City Council - Regular Meeting

I think it's, is it on now? There you go. Okay. We're going to start the work session. We want to welcome you. This is our first in a series of meetings we'll be having on our. We're actually a 28-year budget, so we're starting a year in advance based on the current legislation that was just passed. I don't think anyone I can speak, I think, for the council. Most people are not happy that we have to be here to talk about a budget a year in advance. This is not what we want to do. It's called property tax relief. I'm saying it's kind of service cuts. uh so i will turn it over to our city manager to introduce again this is just a start we will be having a lot more um we'll have surveys meetings for the community have input so turn it over to our city manager scott sanders all right mayor i want to make sure everyone can hear me okay

Sound good. Okay. Thank you. Yes. I want to start off thanking the council for making changes in our schedules to have this meeting. I know everybody has very busy summer schedules and we needed to set aside several of these meetings throughout the summer and fall. So thank you for being flexible in that regard. I also want to send a thank you to the staff that have helped to prepare this presentation for this morning. Understand that with the magnitude of the numbers and the need for the creativity to find opportunities for savings, It doesn't happen from one or two people. That's not just the city manager's office. That is very much your staff working within the departments and the department directors vetting those opportunities, analyzing the finances where our budget analysts step in to assist. obviously, legals involved with concerns about how things might change, and then also HR on how to handle staffing when it comes to cuts and things of that nature as well. So this is definitely a team effort. Today's discussion will focus on providing to you a starting list of the potential budget saving options. This is in no way a recommendation. This is the starting point that gives the council options to consider and then receive public input. I and Nick will be giving presentations in the public with the same information and as things change we will continuously update the public and yourselves with what those options are and if new ones come to light. Many of these options are cuts and increases to revenue that have been discussed in the past. And so not all of these are going to be new. In fact, many of them will be familiar to you. And yet there will be quite a few that are new. uh to you and i would hope that we're successful in continuing to add options as we get your input and as we hear input from the public which i'm i'm thrilled to see that that we have public here we're not yet at the stage where advocacy will come through you in a public meeting setting obviously you're communicating with the public and that's very appropriate. But we will set aside time for that advocacy to be in a public setting as we move through the process. But I appreciate that the more people that understand the challenges that we have, and um how impactful uh the options are if chosen i think it's good that that knowledge is shared broadly and i appreciate the challenge of of taking this to a higher level of transparency through the budget process so that's why we're here again this morning that kind of leads me to my first real point again is that we are still very early in the process for solving the fiscal year 28 general fund budget we're going to be focused today on the general fund operations we'll come back to you when it comes to capital changes that may be necessary and we'll come back to you with enterprise funds think about the sewer utility and some of the other utilities It's been very clear the input that I've received from council that you're just as concerned about what those utility fees and those changes year to year are in those costs to our residents. So we will bring back those as separate conversations. We have enough to bite off, if you will, with just the general fund this morning. And that'll be the focal point. It's also, as the mayor mentioned, the general fund is the one that was most impacted during this legislative cycle. I will not go back through all of that. The public can review that work session where Nick and I discussed the budget gap. And I think that's well known. From a high level to set the stage today, you're gonna see some numbers share, not a whole lot, but a few numbers. Understand that a reminder of our target, the budget gap is best case scenario. And we're again so early that interest rates may change. So our interest income will definitely change up or down, I don't know. But we're going to be able to get closer and closer to that target as we go through the process. As the budget gap narrows or as far as gets more refined and exact, we'll be able to come to better numbers over the next three months. However, we do know and as was presented, in a best case scenario, we need 12 million dollars to cover both fiscal years 28 and 29. That same number, $12 million, in the worst case scenario, solves only fiscal year 28, which is what we're required to do. But from the input from you and my recommendation, we do want to try to solve two years worth. So under the worst case scenario, we're looking at $17 million of needed savings to cover two years of budget. So that would be our goal over the next six months to try and achieve that. Ordinarily, we would start these conversations in the fall. But yes, we are here five months early because, again, we want that transparency. And the fact of the matter is every option that you hear discussed this morning has an impact on the public. But the goal you gave us was to minimize the impact on the public. So some of these are going to be indirect impacts that maybe the finance department, CMO, legal HR might be taking. But don't confuse that with that means it's no impact. Those are still impacts on our residents as well because we need an organization that is following best practices, that has opportunities for succession planning. And some of these cuts are going to remove levels of management. And that will remove those options and, quite frankly, remove the resources that would spend the time on improving the organization with new process. Those are often the positions that would spend their time doing that type of work. And so those details will be brought out and then I'll defer to Nick as we go through those. as nick explains each of those options i do want the council to focus on what those impacts are especially to the public don't get bogged down on what the number next to that item is there are likely staff a mix frankly of staff that may have there may be vacancies currently but some of these are going to have positions that are currently filled that would need to be cut for those items. We'll deal with those numbers and any questions you may have on those at a later time. This is more about is that an item and an impact to the public in a prioritized way that makes sense to put in the package at the end of the day. Feel free to ask any clarifying questions that come about with, again, the impacts of each of these. We have department representatives, some of which are in the room, and I think because of the public attendance, we have some of our staff next door here listening in that can step over if we have more detailed questions. But I'd ask, again, that those questions are focused on Is that the kind of impact and what does that mean for a delay of service or some kind of service level change? And again, there'll be plenty of opportunities yet ahead of us for public input and discussion among council about what the priorities are. What would be most helpful is making sure that at the end of this presentation, you understand what was presented. And if needed, and it's quite possible in a couple of these items, we might need to bring back a more detailed conversation. And that's perfectly fine. So ask the questions. Nick and I and staff will try and answer those immediately this morning, but it may be possible that we need to have time set aside for additional conversations, maybe lasered in on some of these options that you're going to see today. And then again, over the next three months, we'll have the public conversations and an opportunity for more input there. And then what you're going to see is that we have an opportunity for the public to do an exercise in solving the budget on their personal preferences and submit that through the online system. And that way you can have public input and I'll be explaining exactly how that's going to work. And I'm going to test this. Very good. And then lastly, I don't want to lose the... Another request that I also have is that if we've missed something that you've been thinking about that may be a potential savings at the end of the conversation, to be sure to bring that up. I'll remind you of that at the end of today's conversation. But that also goes for the public and our employees. I and Nick will be going and talking to the employees with this same presentation and the gap analysis so they understand why we got to this place to begin with. And we'll be talking to our employees more specifically about their thoughts on opportunities for savings as well, because they're the closest to these service levels and have the best knowledge of those. So I appreciate what input they'd be able to provide as well. All right, so this is where we're at today. I had the discussion this morning and then on June 29th or thereabouts, this solution exercise that I just mentioned will become available online. I hope to have a conversation as I do with all of you on a monthly basis prior to that date, so you'll be very familiar with what that exercise looks like. In the past, we've done surveys. This is a request to try and solve the budget with the same options you're going to hear today and any new ones that we come up with that will have more options than are necessary so there can be items that they decide not to choose to get to a solution and then hit submit. The exercise will let each submitter choose between the many cuts and the revenue increases because again Some of these may be some new fees that we're going to be looking at. And again, that target for the moment is going to be that $12 million. Because again, we know that minimally in the worst case scenario of the estimates, that solves fiscal year 28 at least. But hopefully what we'll find is that that also gets us down the path of solving fiscal year 29 as well. The list, as you're going to see today, exceeds 15 million. And again, we're still working on some additional items that may get added. So it seems like there's a good mix of opportunities to not go down the path of some of these items that was purposefully done. The submitters will be asked to provide a unique email address. We want to remove any duplicate submittals, and we think that's the best way to handle that. And we are also going to ask for what ward they live in or own a business in, own property in. We think that's pretty important to help with some of the ward council members to understand if possibly there's some differences. The submissions must fully balance the budget. So this is not an opportunity for an advocacy group to just say, don't cut these areas and try and hit submit. They need to go through the full process of solving the $12 million in some fashion from these items and then provide the information and hit submit. The math at the end of the day has to work. And this is the math that we've already provided as far as the gap analysis. And these are numbers that... to a degree, are the new rules that the state has established with growth and property taxes. And the reality is, and we can't be shy about acknowledging this, the city of Des Moines can no longer afford the assets and the level of service that we've been providing in the past. I need that to sink in because this has been a task that we've been on for about two months now, trying to work this in the back to get this presentation ready. But I need our public to understand the math has to work at the end of the day. And given what we have as available resources moving forward, something has to be cut and quite a few things have to be cut. So that's why we're here today. You'll see on the schedule in early July, we will have a public meeting. Again, Nick and I will present. And these same solutions will be presented to the public. And we will encourage the public at that meeting to go through the online presentation. And that's expected to be available to our public through the end of July. So they'll have a good month to process that. And then by early August, we'll bring back to you what those summary results are. so you understand what was submitted and what feedback you can get. We also have department leadership available at those public meetings, and I think that pretty much covers that. The idea here now, this is a new concept for us, that the elephant in the room is large, the target and the gap that needs to be resolved. So I think there's going to be, I have faith, let me say it that way, I have faith that there's going to be quite a few of these items you're going to hear this morning that will get a quick consensus that, yeah, that actually works pretty well. And it probably will not be enough to solve the entire budget gap. So what I'm asking for is to get formal approval to move forward with the items that have consensus In a discussion I will present on August 26, that's the target date at this point, if we need to move it we can, with a vote a few weeks later in September that says City Manager move forward with this package of consensus cuts and let's say that it solves 10 million of the 12 million that we've targeted. Great. We can know then in September we're down to a $2 million challenge to resolve over the following three or four months after that. And so October and November, if things go well, and we're going to remain nimble, if things go well, we'll be focused on just those last $2 or $3 million of cuts that will be direct impacts at that point, more than likely, and bring out more of the advocacy group. I covered quite a bit there. I think I am actually going to pause to ask if there's any questions about process before I turn it over to Nick with some of the details on each of these options that we're going to roll over.

So, Scott, and we've talked about this, when you do this survey, how are we doing? Like, are we doing parks against police? Are we doing libraries against parks? I mean, how, how are we, yes. Um, how do you have it? The strategy of that, um,

Yep. Unfortunately, we're going to go back to the basics where all options are available to look at the details of each potential cut or new revenue, and the submitters will be asked and shown that as they select items for potential cuts that they would accept, what their accumulated total of savings are and how close are they to 12 million. So it's very different than the survey that we did. This is a full exercise on solve the city's budget with these 25 or 30 items, whatever we end up with as options.

Well, I have a question on that. Because, I mean, I think you're limiting the input if it's only 25 or 30 items. I mean, the choices you present impact the kind of input that we will get. And if this is about service levels, there's potential to impact service levels beyond those 25 or 30. Absolutely. will people be able to prioritize, like for example, it might not be something identified, but they could say further service reduction in X area rather than cutting these items. Because last time we talked, I was hoping that this would be presented proportionate, you know, we'd see options that would impact each department kind of the same level, and then we could adjust from there. I was told that was not going to be the way this exercise was done. That's correct. And I think the public should at least have an opportunity to provide input in that manner rather than have a very constrained choice that will skew the input, because I think that that would make the public input It would not be valuable public input if we've already constrained their choices in a way that forces disproportionate cuts in some areas and not others.

Yeah, that was anticipated. But the best way to handle this is nobody's going to spend three hours trying to solve the city's budget with the line item aspect. So we needed to narrow options but have a relief valve. That is important. Or somebody could say, but I would rather you cut another three or four million in this department and let them identify what an additional cut would be. So I think that's the relief valve at this moment. And again, we're doing this early enough that if we get results in July that say we've got quarter or a third of the respondents that are taking that are identifying their own additional cuts then we need to go back as staff and resubmit the the exercise with those types and talk with you obviously uh to to change that but we had this again that like these options that exercise is the starting point i i do envision the need for a second opportunity for a revised survey i'm hopeful it comes after september 14th and it's back to just the last two or three million that we need resolved but let's let it play out and and you keep me honest in that regard because i took that feedback and this is the way we're going to handle that

I think it's also, too, we're not just doing surveys. We're going to be having public meetings where we'll get public input, too, and possibly do some of the exercises, I think, like we've done in past years. So it's not just going to be a survey. So I think there's going to be opportunity to get more than just the survey so that people that don't want to do a survey, we can get input.

Could you go back to the last slide? I've got a few questions. Sounds like Carl does, as well. so one of my questions you know you gave a range of how serious these options could be 12 to 17 million uh do you have a sense of when you can provide us with with more directional guidance on when it will look like i mean clearly it sounds like we're going to be at least under this process voting on a consensus package prior to knowing Are we targeting 12 or 17 million? But that may inform our discussion and maybe how we approach some of this. And September 14th is six months before we actually have to finalize a budget. When do you think we will start to be able to narrow in on that 12 to 17 million?

So we're continuously looking at all those variables. And I would tell you before that August 26th presentation that you'll have for that first package, you'll have an updated gap analysis at that point. And so, again, we're not going to target a consensus package that first vote in September that targets 17 million. That is just not likely in the cards to get consensus.

But you said 10 million.

Yes. Yes. And there's no harm in making 10 million if the best case scenario is 12. Right. And so that's my hope is that we get close to 10 million and we know that we've got even under the worst projections or the best projections, excuse me, even under the best projections, we're still going to need to make 12 million. Then let's let's see if we can't find consensus on 10 or more.

Go ahead and finish up, Scott. Related to that consensus package, one of the things that I'm most troubled with with how we did the budget in the last couple of years is there were staff who were laid off the day cuts were floated. And that didn't give the public an opportunity to weigh in. It, I think, creates an environment of fear I'm asking, we will not be laying people off based on perspective cuts until there is a vote from counsel? Is that how this process will work? Or is there a risk? And it's different if someone leaves and we hold a position open. That is different than... than the manager's office laying someone off, because that changes the conversation. The way it worked around sustainability is those folks were laid off, and part of the conversation is, well, we can't bring them back. This is just done. And I don't want to see that happen as part of this conversation. So can you make a commitment that any of the proposed cuts and layoffs will not happen until council votes on them?

No, that is not something that I can commit to. Understand if we find out that as this information becomes more and more public, there is already anxiety among the employees and that's understandable. right with the potential of of the cuts and if if there is a for instance strong consensus among uh among the council that an area uh does need to be cut or would be part of that package it's quite possible that i would implement that knowing only knowing that that the majority of the council is is approving of that but and that's the way the city has always operated sorry but

But let me push back a little because you just used two different words that mean two very, very different things. Consensus is agreement among all seven of us.

Correct.

Majority is four people. Correct. And that's very different. And from a transparency perspective, if there are four people who are saying something behind the scenes, but maybe saying something different publicly, it's a vote of counsel that lets the public know where things are at and who is actually approving or disapproving a cut. And you just said that if you have a strong sense that a majority, you might act unilaterally and implement the cuts just based on a majority with no vote. Is that how this process is going to work? I would not do that.

Let's just, okay, I think the one thing, too. That's exactly what he said, Mayor, and this is pretty important. Okay, I understand that, but I think the deal is once we have a consensus, if there's positions within a consensus, if there's consensus that we believe certain areas is a, I guess, are you saying it's a prerogative that you might, Yes. Eliminate some positions or make some changes or do some things differently.

Well, I get that, but you're representing this as consensus. And does that mean, so if I have not said I agree to it, can there be consensus? No. Okay. And it will only be consensus where all seven of us?

That's the intent. Or anything that precedes that date. And that is not different than how the city operates. That's where I am the manager and I need to be able to operate whether staff are removed or changes.

But we are entering a budget where all of these staff positions are approved through July 1 of next year.

so you don't need to make any of these changes based on the budget that the council has passed right so i think this is the point mayor where we may need to come back to some of this i think we can readdress on what the okay when we're looking at these kind of magnitudes of cuts and if there is a suggestion we can bring it forward and they'll bring forward the positions and what the budget we might have to i guess you're saying you're looking at the budget now how it's going to impact going forward. And I think those are discussions we can have once we determine the number and where we're going with further discussion on it.

And just to try and clarify further, this is exactly why I need the council focused on the impact to the public. If that is a service level, you have a consensus where you're all telling me, yeah, that's going to have to be part of the package. then it is possible that that would be implemented immediately when I know that that is the case. That's no different than day-to-day operations.

I mean, like I said, if it's truly consensus, that doesn't bother me. Great, then I think we're okay, Mayor.

I think we're fine. But please move forward on focusing on the impact, not trying to manage the individual hirings and firings. That's my job.

I'm not concerned about the individual hirings and firings. Right. What I'm concerned about is the individual hirings and firings leading to the outcome of this decision, right? Using the individual hirings and firings to circumvent public input and to avoid... That will not be done. Right. So the way, for example, we will not have another example of the way the sustainability office was cut. That's your commitment. That will not be done.

Because that was not a consensus at the time. Yes.

Okay. Councilman Buss. Thank you. We've talked about cuts here. Are there, what part of the discussion will be increased in fees? We'll get into that. So it's cuts and increasing possible fees, whether it's for a garage permit or to rent a shelter or whatever.

Yep. And when it comes to the fees, you'll hear from Nick and possibly the department directors, there's a mix of increasing existing fees. which we do on a regular basis already, but a conscious, complete review, comprehensive review of those. And then separately, you'll see itemized where there are any brand new fees for the first time. We want to focus more on those, frankly, of, okay, for the first time, we're going to charge for this or that. So there's a couple examples of that.

And one thing to take in consideration too is when we look at fees, you can't generate revenue off of the fees. So there has to be an analysis of what is the cost to provide that service. And so the amount that we charge for that fee can't be above what the actual cost is. And so we can't go all the way up to that number. So there is always going to be a subsidy for any service that charges for a fee. It's kind of a delicate process of trying to go through, and we work with legal to make sure that we're always in point with that.

I would add one more comment that when we talk about new revenues or additional revenues, we need to do well at distinguishing fees versus fines because the difference there is that the fines have municipal code limitations, not a cost limitation associated with them.

Scott, how are we going to address, because we've already had a study done, and it's already been stated that we need another fire station on the south side for response times. Now, that's a capital improvement. I understand that. But that's also staffing that we will need to address.

take into consideration is that now completely off the table now that we've got to make these cuts or no thank you but you're getting ahead of us there is a slide dedicated to that discussion okay that i will handle at the very end okay very end thank you for bringing me if no one has let's keep going let's see the slides there we go thank you answer some of the questions going forward

So some of the topics that we're going to be talking about today are the administrative or departmental support services, so think of that kind of more on the back of house type of stuff, or the ones that don't have direct relation to a specific service. It does affect the service, but it's not easily equated. on that part of it. We also have what we deem non-departmental on here as well. Those are things that aren't necessarily operational by particular departments. We have a couple of topics there. And then we have the public facing services, those departments that we have individual slides for, for each one of those based off of what was asked of this exercise to the departments. So this just kind of gives you what slides are going into detail as we move forward. So as we look at this administrative and departmental services, it's kind of broken out into three kind of categories, of which we have the changes within the administrative departments impacting the resource capacity to serve all of the public facing departments. So those are those departments like city clerk, city manager, legal, finance, IT, HR, those that are servicing the other departments. That's kind of changes that are within that where you've got that back of house alterations that we have. The public facing department changes that will not directly impact those services. There are a few items that were brought up by the departments that aren't directly related to a service, but since it's not that directly related aspect, so it might be a deputy director that was included in the department's idea, that, for instance, would be in that kind of category. And as Scott alluded to earlier, comprehensive review of fees and current revenues. So from that perspective, when we kind of do this, we didn't want to get into the detail of this because, again, this is not the service levels that directly align with a service from a department in that. Review that we work through it was north of six million in that between different vacant positions Like I've got a couple of vacant positions that I've been holding To try and determine what how best to serve that has minimal direct impact on that So that's an example of those type of things so off the top there it's six point four million on on those related items and The non-departmental changes, these are ones that are currently funded out of local option sales tax. So this is just the total amount that we currently allocate to the flood prevention property buyouts, those that are in floodplains. That today is currently allocated $400,000 annually out of local option that carries a balance every year to be able to do that. We have, I believe, just a little over 200 homes that are still AFFECTED IN THAT, BUT THEY ONLY ARE BROUGHT UP WHEN WE HAVE THE CHANCE TO DO THAT. SO THAT IS CURRENTLY ONE OF THOSE ITEMS THAT WE HAVE IN THE NON-DEPARTMENTAL AREA. ANOTHER ONE IS SOBERING CENTER. WE FUND 600,000 FROM LOCAL OPTIONS, SO THAT'S ONE WHERE DEPENDING ON IF WE KEEP THAT AT 100% OR CHANGE THE AMOUNT THAT WE ALLOCATE TOWARDS THAT IS ANOTHER ITEM FOR DISCUSSION.

What's the total cost for the sobering center that the county... That's half.

And so we share that 50-50 operationally with the county. The county took care of the capital in the building up and going. It is an agreement with Broadlawns and St. Vincent DePaul. Right.

Was our commitment... But didn't we have more of a long-term commitment with that to continue to fund the operation department once they did the capital improvement?

So there was an evergreen agreement that just stays in place with a notice if there's a desire to remove. And I'll find that before we're done here.

Just the point of this is an example of where we're not the only ones that use it. I mean, other communities are using it, whether it be some of our other suburban friends, whoever's Polk County, but nobody else contributes.

Yeah, that was my next question. So is it just us and Polk County that contribute to this sobering center?

And either party can give a 90-day notice that we're no longer able to fund. So the impact there is not only on the public, but our relationship with the county. Absolutely.

When we look at the Sovereign Center dollars, could we get an update or report as to how successful it is? What, you know, where are the people coming from? Are we, you know, if they're coming from all over the area, but we're left with the burden, I would like to see how effective it is. And is that a good use of our taxpayer dollars?

Great. And so I have a report that I can share with you and post that for the public. But think about 30 to 40 a month are served. So, yeah.

Only Des Moines residents?

No. I will have to get the information from where they come. But that's the total headcount that's utilizing that.

That's only like one a day or one and a half persons a day. Yes.

I think it's a combination probably with the mental health too. But I think, yeah, if we could get the report on that so we can determine.

Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry. I want to correct the record here real quickly. That number was arriving from law enforcement. So those are the ones that may be a good mix. The total is just over 100 to 120. Okay. So it's more like 400.

So instead of going to jail, we're taking them there to get them the help that they need.

And there may be some other jurisdictions will check on those numbers for you.

People are walking in. Families are taking people there once they know there's an issue.

So just since there's a request for that report. I just want to highlight and note that it's a very commonly heard concern of the folks in Ward 1. A, that that's there, and they didn't ask for it to be there along with many other services serving folks in need, but folks in need not from that neighborhood. Right. and and but most importantly if you're going to send us this report i think the first thing i'm going to be looking for is what the processes are and how successful they are in getting people back home to wherever they call home and not leaving them to be transient in des moines because that is more than anything else the concern that i hear most often about the sobering center is okay great Ankeny drives somebody down there, they drop them off, and then they leave and they might be just walking through the neighborhood. I don't think that's a good outcome for the individual and it's certainly not a good outcome for the neighborhood.

Yes. And the history there is that was never the intent. There was a commitment that as they depart that facility, they were supposed to be given transportation to their home. i think what what you're expressing is what we found is some are slipping through the cracks when they don't have a home address and where are they going and when they depart so we can absolutely get that detail for you appreciate it thank you what is before we leave that part this one should be quick what is the

Is there a fund balance right now in the flood prevention property buyouts? What is that?

I want to say at the end of 2025, which was the last completed of the year, I believe it was a balance of 400, so almost two years worth was within the budget for 2026, but I'd have to get you the information of how much we spent so far in this fiscal year. We technically have two more weeks within that.

And there are some that are in process right now, so we can complete those that are in process and maybe one additional property thereafter with the balance, but that would be probably the end of it.

in the buyout is only if there's someone who will voluntarily absolutely and there is not necessarily any requirement that we buy those properties out we just know that it is a problem for those residents and that they are likely exposed to significant additional flood risk in the future correct and not 100 but probably 95 of those property owners have already been notified

uh and asked if they wanted to participate and rejected that at the moment that's what i was going to say over time you know somebody changes their mind or new ownership those are the ones that trigger this fund right but new ownership buying in a floodplain that doesn't seem like a good good use of taxpayer dollars like i mean property owners buy those properties and a couple years later realize what they've done

right like that that does not seem like if this flood buyout has existed anything they have the right to still sell those properties that is still they absolutely have a right but but should the city come in and be the backstop for someone making a bad decision on on buying a home in a flood plain that seems like actually providing the wrong incentive rather than solving a problem.

The incentive is there for the existing owners in the next one, and it's done by assessed value. They cannot inflate the value of the property to get taxpayer money. It's based on the county's rights.

But yeah, we've seen a slowdown of people wanting because we've you know, we had the floods like in 2018. So I would assume we've had a slowdown because you've either wanted to sell it or you don't because I know I walk the neighborhoods and people are pretty adamant I don't want to sell. So The city council. Lowering this amount would not be difficult. I think.

Correct. And the city was very quick to move after the June 30, 2018. I think we all remember that we're here. It was a matter of days that our staff were out there talking about the FEMA funding was going to be two or three years later. That was not acceptable to you nor I. And we got a program put together quickly and handled over $11 million of property within four to five months. That's unheard of across the country, by the way.

And I commend you for that, Scott, because you did act very quickly. Under your guidance. And we responded very well. So thank you.

So this looks like an area that can be. So, okay.

The next one we have here is community impact and relations. So this looks at the possibility of eliminating duplicate services offered by the state, the civil right intake processing and enforcement. So that service is one where it would be looking at where we are doing additional work that also the state of Iowa offers as well.

Do we know the funding level and how the state of Iowa is doing on providing that service?

No, but we can sure check on that as well. That's a good question.

And in terms of impact, remind me, how much of the community impact and relations budget would that be? About three quarters.

Yeah.

Maybe two-thirds, 65 to 70.

And this is just for clarity, we're talking about no longer doing investigations in our constituents.

Yes, bring concern for that number. Yes.

And that there is and has been an option for individuals to take those concerns to the state, but we have felt that the city of Des Moines was better positioned to handle concerns brought to us.

The new change legislatively also now requires that if we don't have a case resolved after one year, that it does get transferred up to the state. So they've indicated they expect to get more of those cases up at the state.

And I think it's an open question. I think there's two things to weigh for my colleagues and I to weigh and for the community to weigh on this is whether we trust the state of Iowa to be the best position to serve. And this may not be a luxury that we have, but whether we trust them to serve our constituents better than we trust our staff, and whether our constituents trust going to this state government over going to our city of Des Moines staff as well.

And I think that's the right approach, Councilman, with one exception is I would tell you I think we could provide services that the state does better here in Des Moines. In a lot of cases, it's what can we afford and where are the duplications.

I APPRECIATE THAT.

GOING INTO DEVELOPMENT SERVICES, ONE OF THEIR ITEMS IS SLOWERING A SITE PLAN REVIEW CURRENTLY. THEY HAVE A TIMELINE OF TRYING TO GET IT COMPLETED WITHIN THREE WEEKS. THIS POSSIBLE CHANGE TO SERVICE LEVELS WOULD BE SLOWING THAT DOWN TO MORE CLOSER TO A THREE TO FOUR WEEK GIVEN. given their anticipation of staffing and approach with that.

And that's with the same volume we're doing today? Or if our volume decreases, does it stay? That's a great point.

My understanding is that's under the current workflow. So, yes, if development slows down, then the response time might be the same, actually. Okay. But I hope that's not the case. Correct. We have gotten creative on how to handle additional economic development. We'll continue to do so. Yeah, go right ahead, Cody. This is a good opportunity.

Mayor and members of council, I'm Cody Christensen, Development Services Director. This analysis does show a decrease in site plan review turnaround times, which is representative of our overall permit review processes. They will slow down. And even with an expected decline in the number of permits coming in, the decline in number of site plans being submitted, the staffing impacts will slow down that service.

How many staff are we talking about that would make that impact? How many people are we talking about eliminating to make that type of impact? Even if, you know, we lost some development, what are we talking about, the 205,000?

How many people? So for the reviews we're talking about on this slide, we went from seven staff to five. Okay. And that's what we're talking about here. Okay. A reduction in two.

Two. Okay. Which one?

We've done a number of other shifting around. So as we've lost staff, we've reassigned tasks. All in all, what happens is the workload is absorbed by everybody. So it's hard to pinpoint one specific item that is impacted. Everything slows down. The special projects, the additional planning work, the additional calls that we get for preliminary discussions to help designers. All of that stuff takes longer to do because it's spread across the smaller population.

The next item is one of those discussions of a new permit, a new revenue source. That is a proposed re-roofing permit provided to help provide customer protection, ensuring that work is performed in accordance with the building codes and manufacturer requirements. It's kind of intended to recover the administrative and inspections costs associated with those re-roofing. One thing to know is like during like with a storm event, usually what ends up happening is we get contacted a lot by insurance companies to see what that permit fee is. And we don't have one currently. So it's one where I think others have that. Other communities have that type of a revenue, whereas we do not.

And quite possibly insurances would cover that.

one of the i mean this also maybe seems like an opportunity to maybe meet another policy goal um you know in our climate action and adaptation plan there is a resiliency component and i know with roofing um there are more weather resistant shingles those come at a premium but one of the things The premium cost of those, at least in a number of cases, you will get a lower insurance. It will lower your insurance premium, and the payback can be as quick as two or three years. And there maybe is an opportunity to help educate the public. about that if we're requiring something different and that may actually avoid impact and help them lower their insurance fees while meeting a piece of our adaptation goals.

I'm not sure any property casualty insurance is being lowered in this day and age. I'd love to see examples of that. It is outrageous and hard to get right now with insurance, but I would love to see some examples of where they're going to give you a less rate for a different roof. I've never heard of that, but that's an interesting concept. I would like for you to produce some of that information for all of us to understand. That would be great. Absolutely. That'd be awesome. Because I've never heard of that.

Casualty insurances. Rue the roof. I will tell you, I got my insurance premium lowered 700. dollars by but by doing by doing that, you had to get certification of the installation, you had to get certification. But there are products out there. And most people don't know about it, which is which is why which is why I raised it because I figured most people hadn't heard about it.

Well, then let's provide it to everybody.

We can put that in our plan.

Really? Okay, let's keep going. And you have your mic on Did you have a question? no okay uh engineering uh so we have a couple of different items here within engineering uh reduced capital improvement project design uh coordination and delivery so this is kind of as it relates to capital our capital improvement program as we look at this this is just the general fund aspect of of the of that cost As it relates to that, impacts would include delays in project planning and design, extending timelines for preparing plans and specifications, reducing the capacity to coordinate with utilities, the contractors, consultants, and developers. as well as the project documentation, maintaining records, and processing correspondence with scheduling meetings and supporting contract administration services as well. So this is that particular one. THE INSPECTION SERVICES CAPACITY FOR THE PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS, THAT'S THE PROVIDING ON-SITE INSPECTION AND TESTING SERVICES FOR PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS AND PRIVATE CONSTRUCTIONS OCCURRING WITHIN THE PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAYS MAY RESULT IN REDUCED INSPECTION COVERAGES, DELAYED RESPONSE TO CONSTRUCTION ISSUES AND CAPACITY TO IDENTIFY AND ADDRESS DEFICIENCIES BEFORE PROJECT COMPLETION. and may also impact the responses to citizen concerns and enforcement of compliance with approved plan specifications construction standards. From the third bullet, the reduced demolition project coordination and administration, those are the timing of completing the capacity to coordinate and administer demolition projects.

That goes back to the blitz on blight, have we shifted more to ion-type programs?

Yep, as well as some of the flood buyout correlation as well. The fourth one there, the engineering records and mapping services, that's reducing the capacity to prepare and maintain engineering drawings, maps, plats, infrastructure records used to support property transactions, right-of-way activities, and capital projects. So delays in updating the records, fulfilling requests are kind of those, that piece of it. Reduced traffic and AND PARKING OPERATION AND PARKING OPERATION COORDINATION, THOSE ITEMS COORDINATION, THOSE ITEMS COORDINATION, THOSE ITEMS WOULD BE AFFECTING THE WOULD BE AFFECTING THE WOULD BE AFFECTING THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE PARKING AND ADMINISTRATOR OF THE PARKING AND ADMINISTRATOR OF THE PARKING AND TRAFFIC AND SKYWALK RELATED TRAFFIC AND SKYWALK RELATED TRAFFIC AND SKYWALK RELATED OPERATIONS. OPERATIONS. OPERATIONS. IMPACTING MAY INCLUDE SLOWER IMPACTING MAY INCLUDE SLOWER IMPACTING MAY INCLUDE SLOWER RESPONSE TO CITIZEN CONCERNS RESPONSE TO CITIZEN CONCERNS RESPONSE TO CITIZEN CONCERNS The last item there is a couple of different new engineering fees that could come into play. That would be underground and utility construction, sidewalk, parking lane, bike lane obstructions, stormwater management review, and floodplain permit review as well. So those are some items that we don't currently charge for today that would be a new fee that could possibly be in place.

For number four, reduce engineering records and mapping services. What kind of a delay would we see? Would that be like if we shut down a sewer, you know, we've capped it and And is it going to take a year for it to be recorded? Or what kind of an impact? Just some idea.

I need Steve to help us with this, if we could just a little.

It would just be a delay.

That was my understanding. Yeah, no, it would still continue, just a slower pace.

It just would be slower.

Because you would have less people.

What's our timeline now?

Yeah, if you would, Steve. And just as a reminder, our engineering staff are split on how those costs are accounted for in the general fund versus capital funds. So some of these smaller numbers are associated with staff that might have savings in the capital budgets as well.

Yeah. Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council, Steve Nabors, City Engineer. So we would be, when we finish projects or even when, say, new developments come in, we enter that information into our geographic information system. And that's how we know our public works teams know where to find utilities and sewers and mark them and whatnot. And so, yeah, essentially this would just be... not being as efficient in getting this work done in a timely manner, I guess.

Would it take a year? Would it take less than that?

It's hard to really, I mean, we'd be, yeah, it's hard to really predict on what it would be. It kind of depends on how much, you know, comes in and changes. We can monitor that moving forward so that you understand.

And then the engineering piece, like, do we charge a permit if I'm going to put in a new sidewalk?

So we do, uh, quite frankly, this is actually really mostly looking at updating the fees. Uh, right now, for example, it's, it's like $50 to close the lane out here. And so there's really, in my opinion, no incentive to hurry up. And, and so this would be updating those fees. And so maybe the, when Nick mentioned the obstruction fees, bringing them more up to date to, uh, Maybe also making them more in line with what other cities charge and maybe not even that much, but at least provide some incentive to move.

One of the other fees you mentioned was underground utilities. Are we not I know that we've had Metronut come through one year. Now we've had Google Fiber. Are we not charging them to go through all of our yards and tear them all up and then try to – I don't know what Google Fiber has tried to do with their – I don't even know what they put down in the grass. And they didn't explain to everyone you probably need to take up that wire. you can't mow over it and we've allowed this to happen. So I guess my question is, are we charging them? I don't think we allowed.

They are. But again, this is up updating the fees. It's like they have an admin fee. That's like $20 initially. And so we'd be increasing the base fee to, so it's bringing it more up to current date.

That was the question I had. What, because of all the terror and destruction and you having to have somebody really primarily just babysit to make sure they get things corrected. What can we charge? So the same, same thing with McKinley.

We just finished that stretch and now they're going through and putting Google fiber through there and tearing it all up. So, I mean, there's no way to. Yeah, Jeff.

I'm happy to share with council, uh, HELP EVERYBODY REMEMBER, COUNCIL ACTUALLY HAD AN ORDINANCE IN PLACE THAT WOULD HAVE DONE EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT AND THE LEGISLATURE PREEMPTED US AND WE'RE NO LONGER ALLOWED TO RECOVER ALL OF THOSE COSTS. IT'S ONLY THE ABSOLUTE DIRECT RELATED COSTS AND HAS TO BE AS AN UPFRONT PERMIT. and it has to be basically uniform. So exactly what you were talking about is what council had done, and we've been preempted on that.

But you're saying we can increase it, though. The right-of-way permit fees, not necessarily the licensing for them to have the right.

No, but the right-of-way permit fees are going into everyone's yard, and they're ripping everything up. We need to.

seriously look at that babysitting fees i mean it's exactly what it is yeah no yeah how many times have i called you and said you know they've torn up this year and you have to send some so can you recoup those costs so we we are looking to ask him to increase those however uh part of this also as as nick talked about is a reduction in response the permit inspection staff as well so that would contrary okay slow the service. It's been unfortunately a, so I obviously mixed feelings. I'm a Des Moines resident and I was happy to have competition. I know we are and help offset the cost for some of the internet and stuff. But yeah, it has been a perfect storm of first we had one company come in and And then it was like a year, you know, not even a year later, this other company is like, yeah, we're following them. And it's like, so it's just like, why don't we kick us? Well, and then, then, then even more companies have come and done initiatives.

So it's been a, so how many companies are there, the potential to do this? So there's really been service. Could they work together?

There's, I mean, there's, there's, there's like 55 people, companies with licenses, but really there's been about. four that have been doing these massive citywide projects that have been obviously causing a challenge. And we, we coordinate with them, we review them and they give us their drawings and we say, well, you're going to have to work with us on some of our projects, but we have no way to control if they're going to come in like a year after the project and we don't know it. And there is, if someone, there's no way I've ever heard to figure out They can't share facilities or private companies because it's a there's no way anyone to be able to figure out the liability And if someone cuts the fiber who's responsible to go out there and figure it fix it They have different methods of splicing and connecting to the houses And so there's not a way to so I mean I know people say well Why don't you just make them go the same spot that it trust me? I've been trying this for 25 years There's not a there's not a if someone can figure out the legal matters of that They they'd probably be that's kind of this is a federal issue, too Yeah, there's a whole bunch of, yeah, so.

Okay. We have a couple questions.

While you're up, it's different, so if folks have follow-up on that, but I have a, on one of these pieces. So, Steve, we've talked separately. I don't know if this is in the reduced traffic and parking operations coordination, but the traffic signals and some of that is capital side, but we know that there is You know, the engineering already has 20 or 30 signals identified as maybe not being needed. And there's one in operation savings if we get rid of those signals. Like if we got rid of 30 signals, that's $5,000 to $10,000 annually in operations. And plus, we could get rid of... If we had 10% fewer traffic signals in the city, we might need one or a half... fewer traffic signal engineers, right? Is that reflected in here or is that separate?

So it is not. To be honest, if you look at typical staffing numbers across the city, we have about half the number of staff signal maintenance technicians that would be needed for the number of signals we have. So you're correct. It is absolutely in our interest to get rid of traffic signals due to that reason. And we actually have been. We've been declining. We're getting rid of two this year. We got rid of a couple just right over here down the street from us. And Quite frankly, in my opinion, no one even notices. And so we are trying to get rid of signals that's absolutely in our interest from a cost, maintenance, and even an environmental standpoint. They're a waste when we're just... I mean, let's call one out. The one we're getting rid of is at East 4th and East Locust. It's a waste to have vehicles just sit there and burn when nobody's there. So it serves a lot of reasons, as you know. Right.

So those 20 to 30 signals that... staff have already identified as likely not necessary. I know you guys had a pretty big process to go through before we could do that. And then there's the demolition cost on the capital side. But is there a way that we could maybe streamline the 20 or 30 that are in the pipeline and maybe not have to spend the amount of money that you were talking about so that we could realize, because that's, $5,000 to $10,000 in operational savings, that'd be the equivalent of one of these line items if you got rid of 30 signals.

So Steve, can we bring that back as a capital item? Because that's where the cost would be incurred. And so that way we can tell you that for $80,000 demolition cost on the capital side, yes, we can save $5,000 or $6,000 on operations and put those numbers together.

And part of what, I mean, and he, I know he has those numbers because, I mean, the estimate was, I think, 25 grand a signal to take it out on the capital side. But a big part of that was that we did a study for each and every one of those. And that was like half the cost. And also why we couldn't move as quickly. And my question is, maybe in this one-time sort of big push, is there a way that we could do that more efficiently or do less of a study? and accomplish that. And I know anytime you ask engineers not to do every single step, like you run into challenges, but.

Well, I think you run into also neighborhoods that maybe still want, I mean, so you're going through that process too. Right. To analyze, I mean, really the traffic patterns and if they've already identified them, I think that's something we can bring back.

So, yeah, I mean, we can certainly bring them back to share the numbers. Obviously, you're asking the wrong person of I'm always going to want to know the repercussions of doing something. And so we want to make sure from a safety and operational standpoint that if we take out a signal, what are the repercussions? And so, for example, on the East 4th and East Locust, right, we're taking out the signal. but it's in coordination with another project to add the curb extensions, which also allow me to put always stop signs out further so they're more visible and make sure that the change is a safer situation than what it is. And I know nobody's saying make something less safer, but the reason for the study is to understand what are the repercussions and how the intersection will function. And quite frankly, our approach is, yeah, we are, I don't even know if we've, added a signal in my you know, career city engineers. So we're absolutely reducing them. So, huh? Southeast connector, maybe.

Yeah. And there are opportunities. I mean, I think high street had three or four signals and I don't know that you need four separate studies for, for a street with, with four of those. And maybe there are opportunities to, to get three or four signals in a batch so that there's some efficiency rather than each of them being one off at the full cost.

Well, they'll bring it back.

All right.

Any more engineering?

I'm going to say Voss has the mic.

I'm here. Um, so if, if there are fees that we need to catch up on that are lower than our suburban members, do we, do we have to wait until the budget process is done before we increase those? Could we do that sooner rather than later?

So maybe, maybe you're not going to like the saying, I mean, So there was this discussion earlier about waiting till July. I mean, and quite frankly, I'm down a couple of people and the people who would do that work. So, um, I'd like to make, trust me, I'm not happy about any of this to say the least, but I would like to make some shuffling sooner than later because the people who will be doing those fees, they're down to people right now. And so if we make some things happen, um, sooner then i could shuffle people and move people in different positions to try and work on that sooner uh but as of right now um i i don't again i'm down right now we we've and you've made this way but we i have vacancies that are frozen. So unfortunately it's just due to bad luck of one of my employees got cancer and had to step away. And, and, and so now that position is vacant. And so I get, it doesn't make sense to hire people when we're going through this. So, so I don't know if it's not the answer you want to hear, but I, yeah, I'm down to people that would be working on those fees.

So in broad strokes, not just in engineering, but in other departments, if there's a chance to,

catch up on some fees could we do that sooner rather than later yep so part of the numbers that we talked about on that first slide on some of the existing revenues that we were talking about uh had like ems revenues that was at the june 8th the last meeting that was already a part of that so as we built this up uh that did take into consideration that we are looking at those revenues, those existing ones, and some of the departments are further along than others and have actually brought those up since we started this process. Thank you, Steve. Moving to fire, fire department, this has two related items. One again is one of those eliminating duplicative services offered by the state for arson investigation. That is one where the THE CITY'S ABILITY TO QUICKLY DETERMINE THE FIRE CAUSE, INVESTIGATE ARTIONS AND IDENTIFY EMERGING SAFETY RISKS WOULD SHIFT MORE RESPONSIBILITY TO THE STATE AND OUTSIDE AGENCIES. IT WOULD INCREASE RESPONSE DELAYS, REDUCE INVESTIGATION EFFECTIVENESS AND WEAKEN LONG-TERM FIRE PREVENTION EFFORTS. The other item on there is hiring only a certified training class. That relates to the additional costs for consulting and professional services mostly through like a paramedic or EMT training of new recruits. So if we hire a certified class only, that would allow us to avoid those costs.

Is that going to be every class? No. Okay.

But more often than we have done in the past. We've only done it once every two to three years, and this would be much more frequent then.

Because I know we're trying to go to the schools and we're trying to encourage, you know. For the profession itself, yes. Right. And so that really doesn't give, you know, them an opportunity if we're just going to hire certified. It's not just.

It's not just, but it would be more often than we do today. Yeah.

You'll give us a little bit more specifics on that.

On the rotation and yes.

Like, okay, we're going to do one year and then we're going to take a year off and do another list. And then is that how this was laid out or is this just.

Yeah, but I think there would be more of these than the traditional full year of training. okay due to the savings i think you would see more of this the certified pre-certified classes okay we'll get you the exact mix and what that rotation would look like that would be helpful and we may need to give flexibility to the chief to work through that if it's sure every other or maybe two of these and then a traditional and two of these because these don't won't take as long either right no i understand and this is this is for one year or two years

On the certified only class.

Annual savings.

That's an annual for one. That's an annual savings. And so the downside is that if we're hiring probably more experienced firefighters from other communities, then we're not necessarily building up our ranks from within the city of Des Moines. Hiring our own. Oh, yes.

Hiring from within our citizen. So there's not a requirement.

Understood. Yeah. Again, just like with community impact and relations. Sure. Making sure that the cost benefit of some of these things that's not necessarily a dollar and cents cost benefit, but just an understanding of.

Yeah, I think the question you're getting at that we'll provide when we bring back the mix is how many of our employees are Des Moines residents? Is that what would be helpful?

Yeah, I am. I would like to know maybe overall, and I'd also know maybe for the last several classes, how many... that we hired that were Des Moines residents? Yep, we can find that out. And I think also, because you've done certified-only classes, so I'd be curious how those would compare to the other classes in terms of hiring folks from... You might be surprised. I mean, I'm going to be surprised no matter what, Scott, because I don't know the answer to the question.

Sounds good. Do they have a shorter probation time once they get out onto the street, or do they still have to?

That one I'm going to defer to our officer, one of our assistant chiefs.

Good morning, Marion Council. I'm Brian Davis. I'm Assistant Fire Chief, currently Acting Chief and Chief Lund's absence. So really the benefit of where the certified classes is actually they get to the streets sooner so they can do that in-station training. So the... dollar figure represented there is what we paid at DMACC for those EMT basic and paramedic programs which are the majority of the time used during a year-long drill school to get them certified. Some additions to this are is we've worked very hard of working with the youth in the area going to career fairs and you know welcoming them in with the different types of programs and events to talk to them about how you become a firefighter and and educational ways of doing that so a lot of the schools even in high school offer the EMT portion of it now and which transitions into a paramedic program and also to remind you that our hiring age is 21 so so that gives them a career like a educational path and and and so we're actually helping people be successful we do hire I don't have the numbers, obviously, but a lot of our certified people we hire, and once again, we're calling somebody certified if they have that paramedic. It's the fire training that we provide to them. There are a lot of Des Moines residents that have the paramedic training, and our certified classes do reflect that. Maybe they work in a different community and they live in Des Moines.

So a young person could get certified, ready to go, not necessarily be a firefighter from somewhere else, but they have the proper certification they could apply to. Correct. Because that training's already been taken care of.

Correct. And I believe you can take the state EMT exam at, I think you have to be 18, but you can take the program at 16 or 17. And so we see a lot of, so we have a lot of student riders that ride on our ambulances and we see a lot of high school students that are those student riders. So it also gets them to our stations and they get to see how cool of a job it is and we kind of reel them in. And so the local community colleges have very good programs that provide a lot of the training that we provide once we hire them. So we're just trying to capitalize on that a little bit. A little bit of change over the years. Those programs really didn't have the energy that they have now, and they are actually providing a large pool of applicants. Thought this was a good way to capitalize on that, as well as get firefighters in the seat quicker, which also reduces overtime cost of us having to pay somebody to sit in that seat.

Yeah, I understand a little bit better now. I like that the youth can get involved through the high school career fair, and I know that you're working hard to do that. And if they're able to get some of the classes, that's good to hear before they're able, you know, at 21 to even apply. That's... That's encouraging. Thank you.

Yes, sir. And I guess just to add to it, I don't want to put words in the chief's mouth, but we did talk about how we would amp up our presence in the schools and with the youth to set them on that career path. And hopefully they could, you know, take advantage of all the funding options and educational options so that they could come be Des Moines firefighters. Excellent.

So in Sunday. So one of the things, two quick things. One is it wouldn't be hard to go to a non-certified only class if we did this for two years and then decided we had the budget. We had the need to go to just a longer class if we wish to. It would just be a matter of making sure that DMACC had spots in their classrooms. Is that fair? I mean, if we say, OK, listen, we're going to do a certified only class for the next two classes,

three classes from now we could we wouldn't necessarily have to construct anything new to be able to bring that back no sir yeah I follow your question now so DMACC actually comes to our facility and teaches these classes we've been doing that model for over 20 years now and so that's it's No, it wouldn't be something we would recreate. We would just build upon what we've already established, which has become actually a premier learning recruit academy in the area, honestly.

Good. And this may be more of a Scott question. but I guess to Chief Davis, when we hire a class, they're on board for a year within the fire department. They're paid. That's one of the advantages of being a Des Moines firefighter, correct?

That is correct, yeah. Being in the Recruit Academy makes them an employee of the city, and so they are paid from day one to get these certifications. That's correct.

So if we're shortening the process because they're doing the certifications on their own, let's say out of their own pocket or with Pell Grants, would we get savings then in them not being paid? That's kind of what's part of it. In essence is what that number is.

This is not just DMACC, but part of our savings.

I thought the 165 was just DMACC.

No, it's part of it.

That's, so I think it's more on the, this is the DMACC costs.

Yeah, the 160, I'm sorry, the 165 is the DMACC costs. The other numbers get quite large when you talk about having an employee. Because the class of 20.

firefighters for 40 weeks on payroll would be a lot more than $165,000 that we'd be saving.

Yeah, but we usually base that off of with vacancy aspects of how to recoup some of those costs of the duplicate payment. So that's not part of this number. That solves the ability operationally of the time between the start of the academy of when they're actually out in the stations working. That operational efficiency is not a part of these numbers. So it's more of an operational efficiency as well as there's other components that kind of muddy up that water that it didn't make sense to include that within this exercise.

Okay. Maybe a conversation offline. I appreciate you clarifying that. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Thank you.

Um, uh, this kind of gets us at the halfway mark. I just wanted to, again, to kind of, uh, illustrate to, to, to you guys as well. These are not, you know, these were items of that when you actually look at them, their numbers, it's not ones that are being pushed one way or another. It's just trying to give you, uh, options of as we have this discussion and they could, uh, just wanted to highlight that before we get into the second half of the departments. So. The next one that we have here is the library. From here we have a couple of different options to look at. No Sunday hours and departmental reorganization. That is currently the Sunday hours are within Central and Franklin libraries. The departmental reorganization in that is roughly, and these are information obviously we got from the library, for that cost is about a half million dollars on that regard. Another option would be the close four small libraries, which would be the Forest, North, East, and South. One additional day between that Monday and Saturday time frame. Another option that they had brought up was closing the two largest libraries, which would be the Central and Franklin, one additional day between the Monday and Saturday timeframe. And then also, if you look at just the straight library, closing a smaller library would be about 400,000 each, if one or multiple were chosen.

as a reminder the operations at the library is up to the library director and the board to establish so the council so the council's role here is to provide a budgeted amount to the library this gives you an idea that if you were to say we're going to reduce the library's budget by a half a million dollars you could choose the first option or the second option to get that done it's for the only the library in our budget it's more about a number and then you need to be aware of what type of ramification that might be on them for them to decide exactly how those cost savings would need to occur so ward four doesn't have a library correct but we do have only one on the south side

which is in Ward 3, just directly off Southwest 9th.

Yes.

The other parts of the city have multiple libraries. So, I mean, that library on the south side is an asset that needs to have the full hours, and I know that we don't decide that, but... I know there's a lot of library folks out there, so I'm advocating for that library to stay open and be able to be used. It's normal hours with no cuts. Now, I know there's other libraries and there's smaller libraries and they're closer in other parts of the city. But for us on the south side, we have one or this downtown one, but we have one.

don't have anything in my work so i appreciate the comments but again for today i know i want to make sure and it sounds like we do you are understanding that it includes the potential for closures um there's going to be plenty of opportunity to get that input and let you guys advocate yourselves as well i was hoping that wouldn't be today though we're doing all of what our role is the number yes and then the library board has the authority to do

operational right so these are suggestions they have brought forward to understand the magnitude of the dollars okay got it wouldn't sunday be a day that's i mean i would think sunday's a day that families are out they're going to use the library they're you know other than other than they can look at those now that's a good question we can ask melissa i just i i

have challenges with some of the suggestions here, and depending on how that's going to affect my constituents that I'm representing, because I know it's going to be very important that they... And we can recall the presentation that the library director gave just a few weeks ago, and there was very good data that was shared there with utilization and whatnot.

Well, and this is where, I mean, the last two slides are maybe an illustration of how I think this process is kind of hard for folks to weigh. You know, this library slide, there is, what, it's 1.6 to 2 million in cuts. is what is presented on this library slide. The library has a general fund budget of $10.5 million, right?

Yeah, roughly, yes.

So we've asked the library to present $2 million in cuts. And the slide before that was the fire department. And I know public safety is primary, right? But there was... It was $415,000 in suggested cuts.

Correct. But the one thing that was not on the FIRE slide is some of their existing revenues changes was on that first slide.

That exists today.

The existing fees, like EMS fees, were actually a part of that first slide. The comprehensive fee review.

Where we add revenue. Yes. So, I mean, I don't know what portion that was. I mean, is that $200,000, half a million in revenue increase? The point is going to be the same, like, unless it was a massive number. I mean, there's $58 million that go to fire and represented $400,000. And now... I think the public, like if we presented the impact, right, there is a very real impact on response times and things that the public would care about. And I think everyone, right, I think people would prioritize that. But as part of the exercise, it maybe would be helpful for people to understand that. in the broader sense. So when people are, because I don't know if there was, because what people are gonna be looking at, and the library advocates are gonna be asked, the folks wearing the shirts who are gonna go through this exercise, what is the impact to other services beyond this? And this is a big number. If we're trying to avoid two million here, you need options to look at and folks need to be able to weigh, okay, if we slow down service time citywide because these other departments, they need to understand that, I think, because I think there are gonna be folks who look at this exercise in the 25 and 30

Yeah. I think there's an opportunity for us to add to that exercise some examples of like a per firefighter cost, or for that matter, a per police officer cost. And given, especially on the fire side, how 80% or some high number of percentages is dedicated to response of fire and EMS. that we could we could provide some talking points of every additional half a million dollars in savings in the fire department could slow down emergency services we could we could add some talking points along that i think people need to understand that because it's maybe just assumed and there there are trade-offs and we hear you know council member gatto say hey we can't

And I know we share the Southside Library, but it is literally a block from the Ward boundary line. It's a Southside Library. Correct.

And there are five others north of that.

Right. And there are impacts to any library. And people understand what that service impact, when we see, okay, close a branch for an additional day, I think people understand that service impact. Good. But we don't have the equivalent in some of the other departments presented here right now.

Let me test out some language for you that we would potentially put on the survey as well.

And just to reiterate, I think it was 2008, 2009. I'm not sure when they did budget cuts like this and they combined. 2010 was the last. 2010, where they combined station number six, which is on Southeast 6th and Hartford. Yes. And station number four, which used to be up on 9th and University. They took away those two ambulances. That was the recommendation from the city manager and from the chief at the time. Yes. And they combined it all to this one downtown rig down here to make all the runs. And if we remember, this rig was doing over 20 runs a day. And the response times, I mean, for me myself, I waited over 12 minutes in my parking lot one evening when someone got sick in 2012. So, I mean, there's a significant, when you challenge and you take away from public safety just a little bit, Just to come, okay, we're going to take this ambulance and move it here. There's real life and death causes that could happen. And that definitely needs to be in everyone's mind where they've tried that and it didn't work. Meanwhile, we've grown. Yeah, and it didn't work. And we actually, now we need another station. with additional firefighters. And so I think it's important that everyone realizes that those are the ramifications when we do make cuts like to public safety. We'll explain that.

To be clear, if it was up to me, I'd be adding money to public safety. We don't have a budget that we can do that right now. I would like to get... that additional fire station on the south side built and staffed, but we need to understand the implications. And the piece that I really want to avoid is as we get this public input, if we don't provide outlets for folks and they don't understand the impact to service, We're going to potentially get a lot of input that has that relief valve used and say, hey, just find another $5 million or $2 million from that $140 million that's police and fire. We need to understand the implications there. And I'd also maybe appreciate some layers as well. Because at the beginning or the introduction, I heard that there was a management element to this. And I don't have a sense, but there's no management. There was very little presented in that fire slide. And like I said, not to say that that's where this ends up or where this goes, but from a transparency perspective, I think we need to understand what the impacts will be so that folks can make decisions and give us input as informed as possible. And that's what I'm worried about right now.

So you want a comparison possibly of, okay, if we cut this much more out of this, the fire department response times go to this, or the fact that we know we're already short, are you willing to live with the longer response time or for police, the same thing? Is that what you're trying? I mean, I'm trying to figure out.

with that uh that that is some of the trade-off that people need to under understand right and because it's all a trade-off right it's all a trade-off but if we're asking for input because we're going to get a lot of input where folks because i've i've already received some of it right we'll just go go find some dollars in public safety and if we're asking the public like let's give them an understanding because this is supposed to be about service levels. And let's really test if the folks who are saying that are comfortable understanding what reduced service levels mean.

I think I understand what you're getting at. We'll take a stab at that and show that to you before it goes public.

Because, I mean, I've already gotten some of that feedback.

I think we all have, and I think it's important to note also is I've had emails asking similar sized cities, what is the authorized strength for police and fire? And if you look at what our authorized strength is compared to similar cities, especially for police, probably 50 police officers short, 50 compared to other cities. And there is a significant impact. I mean, I have emails to show that we haven't been able to handle a couple of the calls because we just didn't have the manpower to do it. And basically told that to one of my constituents, like, so we don't have people.

Well, they might be on another call. So there's nobody.

We didn't have enough people to handle this specific call at all. at night certain time and okay so again we will have time to work through some more of those some scenarios of if this happens this is how many when we know that we're not at strength right no we're not for i mean we're at our authorized strength what we are right now sure but city similar size when you compare it uh population wise and call volume wise Yeah, we're significantly behind the eight ball. I don't dispute that. What was that? We have not. Josh had mentioned it, so I wanted to make sure that that's part of the conversation.

Keep it moving because I think we're maybe halfway through, I heard.

We've got four or five more left. I would say there's not authorized strength, but every single department could step to the mic and talk about how their comparative staffing to others like size is under. So again, it's a balance.

It's not life and death. No. There's two departments that are life and death.

Understood. Okay. Let's keep moving. That's the difference. And we'll express that in the next exercise. Okay.

neighborhood services a couple of different items there eliminate mosquito contract So that would be that would cease the limited and short-lived mosquito control that we currently have a contract We also have on here the eliminate odor monitoring contract That has resulted in many upgrades to the odor generating generator facilities the facility the city believes it has generated all the results it's sought out to achieve so that would be the ongoing mate monitoring aspect of that slurring development zoning review that would be inspection services would likely increase response times for sign and fence permits zoning compliant investigations compliance review limit the proactive addressing zoning violations and ensure development remains constant with adopted plans ordinances and neighborhood inspection expectations the the homeless program reduction that one would be Aspect of a vacant position that would then not be refilled, but our contribution to housing solutions would increase as well as we would have the Harvard fellow that is also going to be able to supplement that work as well.

For two years.

For two years. And then the last item there is limiting the private property graffiti contracts. So those are The discontinuing the city funds funded graffiti removal that are on private property increased the potential impacts on neighborhood appearance of property owned are unable to or unwilling to promptly address graffiti.

Do we annually spend $125,000?

Currently within the budget. I don't know if I can get you some history on that of how close we are to it, but that is what is in the current budget today for us to do.

So it would remain for city property?

Yes. This is private property aspect.

Private property only.

Are you done?

I'm sorry. What, Linda?

ELIMINATE PRIVATE PROPERTY GRAFFITI CONTRACT. I'VE ALWAYS BEEN CONCERNED THAT WE'RE PROVIDING FREE SERVICES TO PROPERTY OWNERS. YOU ALL KNOW I'VE GOT THAT BUILDING OVER AT EASTON THAT IS CONSTANTLY AND THE PROPERTY OWNER, IT'S A BLIGHTED PROPERTY AND THE PROPERTY OWNER REFUSES TO DO ANYTHING. So can we put something in place that they are required to do something? I mean, can we put an assessment on their taxes? Can we do do something? Because right now they don't live in the neighborhood and they don't care. And so they just let it go. And our city has been very good about addressing those problems. those concerns, but I've always felt, why should my taxpayer dollar pay to clean up your building just because you don't want to spend the money?

Yeah, I'll ask Chris Johanson or one of the staff members.

Chris, you know what building I'm talking about.

Chris joints a neighborhood service director I think that's one thing we could definitely work with legal department on if those costs are something we could assess back to the property owner and that'd be for for everything with private property too as well okay thank you and then is that something that like right now I think if you don't pay your parking ticket you don't get your income tax refund can we do something like that off a set off program uh when it goes to collection

on that's we have a process for that but when you have it by a property you you put it as an assessment on the on the property versus going so we can have like a look at that there's a different get paid for that yeah unless we take it over and then and then we lose all that money i mean i'd like to have something where we can get our money right now well in in your example we if we took ownership of the property at least we resolved the problem

I HAVE A GENERAL COMMENT. I APOLOGIZE FOR BEING LATE. GENERALLY SPEAKING, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ON ALL OF THESE SUGGESTIONS ON WHERE TO SAVE MONEY, ARE THERE MATCHES INVOLVED? SO FOR EXAMPLE, UNDER ELIMINATING THE ORDER CONTROL, DON'T SOME OF THE COMPANIES THAT PRODUCE THESE ORDERS CONTRIBUTE Does that mean they would continue? You don't need to answer it now, but does that mean they're going to continue to contribute? Or do we have county participation that if we were to cease, then does the county's participation drop? This is true for all of our... all of the items we're looking at.

They're contracted with other partners?

Yeah, for the motor monitoring contract, the first year they did voluntary contribute, the second year they didn't. And the one thing, just to elaborate on the contract, the first year we got a lot of voluntary compliance and there isn't a lot of avenues really for us for any type of enforcement. So the companies made a lot of different improvements to improve their facilities. We're at right now with it. If we get a number of complaints, we're able to call and work with them to see what the problem was, but there's not a lot we could really do to enforce any more changes than we've already received from the odor generators.

Well, fortunately, regarding the odors, the SEVERAL OF THESE COMPANIES HAVE SPENT MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TOWARD MITIGATING THAT, SO IT SHOULD BE LESS IMPORTANT. AGAIN, MY GENERAL COMMENT IS DO WE HAVE ANY MATCHES THAT MIGHT BE IN JEOPARDY?

FROM THE ORDER MONITORING, THIS IS THE NET TO THE CITY CURRENTLY WITH THE ANTICIPATED PARTNERS GOING AWAY WITH IT. SO THIS IS THE CITY'S PORTION OF IT.

OKAY.

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU.

On the homeless, I just want to make sure I understand what was presented. Nick, you said this is a 115,000 reduction. Yes. But we would spend additional dollars?

This contemplates $50,000 of additional funds to HSA, and we would book $115,000 of savings.

This is the net savings of the approach.

Okay. So if we didn't give $50,000 to HSA- It could be higher. It's $165,000. And what we're talking about is the employee- it's a vacant position today right a vacant position today that was a relatively recent creation it's only been around two three years or three i think three three years i think three years so we've had it for three years and it's now vacant and the question is do we continue it and how do we use correct

because we're having the Harvard fellow that's coming in to do a lot of the work or follow up on some of the issues that we were having one person do. And it'll be here for two years. And we also, the 50,000 is the emergency fund that we had created for the outreach workers. And that will be handled, it's gonna be channeled through the HSA.

Okay, so that $50,000 would go specifically to the outreach workers? Well, it could.

Well, it's been directed to... That makes sense.

Or is that $50,000 because we provided dollars for... It's different, right? There was outreach workers and then there was the diversion fund. We didn't fund the outreach workers.

No, but we're working on finding funding for those people to continue.

$50,000 is... The $50,000 that you're talking about that the HSA will use will be a diversion fund. So if someone can't pay their rent or someone... That's already in the budget, right? Is that part of that?

No, we've already included that in the base budget.

Okay.

So that's not being contemplated. or needed in this this would be an additional 50 000 that could go towards our outreach contribution as the mayor mentioned because that was a three-party agreement is today still right we still got some time left on it where the operation downtown private funding in the city all contribute and that's the match that councilman simonson was speaking of that those are those are the type that's an example yes

all but that's not being contemplated this is one way of funding that our piece so right so i i'm hearing something a little different i mean i want to make sure that the outreach piece continues and what you're saying is that that 50 000 may or may not be used for outreach if it goes to hsa correct and and there is no other funding identified for outreach? Is that street outreach?

No, it's additional funds that could go in any homeless.

So we have funds in the underlying budget for street outreach? No. So that $50,000 would be our contribution to street outreach, maybe or maybe not?

I don't believe you have in the funds because that was all. Because we have a year left to pay. We're working again to secure because it's like $250,000. So we're trying to find those funds and we're having ongoing conversations. And I think we have a positive direction that we will probably be able to get it. And there's also primary health care is actually, there was a grant they're looking at too. So as far as, I don't believe the outreach workers are in the funding.

Well, we'll confirm. I think it actually is, Mayor. So I know it is in the current budget. And I do not believe we've talked about removing that for the following budget. So we'll confirm that and bring that back.

$250,000? No, no, no. It's about $48,000 that's coming from the city. So we are working with trying to find the funding to continue the outreach workers with primary health care.

To extend it another two or three years.

Another two years, hopefully.

Okay. I would just, again, it's about the best use of our taxpayer dollars. I've heard from people say there really hasn't been much of an impact to our homeless community. I have no idea how to respond to that. I know that the previous liaison would send us a report every now and then that said this is what's been working on. But have we made a positive impact? Yes. Can we show that? Yes, my apologies. This is where your money has gone to this, and we have eliminated... some issues that we had previously.

Yes. We have, I think, now two reports from primary health care that shows that type of data. So I will make sure you get those.

I thought we had shared that, but we'll get it.

Hadn't been shared. But I would tell you, I thought it was very convincing. They're tracking the contacts, the number of contacts they have, and then the outcomes as well. How many individuals are finding housing, getting support services. I would tell you Primary Health Care has been a fabulous partner in that regard. Money very well spent.

That's all I need to hear and just to forward that report on.

So really quickly on that, it's not part of this conversation, but the $50,000 that we're funneling to the emergency assistance, the street outreach workers have to be able to support folks in crisis. Yes. Pushing that through HSA, they won't take a cut off of that, right?

It's been communicated that that is not what the money is.

Okay, so 100% of that is still available for street outreach workers? Correct. Okay.

And it would be hopeful that under HSA that even more people might participate within this whole area.

Good. Yeah. I would also just, I've talked, we've talked about this. I think we're due for a work session on homeless, homelessness.

Absolutely.

Unhoused. I think that there's a, I don't really know. I know, you know, we have the HSA and we have a seat or two on there, but I would like to know kind of what's going on. And because I, that's a... very common conversation that I have with constituents.

We will schedule that and bring that back to council. All right.

Thank you. The next slide is on parks and recreation. We've got several different items on this to discuss, so bear with me as I talk through these. Disposition of park properties, these would be evaluating properties for potential sale with restrictive covenances, other legal requirements, but different areas that would be less utilized but allow for the community would permanently lose those public open spaces or any of the future recreational opportunities associated with those properties.

Um, this, uh, question on that, that, that would be one time funding or is this like the, yeah.

So that, but yeah, so what this actually represents is a third of the, uh, a third of that sale. So it allows for multiple, uh, multiple year of carry to solve. So this is an ad, this is a third of the dollar amount. So it would be looking at, um, over 2 million of, uh, value of property for disposition. What that does allow also in addition beyond that only doing a third is based off this number, the maintenance as it relates to those would then be coming into play as well. So we took that into consideration with putting that number here. It allows the disposition to be utilized for multiple years of solve.

The additional comment, very important one, is that we would put those properties only into taxable uses to start generating future property taxes so we have a three-year runway to essentially develop some of those properties and start generating additional tax base and then some The major one is that Southside property. It's a huge piece, a percentage of this number. Correct. Those acreage off, is it County Line Road or Army Post, where the city and the school district both purchased?

Yeah, it was off Indianella. They purchased about 10 or 12 acres, I think.

I think it was decades ago. We were going to build a library in the school. I'll let Ben speak to it.

But that piece of property, we just had somebody who wanted to lease it, and we said no. Why wouldn't we lease it and bring in some money?

I would need to check if that's the same property.

It is the same property. It absolutely is.

The 60 acres. Go ahead. Or the...

Mayor Bowles and members of Des Moines City Council, Ben Page, Parks and Recreation Director. The list of land is a few here. So the first one we just mentioned was a future southeast school, park, and library. In 2007 or 2006, the council and the school board bought that together. We own 30 acres each. The lease that just came up this last few months was to farm it, not to turn it into taxable value with development. The other significance, that's 60 acres. There's 72 acres that we've acquired to do county soccer expansion. We hired a consultant about six seven years ago to look at that as the Metro was growing with sports complexes Knowing the financial status of the city today doesn't seem likely that we'll be able to do that So there's the hundred and fifty or thirty acres. There's parks like Porsche that we've already worked through that's in this list Bates Park Royal Park and then Kearney we would lease we'd end our lease with a Kearney Park. That's already owned today by waterworks We've been working with the waterworks board. They would then transition that lease to a little league So there's no change in the use of those two softball fields other than the city would not use it because our softball numbers have declined We built the George Davis softball park up on the northeast side that's hosting and handling all of our softball and baseball needs currently and

Did you say Little League, or is it tournament ball that we're going to have at those fields in Kearney?

It sounds like the same Little League that already rents from them off of the Park side, the Park Avenue side.

Oh, the Raccoon.

Raccoon River Group wants additional fields, so it could be a hybrid of both tournaments, just like we do today. Today, we haven't really been using it for Des Moines Parks to Rec programs. We've been renting it for groups to use for practices, sometimes games.

So Ben, talk to me about the cemetery maintenance. And what's the impact on how that's going to affect?

Would you mind if we let? Stay close, Ben. We'll let Nick, and then we'll get your question.

OK. So the park and cemetery maintenance and service levels, that's basically activities such as mowing, landscaping, upkeep, litter, trash control. We would experience reduced maintenance standards, long response times, declining park conditions. The residents would expect longer wait times for cemetery services, the reduced overall maintenance standards. And then the permanent restroom facilities would remain open only at Grays Lake, sports parks, and the five largest aquatic facilities. Trails maintenance would continue through contracted services, however, at reduced frequencies.

does that answer well i mean what is that how how long do people have to wait for cemetery to to bury a loved one i mean how what what what's the impact i guess i mean are we talking about people that are actually using the backhoe to i mean what what's not what is what is what's the who's being eliminated that's going to slow that down think it's more on the maintenance side that was this is a combination of lots of because it's both the parks and and cemetery both aspect within that number how long are people going to have to wait to bury their loved one additional days you know or weeks or what are we talking about in the cemetery side of both parks and cemeteries i'll take cemeteries that that is uh

a question based on how many orders we get per day a busy day in our world is six to eight services on one singular day and we have a very small team to do that so as we have to downsize the organization here if this is one of those things that is selected by the council in the city manager's budget it will depend on the busy days most days it won't be noticeable but there will be days where there'll be times we'll have to tell people that we already have six we can only handle eight now with this new level of staffing components So it could be about a day to, it depends on where it falls to. Like if you call on a Friday and we're not open on Sunday, you might have to wait till early next week, Monday or Tuesday. But we're not talking 14 days. No, no, maybe a day or two. Okay.

And I think we can get more level of detail too. If you have questions, then we can get back. So we want to keep going. That's true.

Mayor, if I may to that point, regarding process, there have been a lot of questions asked. Are all of these questions going to be published in writing? I would like to see that. It's going to take some time, but for the council and the public to see what the questions have been to give you time to answer them. I think that'll just save a lot of time for the next time that we meet

for the same discussion that is the intent okay thank you what's the two pools keep going keep going okay keep going keep going uh simplifying the landscaping to trees and wood mulch downtown parks so that is uh lower maintenance uh landscape standards the reduction in seasonal plantings the visual amenities would be noticeable in the downtown area uh AND AROUND KEY PUBLIC SPACES. THE REDUCED POLICE PATROL PRESENCE IN PARKS AND REC, THAT WOULD BE THE DEDICATED PEAK USE PERIODS WOULD BE REDUCED WHILE CORE PUBLIC SAFETY SERVICES WOULD REMAIN AVAILABLE. RESIDENTS MAY PERCEIVE A REDUCTION IN THE VISIBLE SECURITY AND RESPONSE WITHIN THE PARKS FACILITIES. Closing two of the five public swimming pools, there's two aspects of that. The dollar that's there is the operational aspect. Not represented there is the larger capital cost that we see in the CIP or future CIPs. the residents would would have fewer aquatic recreational opportunities and would need to travel to access the public pools remaining facilities would likely experience increased crowding reduced programming available and concerns regarding access seasonal employment opportunities would be also also significantly reduced

The actual facilities have not been identified of which two. We would obviously, similar to your library conversation, want to look geographically because the same theory holds. There's only one pool on the south side currently. I'm glad you said it. I didn't have to. Yes. We acknowledge that. And again, being early in the process, it needed to be on the slides for your consideration and public input for, let's say, five, six weeks from now to determine if it still remains a valid option.

And would one of those options, instead of closing a swimming pool, I know Birdland, you know, we could have spent over a million dollars doing repairs to that. That's a million dollars if that were one to be closed. To me, that just seems wrong to spend a million dollars only to close it. Once it's closed, it's never going to reopen. More than likely. Would another option be to just cut the hours at some of the pools if we all took a cut and every pool maybe is closed two days a week or three days a week? I don't care. You know, we have to come up with some number.

So that's another example, a good example of going back and reviewing that. Absolutely, we could look. I want Ben to take a second to remind us of what the current closures are, and then we could contemplate additional closures across all pools. But then we can talk through how expensive that gets to leave them all open with the capital costs.

So as a reminder in your last budget regarding pool operations, we opened up the new Rycart Recreation Center. Part of that deal was to shut that down currently Memorial Day through Labor Day. So right now we are shut down until after Labor Day, not to further compound maybe the attendance at the other pools, as well as help with the recruitment of lifeguards, which is a national challenge right now across our nation. Nothing's unique to Des Moines. So today, the five pools that we do have open for Memorial Day to almost Labor Day are closed one day a week. We've tried different things in the past to do that. Your savings really is hard to find in pools because you still have to chemically treat the water and keep it balanced even the day you're closed. And so the mechanicals, the pumps, they're still certified pool operators have to show up on the site and balance that water to keep it ready for the next day. So to find a significant chunk to save, you really do have to look at a permanent closure. Otherwise, going down to a second day starts to get really hard with the community. From a marketing and communications side of things, like which day was I open, which day was I wasn't, because not everybody wants to get on their social media or the website, right? And they show up, which we're already seeing this time around is, hey, I didn't look at the sign, but I showed up. Now I'm disappointed that I came here because you're closed the one day that I wanted to use the pool. So...

closure of two pools is that 460 000 per pool or for both of them for two not each yeah it that was just a got it okay yeah do we have the anticipated capital costs for the various pools yeah we can provide the schedule the council proactively got in front of that

Yeah, about three and a half years ago, we hired a consultant that gave us a staged approach for immediate repairs needed, well, critical, then immediate, and then the last phase we never really intended to get to would be additional features if you wanted to expand the size of the pool or add new slides, et cetera. So we've been clipping away at that in a good chunk because you were all really nice about putting significant funds in the budget. So we've made it halfway through the system on what I would say are the critical repairs. Most of the critical repairs were now into the immediate repairs.

And we can get that number.

Yeah, it's in the CIP, too.

Yeah. Well, and like for the public budget exercise, I mean, if the capital is a piece of this, like maybe making sure there's some transparency there so they understand

It could be a $5 million project down the road to improve, just to get them to medium. If we did critical, then how much more is it just to get them to operational efficiency?

And if there are some pools because of their age or other factors that require additional capital outlays that are going to be more regular, we should know that too. We have that.

We have all that. And just as a reminder, our pools are considered very old. And so every year we find new things. So whatever information we give you this summer is always going to change from the winter when they come out of hibernation. We see all the different effects of freeze-thaw cycles. So it's an ongoing challenge.

So could there be the question of with the new Reichert Center, would people whether have that open all summer or another pool? I mean, or are there pools? I know the school districts have a lot of pools that they don't use during the year. I get it. They're inside. But if it's a matter of wanting to learn to swim and things like that. So those are questions I think we need to look at too.

Right. And maybe think about if there are things that we can do to partner with the with the district to provide access to swimming in the district pools.

As they're going through their own exercise of understanding their own assets.

Because one of the most expensive things for them is a swimming pool too, the maintenance and the keep.

For all of us.

The next one is the reduced environmental education programming. That is educational programming focused on nature conservation and outdoor learning would be significantly scaled back. Resident schools and community groups would have fewer opportunities to participate in the environmental education and stewardship activities. The reduced community engagement programming would be the after school fall programming at three different sites would be discontinued. Families who rely on those affordable recreational opportunities would have fewer options available. And then the mobile recreation opportunities would also be reduced. What sites? I don't know if we had attributed which sites at this point. We were just assuming that it would be...

The community engagement piece would be the fall programming. It wouldn't be that summer programming that we do right now that are the two seven-week sessions of the summer. The budget had previously allowed to do a little spring programming, a little fall after-school programming. So we're looking to take off on the two edges, the spring and the fall programming, but keep the summer camp that we know traditionally in place.

so just for clarity's sake so no fall or spring community education programming correct okay that's i think that's i think as you turn this into the exercise for the community that that level of detail would be helpful

And the last slide there is a summation of some possible new revenue. Parks, I'll commend Parks on their annual review on their fees. So that's not kind of what we're talking here about. It's possible. new fee or approaches to the fee structure there at parks. Again, these are a summation of three different things. So when we go through the surveying, we'll have them as multiple items, but in total, that's the number that we have on these. The three different things that we're talking about here is the non-resident at a higher rate than residential for certain services. Change would generate additional revenue where we're potentially reducing participation from regional users. The second one would be youth participants would move from a free daily access to a dollar daily access for facility access. While modest, the fee may create barriers for some families and could reduce participation. And thirdly, the other item would be looking at pay for vehicles to park at like Grays Lake during designated periods. while generating ongoing revenue, the change may alter visitation patterns and generate public interest and feedback due to parks popularity.

So how would the resident, non-resident work when we have a combination of a golf pass that includes something that's not even in our city? How's that going to even work?

So we'd have to work with those other cities

We already reconcile. So I think what Council Member Gatto was speaking to is in the golf operation, we have three courses in the city limits, Blank, Waveland, and Grandview. The county has a golf course jester. We partner, so we sell what we call a season pass where you can buy a course or you can get options to have access to all four. At the end of the year, we look at how many rounds. So if Scott Sanders played 10 rounds, but nine were at the city courses and one were at the Jester County course, we would split that revenue 90-10. So there's a way to look at that and extract that. Quick analysis is our suburbs have been doing this, not including golf, but our suburbs have been doing this for recreational programming for many years. We were probably the last to do it. Cause it causes a little bit more administration for us, but there is a significant revenue there between cemeteries and recreational fees like shelters and all the youth and adult sports programs we do.

But I just don't see how that works with the golf pass. I mean, I understand what you're saying with the other ones, but how do you have a, I mean, if I don't understand how you're going to be able to do that.

It'll take a little bit of thinking still to get through it all and how the mechanism works to prove where you're from.

There are cities that do it, I can tell you that. You're going to limit what the folks are going to buy a pass in Ankeny that's going to go play at Jester and maybe come down and play at Waveland, but... It's supposed to be in the entire city. I mean, I don't understand. I'm not sure.

We'll let them work on those details.

Yeah, there's other options. It could be where the entire pass is more expensive, unless you're a Des Moines resident. So there's other ways we could look at that.

Okay.

It would have to be with our partners.

And then the dollar, we're going to go back to maybe charging every youth a dollar to use the... to use.

That is one of the three.

Pioneer Columbus or something like that.

The three rec centers, correct? Yeah. That's a challenge.

And how much, how many dollars? Specifically that one.

25,000 is our estimate total.

Okay. For that. So I think those are all things that if you want to bring back, we can get more detail on those.

Mm-hmm. I have a question. The police patrol item, is that currently a park line item? Like, is that park employee? It's a cost. We pay out of the park budget for... Correct.

Des Moines police officers.

So is that two or three officers that are...

It's a rotation between different parks. We've started this decades ago, so it can be as many as a couple or more depending on what we're seeing in the park system or we're trying to curb some behaviors we don't want to see. So it can be on the north side, the east side, and then they tell us what they need as far as their needs for safety with officers. So typically it's two per car.

And does that include, because I know we have officers with the pools.

That would stay in the budget proposal if we, for example, if there was less pools next year, we would still keep police officers at the pools.

Okay, so kind of built into that 230,000 per pool is whatever police presence exists at that pool.

That's my understanding.

Okay.

Okay.

Can we get more specifics? This is just generally how you're coming up with?

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I understood. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Ben.

Police, we have reduced neighborhood-based service delivery, NBESD services. That's to a tune of 1.3. That currently is a small specialized team of 16 officers dedicated to community policing, problem solving, and crime prevention. Reduced staff assigned to NBESD by about half.

associated to that service. It eliminates them altogether or by half? Half.

Understand that some of those officers are working mobile crisis and other activities. So the cut is specific to neighborhood association responsibilities.

Like going to the meetings or handling their immediate needs?

as far as like... Yeah, so then we can bring the chief up, but some of that is patrolling those neighborhoods they're assigned to, things of that nature.

It's greater coverage. I mean, it's... You can be asked to be responsible for more areas, too. I'll let the chief explain.

Mayor, council, Mike McTier, chief of police. Specifically this, you would see the neighborhood officers go away. You would have specifically, you'd have a supervisor and officer for a mobile crisis and care unit. You would have a homeless outreach officer You would have part of our PAL program part of a couple other programs would still remain but the neighborhood officer the person that Council reaches out to the neighborhood reaches out to That solves not only crime issues but solves a lot of civil issues in those neighborhoods and gives those people The information they need and the resources they need to solve their issues on top of that It'll reduce our transparency in these neighborhoods because they also provide all these neighborhoods the information on the stats and what's going on in their neighborhoods. That will be available to some level on our website, but it's, again, it's a big reduction in the personal service that neighborhoods are going to receive.

But you'll be able to provide it like an update to... Any of us that, like when I go to the neighborhood meetings, I'll give an engineering, a park update, and the police officer would give the stats of the crime that was committed in there. We would be provided with that if this went away. We could still give you the data for that.

But not specifics. It'll be difficult to get specifics on that. who's helping solve that. We've had a lot of success with the MBSD program because of consistency of communication between our officers in specific neighborhoods. And that will not happen.

Can you give some justification for why that's the only option that the department brought forward?

The police responsibility is to handle emergency situations, 911 calls and investigate criminal instances. Both those resources, both those areas are so low already. They have been reduced so far and our authorized strength has been the same since at least 1975. You look at the other public safety increases, new buildings. We have a hundred plus year old building that we're working out of. Our staff is at the max. And the calls that they have been going on, you look at the number of guns that we've recovered in the last five years, they're more serious and more serious. where body cameras, all these things take time. So our ability to go trip to trip to trip, where when I started, it's a paper trip, you're writing the stuff down, you can move on. It slows us down. Now it's warranted and we do all these things, but the idea that that same number, that same level of staffing from even 1990 to today is a misnomer because their calls for service are taking longer because the documentation has to be better. They're more serious calls. And, uh, you know, there's not the same level of, um, ability to move forward faster. It just, it's a slower process today than it was.

And you, and you absolutely have my respect and, and an appreciation and you know, my connections to the police force. Um, we're sitting here in, I don't know, an hour or whatever, mulling over all of these different changes, all of these different proposals, none of which we want to do. None of which we want to do. And I would have appreciated more options.

So there was a couple of items on the existing fees that were under the police that were on the first slide, but it wasn't new related fees, so that is why they only had the one item here.

Okay, because we get so granular that we're talking about $50,000 here in pursuit of $12 million. And we're going to ask the public to engage in, I think, in a healthy level of, okay, listen, understanding what their tax dollars go to in pursuit of $12 million in savings. Again, none of us want to do right now. I think to... because I don't want to cut neighborhood-based service delivery. I've seen the impact of that, especially in a handful of the neighborhoods that I now serve. I understand that I don't get to do everything I want to do in this role, but I would appreciate more options in service to this broader goal of $12 million that we've got to find somewhere. And I also think that there's some... there would be some value to the police department overall, because I think if my inbox tells me anything that there's always a target because we spend 35% of the general fund is on the police department and other colleagues have spoken to this. Well, then why don't you just take more money from them? Sure. I think part of the process, part of the thing that would be helpful for us moving forward is to better understand, you know, you talked about things that we don't want to reduce service times. I understand and I've seen we have more homicides this year than we did last year already.

Is that... Over double from last year. Still, I mean... historical lows. Historically, it'll still end up right around 20, I would guess.

And your folks are the ones that are right there. I mean, this is the hardest job in the city of Des Moines, the folks that you're responsible for. But I think we need to, I think it would be right to have more options presented to the council. And I believe they have a better understanding of how how that investment is made in the community would go a long ways to understanding the give and take of what this all will mean for us. It's a community. Yeah, I think we're all responsible for it.

Councilman, I think we can provide that. And if anything, admittedly, first and foremost, there are multiple conversations with the police department and a couple of the others that may have only had one or two items. And we explored every division within every city department. And so there were conversations about investigations, crime investigations, and what opportunities there were there. And quite frankly, there did not appear, in my opinion, to be options there. Now, we can take a step back and actually put a description behind each of those within the police department that might be helpful, that the staffing impact here would impact the time of reconciling investigations, things of that nature. So the general public could also understand how damaging loss of resources could be to each of the divisions, if that would be helpful. Because I may have short-circuited that a little too much in knowing that, or thinking that our general public would never want to go there. But we can absolutely provide what those impacts would be division by division within the public safety departments.

My primary bias in this whole process is the more information, the better. That's fine. And I think the level of engagement that we're already getting from the community is... is a value, it's a strength for us. And we need to meet it with as much information and diligence and care as possible, including chief. I mean, you've articulated to me reduction in positions already that you've undertaken since you came on board. I know an assistant chief is not there anymore. You've been moving folks around trying to have more civilian positions. to, to, to, for cost savings. So, I mean, I think the more of that, that is, that is present in addition to like, you know, give us things to work with here. That's, that's what I'm looking for. Yeah. We can actually provide that.

and there is one more slide that heavily involves police yet to come okay so we wait i just have one one question since the chief is up here and i think it's important that because i had an email from constituent asking about authorized strength i think it was yesterday or the day before and you you text me back what is city's similar size what is their authorized strength that

So there's two ways to go through this. In their call box. There's two ways to go through this. So you can just look at cities of similar size, and that's a little bit... People don't do it. It's easier, but people don't generally do that anymore because... Certain cities are busier than other cities. We used, I think I talked to you guys about this a few months ago, but we used a study, two different studies, and they both came up with very similar numbers, similar to how the fire department bases their numbers, and we're anywhere from 55 to 80 officers below where we should be. Thank you.

Why don't we see, go ahead, Lynn, and we'll just get to the next slide, but go ahead.

I just, you know, I go back to 2015 when the fire department came before us with a study, and it showed that our service levels were not where they should be, and that's really what got us to Station 11, and now we know that we need additional fire stations. I feel very strongly about our police department. When I go to neighborhood meetings and talk to constituents, I hear we need more police officers out there. I know that there's a study out there now, I mentioned it not long ago, you said it was still in draft form, but if anything, we need additional police officers and we're gonna have to address that. I know we're here to talk about budget cuts, but we're asking our police officers to do so much more with less people, with less officers, but we're asking them to do more. Our neighborhood... based service delivery was really all about community policing and it's so much more than just responding to the neighborhoods but they are building relationships and good rapport with our residents and that goes a long long ways In building community and in cutting down, they're more comfortable. We have our neighborhood officers out at all of these events and they get to come up to the kids and they get to build those relationships. And I go back to the breakfast that we started probably 15 years ago at East High, and all of a sudden those kids were engaging with the police. They did not see the police as somebody, oh, I don't like this person. They were building relationships. I think it's really important that we take a look at that THE BIG PICTURE AND HOW IMPORTANT THE BIG PICTURE AND HOW IMPORTANT OUR PUBLIC SAFETY IS AND OUR PUBLIC SAFETY IS AND THAT REALLY, THAT'S OUR NUMBER THAT REALLY, THAT'S OUR NUMBER ONE IS OUR PUBLIC SAFETY FOR ME ONE IS OUR PUBLIC SAFETY FOR ME AND THEN OUR PARKS AND RACK. AND THEN OUR PARKS AND RACK.

WHY DON'T WE GET TO THE NEXT WHY DON'T WE GET TO THE NEXT SLIDE.

SLIDE. JUST A COUPLE OF THINGS ON JUST A COUPLE OF THINGS ON THIS ONE IN PARTICULAR. So I agree with Councilmember Barron's point on transparency, and I'd like to understand optionality. And Scott, I'll raise one item. And Chief, I'd be curious on the cost on this, but this was one I specifically wanted to see as an option, which is the cost of the flock cameras. And I know there's an annual contract cost there. I understand the purpose of them. I understand what's going on. part of why I think it's also appropriate to have that conversation in the budget conversation here is I don't think we followed the right process to start that program. Other communities in the Metro had council workshops and discussion before those cameras were implemented. We have a cost on those. And when we're talking about budget cuts and comparison, again, all other things equal, I wouldn't be making any cuts in this regard. But If we're choosing between additional officers, and I don't know, is it 250 a year, 500 for 500,000? If we could have additional officers, first flock cameras, those are the type of things that I'd want to weigh, because I know there is some level of concern, at least with a segment of the population, that we use that as a tool at all. And that's the type of kind of combination policy and budget conversation that I think is appropriate to have and to have some optionality on. I suspect there might be other things, and I know folks are stretched thin, and there's some technology options that I think we'd like to be able to take advantage of that would help as well. And then one broader comment in terms of some of this from a staffing perspective, and maybe it's just too complicated to do as part of this process, but I know we've been doing some things from a mobile crisis and trying to think about are there public Are there welfare check calls that maybe aren't necessarily policing calls that are more appropriate for a social worker? Are there mental health calls? On the fire side, we've been doing some of the health management because we have frequent callers. Where is the mix in terms of slightly different public safety service or how we respond that has the opportunity to save dollars and maybe provide better service the first time because we're fitting a changing world into I mean, you know, the point is, you know, we've had a authorized strength that, that it's been the same for, for decades, but we've also put more and more on our police that maybe isn't really what is, what is the police work and thinking about how we take that more holistic approach and does that provide savings opportunities? What does that look like rather than we're we're having this conversation about cuts and service and not necessarily thinking about everything that we could do differently or better that may have budget impacts as well. And I don't know that we can do all of that in this process, but But I feel like that should be part of this discussion as well.

I would assume you guys have looked at that because we know that we're picking up what is non or not the traditional police with all the mental health crisis that we did. But I would have I would defer to them. Is that the right diversion method? And is it worth those dollars? Because there's nobody else picking it up.

Think everybody got invited to go see dispatch and when if you if you haven't been there yet You're gonna see exactly what you talked about councilman there's there is they are diverting those calls they have a Counselor in dispatch that can help so we don't even have to send people to certain calls we don't send police to certain calls because they're not needed and That type of diversion is going on. Is there things specifically with technology that can help with our staffing crisis, as I'll call it? Yeah. It's not free. It's not none of this. And, you know, unfortunately, the way technology is right now, you're not buying anything. You're leasing. So if you had the one time money, it's not going to buy you a product anymore. You're getting a lease, and this is how much the lease per product costs. So it's harder to do some of the technology than it was, let's say, 10 years ago where you just bought an item. Now it's always you're just leasing. You can work it into your budget. It's just a little bit more hard.

I mean, that dispatch, I'm sorry, was a pretty amazing experience. But you can also see how many trips are sitting there. And sitting there because they're not priorities. And people are still calling and want you to come out. But they're waiting a long time. Yes. Not an emergency. And, you know, that was very eye-opening to see. And the amount of calls that they're taking. Yes. some of them aren't, they're not emergencies and they handle it very well. So hats off to that whole department. They do an excellent job. Excellent. Okay.

That's a good segue to the last slide, Mayor. And Chief, stay close if you would. So not a surprise or new information to the council. We have been having conversations with the other two PSAPs in the region. There is the county dispatch, our own city dispatch, and then there is the western suburbs, which is called Westcom, which they all separately dispatch. As you might imagine, it's pretty important that we have multi-jurisdictional ability to communicate. And so there are levels and layers of technology that are necessary to make sure all three of these PSAPs and dispatches can communicate well with each other and there are different technologies being utilized that then require another set of technologies to make sure communications are not dropped between one piece of equipment and another. That's as far as I'm going to go in the detail of that at the moment. But I do believe we are in a place as I've spoken to other city managers and the county manager. I've spoken with our chiefs and my understanding is the other chiefs have spoken with their managers. I have a lunch meeting today on this topic. There is a real opportunity to merge and definitely co-locate and potentially merge our 911 dispatch services over time. This is not something you do overnight. We're talking years to accommodate some of these changes potentially. So, we need to check the pulse on that as an opportunity. We currently spend over $6 million a year on city budget for our dispatch. They do a fabulous job, do not get me wrong. there is an opportunity to look for savings in that area through some type of shared services with the other two PSAPs. There are six different elements that we've identified that would have an opportunity to merge within the dispatch. Again, I've talked about layers of technology. The physical location is one of the first ones to determine. So I think now is the time through this process to consider how far the city might be willing to go into a full merger or to turn over that responsibility to a third entity, a new entity, if you will. There are funding mechanisms that would have to be looked at. That's one of the six decision points. So there would be a lot of work involved. But frankly, I don't want to go too far down that path without more formal recognition that this may be a good idea. And the council wants us to pursue this continuously. And so we can do that research and work with the chiefs and work with Mr. Buttons at our dispatch center. to get you that type of information and how it might look under different scenarios.

Scott, I knew about this and the combining with the county. And after sitting in that dispatch room and listening to a 21-year veteran tell me the technology that she has and show me the technology we have through Motorola, that's not offered through the county and the things that we can do that they can't do, I encourage everyone to go down and sit there and let her explain those things. Because I don't know how great of an idea it's going to be to give up full control and let them do this now. After listening and watching the technology that they have in front of them and what they're able to do, It's impressive. That the other software that we would switch to if we combine with the county, because I believe that's what we're looking at, it's different. It's much different. And it's not as precise as what they can do right now.

So let... I guess the question is, given the magnitude of the potential savings that could come out of public safety... Well... Give us the opportunity to specify those differences because this is not, and I've made this commitment to the chiefs. There will not be going backwards in the service levels with whatever the final product looks like. I've already had conversations with the county about where we need to do updates because we do share with the county levels of that technology already. But we both recognize, county and the city, that that existing technology is not good enough either. I'm talking CAD systems and things of that nature that we both recognize have to be upgraded. Why not make that decision together? Make sure we're on the same higher level of service than where they have. It may end up in the same level we're at today. But as long as we're not going backwards, that's the commitment I've given both chiefs. And that involves staffing too, because you learned if you were there that there's a difference between a call taker and a dispatcher.

Oh, yeah.

And those responsibilities would need to continue in those isolating resources. Somebody dedicated to dispatching Des Moines police, somebody dedicated to Des Moines fire would need to remain wherever they're located. They're all cross-strait.

They can do every job in there, and it's not all just taking 911 calls. There's other ones that are handling running plates. It was pretty fascinating to sit in there and listen and watch for a couple hours. I would definitely encourage my colleagues to go and do that if they haven't already.

Okay, so we will bring back to you the more specific six decision points where there would be potential differences that would need to be upgraded in any combined sense. But I needed to bring this to you because it's public safety for one. Six million, over six million a year is spent on this. there are funding opportunities to take this off of the city's budget entirely if that was the desire. And then it leads into the discussion we've already had, you've already had up there, about the need for potentially more firefighters and more police officers. What better way to fund that than to be able to find savings of this magnitude to fund these operations? Because the fire specifically, and these are separate items, they don't have to be connected. but they're there because you've got savings in the first item, and that second two are additional costs that you've already spoken about. Essentially, the most immediate need is to put into the official budget the staffing of Engines 8 and 9. because today that's covered by as needed with overtime and things of that nature. That's never been budgeted, the cost of that overtime, except the one pilot that we had done. And the pilot's now over, but we're continuing that cost. We need to recognize, council needs to decide, are we gonna recognize that those need to be done all the time and add staff to assure that on the fireside. The police we've just heard, Chief and I have thrown out the idea of maybe increasing two officers a year as a good start to show some good momentum. So we're trying to find ways to do that. So we could bring back these second and third items of what those costs would be. and what it would mean for stat authorized strength. But I've heard through other conversations some desire. You don't have to tell me today. In fact, I'd prefer you don't tell me today. But let that sink in and think through that. Think about the opportunities that might present.

What about additional technology that we've talked about that could help?

Like drones that could respond? Yes, that they've tested and we've seen. That would need to be on this list of potential increase. But we can sure bring that back. And we've actually heard even potentially to get some private funds to assist in that regard as well. There's enough interest out there and potential grants to go after some of that.

I remember how we got body cameras and that was a donation from a business.

To get us started, yes.

To get us started, you know, maybe we should look at some of these. We can absolutely. We can help with, you know, Altoona has the drones and I've seen it operated here. It's something that could help us and probably cut down on some of the calls that some of our patrol officers are taking and be able to, you know, some of the calls that we can't get the four wheelers that are running up and down. Well, you can send a drone and watch where that guy goes. Now we know where he lives. Now you can go ticket him.

I think that that's part of the discussion is how we become more efficient. It might cost some money to do it, but in the long run, you get the efficiency, and that's what this exercise really, and I'm sure you're all looking at that anyway.

So we'll bring back a specific proposal in that regard, but understand it's not just police. It seems like every week I hear about another opportunity. We knew fairly quickly that fire could benefit from those drones as well. Mental health calls where somebody's acting erratically, you could actually talk through the drone as well to the individuals that are there on site. Just last week, and we'll have further conversations about this, I was talking with our icon group in the water trails. That's going to be a real concern to patrol people that are having problems out in the water. a drone would be a great way to monitor where that activity is concerning. So there are several different value systems that we could include in that.

Just a couple of comments. The drone technology and the applications in a public safety sense, You know, I get it, I saw it, like I get how there could be benefit, although the question I had was, how does that impact staffing? And it wasn't, there was no discussion of reduction or the efficiency yet. Like, it's just, at least in the initial stage, an add-on. But the other piece that I want to, particularly with the drone technology, that we didn't do on the flock camera, and I will go back to that. I think with new technology like that and new service, there needs to be transparency to the public so that they understand what we are contemplating, what that means, and there should be a discussion with the public on that because it... there are a lot of benefits that come with technology but there are also things from a privacy perspective from a just there with the general public there is some discomfort with surveillance technology and if we're not being transparent about that i think we run into run into some issues and that's part of i think The concern I have around the discussion on the flock cameras and making sure that we get the policy right, too, in terms of how we govern those new tools and how we add them. And I would very much want transparency to happen there. One, I think it's really hard to add a service like that given the discussions we're having from a budget perspective. would also like to to just say like i'm very much supportive of exploring the the merger of dispatch and figuring out how we can save it i would much rather find savings there and put those savings into additional personnel than than some of the other pieces and i know that's maybe not perfect and the department know there are things that we have and the change in the department is hard but that's a much easier conversation to have to merge services and be able to to add staff and with the dollars that are saved than than some of the other pieces so i'm very encouraged to have that conversation um and i think we need to understand eyes wide open again that's where transparency helps and understanding the impacts and the trade-offs of that merger but to me the priority should be on personnel and staffing levels that's the piece that i hear over and over again and so if we can merge some things and and that allows us to have dollars for staff and for personnel that we need, I'd rather have that type of conversation. And then the other question I had is with these items, like the potential savings from a merger, the implementation of the pilot, that cost for patrol, are those going to be in the budget exercise as well?

Yes. Okay. So that will be something that they don't look, the, the, any additions would make the gap even larger, a negative, right.

It would make it harder to solve. And if you're adding here, you're going to have to do more of the cuts elsewhere. Correct.

I think we have to be aware, too, on the merger, too. This might, I don't know how long it's going to take. So for the immediate this year coming up, I mean, definitely need to look at it and understand all of it. I think we also have a timing issue, too. So I think we have to, in the long run, we'll save it, but it will be in the years that we need it. It's to implement, so I think we have to be realistic on that, too.

Well, right, but we're also looking at increases in staff, and maybe if the way we pay for that is savings from a merger.

But if we don't get the merger for three or four years, then... That's potential, yes. make sure we don't get you know that we don't give a real that this is going to be the end all when we might not even it's going to take at least probably two years to get it all together anyway so that's i just want to make sure we're not putting aspects that we could save a lot quickly when we're immediately having to make some changes Right. But down the road, it's great.

But right. Well, my understanding of the way that this budget challenge works is that we're going to solve for the next two years. And then two years from now, we're going to be asked to solve for the following two years because hopefully without any changes.

Yes. Hopefully we'll get other changes legislatively.

Right. I would hope for the legislative changes too, but I'm not going to go to the poly market and make a bet on it.

For sure. All right. The only only other additional comment is we have done transparency very well in the past. We'll use the body camera process that was that was very well done. And it invited private funds, even some grant funds. So we'll try and follow that path with the drones and other technologies that get presented.

I think there's a private...

I've been asked to put that together.

So we'll work on that. And any other slides?

No. Thank you. It's just a reminder. Thank you. Again, starting out the process, we'll have a few more of these conversations and we'll include the public from there. So thank you.

Really quickly, Scott, if you don't mind... I just wanted, probably on behalf of my colleagues, thank you, and the city manager's office, the budget director's office, each of the department directors for going through this process. This is not, I mean, this is dang near traumatic to be talking about doing less of what you're called to do and doing less with people that you trust and you respect. And so I know that's a hard process to go through and I'm appreciative of the effort that you all put in and we'll try our best to honor it going forward.

I just wanted to add you brought up because we want to thank you and your staff and everybody that came to participate. This is, as we said before, the beginning. This is not easy. We want to provide the best services we can and the abundance that we can. And we know these are going to make impacts on everyone. So we look forward to going with the different mechanisms to get public input and then also still look at other opportunities. And if anybody has creative ideas on things that they might see, especially within you know, I know you're going out to all the employees and things, but we to what other mechanisms can we get funding to help on some of the things that we have right now that we want to offer but maybe not be able to. So anyway, thank you. With that, this work session is adjourned.

I'm going to go get that.