City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Of course. Never fails. They usually do good with vegan options, no? We got spoiled, yeah. They had, like, the best food and snacks. And they had nuts and everything. Well, next time, though, for sure, Carly will make sure you're okay next time.

She's amazing because she was without food as well. So, yeah. We did leave her. She felt bad. She's like, are you going to be all right? I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. I got snacks in my bag. I always have snacks in my bag.

You're like, I come back here. I don't know. There should be a post-it.

Okay.

Oh, fun.

I don't care if we beat Germany in that one.

Oh, they did? Let me shoot out.

That's cream. He's like, that's in the white category. I didn't leave any jewelry at the hotel this time, but I did order a delivery order from Sephora on Saturday and forgot to change my delivery address, and it got delivered to the hotel in Spokane, so they're shipping it to me.

All right, good evening. I will now call the Auburn study session meeting for Monday, June 29th, 2026 to order. Tonight's study session meeting will be held in person and virtually. Sean, can you please call roll?

Deputy Mayor Tracy Taylor.

Here.

Council Member Ammer.

Here.

Councilmember Baldwin.

Here.

Councilmember Lott. Here. Councilmember Rakes.

Here.

Councilmember Sturgis.

Here.

Councilmember Clinton-Taylor. He is running late.

All right, Sean, do we have any agenda modifications?

Chair, there's a need for a closed session this evening.

Okay, fabulous. The City Council will adjourn into a closed session per RCW 42.30.140. 4B for a discussion on a collective bargaining agreement. The estimated time of the closed session is 20 minutes. We will return at 5.53. And when we return, we're going to, in this session, we'll have Mayor Backus, City Council Attorney Jason, City Attorney Waylon, Human Resource Director Martinson, Assistant Director Barber, and Attorney John Henry from the Summit Law Group will be required to attend. There is no anticipation action after closed session.

Council Member Hanan, I'll need you to log out of this meeting, log into the closed session, and then back into this one after the closed session.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we'll call that meeting, our meeting, back to order. All right, we have one, wait, do we have Hannon back?

Yes, I'm back. Council Member Amer, are you there?

I'm back, do you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Okay.

All right, we have one presentation on tonight's agenda. It's 2026, quarter one, financial report provided by Director Thomas.

GOOD EVENING, DEPUTY MAYOR, MAYOR, AND COUNCIL. WE'RE HERE TO GO OVER THE 2026 FIRST QUARTER FINANCIAL REPORT AND WHAT OUR FINANCES LOOK LIKE SO FAR THIS YEAR. IN SUMMARY, HERE'S OUR MAJOR REVENUE SOURCES. IN TOTAL, WE HAVE COLLECTED 8% MORE IN REVENUE YEAR TO DATE COMPARED TO WHAT WE'VE BUDGETED SO FAR THIS YEAR. and we've collected about 5% more than we did last year at the same time. And then on the expenditure side, we have spent about, we've underspent our budget by about 6% year-to-date, but we have spent more year-to-date compared to last year at this time, which we would expect because our 2026 budget is greater than our 2025 budget. And in the end, we've spent $5.3 million more in 2026 than we've actually collected But that is on track with what we had actually budgeted for for the year. So if you take our total 2026 budget, we have budgeted more expenditures than we have budgeted revenues. That was part of our spending down into our fund balance a little bit was planned. So we're going to look into our major revenue sources. These numbers are all adjusted. The percent breakdown of each of these major revenue sources have been updated to reflect our 2026 budget. So for the last four presentations that I've given you on the quarterly report, they reflected 2025 numbers. So these are all updated for 2026. BUDGETED TAXES ACCOUNT FOR $82.6 MILLION, OR 75% OF THE TOTAL GENERAL FUND. SO OF EVERYTHING THAT WE COLLECT IN THE GENERAL FUND, 75% OF THAT IS TAXES, WHICH IS A LITTLE BIT LESS THAN 2025. SO IN 2025, ABOUT 76.5% OF THE GENERAL FUND WAS TAXES, WHICH IS GOOD IN SOME WAYS. IT'S MAKING THE GENERAL FUND LESS RELIANT ON TAXES IN 2026. WE DO RELY ON MORE OF OUR CHARGES FOR SERVICES TO SUPPLEMENT ALL OF THE ACTIVITIES IN THE GENERAL FUND. PROPERTY TAX STILL MAKES UP 31% OF THE TOTAL TAXING SOURCE. SO OF ALL OF OUR TAXES, PROPERTY TAX MAKES UP 31%, WITH $25.8 MILLION BUDGETED IN 2026. We are trending slightly less than 2025 year to date and slightly less than our year to date budget. But we always expect to collect 100% by year end. I budget a little bit less than 100% of our total levy amount to account for delinquencies. And we've always collected at least 100% in the last couple of years, actually a little bit more for the timing of the collection of delinquencies. THIS FIRST QUARTER IS ALWAYS DIFFICULT. IT ALWAYS IS USUALLY A LITTLE BIT LESS JUST BECAUSE OF THE TIMING OF TAX PAYMENTS. SO THE FIRST SEMI-ANNUAL PROPERTY TAX PAYMENTS DON'T COME IN UNTIL APRIL. AND SO AS OF 3-31, YOU'RE JUST SEEING KIND OF THE TRICKLE-IN EFFECT OF PROPERTY TAXES COLLECTED THAT DON'T ACCOUNT FOR THE NEW CURRENT YEAR TAXES. Retail sales and use tax accounts for 27% of total taxes, $22.6 million. Budgeted in 2026, we are overperforming our year-to-date budget, and we've also collected $838,000 more than we did in 2025 through the same period of time. So the breakdown of those different tax sectors are listed on this slide. The biggest contributor to both the change between 2025 and the budget is in the automotive sector, as you can see, and that has to do with one new taxpayer that actually has been in the city for a while, but their tax revenues had been misreported and had been going to a different city just a little bit north of us. And once that error was found, THAT HAS BEEN CORRECTED THAT. WE'VE NOW STARTED RECEIVING OUR SALES TAX RELATED TO THAT BUSINESS. AND THAT ACCOUNTS FOR ABOUT $300,000 OF THAT ACTIVITY IN OVER BUDGET. SO OF THE $430,000 OVER BUDGET YEAR TO DATE, ABOUT $300,000 ACCOUNTS FOR THAT FROM THAT ONE BUSINESS. OTHER SECTORS. worth noting is the manufacturing sector. The $210,000 over the 2025 year to date is related to the transportation sector. And the construction sector still is falling behind. We've been seeing continual declines the last couple of years in the construction sector as the school district projects had finished up. Now we're still seeing a decline we'll talk a little bit later why i think we will probably see a turnaround in construction at least in by the second half of this year then we have too far um utility taxes make up 20 percent of our total taxes in the general fund with 16.7 million dollars budgeted we have two different types of taxes we have water sewer storm solid waste utility tax which is 9% goes into the general fund from those utilities. And then we have electric, natural gas, cable, and telephone utility tax. And 5% tax goes into the general fund from those utilities. Normally, I would say, historically, water, sewer, storm, solid waste, we called our internal utility taxes. But beginning last year, we started collecting from... PROVIDERS THAT PROVIDE UTILITY SERVICE, WATER, SEWER, STORM AND SOLID WASTE TAX SERVICES OUT TO CITY OF AUBURN RESIDENTS. WE STARTED ASSESSING OUR TAXES FROM THOSE ENTITIES. SO THAT'S NAMELY THE CITY OF KENT, THE CITY OF BONNIE LAKE AND LAKE HAVEN WATER AND SEWER DISTRICT. SO THEY ARE NOW PAYING THOSE TAXES TO US. AND THAT IS REALLY WHY WE SEE THE DIFFERENCE IN BOTH THE 2025 YEAR TO DATE DIFFERENCES AS WELL AS OUR YEAR TO DATE IN BUDGET. Conversely, for the city of Bonney Lake and the city of Kent, we pay utility taxes to them also. So in the areas where we provide water and sewer to residents that live in Kent, but their water and sewer lines are connected to Auburn and we bill, we pay taxes to those cities as well. So it's reciprocal. THEN WE HAVE OUR BUSINESS AND OCCUPATION TAX, WHICH MAKES UP 12% OF OUR TOTAL TAXES IN THE GENERAL FUND, WITH $10.1 MILLION BUDGETED IN 2026. WE'VE COLLECTED $3.4 MILLION YEAR TO DATE, AND THE BREAKDOWN BETWEEN OUR GROSS RECEIPTS TAX IS 68%. IN GROSS RECEIPTS TAX, WE'VE COLLECTED 32% IN THE SQUARE FOOTAGE TAX. SO AS A REMINDER, OUR BUSINESS PAYS ONE OR THE OTHER, BUT NOT BOTH. And these include our 2025 quarter four filings and then some trickling of the 2025 annual filings. The 2025 annual taxes are not due until April 30th, 2026. A lot of business does start paying, even though this is only through March 31st. A lot of businesses start, they've already closed their year and they have started filing and paying for their annual B&O taxes even prior to that 430 deadline. So that's essentially the tax that you see collected here. 2026 year to date is over budget so much because we have been converting a lot more of our larger businesses onto a quarterly filing. We continue to bring more businesses onto a quarterly filing cadence instead of annual filing. So when we're trying to project year-to-date how much revenue we're collecting in the first quarter versus the second quarter, it's kind of difficult to predict how much of those previously annual filers are now paying quarterly. We're still projecting to really be on budget with B&O tax by the end of the year. It's just the timing of how we collect those taxes throughout the year we're still fine-tuning. If you look at what we collected through the first quarter in 2025, we're right on target. um i would at 25 000 i would say that that is right right on budget not really i wouldn't consider that over or under because there could be some fluctuations that happen in the next three quarters other taxes make up six percent of our total taxes in the general fund with 5.2 million dollars budgeted this includes some of our other business occupation tax in the city that includes admissions tax gambling tax leasehold excise tax and franchise fees and also the state and county's portion of sales tax that they share back with us based on our local population and our crime stats here in the city. So we're over budget and we're over our year-to-date collections compared to 2025, and it's really all attributed to the gambling excise tax. Everything else is pretty consistent with what we budgeted this year as well as what we collected last year. It has to do with the timing of those gambling excise taxes. We had some taxpayers get up to – they got caught up in the second half of 2025 – they've stayed caught up so comparing the first quarter to first quarter it appears more positive than we budgeted as well as compared to last year licenses and permits these are now we're moving into category revenue sources that don't account for taxes and licenses and permits make up three percent of our general fund resources with three million dollars budgeted $975,000 of that budget is building permit revenue. So it makes up a pretty significant, it's the largest single building and permit source in the licenses and permits category. We ended the 2026 year to date over budget, and we are ahead of 2025 year to date ALL ATTRIBUTED TO ONE LARGE PERMIT FEE THAT WAS PAID IN JANUARY OF 2026, AND THAT IS THE DEVELOPMENT RELATED TO THE DEVELOPMENT TAKING PLACE AT THE GSA SITE. kind of segues into that construction sales tax number that I had mentioned that I would expect to maybe write itself as we get later into the year, just with the anticipation of some construction and commercial activity that we expect to take place in that area later this year. Intergovernmental revenue, this includes all of our grants, our compact with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and our state shared revenue. THE STATE SHARED REVENUE INCLUDES OUR STREAMLINED SALES TAX, WHICH SUNSETS IN JUNE 30TH OF THIS YEAR. OUR MOTOR VEHICLE EXCISE TAX, MARIJUANA LIQUOR EXCISE TAX, AND OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SALES TAX STATE'S PORTION. WE ARE BOTH UNDER BUDGET YEAR TO DATE, AND WE'RE ALSO BEHIND 2025. AND THIS HAS TO DO WITH THE TIMING OF THE COLLECTION OF GRANTS, OF VARIOUS GRANTS. which, of course, if we've collected fewer grants than we've budgeted, that also means that we have fewer corresponding expenditures as well. So the net impact on the general fund is zero. So as we spend that money, we'll start seeing the collection of that grant revenue come in. And in comparison to the prior year, that has to do with the reduction of the streamlined sales tax mitigation revenue that every year we've seen a reduction for the last five years after it was reinstated with that eventual sunset in June 2026. Charges for services. Our general government revenues are $1,000 above budget. This is still That effort in the city clerk's office related to just increased passport fees above and beyond what we had budgeted for. Public safety is $57,000 below budget and that has to do with the timing and the collection of reimbursements for extra duty services or development services, which is related to permitting activity is $67,000 below your today budget and is also significantly trailing the 2025 year to date collections as well. Again, Because we're seeing some increased activity in the permit side, typically there's a timing difference. But as we see an increase in permits and licenses, we ultimately see an increase in development services. So by the end of the year, maybe into next year, we'll see some increases in those development services fees as well. Culture and recreation is $20,000 above budget. SURPRISINGLY, DUE TO GREEN FEES. SO DESPITE THE GOLF COURSE BEING CLOSED MID-DECEMBER THROUGH MID-FEBRUARY, THEY'RE STILL OUTPERFORMING THE YEAR-TO-DATE BUDGET, SO GO GOLF COURSE. SOME OTHER CATEGORIES. WE ARE UNDER OUR YEAR-TO-DATE COLLECTION ON OUR TRAFFIC INFRACTION FEES, BUT WE ARE OVER OUR YEAR-TO-DATE BUDGET ON INTEREST AND INVESTMENT EARNINGS. I know that we've talked a lot about taking advantage of the yield curve and the inverted yield curve for the last couple of years. It's still not quite corrected itself entirely, so we're still able to take advantage of some really favorable interest rates in the IN THE THREE TO FIVE YEAR TIME FRAME. SO WE CONTINUE TO REINVEST WHENEVER OUR MATURITIES EVERY THREE MONTHS WHEN WE HAVE MATURITIES TO CONTINUE MAXIMIZING THOSE MATURITIES, THOSE RATES AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. WE ARE UNDERPERFORMING 2025 YEAR TO DATE BECAUSE THE REALITY IS THOSE INTEREST RATES HAVE STARTED TO DECREASE COMPARED TO THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS. BUT WE'RE STILL OUTPERFORMING OUR BUDGET. SO LOOKING AT EXPENDITURES BY departments. We see a lot of the same thing here. There are a couple things to call out that are a little bit different than what we normally see if we look at the municipal court. We are showing that we've spent $151,000 more than our year-to-date budget, and this has to do with the timing and how the King County District Court is now charging and collecting us for our municipal court fees. They used to remit all of our revenue to us, and we would record our King County District Court fee one time with one check once they did the reconciliation mid-year. They have switched to bringing us on where essentially every month they're recording and charging us for our King County District Court fee on a monthly basis. So we're still expected to pay our KCDC costs will be close to what we budgeted for. It's just the timing. Instead of paying it once mid-year, we're now going to be paying it one-twelfths all throughout the year so that's why we see it looks it looks negative compared to what we're normally used to paying through the first quarter of the year and then for the internal services that includes human resources finance legal and then our non-departmental fund and the big underspend is is really attributed to the non-departmental fund, which includes the cash out for retirements. That's where we budget and pay for our retirements, as well as our debt service and our payments for our pensioners, for our fire pension, as well as our left one retirement benefits. So there's underspend mostly, again, with the debt service. It has to do with the timing of when we make those payments. quick ARPA update I didn't think the day would ever come where our lifetime spend would exceed what our total remaining amount is so our total ARPA award was fourteen point seven million dollars we have now through this quarter has spent ten point one almost ten point two million dollars with our largest project still remaining for Human Services grants our emergency housing voucher program And then we've got a couple of projects related to the theater and the downtown infrastructure improvements. But we are spending that money down, especially as we have had the groundbreaking for the theater. We plan to start spending down that ARPA money as it's related specifically to the theater and the downtown infrastructure projects. And then one last highlight is looking at our capital, our real estate excise tax. We budgeted $1.8 million for 2026. We have collected $807,000 year to date, which puts us over what we projected through the first quarter by $425,000. And we have collected a little bit more than last year, year to date. I wish I knew where the real estate market was going to go for the rest of the year, which is why we just budget very conservatively when it comes to the real estate excise tax money. And we treat it as one-time money for large projects. And whatever we get at the end of the year, we consider a win. But of course, if the real estate market wants to pick up and we want to have more sales, we'll take that money also.

All right. Council, any questions for Director Thomas? Council Member Rakes.

Back on page 14 on the ARPA update, you have listed as theater and then you have listed as downtown infrastructure includes theater. So what is the difference?

We have a couple of different projects that are all kind of theater related. So on the downtown infrastructure improvements list, you've got, we have the road and the sidewalks and some of the frontage work that we're doing. And there's still some remaining work to be done on that, on that project. And the theater was 300. And we actually had reallocated some money from some other projects because we were a little bit short when we were putting together the budget for the main theater project. And so we pulled some of that ARPA allocation and allocated it towards the theater. So the That $389,000 that you see is not obviously the entire theater project. It's just the portion that we're funding with ARPA. Okay.

Thank you. Any other questions, Council, for Dr. Thomas? Council Member Baldwin.

Yeah. Back to the utility taxes slide. Mm-hmm. Being 9% over, we do hear from our community members about being able to try and keep their utilities from continuing to increase. At what thresholds could we be looking at re-examining the fees that we have in that space if we are continuing to receive over budget in that area?

Well, there's a couple. So this is what we collect. We're over in what we collect from the external sources. So that's really what's driving. What we're collecting from ourselves isn't over. The overage is what's coming from the external side. There are two pieces to those taxes. So there's a portion that we charge that funds the general fund. And there's also a portion that funds our transportation fund as well. So if we're looking at reducing, potentially reducing, then that's going to have an impact on both the capital side as well as the general fund side. I would also caution that because this particular revenue source is over, doesn't mean we don't need the money. Because remember, as I mentioned on the first slide, we are budgeting to spend more money THAN WE HAVE REVENUE COMING IN, AND THAT'S A LONG-TERM TREND. SO EVEN THOUGH ON THE INDIVIDUAL REVENUE MIGHT BE MORE, EVEN IF WE WERE TO REDUCE HOW MUCH REVENUE WE COLLECTED, WE'RE JUST DIGGING OURSELVES INTO A BIGGER HOLE LONG-TERM, AND WE WOULD HAVE TO FIND ANOTHER REVENUE SOURCE OF SOME SORT TO MAKE UP FOR THAT, TO HELP SUPPLEMENT OUR GENERAL FUND EXPENDITURES. which is a conversation to have, but we only have so many sources. And we try to, one of the things that we try to do when we think about the distribution of tax is how do we spread that tax equitably across different taxpayer types? And we've only got a couple. We've got businesses, we've got sales tax, utility tax, property tax. So how do we, none of them are hard to make them all equitable, right? But we're trying to not burden one type of taxpayer more than the other. And so that's one of the considerations that we take. If we're going to reduce taxes here, what other taxes are we going to increase to make us whole?

Any other questions for Director Thomas? Council Member Sturgis. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

On one of the first slides up, it said that we, on the property taxes that were ahead of budget, it says 100% collected at year end. Oh. Does that mean that, like, there's no one in default or delinquent on their property taxes in the City of Auburn, or?

No, what I was indicating is that we project to have 100% collected by year end. So even though there's a little bit of variance from quarter to quarter, we always expect to collect 100%. And when I say collect 100%, 100% of what we budgeted. Because I don't, yeah, it's actually been a little bit more than 100% because we've been collecting, there's been a catch up in collecting past delinquencies. But I budget for less than 100% of what we levy. THANK YOU.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? I SEE NONE. WE CAN MOVE ON TO OUR 2025-26 BUDGET AMENDMENT NUMBER 5, DR. THOMAS.

ALL RIGHT. I'M BACK AGAIN TO TALK ABOUT BUDGET AMENDMENT NUMBER 5. AND THIS IS ACTUALLY, COMPARED TO THE LAST ONE THAT WE REVIEWED A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO, THIS IS A SMALLER ONE. SO IT SHOULD BE QUICKER, HOPEFULLY. So we have just three types of adjustments in this budget amendment number five. We have programs that have corresponding revenue adjustments. So we're going to see a lot of grants in here. We do a lot of grant true ups throughout the year. We have a handful of new programs. And then we have one carry forward item that got missed on the last budget amendment. So in the general funds, we have one carry forward item for $16,000. We have six items that have programs that have corresponding revenue with them for $111,000. And then we have three new programs with an impact of $274,000 to the general fund. And this is that list. The first couple are new revenues. It's alignment of new revenues, the timing of collecting revenues compared to the timing of spending those revenues, revenue awards. and truing the budget up between revenue and expenditure on the timing of those grants. We did have our new grant. the new year for the Cascade Bike Club grants. So we're recognizing that grant award and the corresponding expenditure. There's a couple of administrative items. The transfer admin fee from impact fee fund for $128,000. This isn't new revenue to the city. It's new revenue to the general fund. So historically, we record that in the mitigation or impact fee fund. We're just moving that into the general fund since the cost of FOR THIS PROGRAM, WHAT THE ADMIN FEES ARE RECOVERING ALL LIVE IN THE GENERAL FUND. WE REALLY SHOULD HAVE THE REVENUE IN THE GENERAL FUND AND NOT THE IMPACT FEE FUND. WE ALSO ARE ASKING, SO NOW WE'RE MOVING INTO THE NEW PROGRAMS, OUR PUBLIC DEFENSE CONTRACTS. WE ARE UPPING OUR CONTRACT BY $195,000. SO WE HAVE A NEW PUBLIC DEFENSE CONTRACT THAT WE SIGNED RIGHT BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR TO ACCOMMODATE ALL OF OUR CASES IN THE with the way we are trending, we need to make sure that our public defender has the capacity to take on all the cases that we need their help with. So Human Resources has done a lot of analysis and working with our public defender and just an increase to the contract for $195,000 should get us all the way through the year and give us all the public defense support that we need. WE ARE ASKING FOR $44,000 FOR THE MUNICIPAL COURT STARTUP COST. AND ONE THING ISN'T CURRENTLY HIGHLIGHTED IN THE MEMO, AND I kind of an evolving thing this forty four thousand dollars covers the cost for the the judge um the appointed judge um and this is was supposed to be for his his costs to work with the city and helping getting working with the court administrator to get the program set up through the end of the year but what we would also like council is to give us the authority to add that judge fte at some point this year. So we wouldn't be looking to appoint him any sooner than August 1st. But making sure that we have the authority to actually officially appoint him before the end of the year and before we actually have the next budget amendment. The $44,000 should be more than enough to cover that salary. But We will still be coming to council before the end of the year with those municipal court startup costs once our court administrator starts on the 1st and they start planning what are all the needs for that court. I know we keep promising that we'll get a number, we'll get a number for our council once that court administrator starts. So still expecting to have another amendment before the end of the year to account for those one-time startup costs to be ready to have that municipal court up and running by January 1st. And then the next one is the one on the bottom, the carry forward, it has to do with our, the one that got missed was for $16,000. It was for our housing repair program. We had some contracts from 2025 and we had some extra work that still hadn't been done and needed to be paid for in 2026. So that budget adjustment for $16,000 there. So moving into all other funds, we have two new programs with an impact of $22,000 and then nine programs with revenues. It's a negative $105,000, which actually means that that is a positive impact on fund balance. So that's because of the offsetting revenue. The first several items on there are new grants and shrewing up capital projects to reflect the grants that we have received and moving money from some projects to another. We've got a reimbursement that we are going to be getting from Comcast for the site to a repair project that we had that was the direct result of the flood in December. So we're showing that reimbursement from Comcast. Two new big grants, which is our conservation features grant for the Seuss Creek Gardens purchase for $2.1 million. And then we also got a new grant for the theater, so another funding source for the theater for $625,000. Other notable things on here, you see again the transfer of the admin fee to the general fund. So that is, we're showing a transfer out of $128,000 and we'll reflect that revenue now in the general fund. And then we're reducing our excise tax expense in the sewer fund. That was actually an administrative cleanup that we had made in 2025. It should have also carried forward into the 2026 budget as well. That's just reducing our sewer excise fees that the sewer fund doesn't actually need to pay. It's truing up the budget to what we actually are collecting or what we're actually paying for utility tax out of the sewer fund. So then the next steps, unless you have any questions or concerns, would be to adopt next Monday, July 6th.

Thank you, Director Thomas. Questions? Council? Council Member Baldwin.

What was, sorry, I had missed it when you were going through the new revenue on the last slide, the early adopter of the Washington, what's the CBPS fund?

Is that adding in for? It's, I don't know. I THINK IT'S HVAC RELATED, BUT I SHOULDN'T SAY THAT OUT LOUD BECAUSE THEN IT WON'T BE THAT. IT'S THE CLEAN BUILDING PERFORMANCE STANDARD FOR TWO TIER TWO BUILDINGS. It is HVAC related. So it's the making sure it's a requirement with the Clean Air Standards Act and just the efficiency of the units that we, the HVAC units that we have on our building. So we are contracting with McDonald Miller to do a study and then retrofit our equipment so we meet those standards.

Any more questions? Council? I see none.

Thank you, Dr. Thomas.

Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, this is the section on the agenda where council can share topics of interest and reports on special focus area matters. Reports should be limited to five minutes. Let's start with Council Member Ammer. I have nothing to report. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Sturgis. Nothing SFA related. Thank you. Council Member Taylor.

Nothing to report.

Council Member Lutz.

Nothing to report.

Council Member Baldwin? Yeah. I was at AWC last week over in Spokane and was able to participate in a number of really fantastic sessions. We had one that covered automated license plate readers, aka flock cameras. Sat in on one that covered budgeting, so felt appropriate to today's session. and others along the way. It's always a good opportunity to network with other regional municipal leaders and see and learn from others things that we can bring back for the city.

Thank you. Council Member Rakes. I have nothing to report. Thank you.

I'll just wrap things up with, along with my other colleagues, and we'll have a better report out when we have our council meeting next week. But with Sturgis, Taylor, Baldwin, and Ammer, and Mayor at AWC, really great sessions put on by the staff at AWC this session. Super impressed how they continue to step up every year with that being said. Oh, and Director Martinson was also there. And then I'm excited to report the Sound Cities Association has appointed me as a Auburn representative to the Aging and Disabilities Committee. So I'm very excited about that. So with that being said, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.