increase the assets. There are four assets. They brought this forward to a drop-in in July for the Google Asset Project. The Sheriff's Office is requesting to return $272,433 in the grant fund. $202,000 of that is for the Comprehensive Opioid Stimulant and Substance Use Program. And then the $70,000 return is for the JBBS grant, which is the Jail-Based Behavioral Health Services grant.

And to add to that one also, the COSEP grant was another one that the ABC had questions on. They're returning a little over $200,000 on that grant, so there were questions on why that cannot be fully spent. That was a multi-year grant that had an award of not quite $1.6 million, and they were able to spend a little over $300,000. They said they expected it to be able to be used a little differently And the person that won the RFP wasn't able to carry out some of what they expected to, so they pulled back on that and also had some questions about being able to be paid for that. So if you have more questions on that, the chief person can address those as well.

The next request is for Public Works and Development. This is a placeholder for the LPC grant for $105,000 reimbursement with a $45,000 match for the county. Public Works is also requesting a placeholder for $850,000 98,250 for the decarbonization grant to have that recognized and appropriated in the grant fund. And then the county attorney's office is requesting to transfer 16,827,000 from the self insurance liability fund to central services fund to replace or for the total vehicle claims in the sheriff's office. And for new cleanup, Public Works and Development is requesting to recognize and appropriate $31,010 for the Q1, Q2 Open Spaces projects for their project management for that reimbursement. Open Spaces and Public Works is requesting a transfer of $50,394 to be recognized in the cash-in-lieu funds and it's for funds received from two different developments in the public works and development and then appropriate the same amount in the open spaces fund the revenue comes into cash and lou fund or under public works and then is expended under open spaces The Sheriff's Office is requesting to recognize and appropriate $6,693 for state forfeiture funds and also recognize and appropriate $72,246 for Department of Justice forfeiture funds that were tied to seven different cases. The Clerk and Recorder's Office is requesting to recognize and appropriate $99,250 for the Electronic Recording Technology Board grant funds that they received. Public Works is requesting $1,355 to be recognized and appropriated in the infrastructure fund for an insurance reimbursement that was received for a crash at Iliff Avenue and Wabash Avenue. Public Works and Development is requesting to reduce their revenue by $400 and their expenditures by $45,787 in the infrastructure fund to complete their gun club intersection project. This is just the federal portion of that. On the next request, Public Works is requesting to reduce expenditures by $1,428 in the infrastructure fund to completely close out the Piccadilly and Radcliffe traffic signal project. They also have requests of 11.2M in the infrastructure fund. To recognize and appropriate that for the new Highline canal trail underpass, which is near East Colfax and the North Laredo street. This is a. funded by the county Aurora Adams County and federal county in Aurora and Adams County and I think our share is like eight hundred thousand oh and it says that read ahead I know I know you're right nailed it and that is coming from open spaces The next request is also for Public Works. It is to reduce the revenue by $136 and expenditures by $1,115,520 to close out the federal portion of the ILIF final design project. They have another request to appropriate $69,753 that was missed during reappropriation, trying out all of their reimbursements. So this is for the Quebec Hawk Signal Project.

Okay, and then moving on to the requests that the EBC did not recommend. The first one was the request from the Sheriff's Office to add funding in both the General Fund and the ALEA Fund related to an FTE that was added to a budget package for 2026. The EBC recommended that that be absorbed within the Sheriff's Office existing budget based on projections for what they intend to have underspent in the General Fund. The next request not recommended was the request from the DA's office for a couple different pieces of software totaling a little over $14,000. They felt that could be absorbed in their existing budget, especially considering the contract that was just approved for evidence.com that will have a substantial increase. And then the other two requests were for the FTE for the district attorney's office. They didn't feel comfortable considering those FTE off cycle at this time and wanted to reevaluate that when they bring forward their full request for the 2027 budget cycle. um before i move on from that are there any questions on those recommendations or any of those other supplementals that we had follow-up information from the sheriff's office on any questions thank you um not about these but um who who brought forward the rav

That was the county attorney's office. Okay. And that's all gone through IT and all that stuff and everything? Yes. Okay. That's the quick alert replacement.

That's the replacement for the emergency messaging system.

So yeah, that's been through all of the IT steering committee and they've been working with that all along. They were wanting to move that forward now rather than wait to the 2027 budget just because of all the issues they've had with the existing provider. Okay. Okay, moving on, we have a couple additional supplementals that the ABC didn't previously review, but you all have seen because they came forward to you last week. The first one is to transfer $250,000 in the capital expenditure fund from the fund balance for the detention center medical expansion project. And then the other request is from facilities and fleet management for $38,000 to be transferred from the general fund and then appropriated in... not the capital expenditure fund, the central services fund to replace a vehicle lift that was broken. So those are the two additional supplementals. But with that overall, in the discussion needed items for the general fund, it'd have an impact of a little over $29,000 to revenue and $346,000 in expenditures, assuming the requests as they were presented. In total, with all funds, it would be a reduction of about $179,000 in revenue in addition of a little over $1 million in expenses. And then in the new revenue and budget cleanup items, it would have a total impact across all funds of about $11.5 million to revenue and about $10.4 million to expenditures. So before we move into the CIP update items, are there any questions about the recommendations from the EVC, or are you comfortable with moving forward with those for the public hearing in September?

All right.

Then we will give you a brief update on the capital expenditure. The first slide we have are, I think I went by too fast. are the facilities projects these are the continued projects and it's hopefully it's not too bad of an eye chart for you I mean just this is only the budget for 2026 this is not the overall project budget so you can see for the detention Medical Center that it's just over three million This does not include the $250,000 that we will be adding in the supplemental. But like the detention center infrastructure project, the blue represents what is spent currently year to date, orange is encumbrances, and then the gray is the available funds. As you can see, some of these are getting very close to being closed out, including the detention medical expansion project. The next slide is a demonstration of the new projects for facilities and fleet for this year. The largest one showing on this is the public health remodel at the Arapahoe Plaza, the east section, and then the detention IDEC units. to be replaced at Pods 3 and 6 for the Sheriff's Office. We also have the training remodel at Pod 2, Lima Plaza reconfiguration, and then the newest one on the list is the solar project that was just brought at the last quarterly review, adding $400,000 to the facilities projects. Looking at the continued projects for technology, we have the computer assistant mass appraisal system for the treasurer's office. And then we have the HCM management or the human capital management project. It looks like it's over budget because of the way the available funds but they are reviewing their actuals and there's some ongoing operational expenses that have been booked back so they're looking to see where that needed to be. It got put into the same PO. And then on the ACJC, the access control system, that is nearing completion. And then for the safety projects, we have the continued project of the restrictive housing. They are using some of these funds for one-time implementation funds for the software of the JMS system. The new projects for technology, we have the portable radio replacement of just about over 2.5 million, and the other large one is the enterprise service management system, which is, both of those are almost completely, I think the radio system is finalized, and then the enterprise service management is almost fully appropriated. And like the Acela projects that is, I believe they're wrapping that up. I think there's like $17,000 left in that one. moving on to the infrastructure projects these are the projects that are expected to be closed out in 2026 the ilife avenue final design which is the one we just returned the federal funding for in that supplemental and the other dry creek one is the operation improvements that it's expected to be closed out this year and then the quebec hawk signal that is the one that we also adding the additional funding that was missed at reappropriation The next slide shows just the projects with design or study or ongoing programs like the ADA or the local road safety plan. Those are kind of ongoing programs. But this will show like the Yale and Holly intersection for the Highline Canal. The Highline Canal, oops sorry, Broadway underpass project of just over 4.5 million and then a lot of the other different studies in that. So those are, a lot of those lower ones are the ongoing programs. For the new projects, you can see the gun club widening has not actually had anything happening on it yet on a financial standpoint. The 26 ADA transition is fully expended. The tall grass road reconstruction at six million has just under urged about four and a half million encumbered and is ready to be expended. And then like the Quincy medallion, medallion, I don't know which is better, with or without the glasses. The Quincy median improvement is almost completely finished already. And then moving on to the open spaces projects, I might have to look at my paperwork for that one. These are a lot of the projects that are ongoing. They have the Kiowa Creek Master Plan with a budget of $4.5 million. The Arcadia Park has a budget of $4 million. The Highline Canal in Holly Hills is $2 million. And then a lot of the smaller projects that are new for this year that haven't begun, again, on a financial standpoint, but are still being reviewed and doing all the design and analysis. And that's it for our CIP. I do have Ken Morris here if you have any CIP questions on any of those projects. And again, Chief Borson is here if you have any questions on the Sheriff's List stuff.

Any questions? Anybody? I have a comment. I noticed, Chief Burson, that we're getting rid of a Ford Focus to keep a truck. I was like, that's so on brand. And I'm going to come ride. Can I ride with him? You can come ride anytime.

I love it.

Let's do it. Let's do it. Have a ride. I just thought that was funny. But I'm excited. Anybody, anything? I think it sounds like a plan. I think it sounds like a plan. Yes, Commissioner Warren-Gutland.

The only thing I will say, I do, I can't remember if on the CIP stuff you've done that kind of color coding before, but I really... Last quarter. This is okay. I really liked, I like that, and it's a good visual of where we are on all of these projects. Well, good.

I like that. Good.

Thank you.

Yeah, I did too. I mean, it's helpful to keep our vision. Those of us who are not numbers people, those are the numbers we should be looking at. Thank you very, very much. You all do such good work and so focused and so detailed and it is humbling to see the work that you do. And every time you all come in and present, I'm thinking, boy, I'm glad they work for Arapahoe. I'm glad they work for Arapahoe. Yeah, I mean, y'all are just so good and so professional. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Madam Chair?

Yes, sir.

I would want to throw one note for those in the room and those maybe listening online. But the public hearing for this, because of the board's calendar, will not, usually it occurs like two weeks after we do the study session. This time, Ron, it won't occur until I think the second week of September, right? September 8th. So just, you know, you will see these supplemental requests again at your public meeting. But for those in the room or online who may be waiting to see when they're going to get their supplemental added to their actual system. It won't be until after the public hearing on September 1st, just as an FYI.

Thank you very, very much, sir. We appreciate that. And we won't make you repeat all that. You don't have to come back.

Yes, Commissioner Fields. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I just want to say that, for me, this was almost like a review because a lot of the requests have already appeared in front of me. the board and so I did not have to ask questions because I was familiar with the content and the topic which makes it very easy to follow your presentation so all that pre-work shows up and the work has kind of already been done so thank you all right well thank you very much thank you we appreciate it oh boy oh boy

While we turn over the room, we're going to switch to open spaces at some point.

What school?

Let's go ahead and start with introductions around the room, starting with Michelle.

Michelle Halstead, Commissioner's Office. Rhonda Fields, Commissioner.

Leslie Summey, Commissioner. Carrie Waring-Galley, Commissioner.

Matt Hader, County Attorney's Office Jessica Campbell, Commissioner of District Dose Jenny Pingenot, Open Spaces Jason Reynolds, Public Works and Development Roger Harvey, Open Spaces CeeLa Redtown, Public Works and Development Wonderful, wonderful.

So we're here for our proposed rewrite of Land Dedication Cache and Loop Code Provisions Land Development Code Section 4.2-5 Land Dedication standards. Commissioner, no, Commissioner, Director Pagino, would you like to set the foundation for us?

I will. Yes, thank you so much, Madam Chair. Okay, I have a short PowerPoint presentation to go through, but I know you all have had a little bit of a preview of this topic, so I think I'm going to fly real high on that because it'll save space and time. anything more detailed that you want to drop into also know that Matt has been real good and thorough in this work and so he may also want to take us some directions that need a little bit of air time so does that sound like a plan okay very good so real quickly this is what we're talking about it is the land dedication code and also sometimes referred to as cash in lieu. And the study session purpose, again, hitting the take home message quickly. When we came before you in February, we thought we were in a space of simply rewriting an old code. And then as we continued on this journey, we realized that the code needed to be rewritten in totality, not just amended. And so we moved on you all and are providing that update today. So what we're really looking for is this version with a paperclip on it. We are hoping that we are on the right track. And if you all think that we are on the right track, our next step would be to put it out for public feedback and comment. So these five points are what I'm about to hit on in the coming slides. This is my outline slide, so moving forward. Dedication standards update. When we came before you in February, we brought along with us the consultant, Tishler Bice. They put together a 45-page study, which is in your binder, and it basically did a lot of things, but the take-home on this study was it re-centered the county from a data standpoint on what the appropriate standards should be for acreage dedication for parks and schools, or what the cash and blue commitment should be. So that's the essence of the 45-page study. If you are really wanting to get into the math and the foundation of those justifications, that's where you'll find that information. And first bullet there, yes, it is CRS 30-28-1334 that grants counties and cities, well, actually they're probably in a different statute because Title 30 is counties, the authority to require land dedication or cash in lieu for schools and parks at the time of subdivision. So one of my additional handouts to you right now in case you wish to have it, is an excerpt, is the 30-28-133. So in case you're wanting to actually read the language yourself, that was one of my handouts just a moment ago. Our current code was written in the 1990s. We don't have a firm number on that, but we believe it's safe to say it's at least 35 years old. And then what I put down here in this blue table is kind of what our current dedication amount is, what the Tischler-Bice recommendation was for parkland, and then the direction that you gave us on February 2nd. Just to ground us, we're not... swaying from that. It's going to stick right here, which is where you counseled us in February. And then this is the current dedication standard for schools, and this is what District Vice's recommendation was for that. All right, moving forward. So these are the... The new provisions that we did not visit with you about in February that upon further reflection we are suggesting needs to be addressed. So we have four here. A high level, again, this kind of authority gets authorized in state statute at the point of subdivision. The challenge we are now trying to think through is you've had a lot of statutory changes that are increasing the density, excuse me, increasing the density in zoned areas. Current code doesn't provide a mechanism to pick up that increased density when you up zone so that's one of the things we got a Address and our rewrite number two land suitability for parks and schools So the way that I like to talk about this one is our current code tries to be fairly prescriptive about the types of lands that the county going to say no to from a land dedication standpoint and Instead, we are proposing, and this is being fueled in large part by the DOLA model code, to instead get at this through various catch-all standards and give the director of open spaces the ability to determine which standard makes the most sense to apply to whether or not the land is going to be... acceptable for land dedication purposes. So it is a bit of a change. Number three, public purpose provision. Our current code says land dedication in Cash and Lou happens in three areas for parks, for schools, and public purposes. We are suggesting you drop public purposes. That was picking up things like fire districts and libraries. We've had some statutory changes recently that grant fire districts, for example, the ability to do impact fees. So they have other mechanisms that they can use as opposed to having that public purpose call out in the county's code. And then number four, waivers. There is no explicit authority right now in the code to waive this requirement for residential development. So the reason why we felt like this was important to do, and it is the best example, thank you Jason, that I've heard, is sometimes you get development requests for like a 65 years and older home. And obviously they're not going to be generating any school impacts. And so they're just moments. when it makes sense to be able to have a waiver. Now there were a couple provisions that we spoke to you about in February and we've had moments to further reflect on these and we have kind of changed our thinking on these two so bringing those back to you. One We were suggesting at the time in February that we not just have this code apply to residential development but also pick up commercial and industrial land development. When you do an environmental scan of other municipalities and counties, many have that provision in their code and that was the kind of number one I guess, reason why we thought at the time that that might be justified to do. We have further been debating that one. And I think this might be an area that you all want to talk about more thoroughly. But the data piece to ground a justifiable acreage or cash in lieu is the piece that we're kind of kicking the tires on. for that one. And then number two, a market appraisal and assumed value approach. So our current code allows developers to basically have an option. They can come forward if they're doing the cash in lieu approach with a market appraisal or they can rely on an assumed value. It was a stagnant amount that was in the code and we long knew we needed to update that code, that amount, but then Again, looking at the environmental scan, of what other local governments are doing, they didn't have the assumed value approach. They just relied on a market appraisal. It is what we have been relying on for the last 10 years. So we are now suggesting to just drop the assumed value approach and solely go with the market appraisal. The other thing that, in talking it through, Developers have an appraisal because they need it to secure financing. So I think maybe there were lots of different reasons in the 1990s for why you had an assumed approach. Now we are thinking drop that and just stick with market. Existing provisions that will remain, one is the ability to dedicate land to another entity. So you can think about like metro districts, like other entities that can be in this space of maintaining and caring for land. So not just the open spaces department. And then two, the timing of land dedication at the final plat stage. So those will stay the same. Again, once you guys have your conversation and we get a feel for how you're feeling about this proposed policy, if it's feeling like it's on the right track, we would like to go out and solicit public comment on it for the next three weeks. Then depending on that public comment feedback, I can envision we're coming back to you or if it is not super robust or there aren't any big red flags we would go to the Planning Commission for a study session and review and then depending on that outcome we'd come back to you for a final final approval and then with an effective date I mean all of this is just rough sketch but I just thought you might appreciate hearing where we were thinking this could go. With that, I don't even have a question slide. We just go straight to the dark abyss of PowerPoint. With that, Matt, you want to jump in now? Sure.

I have a question slide at the end of mine.

Oh, thank you.

We'll make that clear segue there.

There you go. Good.

So I want to thank Ginny for tolerating me on this project. I think I kind of came into this maybe in June. I wasn't really part of this prior to that. And then there was some policy stuff that was related to some of this that's been on the books that we have to revisit at some point as well. But as Ginny said, the public land dedication is part of the land development code. So I've been working with her and Jason to try to talk through those things that's currently in the code. And it seemed like the best place to start was with since we decided to pretty much jettison what we have, just to go right to the Department of Local Affairs template land development code, which I think they probably last updated in 2024. So they have pretty much a full land development code. There's a lot of small counties that really rely on DOLA for that kind of help and assistance. So it's out there and available to them. And it's a good place to start. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel all the time. So as Judy said, this is our statutory provision that we're starting with and that 4a talks about sites and land areas for schools and parks when such are reasonably necessary to serve the proposed subdivision and the future residents thereof. So to me it's schools and parks and reasonably necessary. So making sure that our standards reflect that. Just for my edification, are we recording or broadcasting? Yes, we are. Both? Yep. Okay, thanks. So one of the things that we eliminated, as Ginny said, was the other public purposes. It was a rather small exaction, if you will, and there was just some complications with how that money was going to be distributed later. So part of that is just to kind of clean this up. She talked about the assumed value method for land dedication. And that process, the assumed value, kind of left us with undervalued property and not getting full value here. And there was also some process issues with how we actually internally handled those, the process around assumed value. So by jettisoning that, we're in a much better path forward where we don't have that kind of complication. We had provisions previously that are being eliminated that addressed privately owned parks and allowed a developer to have a private park within their subdivision and they could get up to a 35% credit for their land dedication requirements. that's being eliminated and that's a big policy choice for you to consider as well because you're not even getting a credit for that and partly the thinking there is these are public parks you want the whole public to be able to attend not even limited to the people in that subdivision it's not going to be owned by an HOA or something and maintained by them but if it's county maintained or county maintained then You want to make sure it was open for your county residents?

I'm sure Just a minute. Mr. Peter.

Sure Thank you very much. Um, so The market value is that you're just going to take the price that they're buying the land for or do you use a the assessor's value?

There's an appraisal process in here that we would follow. So where we get interesting divergences for financing purposes, a developer always wants their property to be highly valued. For land dedication purposes, they want it to be very low value, especially if it's going to be a cash in lieu of the land dedication, because they want to try to just give us the money and kind of play that game to maximize their property, which is understandable. They're investing a lot in the property to develop it. They want to maximize their revenue from that. I anticipate, just like anywhere else, you probably have some discrepancies over how to agree if we have competing appraisals, but that's all addressed by the process in here as well. Perfect, thank you. So in starting with the DOLA standard, You know, the DOLA standard is much broader than ours, and I brought a red line of this draft that you have redlined against the DOLA version, so you could see that. Thank you. Thank you. When you have 20, 30 minutes later, Michelle, do you want a copy of this? Sure. And you want to take a look at that, feel free to do so. and you'll kind of get an idea for what we had going on and what we were doing. So the DOLA standards are much broader. They talk about all sorts of land dedication, streets and roads for developments as well. Our public land dedication standard only addresses schools and parks. So those other aspects for road dedication that are associated with a plot, that's addressed separately in our code and separately through policy. So we didn't need to put that here. Let's see. And then, you know, the other public purposes, we eliminated that out. We already talked about that. And really, we were just trying to make the standard from DOLA specific to Arapahoe County. And you will see if you look through that DOLA packet, there are some policy statements like, hey, this is what you should be tying this to. There's also some options. Like, do this, or you have an option to do this. So we made policy choices, if you will, along the way. So looking at that red line kind of guides you and lets you see where we made some of those policy choices along the way. Part of this also was trying to address the specifics and our specific needs. So we have this assumed value that was removed, but we still wanted a way for directors to kind of assess those unique situations. So we added basically a balancing test. So it's a delegation of authority to the director in terms of park lands to the director of open spaces and in terms of school sites to the director of public works and development. So with the caveat that the delegation to the director of public works and development does require consultation with the relevant school district as well. But this one here addresses the park land and the delegation of authority to the open spaces director. So basically it says someone can provide a written request to depart from what they would otherwise have to do in the table, which dictates how much property you have to provide. So they can provide this written request with evidence. And then our director is authorized to make a final decision and to balance the things here in this co-provision. So it's basically just to balance the reasonableness of the outcome per the table. public health and wellness, policy and law requiring dedication, and then determine whether a reasonable departure will be allowed, and if so, then the extent of the departure provided it is to the smallest extent necessary to accomplish the goals. So we didn't want big departures. Whatever's the smallest necessary to accommodate that unique element But I like balancing tests because we have to make sure that your director is acting within some sort of parameters. Can't just give them blanket discretion on this. And the balancing test gives them a lot of freedom. We're not dictating how they're going to balance those things, but those are things they have to consider. So that's what we tried to do there. A couple other just small things that we didn't have before. We're making any cash in lieu payment that's got to be paid within 30 days of the plat approval. We didn't really have that provision in there before, so we added that. And although it's pretty much been the practice, we didn't have anything that said, hey, you can't be moving dirt until you make your cash in lieu payment in Hydro. So we've added a prohibition on any sort of ground disturbance until we receive the cash and move. So those are some of the other just kind of new provisions that we wanted to hit. And then in order to anticipate future change, and Ginny touched on this too, we added language about if a property goes through rezoning, and now you're going to have a more dense area, we wanted to be able to find a way to collect for the schools and the parks in that area. But we did an exception here that if the county is the applicant in the rezoning, well, then the county doesn't have to make the payment. So we're accepting ourselves from that. And frankly, that was kind of motivated from some of our other conversations with regards to changes jason's been working on in zoning where we were talking about potentially rezoning some properties um and the impact that that could have if we're trying to create more high density residential um and there's no developer to charge so we don't want to be you know so we need to find a way to do that and not stick ourselves with a bill so that's kind of where that that extra language came from as well mr hayden yes commissioner thank you madam chair okay so this is like

So I am thinking back about four months ago we had an issue with a property that came forward that had this very thing right it the by the TOC station or they wanted to just north of Greenwood Village.

Over by 225.

Right, right. And remember there was a situation, now I can't remember the terminology, but they had, I think they had zoned it Or maybe it had been... They de-annexed from Greenwood Village. They were going to go into the city of Aurora, and then they changed their minds, so we had to do that. Supposedly they had collected, or they should have collected cash in lieu or land development, but that didn't happen at that point, and so then we were trying to collect it almost in arrears, kind of, wasn't it?

Matt? I can't remember if it was that case or a different one that maybe the two are being, I remember a different one we were trying to, we were looking at whether, we basically kind of pushed it out a ways and said, we'll get this from you later. And then we kind of tied it to a subsequent approval. Okay. But it was a situation where the property needed to go through replatting anyway. It was still going to have to go through a new subdivision process. So it was going to get picked up that way. Okay. I remember there being an issue, though, with that property that you... Do you remember that? I can't remember what the specifics were.

Because we actually delayed it by two weeks. We delayed approval by two weeks so that we could...

Yes, that was Jason Reynolds here. Dayton Station rezoning, and I'm trying to find a copy of the resolution from that one. Okay.

Well, I'm just thinking this seems like maybe that would have been an example of why cleanup is appropriate. Because it seemed like it was, it should have happened before, but it didn't, and now it's gone through all these changes, but can we collect it now in this step of the process?

So that is what we were trying to do here, right? So you have a property, you're going to change the zoning, you have a developer come in, maybe he buys a property that never was developed and wants to get it rezoned, so we would have taking that that land or for the park or taking money for schools or something at that earlier subdivision now we have a new new zoning that's exactly what happened right new zoning new subdivision we don't want to double burden the property the schools have already gotten their money right so we wanted to account for the change in density and that's what that provision was designed to do okay

Because it came in at a higher density, I think.

Yeah. Am I thinking right? Yeah, you don't want the schools to be without it. You don't want parks to not have the facilities, the capital facilities to provide whatever the recreation opportunity. Thank you.

You're most welcome. Anybody else? Oh, I couldn't see your hand.

I was blocking you.

As the thought was going, it was getting higher and higher. In the first sentence, the clause, then unless the county has initiated the rezoning. So if we're doing the rezoning as a result of TOD, and the buildings aren't, there yet, and it's going to create higher density, which would have an impact on the schools, they, we can't reassess the cash and loan, or the land dedication or whatever?

Correct.

If it's, okay, what? Because it's already been subdivided.

Well, even though it's already been subdivided, a new subdivision would likely have to come in later. But the issue becomes, who do we assess? We're involuntarily rezoning someone's property. They didn't come to us with a development plan. There would be an impact with greater density So do we kind of discuss the history of the currency in the country?

What if they change the plan? So even within the subdivision, and I don't, this is where my knowledge comes to the end of the road. I don't know, let's say, because you can subdivide it. and do a, let's say condos, if condos were built in Colorado, hypothetically, or you could subdivide it and in that same subdivision, could you then switch it to more dense multifamily?

Yes.

Okay. But because the subdivision already happened based on the condos, we wouldn't go back to that same developer or subdivider, right? Correct. even though their plans may change from condos to more dense multifamily? And we don't want to just use the delta of that?

We can. This is just a draft, right? This is our first shot at doing this.

As we like to say, it's all made up anyway.

So I'm happy to take another look at that, too.

I don't know what well and let me say this I don't know if it's worth going back to a developer in that especially if it's in a TOD and we are trying to incentivize more more density we wouldn't want to disincentivize it by saying now you're gonna have to pay the Delta between the condos in the apartment complex right and I don't even know if that'd be I don't know the financial impact that that would be I don't know what the land to or population for the school would be? I just am thinking through the broader policy, but in terms of also policy is, what are we trying to incentivize or disincentivize, and would it even have a meaningful impact at that point? We'll just submit that at public comment. Here, have fun with math.

And it's a good point, too, because we're increasing our land dedication standards at the same time where we're trying to increase density in these specific areas. So they're going to lose land but get more density. Those things are not compatible necessarily. Not necessarily. So if there are issues that we can address and want to discuss, we're happy to do that. And we're also happy to react to public comment later and discuss that with you. This is my public comment.

I'm on the record. No, but that would just be a, because we are, a lot of times, and this is what I like about This is what I like about government and the things in front of it. I think the interesting stuff is when you get into a tension between different things that you want to incentivize and what is the sweet spot. And so I guess to me, we come down to the math and is it even worth it to try to get them to cover that delta? What would be the impact? Because if not for parks, especially for schools, parks is different. Parks is kind of different. But for schools who are really talking about anticipated pupil increase, you do want to make sure that that is captured, I would think.

But didn't we choose to, I mean, didn't we with our affordable housing stuff put in the ability to waive if you get to a certain density? Those fees and this, I'm assuming this fee, if I remember right, was part of that?

Yeah, but that was affordable housing. This could be anything. yeah I mean so yeah I mean yes there are times we played in that yeah but for but that's affordable housing yeah I think there are different incentives we want to create for affordable housing where's just any market rate housing not quite the same motivation on our part yeah and I so I would be interested to see what the math is on that like what the difference would be and what impact it would have on the schools. Because if you're talking about cash in lieu of land dedication and it's going to go to the schools and they're going to have an increase in density, so an increase in pupils, that would be interesting to me. The juice may not be worth a squeeze.

It could just be like, oh, we're talking like... The conversations you guys have had around increasing density has been around transit-oriented development right yeah so kind of piggybacking on where Commissioner Warangole was going just one I guess piece of advice that our consultant gave us is they were like you know you want to create the policy in its purity and then later address exemptions so to Commissioner Warangole's point you guys did do an exemption on affordable housing last September And I'm wondering, you know, I don't know if the transit, yeah, TODs would be another one you'd want to think through. I guess because this is such a changing landscape and it's very dynamic and, you know, there's a lot of, run some risks if you try to capture it all but really you just needed this nuance piece so I guess I just throw that out as another way of thinking it through yeah we can go back to the initial slide that talks about the purpose and the dedication I think that's where we're trying to enhance or change the statute there

What are we trying to accomplish here? I'm just trying to see what the risks might be and the advantages that we're trying to pursue.

Yeah, I think generally we're just trying to reenact what we previously had in our land dedication standards and the land development code, but make sure that we're being consistent with the statutory language with schools and parks. So I don't think we're really trying to do anything different other than make sure we're reducing any sort of exposure to where we might have been varied and gotten a little far in terms of process. But I think generally we're still in the same spot. Okay.

And we're not looking at trying to broaden it at all?

No, I don't think there's anything here that's really been broadened. Anything that's been reduced because we're eliminating that public purposes. I guess there's an argument that we're being more broad because we're not allowing the credit for private parks anymore. And that could get up to a 35% offset for your land dedication requirement. So in that way, if a developer still wants to do a private park for their community, they can, but they wouldn't get that offset. So they'd be less motivated to do a private park. I see. So that might be one way to look at it.

And it'd be broader if we looked at industrial and commercial, too. Wouldn't that be? It would be. Because we don't do that yet. We don't. But other jurisdictions do.

I don't know of any that do. I think there was one that- Jurisdictions.

Wasn't there?

So let's talk about that. Yeah. Before we address that, can I add one more thing about what we were talking about with the other slide there and the rezoning? Yeah. One of the things that we see is we'll have a plan unit development get approved. with a certain type of properties and certain amount of density and then we'll later see an amendment where they might just be reducing lot sizes they want to make okay we're going to shrink our lot sizes by five feet they shuffle in a few more homes and that changes density as well So that's something, or they changed one kind of property for another property so it might be more dense. We want to make sure that we can collect in those amendment situations too, which makes me think that the language we had up here earlier might need to be even broadened to account for those kinds of what are essentially can be done as administrative amendments to a PUD or something like that. So that's something that maybe I can talk about with Jason and see if there's something that we want to consider in there for our next draft or something that we want to look at. With regards to commercial and industrial, to me the difficulty is, and as far as I know, the stuff that Ginny and Jason found that it was a little bit light on the connection between the commercial and industrial property and showing that it was reasonably necessary. Those land dedications were reasonably necessary for that type of product. And the reason it's difficult is when you have a park or a school and you have a residential subdivision, you know what your maximum density is going to be based on the zoning and the plot. And you can estimate the number of students and the number of residents and how much park space you need. For an industrial or commercial space, That's very, very different. You might have an industrial property that's massive, and within that space, you have a completely robotic industry and 10 employees. Or you could have 200. And in commercial space, it's the same thing. You don't know how many employees it's going to generate that are going to come to those spaces. And it's the idea behind providing that space for those employees to enjoy or at least to get away from the workplace to avoid that stress. We don't know what those numbers are and my concern is how do we say that okay well this number is reasonably necessary or this amount of land is reasonably necessary and trying to connect it back. That's why I struggle from the legal perspective how to make sure we have How to make sure we have a good policy and program that's not going to get attacked by the industrial or commercial developer. Because also those developers sometimes have a little bit more money to spend too to attack some of these things.

Just a minute before you say that, Commissioner Campbell. Commissioner Baker is absent and excused. Oh, jeez.

I was going to... Hey, I got it.

No, no, no, I got it. I thought of it a long time ago. I just kept forgetting to say it.

Commissioner Campbell. So to this point, so on page 13, in our binders, if you would like to go to the final and dedication, which is the study from Tischler, Weiss, or whatever, it has, page 13 has figure four. So, and as we have looked at things, yeah, here, I don't know if you did the reading. As one of the things that we've always done when we've looked at impact fees and changing kind of the way we look at things is looking at surrounding jurisdictions. And so when Ginny and I were talking about this and this kind of, this question came up around industrial and residential, I said, well, is it just cities or is it counties? Because cities, as we know, have different authority than counties do or a different leeway. And so if you look at Figure 4, both Douglas County and Adams County have a land dedication for commercial. I do think that industrial is maybe a little different, but for commercial, especially if we're building out because we're trying to, A, do mixed use more, which I think gets into interesting land use questions around that. You can chew on that this weekend. But then, two, as we're trying to build walkable, livable neighborhoods, And when we think about sometimes the, and I don't know, this is what I also don't know, is the strict, the tightness and strictness of the dedication of parts. Because when we're thinking about connectability and recreation, that could be trails. And so we're looking at maybe multimodal or micromodality, then you could, use some land dedication for commercial to be able to get from place to place and so it's not just about oh how many people are coming here and there you can look at the size you can look at that and they already have some numbers for us and maybe they even have some data but it's already being done we could see what they have encountered but I think that we're as we're growing out our local economy and the growth that's happening and I think like just Dove Valley and and I think even I'd be interested to think also not to go because I do have a special ability to over complicate things but Dove Valley industrial is a little different than some of you know in Bakerville and industrial right where they really are out kind of in the middle of nowhere but where you have industrial going in in these areas right by a park right by apartments right by that I think it'd be great to be able to get either cash in lieu or land dedication for connector trails and multi-mobility and and Park connections there and so um that was that was my sort of vision and interest in digging into this and seeing what was possible um and then but I do think industrial is a little different except for in Campbell land it's like right there um and then commercial is I think you know you're building a street mall people are coming and going I drop my kids at work or like We're there. We have like, I remember when I was raising our, like when I was parenting, you know, sometimes you've got like a doctor's appointment in an hour or you've got this and it's kind of nice to be able to just be like, all right, we're going to go to park kind of. I'm not saying all the parks have to be that close, but I think that's the idea, is that you have the parks near the area that's being developed. And so that was my interest in it, and it's already being done by our neighbors.

A couple of things there, if I may.

Yes, please.

One, I have some thoughts I think would be better shared in an executive session.

I also think that that might be appropriate.

And if you guys want to do that now, you're welcome to do that now. I just need a motion and three of the four in attendance. But short of that, I have no concerns with looking at what other communities are doing after you've gone through a good study process and developed your methodology for determining your exaction. The reason I don't have a problem looking at what other communities are doing at that point is it allows you to make a determination whether you want to come down to a lower level than what's justified by your study to make sure you remain competitive with your neighboring jurisdictions. But I would never want to base our decision on what other communities are doing without the data because they have different communities and whatever methodology they came up with, if they did in fact even have a methodology for coming up with their numbers, that's where we need to make sure that we're going down the right path to protect ourselves in the event of a challenge.

Madam Chair, and I would never suggest that we would do that. That we wouldn't use that. Right.

All righty. I think, Jason, you had looked at some of this stuff, too, and were only able to get any actual data from some of those jurisdictions, right?

That is correct. I found something in another state, but that state has a different planning enabling act than Colorado does, so the rules may be completely different there. And I did seek some feedback from our partners at Denver South, and they too were not able to point to specific studies, although they did note that in the commercial real estate space is more amenity-driven than they've ever seen it before.

Commissioner Warngully?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've been contemplating this too Commissioner Campbell and because your Dove Valley area is a perfect example of there are actually a lot of walking trails and everything in that area that you know green spaces use and clearly you talk a lot about Denver South contemplating this very issue and how they're going to create these spaces as an after-fact So I had two questions about it, Matt. One was, I could see them saying, yeah, I'll give you this piece of one acre out in the middle of nowhere that's not really going to do us any good. Can we, does the statute allow us to not offer an option but to say cash in lieu for parks and rec as opposed to cash for land?

So typically it's the... choice of the developer because it's their land, right? And if they want to create more density or do something where they need the land, then they can choose cash and move. The requirements in the draft that I believe are consistent with what we have currently as well, Do allow us to say, no, there's no contiguity with what our plan is, or this isn't contiguous with other aspects of the development or the streets or whatever. So we could say, no, what you're offering is not acceptable, and that might back them into a position where cash in the loop is the only option. Thank you. There's also a provision near the front of this that if for some reason we can't determine what is the appropriate dedication, then they have to put up a financial assurance to make sure we get it later. So that it's still tied to this, so they can't put that off. So we're still at least getting the value of the cash in lieu for what we would perceive to be necessary.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you for that. the other question that I had was I'm trying to remember in some of our development or when you're allowing for these things I'm thinking of like the thing that we did where the park is actually the stormwater control by Potter's Church so you know do we have another part of our code or land use or whatever that requires a certain set-aside for stormwater you know and those types of things and could it somehow be similar to that. I mean, do you see where I'm going? I don't know how to say all the right words with it, but I thought that was a clever way of dealing with that, and it gave green space as well as serving a utility purpose. And with the industrial commercial stuff, I would imagine, like, Commissioner Campbell in your area there in Dove Valley I kind of think that they're that's like their stormwater system but they've built a trail by it and it's kind of maintained as open space or green space so is there a way to contemplate it in that manner a twofer that somehow recreational use, if appropriate, would be some part of the development when they're developing their utility aspect of design.

We get to this through the standards, those kind of categories that allow the director to do the balancing act. Cool. So that's how you would come at that. Because I think there's some moments where you wouldn't want the twofer, right? But there are many instances where that could work. Yeah. Thank you.

If I may, that being said, we also prohibited certain open space dedications if it was in particular zone districts. Jason, off the top of your head, do you know how that was reflected with regards to floodplain and floodway? I'm looking for which section it's in.

You mean so it's not our maintenance issue?

No, so that it doesn't qualify as land for parks. I see.

So in an industrial area, you might not be able to have this type of thing? So that might be something you all know about.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, we definitely had some zone districts where land dedication for schools would not be accepted. Like heavy industrial is not necessarily a good match for an elementary school.

Right, right.

Madam Chair, if I may make a clarifying question. we just need to right now as I'm like trying to read through and think about what we would be putting out for public comment what's the timeline you guys are trying to do because I know this also kind of got held up we're trying to not we don't want to overly rush but we want to keep things moving what is a way to incorporate the kind of industrial commercial conversation because it just would be going out for public comment like we can if we're like okay there's not really a way or oh no we think this data could work and whatever but like that way we at least get it out there for public comment and then we can do some math, do some research while that's ongoing, but at least the concept is out there with some ideas and these changes, because then, we can change things when it comes back because then you guys will come back to us for study session after public comment and then we would refer to a business hearing a business meeting right so we have time yeah we have a planning commission in between that but yes yeah them too we like them they're helpful yeah there it is okay cool so for three weeks august september then planning commission see what they think and then yeah

The problem with this, though, is you just asked about trying to incorporate that commercial requirement in there before it goes up for public comment. And I don't know how to do that and let you see that before we do something. And I'm also thinking about the connection to the death.

Well, one, if we... you I mean some there's already a template out there I mean two jurisdictions at least have language to it and so you quickly start there and then give I mean it wouldn't be the same as like a nice clean draft it'd be very like conceptual I guess so that would kind of mess it up a little bit in terms of the cleanness of what we're presenting but I don't do we have to for public comment have the actual language, or does it, I'm just thinking back to when we did oil and gas, and I think this was before your time, so when we had original Bob, and we, it was tighter, I mean, it was like setback feet, so it was just like, Choose your own adventure. Do you guys want, you know, it was like 2,000, 2,500, 3,000, but it was, so it was tighter and cleaner, but I kind of feel like we got a little, like some of the stuff was a little more nuanced. It would be messy. I mean, it's not as clean as just like numerical options, but.

Yeah. Would you be open to moving forward with what they have? And we could contemplate the commercial aspect of it and add as an amendment later.

I think the concern is we don't get the public feedback, right?

Right, but we could do the commercial as a dip. I mean, we were doing that with the oil and gas because we had something that was, like, knocking on our door. Right. Versus, I mean, we always probably have industrial knocking on our door, but I'm just wondering, like, could we... do let you guys move forward and then ask them to come back on a separate track that would take us down the commercial aspect of it, just so that they feel more comfortable with designing it and making sure they had enough information, which then we would add it as an amendment next year.

But would it have to go back out to public comment? So you're basically redoing the entire process and planning commission? Or what if this just backed up like a couple weeks? What is easier for you guys?

Can I say that it's a whole different audience of public comment when you're talking about the business and commercial kind of developers versus Yeah. They won't even say a word about this if that's not in there. It's just the residential kind of home builders that we'll get public comment from. So you're missing that whole segment. And I have other thoughts that I would want to share, but only in executive section.

Which we are late for. For those topics, yeah.

I'm good to move forward with this. Great. I mean, to answer Commissioner Warren-Billy's question and keep us on chart, I'm good to move forward with this. I was just trying to, I didn't, if there was like a, again, kind of way to get it going so it kept going so that it, we're not then having to come back and do amendments. But whatever I, whatever staff thinks is easiest and best is great. And I think I know the question, I know the conversation that Attorney Hader wants to have. Which we can't have right now.

I guess what I'm saying is I wouldn't be opposed to having the conversation around commercial. I just don't want to slow the work that y'all are doing and make

Or to do that piece hastily.

Yeah. And we can add that in, I think, at a later date.

Great. Where are we, commissioners? Move forward with this draft. Okay, yeah, four thumbs up. Four thumbs up.

With direction to work on the industrial commercial. Yes, we do. Thank you.

Thank you. Can I get a motion to move into a second session?

Yeah, I got you.

I'll move it for you.

Pardon? Can you talk back to me? Madam Chair, I move that the board go into executive session pursuant to section 2464024B of the Colorado Revised Statutes to receive legal advice regarding the following. A Barraza case and spin micromobility agreement, parenthetical, e-scooters and pursuant to section 246424B and E of the Colorado revised statutes to develop strategy and instruct negotiators to receive legal advice regarding the following. Simon Grosby settlement demand to Boom Supersonic request follow-up and three Beehive Industries incentive payment agreement request. Second.

It's been moved by Commissioner Campbell and properly seconded by Commissioner Fields to go into executive session. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. We are in executive session. Is he going to be a voter or is he absent?

He is.