Audit Committee - Regular Meeting

Great. Great. What you did call the order. Hoping you guys talk many special meeting of the August 2025. Council

member Mohan? Here. Vice mayor Moore?

Here.

For the record, both, committee member Wong and vice chair Wu will not be in attendance. And chair Schmidt?

Here. Thank you. Alright. We still have minutes on this one, but we do have a member of the public?

Oh, no. So

we have both of our, interns in today. One, Alexis will be

There she go.

Yeah. Alexis will be presenting, in a little bit, and we have Irene who's also sitting in and just taking a look at the process.

Fantastic. Oh, welcome. Come to the right committee. No. Well, okay. So there's no public comments, so that means we'll just move right to our action item number one, new business, budget format review presentation and format formation and budget format review subcommittee. Mouthful here. Excited to hear more. Christina, I guess, over to you.

Actually, Alexis will be giving the presentation. She's been doing some very thorough research on OpenVeb and different, budgets. So she's gonna take you through some samples, and then we'll open it up for discussion. Great.

Dave. As everyone said, I'm Alexis, and I'm the intern here for budget. And I put together this presentation with some OpenGov budget examples. So today, we're gonna go over weekly the timeline for what has been happening in budget, and then we're gonna cover three example cities, Oakland, Durango, and Pasadena. And these are three cities that utilize OpenGov to present their budgets online.

And then we're just gonna go over quickly the prototype format for the budget that we have developed for Cupertino. So just as a brief overview of the timeline, so there was the Baker Tilly report in February and March. And then in May, council approved the final budget document improvements and performance measures with the updated implementation action plan. And then in June, staff began researching local local governments that utilize OpenGov publications and also has migrated the current budget from collective budget. And today, staff will be providing an update to audit committee about the OpenGov budget research and the preliminary formatting.

So the last step would be audit committee will provide initial feedback on the sample budget format, and we'll create a budget format subcommittee. So our first example city is Oakland, and this is how their home page is set up. So you can see there's a navigation bar at the top with these drop down menus, and these appear when the mouse is hovered over it. And it serves as navigation to specific pages such as the mayor's message or to broader categories of information such as the revenue summary.

And as I wonder if it's helpful if we take questions while you're going, if we don't distract you too much, or would you like it at the end?

I think I will take some questions after the examples in between the examples and

the prototype. Sure. Okay. Perfect.

Yeah. So, for example, if we click into the mayor's message, just, like, directly from the navigation bar, it'll bring you to this page. Next. So this is an example of one of the broader categories. So if you click on summaries, it can get broken down into the categories of revenues, expenditures, positions, and by fund.

And in the revenues tables page, for example, the information is summer summarized from all the individual pages. And when the categories are clicked, you can also navigate to the subcategories within those. And then for their department summaries, from the navigation bar, you'll be brought to this menu page, and you can click into all the different departments and the CIP. And then for each department, you have the option to click into the expenditures or the information. So this is an example of the information.

So this is basically the narrative of each department. And if you click into expenditures, this is the quantitative data with the different tables and charts about, like, revenues, expenses, and staffing information. So each OpenGov publication auto generates a table of content where you can access every single page with in this publication, and you have complete control over how it's formatted and grouped. And, it's just like a good place to see every single page because there are those pages with links within them. So our second example is Durango, Colorado.

Are these I typed it. You can after each example. Sorry.

Yeah. So

their home page kind of looks similar as they have the navigation bar at the top. And one major difference is that they've grouped expenditures and departments by strategic plan goal, and they have linked them all directly on the main page. So this is an example of one of their strategic plan goals, and you can see the departments listed under each goal, and they also have these interactive pie charts. And when you hover over them, it provides more detailed information. And this is an example of one of their departments.

I've set it up so it flows downwards in the back up. It's like a long scrolling thing. I wanted to include it on one slide. And you can see here they compare past year's informations by separate tables for residents to compare. And then this is their generated table of contents, and you can see by the way it's organized, it's more distinct with the categories and with their group.

Like, they're label labeled, like, a b c and, like, one two three for each strategic plan goal. So our last example is Pasadena, California. And, again, this is our home page. The you can see the navigation bar at the top and the drop down menus, and their formatting is quite similar to how our budget book is also categorized. And the difference is each page is available from the navigation bar directly.

So this is an example of one of the department pages from the drop down, and it contains both the narrative and quantitative information. And you can see with most of the direct pages, the layout is quite similar because it's very standardized across OpenGov because it doesn't allow for that much variation. There's text boxes, and you can insert graphs and tables into one to three columns. Okay. So now that I've gone over all the samples, I would like to open up to any questions that you have from these cities.

Sure. Well, I'm sure we have some, but we may have more. Any questions committee at large? I've got some. You wanna start? Sure.

It looks like Sure. You know, I heard what you said about OpenGov not having too much flexibility. It's very standardized. But, for example, Pasadena, which I I just saw Mhmm. Had sort of an additional sort of summary page which was not there in the Oakland think. So I thought it'd be good if we could incorporate this into that. Mhmm. And I'm touched.

Can we take their picture too? They've got the greatest.

I wonder if that's their city hall.

Yeah. I think it is. Historical city. Kitty, do you have any questions?

I'm sorry. Pasadena. It's the other one. Durango. Durango.

Yeah. So this I'm seeing the operating budget. Are some of these cities showing a route to look into the capital budget as well? How are we planning on integrating that? That's one question.

And then my concern it helps if if the public is aware that there is an operating budget and a capital budget, and there's two these two separate entities because I don't know that that's always so clearly explained. So for for all of this, kind of the overriding, hope that I have is that it becomes easier for the public to participate in the budget process because I think it's, it kinda goes over a lot of people's heads and so that we're not having a lot of participation when the budget process goes through because it's so difficult to follow. And secondly, so I brought the proposed budget book that we have, and what I wanna make sure is that we don't have a loss of information as we move over to to this, to OpenGov. So I seeing the the three, I kinda like the Durango one that's neither here nor there. My emphasis is on if we're able to pull out the same information for, like, any for, like, the library, we wanna see what the spending has been there, if we're still gonna be able to pull out the same cost allocation and all this all of those line items.

So to answer your first question, when we look at Oakland, their CIP is built out into its own publication. So it has its own portal, and the CIP itself has its own navigation bar to break down into all their information, but we were thinking of just putting all c I CIP's information into one tab of the navigation bar. So once you click into it, you can see all the CIP information instead of building it out into a separate website, but that's the example that we saw.

Okay. So we have, like, the CIP dashboard right now. I I guess that would continue on. Mhmm. And so are all of our projects like the the Stevens Creek, class four bike lanes that you can pull up through OpenGov

That's the goal. Currently. Put everything into OpenGov. One of the neat things about OpenGov too is we could always link the project back to the CIP page as well. So, basically, from one shot one place you can get to the other. So we're working with CIP team now to take the current, fiscal year twenty six CIP and move it into OpenGov. Because per the pledged IAP, the public publication of both those documents now will rest within administrative services. So we said, we're we're bringing you with us whether you like it or not because we need to publish both of these documents. So the idea is, yeah, that they'll the CIP will come in here. We are we're actually meeting with them later today to kind of make sure they're good with some of the prototypes we met with them before, but we wanted to make sure we have this committee's opinion.

So if it's like, hey. We do you want it as its own separate navigation? Do you think that would be easier? Do you want it the way we were thinking to include it so people know that it exists? The only other thing I wanted to add is we have been working really closely with OpenGov, and so we're kinda shooting for a February, March community meeting Mhmm. Kind of roll out what the new budget would look like for navigation where you're still able to find that information as well depending on how kind of how quickly we can move through a format to make sure the folks are informed. They can see that all of the information still exists. You used to get it printed here, kind of who you're gonna go find that information. Yeah.

Okay. And special projects will also come through here as well. We'll still see them Correct. For each. Okay.

And to answer your question about the loss of information and amount of detail, even in the table of contents, you can see every single page that is listed in the publication. So if even if you get lost a little bit on the main navigation, if you're so something very specific you're looking for, you can go to the table of contents, and it'll all be visible. So you can just click into it directly.

Okay. And then we wanted to make sure we had that point in time, you know, when the budget's approved, what what was it because things change throughout the year. With the with the narrative part, are you going to be are you expecting that you're gonna be taking what's already written up, like, for community events. There's already text there. You just you just gonna pull it out and put it into OpenGov.

Yeah. Okay.

Alright. That's it for now.

Great questions. I have sort of a follow on to both of those is how how flexible is OpenGup? I mean, as this is an iterative process, most likely, we get familiar with it, maybe more changes occur. And are they like is this part of their standard operating fee, or do you get charged as soon as you make a change? Or how does that work?

I believe these are both modules that we already own. We own and have access to. We've been doing the quarterly budget budget reports in OpenGup. So we've kind of been using utilizing what they call stories. Publication is when all the stories come together and it comes Oh,

that's what story means. Okay.

Yeah. So it's a story so that we usually do it as a story. So we've been using it. It's already under what we currently have. They they've been phenomenal. They've met with us, what, three times, four times, and we've had questions trying to navigate through some things and how stuff works. So they have been pretty and that end up being pretty flexible with us and kind of working with us to get off the ground.

So no extra cost, it sounds like. But you guys so do you is IT helping you, or are you guys this is all in your administrative functions?

I will let Alexa speak to you. She's been doing the bulk of the work on it in terms of how it's been to move the information over.

Yeah. So I work with Budget, and, you know, they provide me all the information. And then we kind of compile list of questions and bring it to the OpenGov representative. And we're like, hey. We have this dataset, and we want to replicate this table exactly. And we have all the information. Can you help us do that in OpenGov? And our representative is very helpful, and he's always telling us the limitations and, like, how we can do things and working around to get exactly what we want.

Well, that's amazing, and that sounds great. Just as a sub point on that, I noticed the Durango page recommends using Chrome and Firefox, and the other two cities don't. Mhmm. Is that some restriction that Durangles encounter, you know, with cowboys in Colorado or something, they don't use Safari. We are in the city that's got one giant company that promotes Safari.

Oh.

I noticed that we copied that into the prototype that you're about to get to. So I'm just wondering what the restrictions are is kind of where my question is. Like, it sounds very flexible if you guys are in control of something you own. Mhmm. So you can make it adaptable, kid?

Only I don't I don't know if they're having this issue, but if we're trying to if you're trying to download out of records, Cupertino records

Ah.

You need to I found I need to be in Google Yes. In order to download. And, otherwise, it's just it doesn't

about, like, information memos. I can't read those things in my default Safari browser, by the way. Mhmm. But okay. That's a great observation. So maybe it's something that's more important than I was hoping in Durango folks have already yeah. I I guess that's a user experience that maybe we can make a comment. It sounds like what we're really driving is more public involvement and more user friendly involvement by anybody that looks at the budget. And so if our browsers are hit if encountering an issue, that's certainly an unfriendly thing Mhmm. In my mind. So maybe a warning is a good thing.

But we could ask. We can I don't know if if

you have

it as a problem?

Obviously, if Safari is not able to be used, it sort of limits on I mean

I don't know if I don't know if there's any issue using Safari with OpenGov, but because we do have issues with other parts of the website, and Safari Okay.

Yeah. So is that already on the website? You you just shouldn't be using Safari?

Oh, I can check with IT. I haven't heard I heard that yet. Mostly, our devices are, like, Dell devices, so I don't have I don't have Safari.

As long as your image's Apple.

In fact, in the records part, like, Kirsten will recommend yeah. If you can't if you're try because you need to hit, like, print to download. And if you're in Safari, it won't let

you do that, so you

can't you can't grab the file.

Okay. Super that we're bringing this up, I think, before a major maybe by February, March, we could know more about this kind of an issue. And what else? Okay.

We're gonna look at the Cupertino prototype?

Let's do that because we're certain to have more on that one.

Okay. So for the prototype format, we've created this based off of our research and OpenGov software, so we're trying to just optimize the current budget's content. So this is the home page. As you can see, it's just very plain, and we have the navigation bar at the top. So these group together similar categories directly from the budget book, and we're letting each page be directly accessible from the navigation bar except for the information housed in departments.

And do wanna point that on the screen? So if you go back one, you see CIP listed there.

I do. So what does that what does that mean, CIP schedule? That does that mean CIP budget?

The whole book. It would Okay. Have a pop down, and you'd see the different sections of the, CIP, which I think may already be listed there. Introduction, fiscal policy.

Oh, okay. That tab, you mean? Okay. Because I was looking at CIP schedule. What's tell me what's the difference between

Sorry.

When do see CIP schedule?

Appendix to

the offering. We generally have, the one page in our book that summarizes all the CIPs for that year. Yeah. It's included in the budget book. So it would still be there, and then the full CIP would be under the drop down tab. So with that, CIP schedule, it's just in summary. It's like the very first page of, like, one.

Oh, okay. Okay.

With just the CIPs.

Now we're supposed to be working on a strategic plan. So someday that will work into maybe home or something?

Yes. We'll have to figure out how what integrates so what you saw in Durango is they integrated it. So they actually lined up the budget by the strategic goal. So instead of showing it by fund, they were showing it by the strategic goal. So I think that once we get going with it, it'll be how do we integrate it into the budget document.

And we could have both. Right? We could have it by fund as well as by strategic.

Correct. As long as we show it by fund, we can show it any other way, but we need to ensure we at least show it by fund. For example, now we have the by default.

Is this what you're proposing, or what what is this?

Kind of based on the oh, sorry. Go ahead, Alexis. It's just

Yes. I've just, like, come migrated over all the individual pages, and this is, like, an example of how it could be formatted because, obviously, there's a lots of different, like, structural changes that we might make, but it's very easy to regroup everything and, like, reorganize it. So this is just, like, an example showing Cupertino's budget that we wanted to show. Yes.

So what are we gonna get in that book?

Let's get a couple more slides, and we're gonna kind of show you some of it as we haven't developed the division summary yet to be able to show, but I'll let Alexis kinda wrap up, and then we'll kind of show you what we think we'd be looking at.

Yeah. So, again, this is an example of what happens if you click directly off of the navigation bar. This is the budget guide, just a page in the budget book. And then for our department's navigation page, we have set it up like Oakland. So once you click in here, it's a good very large menu with all the different departments, and you just click into them to get more information. So for example, if you click into council and commissions, it'll bring you to this menu page, and then you can either click into the department overview, the division summary, or the programs within those divisions.

I had one little pet peeve on this one. It's a tab request, actually. My preference would be that these were tabbed in under city council to show that their city council is, like, over, the community funding. Because it kind of when I read it, it made us look like we're all, like, equal. I don't know. It just didn't there's something about the appearance that I wanted to have make sure that distinction is made, that the council is making those decisions on the funding and stuff and that we're not all, you know, sort of equally looking for funds or something. I don't know. It's just don't know how to communicate that better. But

Mhmm. Yeah.

Hopefully, the audit committee gets under the commissions.

That's You're there. You're just because you were the last one at it, it goes in the order of the GL. You can't see it. Yeah. Oh,

so, yeah, so if you look at the commissions well, it should be commissions and committees or committee. Say that. Because we're only

good earlier.

And then, yeah, if we would have expanded or, scroll down the page, you would have eventually gone to the audit committee. Oh, committees is You're there. You just don't see it.

Right. Thank you.

Is it so why aren't they alphabetical?

It's by GL.

So general ledger has our fund, our division, and then our program. So they're all in the the commissions committees are in 111. 11 is the division, and then they've gotten program names. So likely what's happened is, it might have been as they were coming on and getting budgets. So as they started to get items budgeted, we added the program code, and it's done in that order. So for example, if we go yeah. Job bringing this in. I had

a feeling.

So here, just as an example Oh, here it goes. You'll see them listed. So you see commissions listed here. $1.31 is the tick commission, then $1.40, $1.42, $1.50, one fifty five. And so it's likely these got added after, and we maybe when we first set up the chart of accounts, we didn't line them up. So it's kind of whatever was available. So, audit committee being the last one that had a budget added to it is one ninety.

It wouldn't necessarily mean you have to present it this way since you've got complete control over OpenGov format.

So Correct. You basically are

gonna do it in alphabetical.

And it might be easier for users.

But Yeah. Yeah.

There's many ways to go.

Mhmm. There was something recently that was explaining the difference between a commission and a committee. Will there be some text in here

to Yeah. The a definition of of commission versus commit.

We can easily add that. And we can also easily rearrange everything.

Sorry. I think it's an iterative process. Mhmm.

You're gonna get

a lot of comments. Yeah. From different people Yeah. As well.

So, yeah, clicking in to the city council division, you can see this page. We're still working on it right now because we're collecting the division overview narrative text and service objectives to summarize the entire division from the analysts, like, right now. But this would be a page that links to all the programs, and then it gives a division overview at the division level, all the budget data at the division level, staffing data at the

division level. And that will be what prints. So right now, we're printing pages for every one of the commissions.

Right.

It won't. So what will happen going forward is to have a page for the, city councils, which is its own division, and commissions and committees which are their own. So effectively taking this from several pages to a handful of pages. But then underneath, you can see each of the programs within that division will be able to get to online. So divisions are generally done kind of here in bold. So for each of the write ups, we'd say is it just show the division summary here, but all of this data Yeah. Staff will still be working on it, and it'll be available online at the open.

So the this So this is gonna end phase. Right here.

That stays. Yep. And then here's where we would start. We just have

If you wanna know it, you've got to look at it. Okay. And that's gonna go for for each one of these. Okay. My only concern is that we don't have any member of the public here to to say whatever their their fears are.

Yeah. So what we're hoping to do with this is just to show audit committee kind of what we've been working on, how we've been working towards. So when we, we hope you've formed the budget subcommittee. We're not starting from zero. Right? We already kinda have something we can mold and add things to or or deduct away. And then, what we'd like to do too is just kinda step one. We will be coming with some sort of communication plan to counsel as well to say, hey. You know? Because I think we need to be in a good place ourselves and present and then take the feet. Right? Because if we just start from nothing and go, what does everybody think? It makes it difficult to build? So we kinda wanna start with some sort of a structure, grab some feedback, bring it back to the committee. That's why we're saying it'll be iterative.

We'll likely be going to council in January, early February, asking them to look at a final budget format ahead of starting budget so that we kind of once we know what that looks like, we can continue our community outreach and say, this will now be the format based on your feedback, kind of here's how you would navigate and would go through. But we just wanted to make sure we got in front of audit and said, here's what we've been working on. Here's what we've been able to do based on the feedback we received from Baker Tilley in terms of, converting the document.

Would it be at all helpful if there was, like, a budget invites meeting in the fall?

I'm just a little worried. So we're kind of hoping to see how far we can get with the budget format subcommittee. And that's gonna once we kind of first meet outside of, timetables, we also wanna be, I wanna make sure we get in front of council before we go out to the public, at least once, just so the council is kind of aware of what we're working on, what we're doing, that there will be this community event coming on. So I think there is a like very good likelihood that we will have that in the fall. They just wanna kind of meet with the subcommittee first, kind of get the lay of the land, what the expectations are for that meeting just so that we're prepared.

Yeah. Because I the my my fear is that somebody could you could argue, well, you're making it less transparent. You're you're providing less in the book. Even though even though I maybe never ever read that book Yes. You're removing information there. And so it it you know, you could you could imagine that argument being made. And so the communication has to be that there is some benefit to the public in doing it this way. And what is that?

And I think that's

part of why we want to get a good prototype together because it gets easier to answer those questions and be like, here, actually, me show you where you would navigate to find that information versus us saying, it's going to be there. We promise. Right? But you're not able to see where it might be or click into where it might be. I think that's why, to me, I think the subcommittee comes first. We get it in a good this was kind of our first shot at it. Take your feedback. Go to council to know here's where we're at. Here are the next steps. We're gonna be meeting with the community. We'll take their feedback. We'll bring back a final version ahead of going back out to the community to kind of train on what the new budget looks like.

Okay. And then there were some things, like, when when we were looking at special projects, like, wanted to know when a special project ended, but you it's not intuitive. When you look at the list of them, it's like, okay. I I know that when it's zeroed off to the future that that's when it ended, but I know that that doesn't you know, how is the member of the public going to get that? Is there a space in OpenGov for any kind of a paragraph that lets the public know, you know, what what maybe you're gonna see some there were some negative numbers that showed it up in some places, and I don't know if that would be something you'd wanna highlight.

But, just overall, like, if you wanna know when a special project ended, you know, this this is an indicator.

Let's continue that thought. And maybe, Alexis, is there more you wanna present? Maybe we can

Yeah.

Finish up a little bit and then move to the next element of this possibly. But why don't we get your presentation?

Yeah. I have a couple more Okay. Slides with different examples. So, yeah, this is just the, like, data summarized by division. So these are the tables. You see the actual budgets and the proposed budget paired against it. The bottom one actually it shows all information. It's just since this is a screenshot, you can't see it, but it slides over, and it'll show fiscal year '26. And then for program page, all the data is now summarized at the program level. So it'll have all the detail, and this this is currently mirroring what we have in the budget book.

So this is just an example of what the narrative text again, this is exactly what's in the budget book, and it's formatted how it looks in the budget book right now. Again, the data is summarized by program. And then this is our table of contents, and it has every single page that we have in the publication. So it has every single program page. So you could easily navigate to the smallest or the most specific level of detail.

So here are recommendations. So first, to provide some initial feedback on the samples that were presented and also to create a budget format subcommittee to finalize the OpenGov budget format before council recommendation ahead of the fiscal year twenty six, twenty seven budget.

Great. Thanks for that presentation. Why don't we go for some more clarifying questions? So I've got one or two, on the creating the subconvenience, for example. I think, first of all, there's ad hoc and there's standing committees.

I would presume this is an ad hoc committee. So it's once it accomplishes its goal, it's done. And I know I noticed you put in there to finalize the open gov budget format, and I I presume you're using a shorthand in the sense that the subcommittee would come back to the audit committee and either a special meeting the audit committee would have or in October, regular meeting. I see it's on our work plan, which we'll get to as another agenda item here, but just trying to outline what you guys were thinking when you put the recommendation together so that you're nodding your head. So that all makes sense. Okay. So maybe the time frame for the subcommittee is, like, a three month period or until October, or are you envisioning it to last longer?

I would think, let's say, through December to be safe. December to through December. Yeah.

And and, again, I think vice mayor Moore brought up that there has been subcommittees relating to the budget in the past. So, of course, the public is sometimes welcome to participate in those subcommittee meetings, but I presume this subcommittee is not gonna consist of more than two representatives. So the Brown Act notifications wouldn't be a factor for the subcommittee. That's correct. It be the conviction. Or less. Okay. Right. Got it. Okay. Staff support then for the subcommittee. How do you envision that happening?

Very fast.

The staff support for the subcommittee.

So I think we would be heavily supporting the subcommittee to bring in with you information. I think the way I see it is we'd be looking for feedback, and then we'd be going to see either write off of, hey. That's something that we can do or that's a system limitation. I think, through the subcommittee is also understanding high priorities, like must haves and nice to haves, as this will be an iterative process. We may not be able to get to everything, in the first, year, but we wanna make sure we kinda hit the highlights. We don't wanna lose anything we currently have in the document. But if we're wanting to add some, we may just have to look at what are the capabilities both of them. But that's part of the feedback we wanna get to. Help us get to a good place where you think, hey. Not speaking for the public, but we think this is easier to understand than it was before.

We we like the setup. We like the navigation. Right? I think that's what we're really been looking for. But anything that you have, if you see if you look at another OpenGov site that has a budget and you like some, hey. Can we do something like that, or just something you've seen in any other budget and if that's something that you wanna do or see us reorganize, Again, there are limitations, but we wanna we have a good relationship with OpenGov. Can only positive.

What what I was thinking also as an add on to that, there was there have been written reports that subcommittees have given. So could would staff be envisioning producing a staff report for the subcommittee, or maybe it could be the subcommittee report? Just exploring what you're thinking because

We'd likely send you some examples first. So what we've done historically with, subcommittees, at least for budget, is kind of to whet your appetite. We're like, hey. Let's start you off here kind of three budget books that we think are put together. Well, for whatever reason, they won the award. We like the graphics. We like the how everything is set up. So we'll likely send you to deep dive into these three open gut budgets and say, hey. Take a look and tell us what you like, what you don't like, how you might wanna see that differently. So that's likely what we'll do as a starting point. So was

more thinking of the final point. So Oh, the final Which is when the subcommittee comes back to the bigger committee. Sorry.

So staff

hopeful if there's something in writing.

So staff will put together the report based on the recommendations and kind of the final format to bring back.

In collaboration

with the subcommittee.

Well, that's fantastic.

Yeah. We'll check with the subcommittee members. If you're like, hey. We'll put the staff report. Would you like to get the presentation? You just let us know how involved you wanna be.

The reason I ask this is is we get to a time commitment, and I know we've done many subcommittees in the past. There's been a lot of time commitment. It's it's, you know, behind the scenes and just trying to figure it out for whoever's gonna be on the subcommittee. Any other questions for staff on the report? Katie?

I was wondering if we could go I think it's about three slides back, and my question is whether or not that it was something you could drill down into, and it was your budget summary page. I I seem like there was a way that you could going through the index drill down, but I was wondering one more back, I believe. Maybe one more. It was the it was the summary page. Go back one more. Right there? It was a table, and it was a summary, like like the council summary. And the question would be whether or not yeah. Maybe this will work. Is this something that is this, like, clickable?

Can I drill down? If it's, like, if you're getting yes. This is counseling commissions. Okay. So this is the summary page of all the whole thing. Can I click on that number and then see how it break down, or is it just a summary page? So if it then if I wanna know what each commission has for revenues or and expenditures, I do I then need to go back up here and then go down? And is there any way that you could make that, you know, so you can drill through from that point?

So, basically, we have when we make these tables, we have set it to a snapshot, so it only shows data at a point in time. So you would have to go to the individual page to say, oh, I want the revenue from this specific commission. You would have to go to that commission's page to see that information, and we've actually asked opened up this exact question if we could make a table that, like, drops down. You click on it, and they said they're working on it. So maybe that'll come in the future.

Okay. And, so you received the the award for the main budget already, the g GFOA, AL. Yes. CMFO one GFOA. There we go. Okay. So you you get that already, and, I was hoping that the the CIP one, since we're gonna be working on that process, is will be headed towards that. It's kind of a side question. Is this activity something that that you could get a Helen I believe it's a Helen Putnam Award for doing?

We can certainly try. We do try to submit I think we submitted five applications since last year. Not us alone, but the city altogether for Hallam Putnam, but I don't believe any of ours got picked up. But we definitely always look for what we're doing, and then the city manager is always like, hey. Put it out there. Got any ideas. Go ahead and start applying. So I think it's definitely something we would, look into.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I think it's kind of a it's an interesting transition in in the process and and kind of detailing and how that went so the other cities because you're saving you're saving a lot of paper and space and all that sort of thing. Alright.

Any other questions? No. So I'm thinking we might go to a motion, and I'm sure we'll have more discussion on that. But, somebody wanna make a motion that gets us progress on our action item here? Alright.

Me put stab as you guys prefer. So the motion would be to rec form a sub an ad hoc subcommittee of the audit committee to study the budget format as described more in the staff report and come back to the audit committee no later than October at the October regular meeting of the audit committee for a recommendation that the audit committee would consider and present to the city council. If we can make that shorter, that's fine, but that's an idea for a motion.

Well, I I think I would modify a little bit. So item one is to receive it. So we already we've received it, and we've created a a

Right.

Feedback.

I

really like to be on the subcommittee. So wanted to throw my name out there, and I've got a bag of of information I've been going through. So and I don't know why I found an interest.

For any amendment. Okay. Again, at least, volunteered. Any more? I would welcome for more. I think a second volunteer would be ideally It

doesn't make sense. You're looking at my direction. Evolve your. It doesn't make sense because I'm quite involved in this business. So maybe an outside set of eyes would be better.

Maybe. Well, we could still have our motion without formalizing it right away. Yeah.

Well So, I mean, I To that point, I would I would not share. There's just there's a reason. There's a reason. And where is where

are the other public There. Okay. Committee.

So this, yes. The chair has already served on this from before. He's already served on a subcommittee and knows knows this material very well and has has already provided recommendations. Welcome. I've saved that for five years, I think.

Hold on.

Yeah. It's been waiting. Okay.

Well, that's all well, and I'm certainly here to serve. So but I do think experience and the value of having some interaction with staff in this whole process. We shouldn't minimize that. So we can consider this in more when we well, let's just consider it now. Are you sure? Because I Yeah.

I mean, I've seen many budget books in my lifetime. I'm not terribly confused by most things. So I I think just another set of eyes would be be good. Someone who doesn't know it. That's It's a new format, and it's it's fun.

Yes. Okay.

That's fair. Is there anyone else?

Use me as a back. I'm I'm sort of a plan B.

Okay. So

Jared, do you have some reluctance to do it?

No. I wanna make sure we're considering all the options and give everyone a chance. Okay. That would be the best. I kinda look at myself as a last option. You know, I'm always there. I'm available. So to the extent you don't wanna do it. Right?

Only because there are two other committee members, and they're from the outside. And and might be a good idea to see it from their eyes.

Ah, so you're suggesting possibly Yeah. The two members that aren't here could be candidates.

Yeah. Not because they're not here. That

one's that's tricky because we there's been an attendance issue, and one just started. So I don't know what their schedules are like. I would be afraid of admitting somebody to something that they can't.

Yeah. I see that. I think it's ideal to maybe bring them in definitely on these kinds of issues. I'm a little little nervous because of, not knowing their schedules that we nominate them. So okay. We can work me into this, if everyone's comfortable with that. Just in okay. So let's Jonathan, we've got some comments.

Do we need to state or name the the second individual or at this particular meeting, or is this something that could be done after the fact or informally?

You

could change it. Yeah. You could just put it as an When is

the next meeting scheduled?

Well, the next meeting the next normal meeting is in October. However, I don't know if this is something that needs to be formalized right now or maybe you nominate yourself or okay. But you can pass the baton onto either committee member Wu or Huang or vice chair Wu.

Yeah. I see where you're going with that. I like the

I'm just putting it out there. I'm not saying that that's the right I'm just saying that it it I don't I'm not sure if that's an option.

Okay. When we're supposed to come back with something in October, so that's not ideal. And I don't know if it's a Brown Act violation if the two other committee members were to be asked if they had a, you know, genuine appetite to be on it. And I would assume that these the subcommittee meetings would probably be ideally in person with with some staff and during the week. And

I don't know. Good point. We should both we're looking at you and me right now. Our schedule is I've got some travel coming up, and I'm sure you're in and out as well. So

Yeah. I'm

We probably have to set up some or what I I can envision the subcommittee when we set up some sort of cadence of meetings so that we look at the October October meeting as a drop dead tape where something has to be. So maybe some sort of work plan would be the organizational subcommittee's first steps. So why don't we do this? Why don't we names the two of us in the in the motion? Why don't we accept the the, do you wanna one of you try to make a motion here that's simple but, gets what we want?

I move that we receive the budget format review presentation. And with the comments that we've made during that presentation and that the budget format review subcommittee will be consisting of, chair Schmidt and, vice mayor Moore. And then

the goal of getting a I think we should work in if there's a friendly amendment to that or modification that we're looking to have a report back from the subcommittee committee to have the next regular product staff all called. Accepted.

So with the report back in October?

Yeah. I think it's October 20. What is that date we can just

Twenty seventh. Twenty

October. If you want some flexibility in the people representing the on on the subcommittee? Like Or did you wanna put that in or just leave it

as Probably not. I'm thinking. It's just

Probably only

for issues already stated as well as we're just not aware of their schedules. I do say I I do know at least one of them has problems with meetings during the day.

Yeah. Yeah.

So let's not do the flexibility. We'll just simplify this and

May may I ask? So I I had been getting budget and finance help with the in meeting. At one point, it was a weekly and then kind of bi biweekly. And so is there some sort of vision for how often we would need to meet, you know, like, for an hour, hour and a half? Are you thinking every other week?

Think starting off maybe every other week, and then maybe as we get closer, because there's be a certain point where we're getting information from you. And then we have to take that information and actually see what we can apply. So it's gonna take a little bit longer. So I'd say at least starting every couple of weeks and then trying to see, how fast we can either move through things or not. But I think, like, the the first meeting will be setting some sort of schedule, some regular interval of, hey. We should be getting into. Here's our goal. Let's back into it on kind of what we need to have, and and maybe showing you a little more in-depth of where we already are. So versus screenshots is we'll be like, okay. See if you can I think we may be able to open up the pages, They go click in them and see what they think of ours?

Mhmm. So, like like, right now, I can say Wednesday afternoon. I know that I can I can do that? Council's on a Tuesday. We've got certain program Tuesday, Thursday for this time slot area. That that works. It's it's open. Or Friday, but that's not great for a lot of people. Yeah.

So do we have a second?

I have a second.

Okay. We've got a motion, so now we can discuss it some more. Yeah. So I think that's great. I do think the two of us will be actively participating in this subcommittee. So probably from my personal perspective, if we do pass this motion, it would be good to have an earlier organization meeting than a later one for a lot a variety of reasons, finding travel schedules, meeting dates, just organizational stuff. So the sooner we can do that, the better.

Like, this Wednesday?

Yep. I'm looking at the calendar. So

That's what it's happening.

I do have some commitment in the afternoon. But maybe we should vote. This is sort of organizational, so maybe we should can do this in a minute. But any other discussion on motion? Great. We're pretty clear what the motion is. So can we take a vote? All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. We have unanimous constitution of this ad hoc book committee. So while you and I are talking, we can the morning is great for me up until I can be flexible up until 04:00.

Okay. The reason I don't put Wednesday morning is when we have council meetings. It's you won't get anything.

I blame you before. Blame you. So My manager. When

Unless it's the alternate two.

Yeah. Those ones. So it's to me, it's, like, safe if you go, like you said, like, one to 02:30. Is that Okay.

So if that work for city staff, I think we should have somebody ideally more than you one of you probably. Okay. So let's do 01:30 if that works.

01:30? Or you wanna go one to

02:30? Yeah. One to 02:30. Sorry. That's fine.

And I can be the alternate in it in case anything happens.

Okay. Two of you. Excellent.

Do we need to Right. Stick with that? I move that council

member

committee member Mohan is the alternate to the ad hoc subcommittee.

I'll second it. So all in favor of that, unless we go and discuss that, which we don't. Is it

okay that, I mean, that we're doing that? It's not exactly technically on the agenda?

Well, it's part of the subcommittee. Subcommittee. We're creating. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Very good. Very good. But, like, we're not going through all the things in the subcommittee. Like, it's ad hoc. It's not gonna be so into Act, but you're maybe gonna involve the public. We don't know. All sorts of things. So so just to finish the thought on the meeting, the first meeting with them would be 01:30 maybe. If that works internally, you guys will send us a note to remind us super.

Do we watch him?

So That's always helpful. Okay.

Shall chair, should we vote on the alternate?

Sorry?

Shall should we vote

on the alternate?

Mhmm. Just to go. Okay. Sure. All in favor? I think we've got a motion. I seconded it. All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Unanimous as well. Great. We'll figure out what that means later. No. I'm joking. Sorry. I make too many jokes. So the agenda item for us, next two I think we covered all of this budget. It's amazing. Thought we did pretty well. Thanks for being efficient, everybody. Well, that brings us to the second agenda item and last item, which is the work plans, which Jonathan has put on the screen here. So you wanna say any brief words, Jonathan? Or

So we have one more regular meeting until the end of the year, and that's gonna occur on October 27. So we do have the first four items on our standard, which are approving the minutes, the two investment reports followed by the internal audit report, and we will follow it with the in, the investment policies for OPEB and pension trusts, and so we'll have another opportunity to to review that. And if there's it seems through this last year, there's been some conversation as to what's stated in there so we can have an opportunity to discuss that before modifying it and recommend making a recommendation to the city council. At that time, we will also, the the PUN group will be back to be poured out on how we're doing with the AgFER. So, by then, they would have completed their final fieldwork, and they would be in the in the process of compiling our AgFER.

And so they'll just kinda give you an update. And as you can see on the the following, column, we have another meeting, to to go over specifically that, and that's sometime at the November. And then lastly, we'll be back in October to discuss what we just finished chatting about is the the the budget format and have a recommendation go to council on with with with those changes.

Which is the October 27 meeting? Correct. Yeah. I see that as the last item on there, which I guess will go away from tentative to actual. Okay.

Any comments from the committee on the work plan? Okay. I am wondering if we should have a little discussion about the item of right now, the chair, as I understand it, from previous staff discussions, is attending council meetings when there's a a proposal or a recommendation to city council. It's been somewhat vague in my mind, but vice mayor had some great comments at the last meeting that that I attended that possibly because there's two city council members already on the council, ideally at the podium, we could rethink this in the sense that possibly the chair only needs to attend if there's a specific question that maybe a council member has that might require staff to get involved. So now ask them if there's a question.

But if one if there are no questions, then maybe that's an easy solution because both of you could be available for clarifying questions that somehow come up. A lot of times these are gonna be consent items even

I know. And I think at the last meeting, you just waited and waited till the very end, and it was a consent.

Sorry. I was happy to do that. You you might be better put into a subcommittee effort or something than but what what's what's everybody's thinking, including staff? I don't really know what the rule is. It's been sort of an informal rule, I think, that the mayor propagated. Or

That I'd probably defer to the two council members here and see what their their thoughts are on it.

Let

me I can recall some language was should or should that all?

Yes. I'll look in I'll yeah. And I can send a follow-up email, and we can make that clarifying so that if there is a if it's going on consent and there's nothing it's not contentious, that maybe we there's there's no need for the the chair to to attend. However, if it is a a a little more or if it's routine, maybe we would just defer to the the two city council members.

Most of our stuff is routine

other than possible. At at one time, we had said any commission member, and then I think it's it sort of morphed into chair. So if we leave it at that, then the two of us are there.

Right. So I throw it out because it's kind of part of the work plan. Another part of the work plan is, again, I'm gonna be out of town, the mayor, every other month in the current year, is meeting with the commission chairs. And so the vice chair was able to represent me the last day of meeting. I'm I'm hopeful I haven't asked him yet. Well, if he can come in with us at the end of the meeting. But I think maybe we should figure out putting that on this work plan somehow because there are commitments to the committee sometimes. I don't know. I'm just throwing it out as an idea, but it's behind the scenes, and these things can change.

I mean, we need

to put it Yeah. What what

what hope. Listing it up there that the chair will be attending or not attending if we I guess we're coming to the conclusion right now unless staff comes up with this wording or says that the chair shall attend. Right now, it's not he's not gonna attend.

So may I ask? Yes. So when I look at the all those items on there, some of them, you know, are gonna go to the council. So that could have a footnote?

Right. Something like that.

Okay. And then

We can also put more if we have some recommendation, but at least the ones we know that are going to counsel.

And that's really good information for the chair to know that that's Right. That that's on the horizon.

Okay. Vice chair even if he's gonna be called upon the

Yeah. So, actually, I mean, sometimes there's special meetings which might Right. For the council pop up. So, I mean, they could do a general footnote that said this is expected to go to the council, or I don't know how it'd be worded. This will be going to the council, but it would ideally, for scheduling if they knew exactly which council meeting tentatively, because this might change every month, because of

Yeah. My experience has been they don't usually know, although you guys have some behind the scenes control, which I need to talk to you about because I'm not gonna be around unlimited times in September. So

I have a vague recollection that you are able to assign a committee member to to attend in your stead.

Yeah. Which could be. But I for example, we have that charter recommendation, which I'd I'd like to be present to explain what I understand the committee to have said if if there's a question on that. That might be an example of one more, though, if it's a consent item. Sure.

It would be a consent item. But anyway, this is all good information I'm hearing from two of us that somehow work into our work schedule because it does ripple back and forth. Also, the meetings with the mayor and the other chairs, I think that's a a similar item because there's preparation that you have to decide which items that the committee's been working on that get discussed in the short period of time that a commission has in meeting. So that's all additional work items.

But for the commission meetings, if the chair is not available, doesn't the vice chair automatically

For the mayor meetings, you mean?

Yeah. For the mayor meetings.

Yeah. That's the way it's been working.

It should be somewhat similar for everything else. For the For the The council meeting as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Exactly. If there is an appetite for representation of the committee and the two council members aren't sufficient at the council meeting, then drop the chair first, then vice chair, and the last remaining fifth member if those two are not available. So city staff is easily you guys help us. What what what are your thoughts? Can we should we can we reduce this in some way that goes on our work plan in some way? Or

What I can do is I'll chat with Kirsten and see how we would be able to manage that. I think there has been some conversations around that. So if we can have things similar to a consent item, if it is routine or it can be pulled if there's any particular reason, make these these meetings a little more expeditious. Perfect. Okay. Unless anybody has a better idea. Sure.

Okay. And, also, they change over the years. I've been involved with these for, you know, couple decades. So every mayor changes those meetings, and councils have different views. So Alright.

I do have two things. Okay. One is I I brought in I I printed out the various midyear updates going back to 2014. And some years, they got they were huge. Like, actually, 2014 is probably the biggest compared to so some of these midyear reports are, they're showing different things, than other years.

And so, I would kind of like to see some sort of, I don't know. Like, what what what what are the elements that so moving forward, what are the elements that that the city council should be looking for in the the midyear reports? And, you know, why why was the twenty fourteen one so much longer than the rest of them? That there's they they kind of know what to look for because we're gonna lose some institutional knowledge as this, you know, the councils shuffle through and you have new people. So I don't I don't want to have this get so abbreviated that they're not getting useful information or or feel like they can't ask for more and those those types of things.

So I would like to hear of some kind of discussion about how things are selected for even the quarterly report, because there's there it's not the same as, like, the monthly report has the specific you need to provide the receipts, disbursements, and fund balances. I can check those boxes, and I know that those need to be there. For this for these quarterly and mid tier ones, it's it's your prerogative, right, for what goes in there?

I think it it varies. Right? So there's in in general, I think the the the objective should be about the same, right, to provide you an update to, by then, we would have completed our ACFR and so it provides you those updated fund balances. So that's usually one of the the key point and talking points around the fund balance. Top of that, there's also any major changes.

So whether there's a budget adjustment that needs to come. Usually, you'll see that in the first quarter because things are starting to settle. But the midyear, you'll kind of you're already in the flow of things. You're approaching two thirds of the of the the way through the the the fiscal year, so, you're kind of already starting your budget process. And so there's less things to to touch on, but maybe the this part of maybe I'm overextending our budget subcommittee, but maybe this could also be a touching point on how the we just the standard much touch must touch on points, like the the the fund balance update, any budget adjustments, and the current status of our budget at midyear.

Maybe just those three things, but maybe do we wanna expand or kind of dial back of some of the narrative that's in there? Because kind of similar to the the the quarterly reports, you keep adding things to it, but is anyone really reading it? And so maybe it comes to a point where we need to start kind of dialing back some of it and just kinda stick get straight to the point. What are we reading? What do you need to take out of it? And so we can probably find that that happy medium as part of that. That'd be great.

Especially since, like, the special projects got added on that so now that's, like, a number of attachments that are in there, and I don't know what it's gonna look like moving forward since we have the new special projects policy And then okay. So there was a, introduction on involving public, and I have not read through here, but there's a guidebook to try to get more people involved. And I would like, like, the public engagement to have some kind of discussion at some point where we to kind of think about how we can get more people out, and hopefully, this OpenGov change will, cover that. And then the last part was from this budgeting guide. They they have a suggestion about having, like, a budget, subcommittee, which is not a format subcommittee.

It's about having other people Yeah. Looking at what's actually in the budget, and we don't we don't really do that. And and we kind of started to look more line by line late too late in the process this go around. So I I don't have a solution to to it, but I would like, at some point, some kind of discussion about, if we wanna form some kind of public, or it could be counsel with members of the public who are really interested in the budget to talk about the actual numbers in there since we don't do that. So we could do that at some point.

Yep. This sounds like all items that maybe on the organizational, we can throw them all in and then sort of see where it goes as we have a conversation if that's what you're saying. Looks good. You guys have better note taking on this than I do right now. Uber. Alright. We are hereby adjourned. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.

Thank you.