Commission - Regular Meeting

to Athens, Clark County City Hall for the official beginning of budget season. Uh we're here on March 24th, 2026 and we're here for our FY27 strategic alignment and budget priorities gathering. And so if manager Bob Cowell already had been swimming in the deep end, uh he he he's about mid-Atlantic right now. And uh he's looking for treasure on the ocean floor and um so I'm going to turn it over to manager Cowell so he can take us through kind of our initiation into this process. Of course, we'll we'll get to the point later in the meeting where we and everybody who's watching will be able to see the coming budget meeting schedule. Um but I'll let him take it away. So, Manager Cow, thanks for being here.

Thank you. And yes, Treasure would be uh nice. We could use always more treasure as well um and stuff. So um first uh obviously you know almost 8 months in so this is my uh first budget with with you all and um so still learning the process. Thankfully you have a very good staff that helps me um along the way with this. So I I very much appreciate it. I told someone earlier that often when you're coming into kind of a new community, doing a budget often feels like you walked into a house where there's all kinds of drawers and rooms filled with invoices and different pots of money and you're trying to figure out how they all go together. It definitely feels like that um here trying to figure out all those those pieces um as well. So certainly appreciate your uh patience and grace. Um this presentation is longer probably that I would prefer. It's definitely longer than Brad's last presentation. So um apologize for that as well. Yeah. So, um, you know, and and that's okay. There's a lot of things to cover as well. Um, I I do want to thank a few folks before I kind of launch into this. Certainly want to thank the uh the staff with budget and strategic analysis department, the finance department, and within my office as well. Couldn't get this far and we still have a lot of work to do, but couldn't get this far without their help. Um, certainly want to acknowledge the department directors, the charter officers, and the elected officials. um pretty much all of whom actually took time to meet with us um through this process over several weeks as well. And want to thank um each of you also because you helped set the um the priorities that are referenced in this um document. At the end of the day, you provide us the funds um that we need to move forward. And then finally, want to thank and acknowledge the taxpayers and rateayers because they're actually the ones that give us all the money um that allows us to do and deliver the services that ultimately they need. um in their community. So, want to acknowledge that. Um with that, there's a number of points that I hope to cover as quickly as I can through this presentation. Um and those are included on the screen. Not going to go through

every single one of them. It just these are sort of the uh the table of contents, if you will, as we move our way um through this through this presentation. Not going to read the purpose statement. It hasn't changed. Um this is the essentially the same purpose statement that has been used for a number of years as to what the purpose of this project or this um presentation is. Um I will read the top line which is um the purpose is to inform the mayor and the commission of major expenditures or revenue challenges, changes or other issues potentially impacting the ability to advance on strategic priorities with the upcoming budget and future budget. um what has in the past been lovingly referred to as big rocks. And that may be the only time I actually reference big rocks in here. I'm trying to use a different terminology, but um that is um what we're here for is to identify those um big things that we need to kind of know about um as we uh work through the development of the um of the budget itself.

Can I stop you for one minute? Yes. Tiffan want to call in. Can we can we call or is that necessary? She want to call. She sent me a text. Uh we have Oh, okay. All right, I'll take it back. They'll participate in that matter. All right, thank you. Sorry. Oh, no worries. No worries.

Um, once long ago, one of the colleagues I worked with in uh in budgeting um had this mantra which is okay, before we launch into it, let's begin with the end. So, I'm doing that. So, this is probably what you would have in the past considered sort of the big rocks. And so I want to kind of quickly go through this and then the rest of the presentation will actually kind of explain um these numbers a bit further, how we got there and what we're using them for and and so on. But to kind of begin with this ending um we have uh a projected about $6.4 million of, if you will, new general fund for FY27. For those of you that have been around for other budgets may recognize that is a fair amount less than what we've had um in the past. And it's kind of an indicator of what you've heard over the last couple of years, which is while revenues continue to grow, they're growing at a slower rate. And there's a more detailed table. You'll see in a few minutes that kind of explains where that growth perhaps has slowed the most. Um so for that $6.4 million of new funds, um we received about $6.7 million in requests on to meet contractual and inflationary cost increases or what here we would refer to um as those that are over over limit. Um within the budget, we received about 8 million, six and a half of which is in the general fund. Um for new initiatives that included at least 60 positions proposed or requested in the uh general fund, 75 positions or so overall, over hund00 million in capital needs with 41 million of those coming from the the general fund. So needless to say, the requests far out exceed the the revenues we have. No surprise, that's pretty much probably what it's going to always be as well. But it is an indicator of how need continues to outpace the revenues that we have available. Um what we are moving what I'm moving forward and kind of proposing and working with the mayor to kind of develop on a a budget that will come to you all has um about 5.6 million of which 4.2 million comes from general funds for um compensation increases. And

again I'll go into detail on each of these through subsequent slides. um about $3 million of general fund for contractual inflationary costs. Um that does not cover all of those inflationary contractual increases. So there the remainder will need to come from reallocation of um existing budgeted um funds which again I'll talk about in a few minutes. uh just under 600 or just under a million dollars um for um new initiatives. That includes a few new positions, but not many. And even those on the general fund side are really being made available by actually um eliminating vacant positions to try to actually free up those dollars for for new positions. The others will come from other sources of funding. But even in those other sources of funding, similarly, we're trying to reduce the number of uh long-term vacant FTEEs. And I I'll come back to that again um here in just a few minutes. Um recommending somewhere around um 60 $70 million of new capital. Um most of that obviously is not in general fund. Um general fund um has about 7 and a half million of general of capital. Um almost all oriented toward life cycle and again we'll talk about that a bit further. Did

you say six what was the number you 67 and okay I thought you just that's you said what's written here. Yeah. And that it'll make sense when we get further in because it's mostly in areas that are not general fund. Obviously, it's in areas like for example utilities, sploast, those kinds of things as well.

Um and then um this does continue the practice as um has been um good or bad of the use of general fund balance. Um the reality is we would be unable to do any general fund cap general funded capital projects if we didn't rely somewhat on the fund balance. Um you all have heard this in the past few budgets where um that's not a desired practice necessarily, certainly not for operational purposes and at some point there comes an end because you have used all of the excess dollars that you have in that fund balance before you bump up against that um that requirement that we have for um some operating dollars that are held in reserve there. and we are essentially at that point after this budget. If if ultimately $8 million is moved, there's about five to six million above the limit. Um, with that and that's pretty much done. So, we'll talk about that a little bit later as well. Um, again, not surprisingly, many needs remain unmet and really our current approach, which is take new dollars and add fund balance into the mix really isn't sustainable. Um it's going to end soon and I think that soon is coming very soon with it. Um more cost and fiscal uncertainty are ahead. Everything from House Bill 1116 um and what it may do or not do to whatever is going on in the national and even international um economy. One really good example is the price of fuel that we're having to purchase continues to escalate and has no end clearly in sight. Um there'll certainly be more uncertainty like that as we go forward. Um, and the last point I want to make is the budget's a lot more than the general fund. Uh, but we'll talk here a lot about the 200 plus million dollars that's general fund, but I don't want to forget that this is really ultimately about a $350 million budget. Um, and and much more capital on top of that. Um, so um, sometimes I think we forget just how much um, we're responsible for as we work on the budget

because we focus in understandably so much on the general fund. So that's the the the end if you will and the rest of the presentation will cover um the details of that and I'll come back to that slide again at the very end as well. Um lots of things go on with the budget process obviously to get us to this um to this point. Um not going to go through all of these. You've been present at most of these um which are everything going from the retreats in the fall and in January all the way up to the meetings that took place with all the departments constitutional and elected officials as well. Um, I also think that it's um important to before we launch into really the details of the um FY27 budget to talk a little bit briefly about what has taken place in the most recent in the current fiscal year with money that you've approved in this and previous budgets. And so the images on these next two slides just kind of highlight um what those investments have resulted in. Um obviously the majority of the money that you provide through the budget goes to the people that provide the services that um are necessary to deliver within the community. Um th those range from you know answering 911 calls. The buses run every day. The trash gets collected and safely disposed of. Safe drinking water is provided to most of our front doors. Potholes are filled. Youth recreation programs are provided. Courts conducted. Fires are put out and crimes are investigated and a lot more. That's really the key centerpiece of what goes on um in the budget. However, um we also saw this year the delivery of two um key apparatus for the fire department, the opening of the real-time crime center, the um refurbishing of a number of athletic courts, um experienced a significantly lower rate of violent crime, um expanded affordable housing options, enhanced solid waste services, and we continue to progress on our sustainability efforts and and much

more. And again, I just use those two slides and just those brief moments to sort of remind everyone why it is that we even have these budget discussions. Um, we have these to make certain that we have dollars available to achieve the priorities um that are necessary and to deliver the services that um our residents have come to rely upon. The um in a in a well done budget environment, these uh decisions are rooted in strategic priorities. So, they're rooted in your um really what you're trying to accomplish on behalf of the the residents. And of course, over a course of years and most recently over two retreats, you've identified this collection of strategic priorities. Um you're familiar with the most recent retreat in January that you kind of underneath each of these are a set of specifics um that are designed to implement these as they move forward. But um these are critical for us to be aware of as we develop the um the budget um going forward. You are also aware that um you know with my arrival here, one of the things you asked me to do is to kind of lay out a plan of action for the next couple of years um I've referred to that as ACC Ford and have shared that with each of you as a group as well as most of you if not all of you individually. And the collection of items that are on um the screen are really those top priorities. Many of which are drawn out of your strategic plan. others are drawn out of conversations that um we've had or that have come up in my assessment of the organization as we um kind of move forward. you you take all of that together, um all of those priorities. Um take a look at current fiscal conditions and and all of those kinds of things combined and you arrive at what I considered kind of the top priorities that I had in place as I crafted kind of these ideas um to provide to the mayor um so that he can develop his budget moving forward. And I just want to touch on these really briefly, but um one is alignment. again, making certain that

what we're doing through the budget aligns with what you've identified as your priorities and what I've identified in the um in kind of my two-year plan moving forward. The second one was taking care of the people who provide the services and that's where we get into discussions regarding compensation and benefits. Um and then the third is contractual and inflationary obligations. Everything costs more. Um everything costs even more in government and so we have no choice. um we have to meet those those obligations in order to keep our services running. Good examples of those are utility bills continue to increase. We have to pay utility bills. Um the fourth is addressing facilities, vehicles and equipment that we also rely upon for services. You all have talked a lot over the years about life cycle and kind of deferred maintenance and the costs with those and advancing on those. Um while we've made good strides in that, we still have a lot um to do and a long way to go with those. The fifth is enhancing transparency and clarity. You all have been getting over the last couple of months um monthly budget updates. Um and you'll continue to get those. You will also see the actual document that we help craft for the budget will be more comprehensive than it has been in the past. I think it's really important that the budget be the one place that our residents and you all can go to to understand regardless of the source of funding what we're spending money on. And so inside there, for example, you'll see what um capital projects are proposed regardless of source. So you'll see what's general fund proposed, you'll see Splast and Tesla proposed for that year and so on. Those are examples of ways in which we're trying to increase that clarity of what we're spending money on and why and the transparency of what we're spending money on. Um the sixth is essential government service delivery first. What that means is there are some decisions um before you that um are likely to involve tough choices. Um we support a lot of folks outside of our um walls, if you will, outside of the government. They do great work. Um it's a point at

which we need to start evaluating those relationships and determining how much of that can we continue to do. um if it start and I'm not saying it necessarily is but if it starts to compromise our ability to meet our objectives or not objectives but our uh responsibilities. Um and then the last one is really um while we're building this budget trying to prepare for known and unknown upcoming cost increases. Um and I'll talk more about those as we kind of move our way through that. This is um a slide that you've um seen some version of in the past. um there's more red on it than there ideally should be or would be, but it is a um it's an approach that we've tried to manage over now what will be probably the fourth year um going forward. Um and so you know we expect um as I said revenues to to increase um but they are not increasing at the rate in which our expenditures are increasing. Um and it essentially leaves us in a position where if we stayed within those and did not look to fund balance we would have to make choices like do we do pay increases or not? Um do we actually try to do anything relative to life cycle um maintenance deferred maintenance or not. Um, so once again, we will be proposing um are proposing in this um that we'll hand off to the mayor some use of that fund balance. And I'll come back to this with a little more detail to kind of explain what I see as the consequences of that and what I see as perhaps some of the things we're going to need to be thinking much more seriously about over the course of the next year.

Uh could you pro I have a question on that just informational for my helping. Sure. Is it okay if I ask you that now? Okay, on the one clarifying questions. Yeah, the the net change in fund balance surplus deficit this is that implies that there's some zero there's some like place where the optimum where it would be zero. What is that? I mean what is that number? Is it based on the last there's a slide that I'll get to that will show that. So yeah, hold tight. Okay. Well, just remind me when we get to zero though is a bad number. So, no, I know that's not it, but you know, obviously looks like it's a

Yeah, effectively what there is is there is a minimum policy line basically that we cannot drop below and you'll see how we are um compared to that, but I mean we never go below that. I thought um we have to and we try not to. We'll get to that. We'll get to that y slide. I'll look at it again.

This slide is um busy as it is, you can almost barely not make out there. there's actually a pale blue kind of blob if you will behind those dark blue lines and that's actually the important line. What what this is showing is that um while you can um look at kind of revenue that we have um budgeted for or realized over the years and and fortunately we are growing our revenues. I mean in the course of five years or so there was growth of about 40 48 million in revenue um which is not insignificant. However, that buying power of that growth is eroded just like it is for all of us. It is eroded by inflation. Um and so that $ 48 million has a buying power significantly less somewhere around 15 or so million dollars. So, so over the course of that um five years, even though revenues are growing, what we can buy with that revenue keeps kind of chipping downward um if you will. Again, no different than what each of us deal with in our households or at um our businesses. The one difference perhaps is that the things that we buy tend to outpace um even the CPI. So if you think of folks that go out and buy a car, they've gotten a lot more expensive than they have. Firet trucks have gotten significantly more expensive. Um just using that one as as an example of the kinds of things that we we purchase. Um this actually drills down a bit further.

I'm sorry. Bob, would you please repeat the last sentence? The things that we buy are more they they accelerate. So the inflation with those have tended to pace faster than CPI. What I'm showing up there is actually CPI. So in some ways I would say the buying power is probably eroded even deeper than than that part of it. Thanks.

Sure. Um this slide shows the general fund revenue item that I shared with you um in its uh totality um down at the individual level of the of the fund that the revenue is coming through. The one I the two I want to draw the most attention to obviously are um our two largest which are property tax and sales tax. So um you all know that over the years um property the last few years property taxes of course revenues have been increasing at 8 n plus kind of percent range. Um it basically is increasing slightly above the inflation rate um currently. So thankfully it's growing but certainly growing at a rate less than what it has been in the past. Sales tax though growing is actually growing at a rate slower than inflation. And so um again if I use the buying power kind of example, we're actually losing ground around um sales tax um with it year-over-year um growth associated with it. Um so overall the general fund has grown uh or is projected to grow essentially at the rate of inflation. um that would be probably okay if again all of those contractual obligations and other things similarly were growing at that rate which they are not. They're growing at a rate in excess of that 3% roughly um of inflation associated with it. Now one caveat I'll put on here that you all know as well the the property tax revenue projections that we have on here are what we know at the moment. the digest of course is not finished for some time later and I'll talk a little bit about some thoughts relative to if you see those dollars increase what might be the um the appropriate way to sort of think about those as you as you go forward. So I'm going to dive just a little bit deeper and give some specific examples of what is in kind of the proposal moving forward in each of those seven priority categories that I identified. um in there. I'm not going to go through every one of these, but in the first one regarding about caring for our people,

um we've baked into what you've seen in these numbers up to a 4% market rate increase for general government um staff, a 3% adjustment in the public saf safety step pay plan, and that would include of course their step um plans as well. Um not anticipating needing to pass any costs on to the employees relative to health insurance. I believe that's the fourth year in a row that you've that we've been able to propose that three years you've been able to do that. In the uh the second category about this those contractual and inflationary um obligations, I'll just give a few examples and kind of the sense of the magnitude of these. So um much of what we have is on kind of license agreements or annual kinds of contract agreements. So for example, body cameras. We have body cameras um with our officers and that contract is slated to increase $400 and something thousands. Um what is it?

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$477,000. Um last year, I think it was the the uh legislature passed um a law that um requires if if anybody's ever seen you can now have your driver's license electronic um with it. And we now have to have the ability to actually read those driver's license. Every officer um has to have that ability. we have to buy that equipment. It's like $125,000 to buy that equipment. Um those are examples of costs that are increasing that we have to absorb along with utility bills, motor fuels, um basic things like postage, printing, um and so on. probably one of the most significant actually revolves still around medical care for those folks that are incarcerated or otherwise supervised um by us and and again talk about that as we go forward with this um taking care of what we have um much of this you're familiar with which are kind of those life cycle funding items around facilities, vehicles, equipment, asset management. the way I would describe that um the investments that we've been able to make and are able to make are essentially letting us tread water I guess I would say maintain the status quo which is not a good place to be but it's better than it getting worse but it's not getting a whole lot um better a little bit on aspects of the fleet like the fire apparatus for example but in terms of many of our other things we're just kind of um maintaining status quo um we have some radio a large number of radio contract or radios that need to be replaced under the contract. Um, custodial services go up sometimes just because of the cost, sometimes because we actually um take on a new building and we have to actually have custodial services associated with those. There are slight increases that are associated with um different kinds of accreditation activities, for example, um that when we have to go through an accreditation review, there's a cost associated with that and so on. Those are some examples of the kinds of things that fall into that category. um the enhancing transparency and clarity I

mentioned already a little bit um which are um funds that would go toward ACC gov 101 which is running very successfully this year but we didn't have a budget for it um so we need to go ahead and put the budget into it things like the a toz guide um that often you all use being able to print enough of those that we have those um being able to address open records um more efficiently than perhaps we've been able to expanding some of our community engagement um and outreach efforts um in those all of those take a little bit of money, not not as significant. And some of them will come from reallocation of existing dollars that we have within the budget um already as well. This one about the incent the essential governments um services first. I'm going to spend a little bit more time on this one because this is where we start to have some potential impact on those outside of our walls that I want to kind of talk about um and and somewhat inside also. But um the first one is kind of the the reimagining of capital project delivery system. So you all have made it very clear in all the meetings that we've had um of the desire to actually increase our ability um to manage our capital projects and reduce our reliance on outside consultants to do so. Um we have had many many years of reliance on outside consultants and so we have begun that transition and so there are um a couple of project manager positions that are included in the budget proposal and um the equivalent of what is a county engineer um in that as well. Good news is um those positions can be funded through sources that are not general fund. So they can be funded through stormwater utilities. They can be funded through splot tloast and so on. This is in my mind probably the first of a two-year effort. It'll take us at least two years I think to get fully staffed to the point at which we'll be prepared to assume responsibility starting most likely with those T-slos 27 um projects that that get approved as we go forward. Um, so that's kind of in that reimagining sort of

would you want us to wait until your end of your presentation? Yeah, unless there's a clarifying kind of question that would be helpful. Well, it's clarifying on their reimagining is do we have uh a budget number on how much we will save allocation as we um move away from the outsaw? Do we have a dollar amount?

We can get a I would say we can get a version of that. Um I would say that initially it's actually going to cost us more because initially we've got to build up the capacity so we can start to wind down the capacity. So yes, I think we can get you a kind of a a magnitude of what those um ultimately could be with those. So yeah,

um the second one deals with reallocating discretionary funding, vacant positions, and unused expenditure lines. So discretionary funding falls into the category of those um mostly outside agencies um or partners that you're not obligated to actually fund. So there's some things like advantage behavioral um the regional commission that you have some level of obligation to fund. There are other things like neighborhood leaders um the um community partnership program um and others where that's purely up to your discretion as to whether you fund those or not. um those two examples I just gave her about $2.2 million worth of funding that is not used internally but is actually directed externally that comes from the same source of funding comes from from general fund um vacant positions. So one of the things that we're doing is looking at longterm vacant positions and evaluating whether those positions frankly have any hope of being filled. um many of those have already been stripped if you will of their salary amount um in it. So the only thing that's really in there are the benefit amount. So we don't realize the full benefit of sort of if you will unfunding those but we do we do realize some benefit. So we'll be we are currently going through those and the first pass of it was to try to identify some of those that could be used then to actually fill new needed positions that are necessary so that we don't have to add to the general fund in doing that. And then there are some unused expenditure lines. Um this is kind of a a painful exercise for the departments to do but I may give you a really good example of this. So let's say we budget $100,000 for utilities and the utility bill comes in at $200,000. That department foregoes partly foregoes some other line items that they were approved for in order to pay some part of that utility bill. So they may not be doing professional development. They may not be u purchasing some small piece of

equipment or whatever it might be. So they can pay part of that utility bill. And then what they can't do, our contingency account kind of closes the gap. So, what we're um ultimately saying is that in the departments that have consistently lines that are not spent, they're going to need to reallocate those dollars to try to cover more of those contractual obligations. Part of that, it goes back to that transparency piece again because what that means is in my example, if I actually have to allocate $200,000 for utilities, you're going to see some line items that we all would like to see funded, they're going to say zero. But right now, I think the impression is, oh, it's all okay. They're going to have professional development and they got utilities. And the reality is they're not actually spending them. They're not able to spend money on certain lines because they're having to cover those those other costs. Um, it's an exercise the departments um some of the departments are not going to like because it really means that dollars that they certainly hope to use and would otherwise use are going to have to be moved into other categories in order to cover what some of these expenses are. Some departments can't do that. some departments don't have any lines that aren't consistently um underused or could be shifted across those. And that's why you see kind of that split of three million or so dollars that are going to contractual and three million or so that are having to come from this kind of um adjustments as as we move forward. And then the final one is increasing funding to support economic growth. So, um, we have largely, um, underfunded our efforts at actual economic development within the within the community. Um, we don't have much money that if we get a prospect, say a miser for example, coming into the community that is looking for some kind of assistance with a utility extension or something associated with that, we don't typically have dollars available for that piece. The the proposal that that I'm putting forward includes two two components. one funded from dollars we already have, which is a strategic

plan for economic development, and the other is an increase in dollars that would go to the economic development fund so that we start to build up um our ability to actually be able to accommodate and attract highpaying job creating uses um into the into the community. I got another question

um on the economic funding and maybe it's back here. We have never talked about different avenues to bring in revenue. Um, I know that Commissioner Wright has some thoughts about property, but I do remember when Commissioner uh Fiser talked about um impact fees and I drove by the chicken the poultry plant today and we still own that barber street parking deck. I know there's a thousand cars parked in there. So, is there going to be a place that we can brainstorm or get some ideas out of the regular plans that we can look at other ways of bringing revenue and it may be in here?

Yes. No. And I would say there's two two ways that we really should be doing that going forward. One of which is the committee you all already have kind of addressing which is um land that we have available that either we could repurpose for some other use or this is the second part of it or to make land available the example that you've given is one of these where through like a land swap or some other kind of thing we could actually make available for the explicit purpose of generating some kind of economic activity. Um a good example is we've talked about kind of a location for the courthouse. we have multiple properties downtown once we once we commit to that land and move forward with it. It makes sense that we look at the other parcels and say what can we do with those other parcels to make them available to see if they would generate some additional economic activity. So yes and and some part of that strategic plan that I'm talking about with economic development would cover and discuss that as well.

Okay. Thank you.

The um sort of the the other category that I had in there is that sort of preparing for what may come next. Um, again, not going to go through a whole lot of this, but I do want to touch on a couple of these, which is the top one. Um, you know, we've talked about using kind of the fund balance. And what I'm sort of ultimately ending up kind of proposing is part of the fund balance being used in order to once again advance on our general capital needs, but really needing to guard the other piece. I think the closer we get and try to maintain to that 20% number instead of the 16% that's set by policy, the better um the better we will look when we go out for credit ratings, which we will be doing um if we are successful in moving forward with the justice center and any kind of debt that's associated with moving forward. So, I think that fund balance, never mind the fact that it's coming to its end of what we can use anyway in terms of excess, but I think the more we can do to shore it up, the better better we will look in those credit ratings and therefore the better our rates will be on any kind of borrowing that we will do, which will result in in real savings associated with it. Um, there are a number of funds that we need to continue to leverage. Um, some of which we haven't yet even begun to talk about. So the opioid settlement, for example, will be coming forward in a few months to kind of talk about how do we actually advance on on those dollars and what would those best be used for. We've talked about the justice center um design and and you know that as that project moves forward um there's going to be the still the ongoing maintenance of the existing courthouse and then eventually the refurbishment of that. We'll be talking with you all most likely in May and June about more detailed plans relative to the um the justice center and the next steps moving forward. Um we have um looking ahead the compensation study is going to be coming in and it's going to share with us how far off market we might need to be or might be and

therefore need to close that gap. Um we have a union and that union in Georgia gets to negotiate with us every single year. Um, and it's highly unlikely that those negotiations aren't going to always result in some additional cost of some variety. Um, with that, um, you all know that every time we do a capital project, um, that's SLOs funded, TLOS funded, or other funding, there's always a line in there that talks about the operational cost impacts associated with it. Um, not as often do those costs actually get funded. So, when a new pool opens, when the new library opens, there are real costs that will be attached with that. This budget right now does not yet need to incorporate much money for the library. The next budget will and it will be substantive. So those are those are future things that we're going to have to account for. And then I've already talked a little bit about the slowing revenue and the uncertainty at kind of the state and federal level and how we prepare for for that as well. the this is um so those were kind of some of the examples and kind of the details of the uh the expenditures that are in what ultimately I'm proposing in the uh in the budget um that will go to the the mayor. This is um a little bit more of a um kind of an accumulation if you will of the various costs that again a slide that you're typically used to seeing um you know if you go back and kind of use your math again and say well we had 6.4 4 million of new money and we've got $10.7 million of expense. That's where you start to get into the discussion of that fund balance and you know and we're perilously close if not crossing over into a line that I'm very uncomfortable with which is any kind of ongoing costs coming out of that fund balance. And so we will continue as we work with the mayor on what budget he proposes. We're going to continue to look for those opportunities for savings inside the existing budget so that we can move those dollars and try to minimize what we're taking out of the fund balance. Um, and again, there may be a few of those things that I'll talk

about here in just in a few moments. Um, this is um I think Commissioner Myers, this was the question that you were sort of asking um about with um the the fund balance. So, so the fund balance um is that so that line that's up there is effectively if you will the zero point. So it is the point with which we do not go want to go below because going below it one violates the policy and causes other things coming into place and the second is it it's kind of an alarm bell if you will to credit rating agencies and and others that there's something kind of going on. You see in 22 and 23 we were generating surpluses so revenues were exceeding projections and expenditures were slower than anticipated and so the fund balance was growing. Um and then um there was a point at time which you all looked at it and said hey in order to catch up on some of these things and and get some other work done we need to start pulling some of those dollars into general fund life cycle deferred maintenance th those kinds of things. the um the dollar amount that's needed to maintain at least in the current budget to maintain that line if you will for policy is around $35.5 million.

So if if we're projecting that at the end of 27 we would have $41 million and it you can see how close we are to that 35 plus million 35 and a half million um line. So we're getting very close. That's why I think it's really important that if we whatever fund balance we do use, we really not look at what's left in that gap that we try to preserve as close to that 20% number as we possibly can um going forward. Now, again, if revenues come in 26 in a surplus position, it could help us with this a little bit. Um but the right now the budget's kind of tracking pretty close to um what um expenditures and and revenues we're anticipating um as we go in. Again, you know, this is probably my guess is the last year that we can really rely on this as a way in which to kind of address those general capital. Um, we're we're at a point that we really can't come into fund balance any further. And again, at the end, I have a few ideas and thoughts about how we might wrestle with some of that. None of which is going to be popular, by the way. This is this is a little bit easier way to deal with, but not a great way to deal with it. And and when you do your report on the fund balance um what included in our budget the official budget report will there be a page dedicated to what and how much we have um taken from the fund balance?

Oh yeah definitely we can definitely do yeah I mean you can you can kind of see that if you look at more or less if you look at that top kind of line on there you get an idea of what was coming out each year on the fund balance. I'm more interested in the how we spend. Yeah. On what was on how we spent it. The details what it was spent on. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely most if not all and we can give you the details was spent on those life cycle and deferred maintenance items. But we'll get we'll get you that. Okay. That information. I get the question that I had here that I still have

is why this is called a deficit. if we're still above what we need, why do people because I hear people say this in the public that this is a deficit budget. And I'm like, we still had we were still above the fund balance each time. Now, maybe we were closer than, you know, it's nice when you have a whole lot of money, right? Yeah. But we still had money there. So why is it called a deficit budget or is that a misuse?

If you think of this as for lack of better descript, think of this as a savings account. So it's sitting and it's fixed. So, it's there. Um, and you think of the general fund, those are active revenues that are coming in um and growing hopefully um as they are as well. So, when it's a deficit, what it's saying is you're not actually taking enough money in from those tax sources to meet all of the things you want to spend money on. So, you're going into your savings account.

Okay. Okay. So, maybe that's where for me uh like language wise I run into problems when we're talking about it. I mean, because it's, you know, you're saving money for a purpose. So, if you have a whole lot, you're eventually going to spend it on something because that's why you're saving it. So,

correct. Correct. And I think that was the and that was the position you all took a couple years ago was to say, well, having this money just sitting in that savings account is maybe not the best use of that of those dollars. And and so that's why you started spending it with it. So yes, that that is um and that's why you'll hear manager after manager say, but don't spend it on operating items because it's a depleting resource. It once gone gone. It doesn't get added back in like your general fund dollars um hopefully do as you go forward. So is that what we did?

You did it on one I mean mostly mostly onetime items. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and I think the um there was something else that you said that I was going to mention with that also. I'll come back to if I remember and stuff, but but yes, that is kind of thinking of it in that in that way. Um oh, the deficit piece. So, and this is where people some folks will get confused because shows up as red and it is indeed red because it's beyond the general fund taxes that are coming in. But the budget is still balanced in the sense that you've got the money to actually cover all of the expenses that have been presented. Whereas if you think of the federal budget, which often is not balanced, there isn't money actually. So they're borrowing money to actually make the budget work. We're not doing that.

Yeah. And then maybe that that that's where I get like the conflict between the thing that it's a balanced budget, but we have a deficit. Right. Right. Yeah. I I kind of get what you're And it's a good, like I said, I think the way to think of it is what we're trying to buy exceeds what we are taking in in taxes. So, we're going to our savings account and putting money to it. And we've done that a few years in a row. Um, and we're just at the point now where I feel like we're probably reaching and probably not good be going to our savings account for groceries that we need every month. Like if we have to use a new roof, Okay. But in contrast to us, the feds not only go below that purple line, they go below the floor. Yeah. They go Yeah. Yeah. They really do have a zero that they Yeah. So it's not comparable.

So you know this the the proposal that put forward like I said move moves about $7.5 million of that savings of that fund balance to cover general um capital kinds of items. Um in other examples I'll give you capital I've not gone into the level of detail that I have here but I think it's important here that you see in that general fund use. So kind of the question that was earlier, what have we used that general fund before for in this case this is what we would propose to use that general fund um for going for sorry not general fund the fund balance going forward with this. So so that's where you see things like $3.5 million to try to continue to advance on our facilities life cycle. That's where you see IT equipment replacement. Um there are things in there about um modernizing the jail security system. that that's what um those kinds of items are um covered in this. You see that economic development capital item that I mentioned in there. So those those are the kinds of items that would be used for that general funds. Not the only capital, not even close to the only capital that we'll be doing for the year, but it's the capital that would be using that fund balance. Am I correct in thinking that the previous managers budgets did not use the fund balance and then it was the commissioners who

I believe that's probably accurate right I don't know was it ever proposed it was propos for the what so for fire truck purchases and some other things those there were from the management office and also in 2019 um 4 million came out for the prosperity package, but when COVID hit, we use those dollars for to deal with CO, right?

But I I do think the majority of the spend proposals for the fund balance have come from from the commission with it. This is um I think we saw in this case both the kind of past practice and just frankly the reality that we either do this or we don't do these projects. Um, and some of these projects you actually have to do. So, what it really means is we'd have to actually remove funding from something else in order to be able to actually do some of these. The radio programs are a really good example of that. Um, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this, the the general fund, while obviously very important and a core the core part of the budget, it isn't the only part of the budget. And so I just wanted to kind of remind folks that that seven half million dollars I just showed you is just a part of the capital dollars that are spent within the community. I think sometimes there's out there in the community there's this misperception that there there's very little capital work going on. There's actually a lot of capital work going on. And so there are um a couple of areas that we've kind of put into the budget going forward. So, some of you may remember we've had this discussion about Teslas 23 and that they're the way they're doing the account or the way it appears that the accounting is going to be able to be done because the state change state law changed or the state practice change I should say um is making available some additional funds that we had not accounted for. So, we're actually able to take some things that we typically would have funded out of general fund capital and kind of move them into this category. And that's what you see up there around um the safety improvements on the greenway. So, think of lighting, security cameras, that type of thing in there. The bike and pedestrian improvements. Um, those are going to be um items of both on street sidewalks, those kinds of things as well. Pavement. So, part of the pavement um program, pavement maintenance program in here, traffic safety improvement, bridge maintenance, th those are the kinds of things that we're anticipating

funding out of that supplemental revenue um as it as it becomes available. But the real money for capital comes in these other categories. So when you think of enterprise um operations like storm water and public utilities, those are the fees folks are paying through rates and charges. Um and then those turn into capital projects and some of which you've kind of gotten some glimpse of and you'll get more of with the service delivery plan, for example, and utilities. um over the course of five, six, seven years, hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent um out of that utility to do water manes, sewer um sewer mains, uh treatment plant upgrades, th those kinds of things. Fees that are paid at the landfill um go to the landfill. So when we purchase things like bulldozers, dump trucks, rolloff trucks, and so on, those are coming out of that account. Um same with storm water, airport, obviously all of those. So this slide is really not intended to go in any detail. is just to remind everyone that there are other capital um items. Um and that's where that when I said earlier there was like 60some million dollars kind of anticipated to be spent in capital. Most of it's here um 7 million is coming out of the the other um the general fund part of And just um want to talk my colleagues of Bob and I talked about this on last Monday in our meeting that we want to have more eyes on our enterprise fund so we can see exactly the capital projects that we are doing so the public can see also what we're doing. So I think it's vital that we understand how enterprise dollars are being spent and to make sure that we be related to our constituents that not everything is coming out the general fund, but we do have these enterprise funds. And I told Bob that we need to make sure that we have those dollars there so we as commissioners could see that and we can pass this on to our constituents.

Yeah. And if everything goes well, what you'll see in your budget book right now, if you open it up to the capital page, it'll show you how those $7 million were spent and a few other items in there. ideally multiple pages that will actually show everything that is being anticipated to be spent on capital regardless of funding source. So you'll see those utility projects, you'll see the T-slos, you'll see the SPLOS projects that are anticipated to be in. That way you'll have a fuller picture and the residents will have a full picture of what is expected to be spent on capital um not just on the general fund pies. All that stuff's available but it's not readily available and not in one place.

Yeah. Yes. Bob, does it also include the anticipated year the capital project will start, including the number of years is anticipated that it would it would take to actually complete? Yeah. So, what you typically will see is uh like a fiveyear kind of window with your capital. The one that you're voting on, if you will, are those general fund items in year one.

Voters have already approved the T-slos and Splast project. So, we're just showing you kind of what would be done in year 1, two, three, four, and five, and so on. The other years, even in the general fund, are kind of indicators of what would be potentially spent over the years. And and that's where in the past, you all have seen we've kind of plugged in like a $10 million number because ideally we would be spending $10 million on those deferred maintenance items each year and so on. So, yes, that all will be in that in that capital section of the capital. So what my last question is is when inflation happens is that number adjusted for the next Yes. I mean I know but I'm just for the next fiscal year.

Yes. You will see projects in a capital program typically you will see projects move in and out of that fiveyear list um for a variety of reasons. Um some of them are inflationary and it just hey now it costs more to build this building so we got to move something else out to an outline year or or off the the chart if you will. Um, sometimes it's uh it's something came up that you didn't expect. Um, that a project either something broke and needs to be replaced or a project was generated from the community or from the commissioners that now kind of takes the place of something else um on that list. So, you know, ideally it's as it's as static as it can be,

but the reality is it does move around over the course of the years um as it kind of gets implemented. bids come in higher or lower occasionally

and ideally those projects are all being drawn from plans and policies that you all have adopted either through SPLAS TP plus votes. Think of things like the leisure services master plan. There's projects in there. There's projects in the service delivery plan. Those those have lists and lists of projects that should make their way onto the capital program so they actually get constructed or built. I think I know. Well, I do know that uh we discussed um projects that have been on u the books for a long time and you've made ef and I've noticed some efforts in my in my district some old projects. Can we get a list of what is still outstanding? Um and if and will that impact our budget this year when stuff is all over the place?

Yeah. Um, yes and no. So, yes, we can get that information. It's it's predominantly, I think, going to be your list of splast items. Um, there may be some utility items that are in there. What we would kind of consider as carryover um capital projects. Um, so yes, we can we can provide that. The no part is it won't necessarily affect the uh the budget piece of it because they're either already funded and they're just kind of working their way through, okay? or they're projects that um haven't yet been funded and they're just kind of sitting there and there isn't funding available for them. Um, one area where that might be a little bit different is we we should as we look at the service delivery plan for utilities, we should be looking at the list of backlogged, if you will, projects and trying to make certain that those dollars are being spent timely because that has an impact potentially on the on the rate because the rate is set so it generates enough money to actually build those capital projects. And if those capital projects um are languishing, you can start asking questions. was that premature in actually establishing that rate. So

could be some impact with that, but that would be the one area I would think that Okay, thank you.

Sure. Um, so other considerations now we get into the stuff that's going to make everybody squirm a little bit and I apologize for this, but so thinking ahead, so thinking, okay, we're in what is probably the uh the last year of our ability to go into fund balance and we know revenues are slowing. um thankfully growing but definitely slowing. There's a lot of uncertainty out there. Um inflation was starting to slow but maybe picking back up again at least in certain areas and stuff. So we need to start thinking about okay so how do we balance the budget um as we look into the future and or how do we spend the money that we already have budgeted slightly differently. And so some of these are kind of covered in that area. So, um, I'm going to start with one of those things I think we need to to not with this budget, not with this budget year, but as we move into kind of the year between this budget and the next budget, kind of talking about these things. Um, and I think we need to start looking at the funds, my words, that are diverted from the general fund. So these are dollars that come in through one of those sources of taxes or charges or fees or what have you that are then captured never make it onto the general fund line that we're spending for operations and they get moved to something else. So TADS are are the good example. So there's a couple million dollars right now that are being captured in TADS that never go to the general fund because they're being held to be spent in those areas. Um, those are dollars that are not available to pay for payraises. They're not available to buy general fund capital. They're available to do projects in those districts. And I'll come back to that thought in a minute. The community clean energy fund is set up somewhat similar in that money comes in through franchise um fees. Those dollars are captured and they're set aside. Certain dollars are captured and set aside um to be used for advancing on our sustainability objectives. that um and there's a base as you all know there's a base amount

that still passes through the general fund and it's the growth that actually continues to move that growth is is it's one of the few revenue categories that is actually growing faster. So that growth is up to a couple few million dollars and expected to continue to increase in there. So, it's an area again where those two, just using those two examples. U there's about $6 million a year coming in that's being set aside and not used, not available in the in the um general fund. So, there's a couple of ways to approach that. One is that's great. That's exactly what we want and that's how it's going to continue to be and we work with that. The second is that no, we need to kind of think about should we still have all those TADs? Should we figure out a way in which those dollars don't get captured anymore? And should we look at a different way to approach the community clean energy fund? Not again to remove the dollars, but look at its growth and how you manage that piece. That's a second option. The third option is leave everything as it is, but be much much more strategic about what you spend the dollars on so that you look at the list of things that we otherwise can't afford and we're using those dollars to do that. So, um, if you've got a TAD and that TAD is used to cover an expense that would otherwise be general fund that we can't afford, that's okay. I mean, it's it's getting the stuff built. It's when you it's if you use the TAD proceeds for something that is, for my my words, extra beyond our normal kinds of expenditures, it may not be the best most efficient way to use those those dollars um because we otherwise could be using those to address other kinds of needs. That's one category to kind of think about that I think we need to have some discussion in the upcoming year as we move toward the FY28 budget about how does this factor into that. Second again is to continue this conversation regarding reviewing discretionary funds allocated to outside agencies. The just so you all know the the budget that I'm handing over to the mayor that I'm proposing includes a

reduction in the neighborhood leader um program um as as one example, but it could be others. Again, I mentioned the community partnership program. It could be others um in there. So, there are partners that I think you all ought to be looking at and saying, can we still afford to do these things at these levels? Again, the answer could be absolutely. That's what we're committed to. No problem. Um could be maybe we need to adjust it in this way or that way with it. So, that's the second one. um the continued reorganization piece. We're going to continue to I'm going to continue to look at are there ways to reduce the number of departments. You all know that I have talked about um some of our departments that were move that were offices in the city manager's office that then became departments. Every time one of those moves out into a department, costs go up because it now requires a department director and and other kinds of things. I think there are ways to bring some of those to reduce some of those back into an office scenario and actually enhance their services. You know, I've talked with you all about people and belonging, for example, that it may make sense for that to come back in as an office with less people. So, I don't need a director anymore. I can I can reallocate those dollars that went to the director and actually be much more targeted and focused on what it is that they do. That's just one example. There are probably some others also that I think as vacancies become available, we should reconsider. Should those stay as departments or should they be adjusted? Maybe they could be absorbed in another department. Not all of them are going to come into the manager's office. Obviously, same true with vacant FTEEs there. Some vacant FTEEs a position becomes vacant immediately gets filled. No problem. We're not having a problem. All of our all of our vacant positions are needed. We just we have some positions that have been on the books for a thousand days because we just can't get those filled and we probably need to look at those and say should we try to repurpose those and when we're able to figure out how to get them

filled we come back and address those as well and stuff. Commissioner Davenport you had your hand up. FTE full-time employees full-time equivalent. So yes, think of them as full-time employees. Sorry. I tried to avoid acronyms and jargon and that one I didn't. So yeah. And one more. Barbara, thank you for, you know, I've been trying to get us to exercise commission about repurposing our FTEEs and I'm glad that we're looking at that. I think that can really be a help um to from a budget perspective like you said, especially when we're not filling those position, they've been open for a long time and repurpose those um dollars pop somewhere that could give us some savings also.

Yeah. And you know, and the things I need to say about that are um you know, we're not saying those positions aren't needed. they by and large are we just can't fill them.

Also remember that in many of the instances the savings is not a full savings because we probably already have removed the salary from it and only have the budget I the benefits but it's it's an element of it and the positions that I'm talking about are really the positions that report to the manager. So those are not positions. I I'll let you all tackle positions that may report to other elected officials that are also in consistently vacant. These are really the ones that report up to the manager that I'm kind of looking closely at and and again in some instances it may stay in the same department. It might I'll use even though it's an enterprise I'll use utilities for example. So public utilities has a high number of vacant positions because they have a very difficult time filling very technical positions largely because their salaries are not where they need to be. Some of the but they have some other needs for positions that they've asked for new positions. Well, it doesn't make any sense to do that. So what we'll be doing is taking a couple of those long-term unfilled positions, repurposing them into the positions that they need. Um that's an example of the kinds of things that um we would try to do to try to help balance those um with the community.

Um so have we done any brainstorming on potential new revenue sources?

Some some of which I think um Commissioner Thornton just mentioned in terms of kind of oneoff if you think of like real estate kinds of things. Um you all have actually a really good example of this is the inclusionary zoning um components as an example. So, one item I think we ought to also in this list consider is should we expand the footprint of where that's available and possible because that has proven to be a pretty effective way to generate revenue for affordable housing. So that could be a way rather than because we don't have any money now to transfer money into the affordable housing fund, but maybe we grow the footprint of where that's eligible to be able to use to be able to actually take advantage of the inclusionary zoning so that you could generate more money. That would be another example associated with it. Um, you know, back in the day, people would often ask about like grants and stuff. I mean, those are almost non-existent um now um and and very very difficult, but we still pursue them. Um you all know that recently we got money that was a congressionally directed funding for one of our recreation centers. So we'll continue to pursue those. Um it just is becoming I think more and more difficult. Not meaning we don't try or shouldn't continue to try but to try to identify new new revenue sources.

So I I'd love to see us challenge our departments, our boards and commissions, our community partners um on some fundraising potential. I mean, I see in other communities they I mean, we we do I mean, we see our solid waste and public utilities have fundraisers. I I'd love to see us expand on that. I mean, we do all these really awesome I mean, you know, leisure services is great at all these awesome community events. There's some way to monetize some small aspect of these events that could generate funds in addition to providing the free entertainment opportunity for the community. Yeah. And there's you know good examples a lot of communities

I'll pay $25 to enter a costume contest you know like those kind of things and you'll see communities use like um you know naming rights for things as well and stuff. We don't necessarily have anything but we might make but so there are ways that you can do a little bit associated with that and I think we should you know explore all of those avenues that we possibly can. I mean we do have these BAC's of you know citizen volunteers that are very passionate about these these you know I mean even even um Athens in motion um you know people are passionate about these

I think a lot of those think of the um a good example of this are foundations that you might have you know a lot of libraries have foundations parks have foundations and those are really good they're good ways to raise money to kind of smooth the edges if you So, you know, you might have a uh you might have a room that gets built by Splast at the library and that room gets outfitted. Its furnishings come from the foundation as an example. You're not going to build the room and you're not going to build a library with those kinds of donations, but you could smooth out kind of those those unmet kind of things and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. A couple things.

Um also, you know, we got the community where the police foundation I think is a good example. Um yeah, there's thousands of dollars in that foundation that really helped us with the real time crime center and for from a structure standpoint, but also I know this have not been popular and Commissioner Thornton brought up earlier. Again, I think something that we maybe just look at. I'm not proposing that we do it, but impact fees, you know, we're going to continue to build student housing. Maybe there should be a cost to do that. But again, to to Commissioner Link's point, you know, we looking at really want to raise revenue. That's one of the things that we could possibly take a look at and see do they generate any dollars. But again,

not saying that we should do it. It's just, you know, maybe have that conversation, see what that look like and developers may not like that. I think it's a conversation though that we can have. I um I want to remind everybody um again back to the prosperity package. Two of the things that were in in the line in budget was grant writers. And the grant writers at that time um specifically was targeting to um human service kinds of people, neighborhood leaders.

That was the key thing was neighborhood leaders. And now we're talking about that's pretty much on the top level of the chopping block, but that was never supposed to have been

in the um in the general fund. So I do want and I admire when we get um reports or we give awards for example leisure services you could see where they go out and write grants and and and are able to do some things. I we also see it with somebody else I can't remember but I do think grant writing is still a very popular source. I don't think that we did what we were intent and there's a lot of reasons I'm so I'm not blaming nobody. There's a lot of reasons why that idea about the grant writers um did not work out the way it should have. But there was an intent for grant writers specifically for neighborhood leaders and neighborhood leaders was never supposed to have been part of the general budget.

Yeah. From the start. And we do have um some pretty proficient grant writers kind of embedded in departments but not standalone. And and again I would I certainly we should pursue all of those. I mean those are you know really critical because in many cases they're actually returning dollars to our community that otherwise taxpayers are paying for anyway. I I do think that it's important to note probably every one of those is going to again my description smooth the edges. Smooth the edges. Yeah. not going to be structurally we're not going to balance the budget off of grants or those kind of they help us do some things we might not otherwise be able to do. Um which is good. I mean that's why we should pursue those as well.

Um you know I don't I don't have an answer for this but I think there's a need for sufficient dedicated sustained funding for life cycle items. The idea that we have to kind of every year sort of find money to be able to do that um is um is just not sustainable. So you took a stab at that actually with the pre-desated items on the T-slast and I think you're going to need probably to look when the next splast item comes up similarly to say are there facilities that we own that we need to actually put out to the voters to say we need to take care of these things. Should there be a line item in there that is always for these kinds of capital maintenance sort of items um in there. Those are two examples. Somehow we've got to actually have a dedicated source in that every year in that budget kind of at the beginning we sort of pretend we're going to find $10 million to go toward this and we've never had I don't think ever $10 million to go toward this

and and roofs and heating and cooling is not getting any cheaper. It is not getting any cheaper and our buildings are not getting any younger. And of course the longer and longer you defer maintenance the more and more expensive it becomes. Commissioner Johnson. So when you say lifestyle life cycle maintenance, you're specifically talking about buildings, not cars. Fleet would be in there and equipment. Well, fleet usually has a a monthly um set a port and a portionment that they put in for their life cycle for their vehicles or whatever equipment that they need. Are you suggesting that it just needs to increase? Yeah, the funding the funding that we have dedicated to replacing fleets is not sufficient. not sufficient. Okay.

Yeah. And that's part of the reason why you all advanced kind of funding if you for the the two fire apparat I think three fire apparatus ultimately with it because we just can't keep pace with that that replacement. And what we've really kind of shifted away from is sort of a internally funded model like you're describing and more of a competitive annual capital model which is usually not very sustain. There's a few exceptions like solid waste landfill have some ways to do some things that we can't do with the general fund but but yeah it really just isn't there's just not enough funds there and that's true for computers that's true for fleet and certainly true for the components of our buildings as well. Yeah. Thank you.

I think one other thing we need to consider as we bring on new buildings I just use east library. Y we have to maintain that you know we got to have to hire people there. We got to maintain it. So we need a new judicial center. Same we have to maintain. So our costs will continue to rise if we put we're building new buildings in order to serve our needs. Those going to be cost factor that we're going to have to consider in the future. So

and those and those will typically always show up on your capital program. It'll have in there what those would be. You know, I've always had this uh dream that I've never been able to achieve, which is, you know, in an ideal world, when you approved that contract for that construction, that new building, you amended the budget and added the dollars necessary to actually, and I say building, but it could be the Firefly comes with additional, the Bishop pool, park pool came with additional, none of which have been funded. We we've actually not had the funding to actually add to those those items. And um but yes, I think as we bring those items on, we need to be much more cognizant of the costs that follow them as well.

Um and then and that's actually the that's actually the last bullet um item on here, which is needing to be able to account for and budget for those added operational costs. I mean, the good part of it is I'll use the justice center as an example. when we, you know, refurbish when the new justice center is built and we refurbish the existing courthouse, that will enable us to um leave to surplus a couple older buildings that we have that carry with them maintenance costs. So, we lose some of those costs that hopefully will help offset a little bit of the new costs in the in the now modernized buildings that are associated with it. But, our buildings, the courthouse is going to be bigger, so it also carries with it some additional um cost associated with that. So, Bob, is there a way with the SPLAST and the T- SPAST projects, you know, the operational costs are all listed when the projects are submitted and when they're voted on and everything, is there a way out there in local government world to sort of, I don't know, legislate or make into policy something where just automatically, like you just said, like your dream thing, like it just like we pass this policy and automatically as soon as the thing goes in there's a line in in the budget and it's there and we have to take it out like we have to take it out if we don't.

Yeah. I've never seen that. It would be you know it would be both responsible and nice um to do because Yeah. I mean, you could, the way you would do that is, you know, effectively when you approve, use my example again, you approve the contract for construction of something, you would at the same thing, you had a budget ordinance to amend the budget to put into the budget, but you also have the have the dollars available to do that. That's why it's not often done because it isn't as if the dollars are there at the same time. you would actually have to um probably remove something else in order to fit that in or you would identify capture some piece of new revenue that you would put toward it and that's why it's usually not done. Yeah. I mean like in for the next budget in somewhere in this

Yeah. I mean what you would do is put a line item you'd have to find dollars per line item and there say okay we're anticipating these projects are coming online. We need this much operating dollars with it which is just very difficult to do everywhere. So I want to add to the difficulty. Um I you know I was I was I was surprised when the gentleman spoke um um when Tesplas had not I think he said it had this was the first time in 20 something years that Teslas has not been was not approved through the advisory committee. If we're going to come up with a life sustaining um project like uh the greenway or the firefly trail, is there any way to um know exactly how much it's going to cost because I'm sure and uh we need to know what what it's going to cost from the beginning to the end and could those dollars or a percentage of those dollars be allocated ated right off the top of our whatever we expect. So that gentleman does not have to come back and put in an application. We know it it may slow down the the the the growth of it, but is it possible that um a percentage when we say we're going to make this much money and 10% or five whatever it is could come right off the top and that would go to finish the work.

There's there's a piece of that that happens with the Splice and T- Spllo project. So use a um use firefly use a greenway as an example where there are certain things as a part of the T-sloed project that you can add to that or it's a part of the construction. So for example, uh lights, security cameras that are really ultimately going to become operational items because you have to replace them, maintain them, those kinds. Initially they can be a part just like you would put furniture in a building. Same kind of thing. They So initially you can get some of that in, not all of it. What you can't get in is the uh the janitorial crew that now needs to be put in this new building or um the supplies that have to accompany the new building.

Two police officers out on bicycles,

right? Th those are things that have to then come out of your general fund budget. And and again, the reason I think historically those are not added is because the revenue is just not growing at the rate to take care of what you already have and add those pieces in. But you've described the quandry that exists as those new things come on because what ultimately ends up happening again it's not unique here it's it's in many places is the existing um staff the existing supplies the existing resources get stretched to serve that and probably for a slight bit of time that works. at some point you reach kind of a breaking point where now the quality of it starts to suffer um or it just becomes something that you have to fund that tends to be one of my one of the things you see often is an item will come forward and it'll say this would take a quarter of an FTE well you know you're not going to hire a fourth of a person and so you kind of stretch it out to a point in which it's like okay now we got four of these so we need a new person but it still requires the dollars to be there to do it

but it's a close cousin to what you just mentioned, Commissioner Thornton, and reflective of what Bob mentioned earlier, I think when y'all look at the 2028 splast, you probably want to be thinking like, all right, we've got some handrails and doors and HVAC units and roofs, that probably ought to be a pretty big chunk of that package. So, you've got somewhere in the $10 million range a year to draw from. I would like to I would like us to delve into that. Um um nobody wants the trails or the greenways to decay or fall apart if we've invested so much money up front.

And I and I really think that um when we did the um the Tesla and we took some money off the top, be able to take that off the top and let it be known that's what that is going to be. And um because again I'm not I'm not a real T- splice or greenway person but I do appreciate both and I would hate that they have to come and always apply always apply um like you know everybody. So maybe there's a maintenance piece in the not on this budget but as we move forward we can make that pop.

Not not much different than the paving money that that the body approves every year, right? You don't just build a road one time, you're going to have to come back again. And and I think there was a a leisure services in the last like update like updated maintenance like a general thing that was Yeah, I think that's what the like the athletic courts that have been redone I think are using some of those those dollars and trying to make sure that we've got enough dollars in there and enough of that qualified stuff with it.

I I want to on this slide I want to come back to one item I mentioned earlier and then I'll move to the last two slides. Um I I mentioned earlier that um the amount we were showing for projected revenue around property tax was the digests kind our best guess at the moment that the digest will be finalized out a little bit further and uh in the past that has provided a little bit more funding don't know if it will or not hopefully um it's in that same situation you know I would say if that is the situation as it becomes available because I think often it even comes after the mayor has presented his budget

something to kind of consider is one that's a that's a good source to kind of shore up the fund balance. In other words, use less of the fund balance because we've got a little more money there. And the other is when when I look at all the different folks that came and presented um their proposals, there are a lot of very compelling um reasons why we should provide more funding than we can. I mean, I think there are many needs that are still out there. The area that I feel like we've not been able to give the attention that we really needed to falls on the judicial side and I'm thinking in particular some of the courts themselves do have some needs for resources that we just haven't been able to fit in. So those are two things that I would say if the digest does end up generating a little more money than what we're projecting right now kind of file that in the back of your minds that those would be two areas that might be worth um looking at as other considerations as you move move forward with that. um the next steps in the process. So today I you know began the process of handing over. I told told the mayor this morning that you know it would be nice to be in a situation where tomorrow I can hand him a book and say here it's yours. We're not that far yet. There's still a lot of loose ends that I want to kind of tighten up to be able to hand off and wanted to kind of get obviously get this in front of you so we can start hearing questions that you have regarding it. But so so we'll be um over the course of the next several weeks finalizing that. Obviously in late April um or mid mid to late April, the mayor will deliver to you um his budget proposal. Um then of course you have a series of meetings with others um as well as yourselves in kind of work session um settings and um and then ultimately the uh the the vote. Um and in between there we've got some other conversations that'll be going on around service delivery and some other things. And then right after that, in case this isn't enough, again, we'll have conversations about the justice center that will follow after this. Um, may or may not have the service delivery plan

approved in that point, very close to that point. Um, and then, believe it or not, at some point, you'll be ready to start talking about the next splast. So, there's, you know, after this several um additional conversations that are money in nature, but the these are the next steps for the for the budget moving forward stuff. Yes, ma'am. I did not see um in your presentation um ARPA interest money interest is there any interest that is still it has all been it's in the general interest part of it so in that so it's showing up on that line for revenue so on that revenue so we can pull out general interest what part is that yeah

and the other thing that you said um and and Nobody's going to throw tomatoes at you. Um, you were thinking about uh the neighborhood leaders being a a place where things kick. Well, first of all, they already know that they've been blowing our some of our phones up and they they and they're getting a lot of misinformation. Is there any um thought about departments that have vacancies that some of these whoever they are? If it goes that way, it may not even go that way. We may hire more neighborhood leaders, but is there um some thought about um other departments not to just uh have Yeah, that's my thought. Yeah, I mean we are always looking for people in a variety of different

and I'll be honest with you that should not have happened the way it did. It was from what I understand folk were crying and upset and they were mad at all of us. Um but uh and I am going to respond because I was waiting to hear this today. Um but I do want to put it out there that uh some of them do great work. this community would not

be doing some things that they're doing for folk that traditionally is overlooked anyway. But I do want to put that out there and I do and I'm glad that we can clarify now that this was not a commission decision as of two weeks ago. It'll be next it'll be kind of a mayor decision and then ultimately if that comes forward it will be your decision and you know and I you know I have to send out a communication to directors and others and stuff um before this meeting and I would say the same thing with this too that you know the reality is the needs in the community the needs in the organization exceed the revenue that's available.

Oh I get it. And so folks should not take away if we can't fund something or if we have to unfund something should not take away necessarily that what they're doing is somehow of lesser value. I mean it it really is a case of I think all things being equal we would fund all of these things to the extent that we're able to do so is trying to move all of those pieces. And to your point you all may decide at the end that that's not a piece you want to move. You want to move a different piece and and that's that's part of this process. Um for me I I had to start looking at, okay, where are we in this case? Where are we moving dollars of significance that are going outside our walls and what can we suggest might need to be addressed? Um, different. Yep.

Um, yeah. What do you

Oh, sorry. I just wanted to piggyback on that topic because um I have thought that the sooner we talk about how that is less under our service area as the things that have been presented that um the connectivity. Uh, I think the school the school I mean the um neighborhood leaders have schools that are their district and the sooner we talk publicly about this the sooner the school district would take them on and they have much more money than we do. So, um, my hope would be that the discussions in the community would be who can help us out here. If the neighborhood leaders are helping out the families, which I think they are more families with students in in in Clark County School District, um then that that would be um continuation could happen when they talk about their budget.

And if I can make this even more difficult for you. So with those dollars, so essentially what what I'm what but there's a $1.2 million budget that goes to neighborhood leaders and what I've looked at is 400,000 of that. So, let me explain to you what that 400,000 would ultimately potentially be able to go toward to make it more complicated for you. So, that would go toward taking what is a part-time position in corrections that is a social worker that aids folks that are actually moving out of the diversion center um into making certain that they're able to keep and maintain their jobs to a full-time position. So, that's one. The other is the the library has made a substantial request for increase. A little bit of which is tied to the new branch. So some part of it would go to that. You have the youth programs u for the recreation centers that are currently ARPA funded um that um will be coming off and dollars could go toward that. You also have the um I remember what the other one uh the other one that was associated with oh the schools. we're we're providing funding to the schools for partnership for youth recreation um activities as well. So that's I mean that that really is the quandry. It's sort of like those programs that I just mentioned will go un or underfund it if we don't find funding.

It's not a great it's not a great place to be to try to make those trade-offs because I think they're all valuable. So why are we giving money to the school district? The that was part of the ARPA arrangement was that Well, that should be over with. It is. It is ending. And that's what I'm saying. If that if there aren't dollars that go toward that, those youth programs cease to exist. Those youth recreation. But I'm saying I would assume because I didn't I I I would assume when we're making cuts. We're not going to try to find money for the school district to replace whatever.

Right. And again, that would be, you know, ultimately that's just right now kind of that proposal. The mayor will decide does that make it into his budget? And if it does, then you all will make that because yes, that's the kind of trade-offs that we're at. I mean, it really is kind of that that level of tightness, if you will, associated with it. Patrick, oh, I'm sorry.

No. Um, so are other cities our size or bigger, smaller? Are they facing the same issue that we're facing when it comes to budgets? Yeah, I you know it's it's certainly um mixed because so many communities are different um than others, but there are definitely um all communities are experiencing declining um revenues off of property tax and I won't say declining slowing revenues off of those. Um, all communities are experiencing continuing increase in expenditures. And honestly, much of what we we've even talked about here that is funded is largely because other levels of government are not stepping into that mix to increase funding um at the state level or the national level. And so localities are sort of on the leading edge of trying to figure out how to address those. Think of things like homelessness, affordable housing, those kinds of things. those are best done at scales that state and federal government can do and and in many cases they're not actually investing in those. So, so yes. Now, and we're fortunate I think here in that our local economy is pretty resilient. Um and and it is in the sectors that are growing. Um, we also have a significant amount of our um of our locality that is um attracting folks from the outside to come in and spend their tax dollars here that a lot of communities don't benefit from. Um, when they come here for games, when they come here for even school, I mean, they're spending dollars in in businesses and stuff. Um, so yeah, pretty pretty much I think what's being experienced in other um places. Again, not universally. I think there's some that are far far dealing with a lot more um very difficult situations and there are others that certainly probably have revenue that's coming in and haven't missed a beat.

So So that would be because of HB581. Have anyone has a coalition of mayors of Georgia reached out to ACCG to let state?

There's been quite a bit of talk both through ACCG and GMA. Um you know 581 is a ship that sailed. Um, you know, obviously that had some revenue constraint uh attached to it. Um, those who've been watching kind of Bob's weekly updates or kind of my monthly updates have seen conversation about what had been House Resolution 1114 or House Bill 1116, which is still alive here in this last four days of the legislative session. Um and and connecting with your kind of prior note, Patrick, some states have seen really significant uh revenue caps imposed by their state. So I was just with the the Austin mayor and they have more than a $25 million hole in their budget that they've got to figure out how to close. And you know, connecting with Bob's comments a moment ago, a lot of that is they're going to have to see not only um sort of human services sorts of uh reductions, but but even some basic governmental public safety kind of activities that that are constrained. Um similarly in Florida, um the state has constrained the kind of transfers that can go from a city's electric utility to that city's general fund. So, so we're in a national environment where there's some version of this conversation happening in dozens of places.

I just think that's important that we tell our constituents that, you know, when we are facing these budget cuts, it's just not us. It's um it's other communities as well. Um Paul, just two more questions. Um

uh Tad, did you were you alluding to or could we end a tide? That is a conversation that if if we move into the conversation about should we even look at how we use TADs or don't use TADS or those kind would be a conversation that we need to actually explore further. Um because some of the revenue that's captured probably stays captured. Um I don't know the answer to that yet. That would be a part of if there was a desire to have that conversation a part of what we would do with the attorney's office and others to kind of talk through and say what are the options as you move forward. And some of them, you know, there's many of them. Some of them may make perfect sense to stay exactly as they are. Others may not. It may not be a wholesale kind of decision as you go forward in that. So, yeah.

Okay. I would recommend that we got a user group that we know we at least honor some of the requests that the people in the community asked for. Last question. Um, employee pay um is very big on that because I think we have the best employees in the world. Um I'm showing a 4.6 I believe that's correct million is that that would include the annual usual three and four market and four minutes. Yeah, it and it actually ends up if you take all of the dollars, it's somewhere over $8 million is what it would take to achieve what we're kind of proposing, which is essentially a 4% um paying up to a 4% pay increase for general funds plus move the pay table 3% um also then moving the pay table for public safety 3% and then taking care of all of their next step increases. Then you'll remember that we actually budget um we only budget based on the number of positions filled at a specific date time

and and we know that's not real. So we also have to add money to that for positions that are vacant that will become filled. So it's like $2.5 million that goes toward that. So all in it's around $8 million. Not all of that's funded by the general fund obviously because you've got folks in storm water, you've got folks that are in um you know utilities, those kinds of things. And there's some funding that was baked in the current budget year that hasn't for compensation that hasn't been fully used that we can in effect carry over into the next year. Um, so that's all of that's kind of in the background and essentially what we're striving for is to see if we can get to that 4% number and and the 3% number. That's that's the target. Okay, I'll let I still have more questions, but that's Thank you for that.

Sure. Sure. Go ahead, Melissa. I Yeah, I I wanted to come back to impact fees. From what I understand, the state pretty strictly regulates how we can charge impact fees, what they can apply to that they if we charge a developer an impact fee, it has to be spent on something that directly impacts that development. Correct. Yeah. I mean, typically what you would see are, you know, places that would use impact fees around um utilities or around streets or, you know, something that

libraries and, you know, and it goes and of course in the case of utilities, you already it's not an impact fee, but there are connection fees that folks have to pay that would that are designed to replace capacity that they're using. Um, it's probably the best example of what's baked into the utility rate um structure. So the in core and stepping up to replace that sewer pipe, is that considered an impact fee or is that just like them volunteering?

Yeah, it was it was really the description that I would use is referred to as a profer. So it's really something that as they negotiated the um the agreement on how that property could be developed um because we were bringing things to the table also we had land and some other kinds of incentives attached to it. they offered up voluntarily to step in and address that issue which was ultimately going to be addressed by utilities but not in the timeline that they were pursuing. And so in that case they certainly benefited from it because it lets the project proceed in the schedule that they were looking for. And ultimately the rateayers benefit some from it also because it's a cost we can defer um that otherwise would have been borne by the by the rate.

Could we have charged them an impact fee for us to do the work? Would that be a situation where that would have been legal to apply? Yeah, you would not be able to do an impact fee um in there, you know, if you were negotiating a development agreement. There's all kinds of options inside that development agreement. I think actually at one point at the core project, there was discussion of well, the utilities is going to do it. You know, they in effect utilities doing it and that counted on our side of the ledger, but I think the timeline just didn't work out for them. So it was more about the timing

and very generically the impact fee both has to have the metrics for revenue and then the ultimate source of that revenue too. So so you've got to have both sides of the ledger accounted for in your ordinance and it's got to apply uniformly. So you know you can't pick winners and losers like I like this development I don't like that development.

Yeah. And and again when we talk about trying to um increase revenue that's a thought nothing nobody writing said commission fish said we need to impact fe we're talking about how can we maybe have more revenue you know that can help the community and I think I've told you all though several months ago that we knew it was going to be a tight budget year and I think we need to continue to keep that in mind as we go through this process and see what the mayor is going to present to us. I do want to emphasize, you know, we talk about the neighborhood leaders program, but we also got other nonprofits that's not quas um agencies that's in our general budget, too. So, I think we have to look at the whole spectrum. Yeah. And I I just don't want to

Yeah. When I put that Yes. And when I put that item up there, you know, again, just as examples, so 1.2 million neighborhood leaders, $1 million to the community partnership program, which are all the nonprofits that you all just looked at as well. There's $100,000 that goes to housing counseling which is those are all general fund dollars, right? And those are all going to someone else. Again, all doing worthy work, right? But certainly would include that in the discussion, right? The mix and it really, you know, if you're going to go down that path, it probably makes sense to look at it wholesale. And that's my point. I think we need to look at all that.

We haven't talked about the we've just mentioned the House bill. What is the current version? 1116, right? And um you know, I've sort of been waiting till the final version to um

to to see what comes out of that there. I do know that at the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission meeting, all the surrounding county representatives from counties that are very red are very much against this on a on an individual level and and communicating on that. But my gut feeling right now from what I'm picking up is that it's gonna it would have a larger impact on our school district here. Is is that from you guys than it would on us? A revenue cap model would I mean certainly the school district has a less diverse revenue portfolio than we do.

Um there is an enormous amount well two things are true. Uh there's an enormous amount of um lobbying going on from all local public sector institutions and certainly even from the business community given that at least one iteration because the text changes about every other day of uh House Bill 116 would shift uh the benefit of what's currently lost that applies to all properties to just homesteaded properties and be um uh an LH host. And so that would mean that every commercial, industrial, and rental property uh would see a significant tax increase.

Yeah, it's a um in its different versions. It's kind of an interesting there's multiple steps in it. So if I mean including that in order to fully affect what it is intended to do, there'd actually have to be a period of which the millage rate would increase where in order to offset a piece that would then get recovered to some degree with those elhost kinds of funds. Not it's not very clear. Probably other communities have even bigger problems than we would have because they don't have the ability to actually generate the amount of sales tax necessary to replace the loss in in the millillage um the property tax revenue and

the communities that are in counties where there's multiple municipalities. It's not even really clear how the revenue would get shared among those. So there's a lot of a lot of uncertainty and I would I would say that if if it were passed in anything resembling the forms that it has been presented previously. Probably everything I put up there is other considerations could be removed and just replace it with that um because it would it would fundamentally change the revenue that is and is not available both at the school level and at the um at our level as well. So, so once this thing gets settled and voted on or not voted on, you know, we're going to have a we'll get a memo.

We're going to get a memo that goes over this because um you know, there's been a big push among uh colleagues in the here about reducing millage rate and it doesn't really seem like a great time to be even thinking that way when we're cutting things. So, I just want I want to make sure that we know all the facts about what the next year will bring. Yeah. Yeah. And we're and we are certainly working under they didn't say this earlier, but we're certainly working under the assumption of what's being proposed and handed off to the mayor that there is no change up or down in the millage rate. So, obviously, yeah, you know, I I agree with that. Think we'll keep it as it is, static. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yes. I just may I please read something that I wrote to make sure I understand what I wrote and if it's accurate. Okay. Then I have maybe a two to three follow-up questions. So on the same on the page I think before at the bottom where it says other considerations you made a comment. Yeah. Um and what I wrote um and I was writing quickly pretty quickly is about $6 million. the first bullet you were talking about that referencing that um the $6 million um could be used to transfer to the general fund if those for example you know to replace that what you said

if those tools didn't exist as they do today that is five and a half six million dollars of revenue that would otherwise just flow directly into the general fund they they don't and can't right now because of the way that the those are structured the TADS are structured TADS and the clean energy fund because you direct a certain amount of those dollars into the fund um with it. So if they didn't exist, that would be the the level of funding that would flow through in this upcoming year. Okay. I guess I I might be confused, but I I I know a little bit about TADS and I do I do know that TADS can only be used for projectbased not not salaries, but like project based,

right? So those if the TAD didn't exist, the revenue that would be generated would just flow into the general fund being generated without the redevelopment of the from from the the benefit of the TAD

because what the TAD is doing is it's actually capturing revenue that is being generated in that in that district. The idea is that the investments that are being made generate more revenue because it's got more development and and doing that, but it it isn't creating any new revenue itself. is just capturing revenue that is actually being held in that district that would otherwise pass through the general fund. The mall one's a little bit different, too, because it's also capturing school dollars that are being kept in that same district that would otherwise flow to their general fund, but it's not generating any new revenue. There's no new revenue. It's just capturing that revenue. And so just to use one example of an existing TAD, that North Avenue TAD, that's kind of where that big U-Haul center is, you know, has a property that really hasn't changed at all, but it certainly increased in value. Well, that increase in value over the last five years is captured within that zone. And if the TAD didn't exist, it would just be funding the general fund stuff.

I guess what I'm saying very slowly, if the TAD didn't exist, then there would not be redevelopment. So if it was if there were no redevelopment there would be no revenue growth if correct if the so am I wrong conceptually what the TAD is supposed to do is it is it is making available opportunities to make investments that would stimulate redevelopment and development and then the revenue growth. That's the idea.

If you if the funding is used in a way that doesn't achieve that then you're not realizing that full potential. And we haven't even gotten to the point of actually investing any of those dollars yet. So yes, I mean that's the idea. You know, part of I think part of that discussion is would some of these areas that we have in TADS right now, for example, actually redevelop or develop along the path without the TAD. That that would be also a question. So yeah,

but I did see an exception like in reading like five or six or seven months ago where TAD funds could be used for revenue. I'm sorry. General fund or salaries for positions that assisted or worked solely on the TAD like planners like what you said earlier, planners, engineers. Yeah, I mean those type of folks you they could be paid their salary could be Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's communities, for example, that use a TAD in a downtown area, for example, and that that it would be perfectly um acceptable and fairly common that, you know, you might have a um a main street manager that's actually funded through the TAD piece because they're actually a part of what's trying to generate that activity. Yeah. Yeah.

What you wouldn't be necessarily able to do is those aren't dollars that are flowing through to fund for firefighters and, you know, salary increases, those kinds of things. Thanks for the clarification. Sure. Sure. Are are are tax um are tags also generating interest um when they're not being spent and and are they separate? Yeah. The the revenues are being held so they're generating. Yeah. So so the same so it would be in that general revenue in that interest earned right earnings. Okay.

And we will have so I didn't mention this earlier and this kind of be my sort of conclusion here is that um over the last couple of years um I think with Sarah's help you all have been provided kind of a series of answers to questions and we'll be doing that again. So in particular to this issue with the TADS one of the things that we'll provide you is kind of a a table that shows what each TAD has generated in revenue. um where it kind of sits currently within it. The same will be true. We we'll show you what the just using these two examples, the uh the climate fund, what it's been able to generate and where we project it's headed um going forward. And if there's other funds that I've just identified those, too. If there are other areas like that, we'll include that information also if you if you know those. But so th those we will continue through this process much like you've done before, which is providing as detailed an answer to those questions as we possibly can. if questions arise in between we'll also include that um in that discussion as well with it. So so that is um everything I ended with the end which was the same slide that you saw earlier at the beginning. Um again you know if I was I was summarizing and I'd say good news is revenue continues to grow. Um moderately bad news is it grows at a reducing rate or slower and expenses are growing at a faster rate than that. Um, and sort of the the caution is we've probably exhausted the current way that we've dealt with that. Um, we can I think we can make it through FY27 with that approach in some fashion, but we need to probably spend more than we would normally between the two budget years talking about how we get ready for FY28 if that ends up being the case. Thank you all. I appreciate the uh

the Do we have times on the other meetings already set? Are they in the calendar? I think they're scheduled. I think you had with the 14th time. You had the dates up there. 5:30 to whenever. Okay. 5:30 typically start the the first meeting, the first one is a day of like of the work session. Is that going to be a I mean, I always get confused about that. is that um yeah I think to the extent we're able to we would probably try to preempt as many work session items as we could so that you can focus on budget right

so on that day it would be at the work session time not the 5:30 time like on the I think May 12th is a Tuesday you know some years we've done both a topical work session in the afternoon and a budget session in the evening I I'd be glad to just restrain our uh focus to the budget session in the evening yeah and Sarah was saying We'll send out we'll resend the list with all the dates and times too so that you have that right you may already have it in actually I don't see it on the calendar so okay

I have a comment is it possible I mean not is it possible will you please provide the materials to us or publish them online in advance so that we have a more meaningful discussion instead of just listening yeah typically typically through this process that's exactly what I would do this one was literally as of This afternoon we were still finalizing this piece. So yes, the intent would be as we go forward to try to get for example answers to the questions you get those way in advance as we kind of progress through. No, no, not the presentation, not answers to the question like the full what we got to date on the table. Yeah. At least the parts that we control. Certainly that would be the intention to do so. Yes. Yes.

And I noticed now this is the now it is available publicly. before it was just the first. Yeah. So, you have questions and you and you but you could only listen and you can't listen and then um you know just evaluate what your thoughts are and what you think you know and what you do what you know you know but if you have a chance to read it in advance we are prepared. Yep. And if I had it in advance I certainly would have done so. Yes. Thanks. Y All right. Thank you everyone. Appreciate it.