City Council - Regular Meeting

I don't know if I got from that house the intense smell. Maybe they were cleaner. Oh, not yet. Not yet. We haven't been around it yet.

Oh, OK.

So. Frontiers? Yes. Cool.

Yes.

See all that water?

Oh, god. That was a lot of liquid. I mean, that's frustrating even just with trash.

Right, and after a while, you see, you smell it? Not from here, but I... You'll get it. Should I roll down my window? Smell it. Okay. Roll down and you'll smell. Oh, I smell it now. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. See, that's some of the things we go through. See, recycling shouldn't be that way.

Oh, God. No, still smell it. It just smells like garbage, though.

Garbage, that's what it is. Yeah, it just smells like... You know how that water mix with that garbage, and it gives that rotten smell? Yeah, garbage juice. Garbage juice. And you don't want that garbage juice on you.

So we talked about how the things that can be recycled and the things that can't. There are different types of recycling, because I know that there are recycling symbols. Does that mean you can throw it all in the same bin? If it has that recycling symbol on it?

If it can be recycled, you can throw it in the same bin, like I said. At the smoke owners, they sort it out themselves. They'll sort it out.

So if it has the recycling symbol, you can recycle it as long as it's clean. I didn't think about this before today, that you can really, you know, I guess if you do this long enough, you not only start to judge people, but you get to get an idea of what kind of people they are. that live inside the houses. You know, pick up the recycling bin and now it pops a lot of Smirnoff bottles. You know that person's going through something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fun time, fun time, fun time. Let's say fun time. I mean, I also see people walk by. They walk with their dog and they pick up the poop and throw it right in the cans.

What? In the recycling? Yep. People really don't care. No, they don't. Okay, Durham, we have to do better. Okay? We've got to do better at recycling. This is ridiculous. Have you ever had a bad experience? Like somebody came out and like yelled at you for... Oh, yes, yes. I had a...

Machete pulled on me before. A what? Machete.

A machete pulled on you? Yes. Why? Oh.

Actually, we didn't pick up his can. We did. I know. We did not. No, we did not. And the only reason why we did not pick it up, because he had, I was in garbage dealing. He had so much stuff in there that was not garbage. Oh, y'all going to get this can. No, no, no, no. He pulled out my machete.

Seems overkill.

Yeah. So we had to call the supervisor out there, and they had the police come out there.

Oh my God.

There's another good thing about this right here, this jar right here, recycling. When that line up there, they have a truck pulling a line waiting on them to dump the garbage, we don't have to wait.

You don't?

No, we jump in front of them, We got our own little recycling thing.

What's the maximum weight you brought in? Seven tons is probably like 52, 53, 52, 53,000.

53,000, wow.

Here it goes.

Whoo! Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Do you still smell it? Oh, yeah. Yes. That's why we need to recycle. I'm going to smell like this. Yeah.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. We're going to go ahead and call the meeting to order at 9.03 again. Welcome to our second day of budget workshops or budget work session retreats. And yesterday was filled with rich information. I really hope that the public goes back and watch the meeting yesterday. It was probably one of the most informative meetings we've had on how the numbers work in local government. And... I'm looking forward to getting into further discussion and colleagues at the end of all of our presentations are, you know, ask for some closing remarks and then we'll look at the schedule for what's to come after that. and understand the date that we'll be passing the budget and if we'll need further deliberation. The June 4th date is a holding slide for us, but maybe we can get everything done today where we won't need that date. So just keep that in mind as we're going forward today. We do have three presentations today. And yep, take notes. And I hope, you know, regarding the CIP conversation yesterday, that if there were any concerns or ideas that you were able to forward those to the manager. All right. Thank you, Director Reardon. It's on you.

Good morning, Mayor, Mayor Pro Temp, members of council, and welcome to our second day of budget retreats. We do have kind of a we have three presentations that you'll be receiving today, one from our Transportation Department, one from our Community Safety Department and one from our Office of Economic and Workforce Development. am hoping that this is a um either there will be time for discussion i know that council has expressed some interest about talking about cip and we do have some um cip experts that will be in the room for that discussion as well to us and if there's any operating um information that you need as well too we'll be prepared to answer questions uh before we get started i just wanted to since this um since i don't know if i'll have another opportunity to be in front of you today i just wanted to kind of take this opportunity to thank the folks that work in my office they this budget was a challenging one this year and so um you know i get up here and um but i have a lot of staff that make me look good and so i just wanted to thank them for all the hard work and hours they put into all of this every year and um really appreciate all the work that they do so thank And with that, I'll turn it over to our city manager if he has any announcements.

Really nothing to add. I will add that we did get a couple of emails yesterday afternoon about CIP. So I do want council to know that we are prepared at the end of the agenda today to present the feedback that was requested from us yesterday. Happy to, so you can plan on that at the end of this conversation and work it into your thoughts on today's schedule. Beyond that, I don't think I've got anything else to add. I didn't get any additional feedback from you yesterday. And so again, just to remind you all, the end of this process comes fast. So this is me saying, if you have questions, if you have process concerns, Obviously, you have until budget adoption to make changes, but the sooner that you let us know what you want, the better we can do responding to your needs and concerns. So while we certainly understand dialogue continues, we understand there's a budget public hearing next week. We remain available to you until budget adoption to make changes. I would urge you to use your time today that if there are other thoughts or ideas that are floating around your head, getting them out so that we can start thinking and giving you options is the sooner the better. And I think with that, I will close my remarks and turn it back over to Christina to get us started on the day.

Okay. And I will introduce Sean Egan, who is the director of our transportation department, who will be doing our first presentation.

Thank you, Christina. Good morning, Mr. Mayor and members of council. As Christina said, my name is Shawn Egan, and I'm the city transportation director. I know we have a very full agenda today, so I'll move quickly through this presentation. It is my privilege today to represent nearly 90 city employees in the department and more than 200 GoDurham and Access transit workers supported by this budget. Our mission in transportation is to provide and maintain a safe, equitable, inclusive and sustainable multimodal transportation system with high quality infrastructure to improve mobility and to offer everyone in Durham access to necessities and opportunities. Our work is led by two assistant directors, Bill Judge, who manages infrastructure development, traffic operations, and safety, and Evian Patterson, who manages our parking operations, as well as our mobility division that plans and oversees GoDurham Transit Services. Our business services division, led by Tom Devlin, is responsible for developing this budget, as well as the contracts, agreements, and many agenda items we bring to council. Through the citywide budget reduction initiative, transportation will be down two positions with the adoption of this budget. One of these positions at Park Durham is currently vacant. And in the other case, one of our brightest stars has been offered a promotion to a newly available position with another department. We appreciate and honor the service of all transportation staff and are revising work plans to reflect reduced staff capacity going forward. Before we get into the budget figures for next year, I want to take a look back and recognize what our transit programs have accomplished in FY26. It's been another exciting year for transit in Durham. In the first quarter, we awarded a new contract for operation and maintenance of the GoDurham access system that operates ADA Paratransit, GoDurham Connect Microtransit, and Senior Shuttle. and other critical transportation services in durham during the pandemic when we faced staffing shortages our on-time performance suffered with riders facing major delays as well as lengthy trips we heard from our riders our community and from city council that we needed to improve so we took steps to incentivize recruitment on-time performance and customer satisfaction and developed a request for proposals focused on performance and accountability The highest ranked firm, We Drive You, in addition to committing to ambitious targets for on-time performance and customer satisfaction, offered to deploy new technologies like a mobile app and a 24-7 call center to make it easier for customers to book or change their trips. We're already seeing the results in higher ridership, cost controls, and customers using newly available tools to plan their trips anytime, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In Q2, we hit critical milestones for better bus improvements along the Holloway Street corridor, with federal approval of our environmental reviews for improvements along Holloway Street and Junction Road, as well as the future Village Transit Center. These approvals enable us to secure more than $12 million in federal grant funding and proceed with property acquisition and construction activities in the year ahead. But we're not waiting until next year to deliver improvements to riders on this corridor. In November, we launched Durham's first 10-minute transit service along Holloway Street with six buses per hour in each direction between Durham Station and the Village. We also extended the 15-minute frequent service network to 20 miles in each direction with 15-minute service end-to-end on Route 3. In response to input from riders about lengthy trip times, we also celebrated the launch of Route 13 Crosstown Service to provide a direct link between some of our highest ridership destinations, the Village, Durham Tech, and NCCU. Riders in East Durham no longer need to travel through downtown to Durham Station in the West End to then transfer and head back east to reach critical educational institutions. these service frequency improvements and the new crosstown route are made possible by the funding support we received from the durham county transit plan our fleet modernization program took a giant leap forward in january as we added 15 new battery electric buses to the fleet enabling us to boast that nearly one-third of our go durham fleet is zero emissions 100 electric A competitive award of $6 million from the Federal Transit Administration announced in February will further advance fleet modernization. And we're grateful to Council for approving the purchase of 10 new buses last month utilizing that federal funding. Also in February, council approved the initial design contracts for two maintenance facility projects to support fleet expansion for growing the frequent service network, 60 foot articulated buses for BRT and a new home to enable GoDurham Access to deliver critical services for decades to come. Once again, I want to thank our Durham Transit partners at the county, Triangle West Transportation Planning Organization, and GoTriangle for their support of the funding needed for design work to commence on these facilities. And if you think those accomplishments are impressive, the North Carolina Public Transportation Association agrees with you. naming Go Durham the Urban Transit System of the Year for 2026. I was so proud to hear the mayor's proclamation and accept the award from NCPTA leadership on behalf of our small but mighty city transit staff and the nearly 200 bus operators, mechanics, service attendants, and supervisors who serve 20,000 Go Durham riders each day. While we take a moment to celebrate, we know that our brightest days lie ahead. And so we're getting to work on project development for the Central Durham Bus Rapid Transit Project. Central Durham BRT will connect transit critical neighborhoods in East Durham with jobs and essential services like health care in downtown Durham and at the Duke VA Medical Center. Once again, we express our appreciation for our Durham County Transit Plan partners for their support of Durham's first BRT project. To recap the highlights from the city manager's presentation last week, the proposed budget keeps Go Durham and access fare free through fiscal year 2027. As we discussed at the February budget retreat, in addition to the loss of fare revenue, we confront rising costs for personnel and equipment needed to deliver safe, reliable, and affordable transit in Durham. At that time, the combined impact of these forces was an $8.2 million shortfall in the city's FY2027 transit budget. I want to express my appreciation for the support of our partners at Durham County and GoTriangle for working with us to enable $8.2 million in one-time assistance to balance this budget in FY2027. The county manager and her staff in particular worked closely with city staff and other partners to identify capital project expenses that could be eligible for reimbursement through the Durham County Transit Plan. Together, we identified 8.2 million in expenses for capital projects related to transit vehicles and bus stops that will improve Durham's transit reliability and accessibility. We appreciate this one-time assistance, but as the city manager said in his budget presentation, addressing transit funding needs in FY2028 and beyond will require serious discussions with our partners about potential changes to financial policies and governance structures to ensure a financially sustainable future for transit in Durham. This is a slide that only a spreadsheet aficionado like me could really love. There are so many numbers here. I think it's helpful to zoom in on the bottom three lines for today's discussion. As you can see here, we project to end FY2026 next month with a negative $3.3 million fund balance. Thanks to the support of our partners, we are showing a balanced budget in FY 2027. In 2028 and beyond, however, we face significant challenges and our partners have made it clear that the assistance in FY 2027 was provided on a one-time basis and should not be expected in future years. To put this in context, the current property tax rate for transit is 2.40 cents in the proposed budget and is held flat. Based on the $6.89 million per penny of property tax discussed yesterday, bringing the city transit fund back into the black in FY2028 entirely with property tax would require 2.0 cents of property tax in addition to the current rate going from 2.4 to 4.4 cents to solve that 13.79 million dollar figure that you see in 2028. staff will discuss options with partners and bring back a full menu of available options all of which will be painful for council consideration in the fy 2028 cycle here we see our major assumptions for revenues and expenditures keeping go durham bus and access fare free through june of 2027 Durham County Transit Plan funding is available for one-time relief, and we do not expect additional support from our state or federal partners. We have cost escalation built into our bus and paratransit operations contracts. Both of these contracts, along with indirect costs paid to city departments for their support, costs that have grown by 50% since 2025, will increase our costs in 2027 and beyond. We face challenges with the structural deficit, increasing costs for fuel, bus purchases to replace vehicles beyond their useful life, fewer competitive grant awards, and the likelihood that federal formula dollars for transit will not keep up with rising costs. We will face difficult choices in the next budget cycle as we continue our fleet renewal program and build upon the success of North Carolina's best transit system. With that, I am happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Could you put that back up there? Thank you, colleagues. Thank you. No, not the award. We appreciate the award. The presentation. The last slide on the presentation. Sure. Yeah, one slide back. Thank you, Director Egan, for your presentation. Colleagues, any comments? Welcome, Mayor Pro Tem. You just slipped in here. Sorry, I was locked in on the presentation. Yeah, any comments, questions from anyone?

Yeah. Thank you, Director Egan. Good to see you. Very proud of you and your staff and all of our transit operators. I just want you to know whatever you need from us as council members to have those conversations. I know we have a lot of governance things that are going to be happening in the next few months, both with the ILA, if I'm not mistaken, with the county, and then also at Triangle West. There's also conversations there around governance structures. And so I think this fall will be quite busy for those of us who are in that in that world. But please know that you can depend on us to do the hard work that needs to happen to get us to where we need to be. Thank you. That's all.

Go ahead. Thanks, Director Regan. Actually, I'd love to see that the plaque up there again. So, you know, sort of prop that thing up there as well. Yeah.

Okay.

Next to my bike helmet, here we go. There we go. I'll pass it around. So, thank you. So proud of our transit department and the impacts you've identified. And I agree with Mayor Patel, there's a lot of sort of governance questions going on that will be happening in the next year. So I appreciate you identifying what these challenges are. I think we are aware of those, but I think these are important challenges we need to confront. My question is simply on the issue of the fund balance, the growing fund balance, a deficit. Again, I think we've seen these numbers. And I appreciate you've identified essentially like a two cent increase in the transit fund to cover that, right?

If it has to be done entirely with property tax. If we're not able to identify other sources.

And so just to be clear that there's part of that is the sort of growing loss starting at FY28, but there's also this sort of accumulated 3.3 deficit we've got. So can you tell me the source of that? Is that also sort of fare free or is that related to other costs?

It's mostly driven by personnel costs. So about 70% of our costs of running transit in Durham are people costs. So they're the costs of wages and benefits, There's a pension plan for our bus operators and mechanics. So all of those, we have very generous health care benefits that we offer. So those are our primary benefits. cost drivers, and those continue to go up. But we're also seeing significant increases in equipment cost. A bus that used to cost about $600,000 to buy now costs about $800,000 to buy. So we're seeing significant growth in the cost of the equipment that's needed to provide services as well. So the combination of those personnel costs as well as significant cost escalation for equipment is the primary driver of that deficit that you see.

So fare free is kind of, it's all kind of bundled together. Fare free is part of that. That includes personnel as well as equipment, as well as simply operating costs, right? So it's all, yeah. Right.

Okay, thank you.

Yep, go ahead. I don't actually have any questions. I feel like we've hashed these numbers out a lot of times. But I do want to say that, The fare-free buses is really important. And I just want to give accolades again to how much work it has taken to ensure that we have fare-free buses this year. I wish that I felt like we were going to have fare-free buses in perpetuity. But in this moment, given the dynamics of governmental agencies, I don't feel sure about that. And it makes me really sad. This is one of the best ways to sort of redistribute wealth in a state that does not allow us to look at property taxes and distinguish among size and income of landowners. And this is a service that is really, really utilized by our public and makes a huge difference. We know that having access to affordable and, in this case, fare-free transit is something that drives down housing insecurity. It assists with food insecurity. It assists with violence prevention. There's all of these things wrapped up in transit. And I just want to... very much appreciate the work that it's taken to get us here this year um folks please ride our buses um they are amazing i would love to see you all on one um and not these folks i know you already ride the buses but folks and the folks in general the population in general please write our buses they're amazing um and i just want to I just don't feel like I can state the over-importance of what this is for the community and how many folks that I know that rely on this system. So thank you. Thank you to your staff. Thanks to all the folks up here who've done a lot of work, including the manager and folks in your office as well, to ensure that we have that for this year. It's been a real priority of mine, so I really appreciate it.

Anyone else? All right, if I could just carbon copy the comments of Councilmember Cook, what she just stated. It's extremely important. It's important to me. But I also, at the same time, and I'm going to be really explicit today about just the hard choices before us. Can you tell me when we are going to, well, I know when, but we are going to have to have that tough conversation that Raleigh had and other partners around the Triangle had. in regards of fares for buses. It's something that I think that, you know, I think when you pay your taxes, public transportation should be just a service that's provided for everyone. But I also am not going to, because that's just what Leo believes, I'm not going to ignore these numbers in front of me right now and how it continues to grow. Is there a tiered approach that you guys have thought about? I can afford to ride the bus. someone may not be able to afford it once it accumulates over time uh and right now it's just a blanket fair free uh i think that we're gonna have to have those tough shorts so tough conversations you're talking about in the very near future uh so looking at where we are today and looking at what's to come is is that something that we could consider

So I think all the options are going to need to be on the table, given the scale of the figures in front of you here. I think there's a model that Raleigh has set up where they're ensuring that low-income riders uh are able to ride the bus for free but that model relies on about 3.3 million dollars of funding support from the sales tax for transit that's collected in wake county so that model works because of that partnership and so some of the conversations that uh will be taking place, is there a way to replicate that model that's being used in between that partnership between Raleigh and their Wake County partners to help us make sure that the buses remain free for low-income riders, but not universally.

Got you. At GoTriangle, we have a similar model where the university system pays for passes for the students. I just want to make sure we explore every option. It feels good to have as a value in our city that fare free buses are for everyone. But I also realize that, you know, just because this is what I want, it's not what I'm going to always be able to get and pretend the numbers are not going to be in parentheses. So Yeah, I just want to make sure that we're now starting to have those very tough conversations. I don't want to have this conversation when it's too late. So as we're going into this today, I would like to implore our staff to start getting really creative. Fair free as a blanket may not be a reality if we can't figure out these numbers in parentheses.

I appreciate the question from the mayor. On this issue of modeling, and we've talked about this in the future, that at some point we hope to grow ridership, right? So there's a broader section of the community that all ride in the buses. And as we get denser as an urban community, that's the way we need to go, right?

Projects like the Central Durham BRT project advance that goal. It's going to broaden the demographic profile of our riders so that it's not a system where 87% of the riders are low income. We're going to add frequency and then add high quality corridors like Central Durham BRT, and that's going to be a much larger swath of our community is going to be using the system. on a daily basis?

No, I appreciate that. That's exactly my question. So right now, and we've looked at the cost-benefit analysis. If we were to reintroduce fares, $1 or $2, what the benefit is versus sort of the cost in terms of slowing down. We've got to add fare boxes, slowing down service, and so forth. So we've said right now, from a cost-benefit perspective, it's not a real winner for us, right? But as the demographics of the folks riding the bus changes, is there some model you have going out? I'm sure it's not a couple of years, going out at some point as ridership, as the percentage of riders who are low income right now, 87%, as that goes down, at what point does that cost-benefit analysis then sort of like tilt to the positive?

So what we've seen with peer transit systems across the country is that when a majority of your ridership is not low income, that fare collection can be done in a way that's equitable and sustainable. And positive from a cost benefit.

So you're saying it's roughly like when majority of riders are not low income. Right. So right now we're 87%. That's a big delta, but that's something certainly we can aspire to. And have you modeled what that, like, how long it would take for Durham to get there? Is that a 10-year run?

It's very difficult to model income, but I think we've got 20 miles of frequent service network now. We're looking to increase that over the next few years by 50% to get up to 30 miles or more of frequent service in our network. The more that we make transit competitive in terms of travel time, ease of use, the more we're going to see a much broader swath of the community taking advantage of it because it's competing head to head. It's easy to use. You're walking out to the bus stop and you know that within a couple of minutes the bus is going to come up and take you on your way. Central Durham BRT looking at 7 to 10 minute service frequencies for that. It is that type of service where you'll never look at a bus schedule. Again, and so I think as we invest in building out that frequent service network in doing projects like central Durham brt we are advancing that but. It is difficult to say that by year X we will have less than 50% of our ridership will be low income. It's something that we'll continue to measure and track our progress on as our ridership grows. We'll see that progress, but it's challenging to forecast.

In a best case scenario, is that like 10 years maybe?

Depends on how quickly we bring on our new services. Right now, we've got some real challenges just to be able to deliver Central Durham BRT. So right now, our maintenance facilities are not equipped to take care of the 60-foot buses that are planned for that project. So we've got some conversations with our partners about making sure that we have the funding that's needed to upgrade our maintenance facilities to be able to do BRT. And so we're a long way from being able to say with confidence that we can even deliver the Central Durham BRT project given where we are right now. So I think it would not be prudent to forecast you know, where we're gonna be in 10 years when there's considerable uncertainty about some of those investments.

Last question. What can we learn from peer cities? I know it's tough comparing cities that have different transit infrastructure, right? But if we look at a city like Richmond, for example, which has more frequent BRT service, or a city like Charlotte, bigger than us, has some light rail, what do we know about the demographics of the riders in those public transit systems?

So what you see is that phenomenon. When you make it fast, frequent, and reliable, you serve a much broader swath of the community. Your ridership goes up. Right now, we're serving our traditional core ridership. which is that 87% of that ridership is low-income. We're serving that. There's not a lot of room for ridership growth with Durham's low-income population. We're already serving that population very effectively. So to the extent that we can grow, so we're at, you know, 6.5 million annual trips to get to the point where Richmond is, where they're at 10 million or more trips. That increment is going to come from advantaged riders. To the extent that we are growing ridership, we're already effectively serving, we're attracting that low-income ridership in a way that there's not a lot of growth potential there. The growth potential is in attracting advantaged riders to the system. So as we get to seven, seven and a half, eight million annual trips, all that increment, for the most part, is going to be coming from those more advantaged riders.

Yeah. And you may not have the data now, but if you could share that with us after this meeting, just some peer cities, what their demographics look like, including the Richmonds and the Charlottes. It'd be really helpful to know what that looks like and sort of maybe how we can aspire to get there. So thank you.

Thank you. Thanks so much for your presentation. Also, toting the plaque around. We took a selfie with it, so it's cool.

I carry it with me everywhere I go, around town.

I mean, because it's a Flavor Flav thing, put it on a necklace.

Yeah, I'm going to get a necklace for it.

Okay, so just... I'll Amazon it for you. Just thinking about a little bit of theory versus practice, I do hear the aspiration of changing, like hoping to get this more advantaged riders, but there is a perception about safety on our buses, and so I want to know about what the messaging will be or if there's any thoughts about... How do we change that perception of some of our bus stops being like crime hubs? Just saying the part out loud, what I've heard personally, I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's very important to this conversation. So thinking about as we want to attract more diversity in our ridership, how can we address the current public perception about what's happening in our buses and bus stops?

I mean, I would start by saying that we have a responsibility to ensure the safety of every single person who rides on our system regardless of their race, income, ethnicity. So we take, and we've certainly heard from a lot of our current riders that Safety is a major concern for them. So the village is the clearest example where we've done extensive outreach around the shopping center there, stood up at the front of the Tropicana grocery store and asked people, can you talk to us for two or three minutes? And what we hear is, I don't feel safe waiting for the bus here. I will walk half a mile or a mile out of my way to go to a different stop because I don't feel safe getting on the bus here. And when we've had those conversations, we've worked with the Durham Police Department, it is very challenging to address rule breaking behavior on a sidewalk in the public right of way. Now when we have rule breaking behavior, when people are fighting or littering or doing other rule breaking behavior at Durham Station, We can remove those folks, and those folks can be put on a list where they're not allowed to use the station. If they can't be there and follow the rules, we've done a big code of conduct campaign. We have actually a comic book that's very family friendly that talks about our code of conduct. But we need folks to be respectful of one another, the riders as well as the hardworking employees who are doing this. So part of that slide that I talked about with the village, so we now have the federal environmental clearance to purchase property at the village. that we can then treat like a smaller version of Durham Station, where we can have on-site security there the way that we have at Durham Station, where we can set up cameras and make sure that there's also seating and lighting and restrooms and other facilities available at the village in a way that we can't do when those stops are on a city sidewalk. So we're in a process right now. We have funding for property acquisition. General Services is leading that process for the city. But that gives us a chance to make a really transformational change in safety and improve safety and address those concerns that we've heard from you know those shoppers at the tropicana about not feeling safe at the stop everyone should feel safe and we should be and and at a place where the boardings are as high as they are around the village we need to be making substantial investments to address those safety needs

Thank you. I appreciate that because I have had conversations with some of the business owners out there, and it's that one stop where it's like 30 people loitering at any time of day and not actually riding a bus. And so I have heard those concerns. And just for a final note, and this may just be a little bit for education for me, can you get the data? Because I've... Because when I heard a while back that Charlotte's actual transportation ridership has been down and it may be attributed to gentrification because a lot of people who rode those routes were actually pushed out of city limits. So it's been hard to track those people. So one, as we consider looking at pure cities, can look at the opposite side of what happens when you have a massive population shift and people may not need the ridership as well.

Yeah, we can certainly look into that for you.

Thank you. And this is long-term thinking about ridership. And for me, fare free has always been a way to build ridership. If we get folks on the bus, they see that it's clean, they see that it's safe, it gets them to their destination. And then those folks who can pay down the road are just going to be used to it, and then they won't mind if there's a fare associated. Especially when we're thinking about BRT and what's going to hopefully be very, very fast service. When I think about that, I also, as you know, have been a long proponent of trying to get as many DPS students. And I really appreciate, first, the division of the routes between Northern and Riverside. A few years ago, they were on the same route, more consistent service, shorter. I think we're moving to 15-minute service on some of those routes.

So we will introduce 15-minute afternoon service on Saturday. That's amazing. And then our plan is when schools come back in August that we will have all day 15 minute service to Northern High School.

That's exactly what we want to hear. And then as we're having those conversations, we've moved into that at least twice a year, having the county, the city, and the schools, and really working with DPS on how to get that messaging out to their students and their schools. Because there could be opportunities for them to be able to decrease their own transit costs, which at the end of the day, the county is funding. And I know that that's a long term you know that'll take some time but I just don't ever want to miss the opportunity because those are future writers and if they're used to riding the bus from from high school years then that's not somebody you have to convince at 40 who's like well I've never ridden the bus I'm not doing that um in many cities like Washington DC where I worked previously there are no big yellow school buses everyone rides the city buses get to school you took Bell that's how you come So I just want to not lose the opportunity. I think our next meeting with our schools and counties may be in August. And so I think it's a good time. It'll be the beginning of the school year to start really thinking about, no, it's not going to impact next year, but it gets us in that cadence of thinking about how to do that moving forward. I will say that since my kids have been at Riverside, I have personally seen the increase of students riding the bus, just anecdotally. So I think that that's a good move, and I'm glad that we're moving to 15-minute service for Northern.

And that will also help, adding that 15-minute service to Northern will help with some of the concerns we've heard from our core ridership that teenagers on the bus are unruly, and that it is challenging when the bus is really crowded to have a group of teenagers get on at the high school there. So part of what we're doing is focusing those trips so that we don't have the same crowding issues. And we're kind of spacing out the teenagers from our core riders.

That is actually having seen teenagers the world over in often school uniforms. They're rowdy everywhere.

All right, just in closing, I think we have more than a strong case on why buses are fare free in Durham. I don't know how strong the case is going to be in the future to our partners, funding partners. And again, local government is about robbing Peter to pay Paul oftentimes. It's a jigsaw puzzle. We're doing it right. I mean, the awards show it. The recognition show it. but even good ideas have to be funded and we're gonna have to figure this out. So I appreciate the feels, the good feels of today. It does not negate that we're gonna have to figure out how to keep this going. One thing I truly, truly struggle with is, I agree with Mayor Pro Temo, you wanna build ridership, make fares free. On the flip side of that is Building ridership builds also wear and tear. It just has a price tag. I don't care how good the idea is. And we're going to have to figure that out. So I'm just making sure, now that I'm disagreeing with Fair Free right now, I'm just simply saying, I don't want us to put a wool over our own eyes of the conversations that are coming forth. It's going to be brutal. It's going to be brutal. And we should be prepared for that. All right.

uh mayor council thank you and uh director egan for a great conversation before you sit down uh there is one other tiny aspect of my budget presentation i just want to make sure it doesn't get lost certainly know that there's a lot in this budget both uh uh additions and cuts and one of the minor but uh not non-existent cuts that i did accept in this budget process was a reduction in funding to the speed hump program so before director egan left the podium if anyone had any questions about that i wanted to give you the chance if you were comfortable with it this does not completely eliminate our ability to add speed humps but it's uh essentially mandates a pause in the community-driven process whereby people can petition for studies. In part, I recommended this because the department indicated that they're reevaluating their overall approach to traffic calming, so I thought this was a reasonable recommendation, but I didn't want to have that not discussed if council has any questions about it.

What's the total cost of that?

$20,000 was the amount of that cut. All right. Thank you.

i appreciate you raising that mr manager this is something we do hear from residents um you know as often perhaps the the only traffic calming option that seems readily available what i hear is concern about safety on our streets a desire to have some intervention to slow down traffic. I believe as a city, we're undertaking a variety of steps to try and achieve that, but I still understand the block by block impacts. I also know that We haven't delivered a very high percentage of speed humps that have been requested over time, which also can create frustration that we have a process that people can enter into something they can request, but that it seems very difficult to achieve. So I am very interested in what the Vision Zero team comes up with in terms of recommendations going forward around street calming and street safety um perhaps speed humps will be one option I believe from from talking to Ms Grove there'll be more and so just let folks know that that that is coming and that there are other options out there that may be even better for safety and other considerations um but you know it's a small dollar amount um you know I know it'll be frustrating to some folks to see it cut. And I do think speed humps have merit. And so I would like to see how those factor into a future plan for traffic calming.

So I'll say that we've updated our traffic calming toolkit. And we look forward to bringing to the manager and executive team and then to council some updates on how we can more cost effectively address traffic calming needs across the city as you said the speed bumps are they're an if they're an effective tool it's a blunt instrument and it's a high cost and we also have a process that's petition driven so most of our requests are coming from advantaged neighborhoods across the city so there's an equity consideration with this as well you have to go through and get signatures from property owners so if you rent a property our process doesn't recognize you as as a stakeholder in that process so there are some significant equity issues with the current process but fundamentally we think and if you go to the south side neighborhood just south of downtown for example you can see what we've done through a city resurfacing project there with paint and posts and what we call speed cushions that have cutouts for heavy-duty vehicles like fire engines and buses so that's more the model that we'd like to go to is to find those more cost-effective treatments and so that we can we can scale better across the city and make sure that we're focusing traffic calming in neighborhoods where There are the most significant safety concerns, but there's not always the folks who are in a position to complete a lengthy and complex petition process. So there's a speedhump policy that the council adopted, and we're looking at asking you to kind of repeal and replace that with a different, more cost-effective approach.

I appreciate that. Thank you, especially with the equity consideration. I look forward to seeing that. Thanks.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for the conversation about speed humps. I appreciate that. Good questions from my colleagues. I guess my question is, I know one of the big priorities for your department for many years has been – actually, let me back up. I know a big part of the Vision Zero philosophy is that we just need to design streets differently so people are not in conflict with cars or pedestrians and bikers. At the same time, I know one of your priorities as a department has been lowering the speed limit citywide, right? And there are some indications that this year we could have success in the General Assembly in getting our speed limit lower to 25. So what's the relationship between, like, how important is that compared to the sort of other pieces that you're developing as part of the Vision Zero team? I mean, how much would lowering speed limits be a part that could address some of these concerns around safety on streets all across the city?

So I think that lowering speed limits has been shown to reduce overall travel speeds. So there's significant research on that. It's most effective when it's paired with changing the design of the roadway. So that significantly improves that effectiveness. I would say that there would be benefits to that. Where I think we're potentially in a position to see the most significant benefits in the years ahead is in school zones. So last year, the General Assembly passed an authorization for local governments to implement school zone safety camera enforcement. And so there's a rulemaking process that the State Department of Transportation is going through right now, but we're participating in a coalition of local governments from across the state to look at implementation of school zone safety cameras that have the enforcement benefits without some of the racial justice and other equity considerations around a traditional law enforcement stop. So we're waiting to see when those rules come out. We don't expect anything until the new calendar year. But there seems to be broad recognition that making it safe for kids to walk to and from school

needs to be a priority and addressing the safety in those school zones is something that we have the opportunity to do now in a way that that we didn't previously appreciate that I know that that's helpful to have that that proposal or that that possibility how does that also I know there's also been conversation I think it's part of the vision zero work to simply block off like closed streets in front of schools to traffic is that also part of the plan

I think we would need to make sure that we have we work with the school system on Access to the school so that there is safe access So there are some examples where we've done. I think it was ekpo We did some improvements around the pickup and drop off area to channel the vehicle movements so that we provide a better separation between the vehicles, so we're we're looking at opportunities to partner with the school system on ways to address safety but we do also need to make sure that that families can get kids to and from school so you know closing a street entirely would be a an option if everything else were were exhausted

just a quick question did we determine whether the pilot for the parking program was included in the budget it is the low income is no the downtown pilot the parking pilot no there's an agenda memo that you'll get today i think yeah uh with some of the additional information that was requested so it is not included in

I don't know.

I haven't seen the response. I do know you asked for it. I do know it's coming, and I don't know what the response was. We can find out. Yeah.

It is not in the figures. If it were to be included in the figures, it would be, I think, a 1.3% reduction in revenue and a 1.7% increase in the amount that would need to be covered in the parking fund from other enterprise funds, temporarily covered.

Can you give me a dollar amount?

Yeah, it'll all be in the memo. So it's $74,000 is the dollar amount.

I appreciate that. I know that we're voting on the pilot, but we are also talking about the transit budget right now. So it would be helpful to have that. whenever it could get sent out.

If you could find the response memo, maybe work with Mary Grace Stoneking, and if we can get it emailed out to council, just given that we're in the budget conversation, that'd be good context to have. Certainly. We'll get it sent out as soon as we can. Thank you.

Thank you for answering all of our questions and for the presentation. Welcome. The tough conversations that we're going to have to have around transit. We also have money in the CIP for Vision Zero. I was wondering if you could just speak to that real quick. And then also, you know, we talk about it's hard to talk about transit transit ridership without talking about what happens to people when they step off of the bus and are then pedestrians and walking to and from different places and we know that the design of our streets is um incredibly car centric um but i think the dna of our that the dna that we use to design our streets is also still car centric and we I adopted the NACTO resolution. I know that we're moving forward with some of the other DNA changes, but I was wondering if you could speak, one, to the Vision Zero money and what we can expect out of that, and then two, what are the things that we need to finalize in terms of changing the DNA that shapes the way that we build our streets? And another piece of that is the LDC that's floating around out there that has the two new cross sections in it.

So our focus with the funding that's in the 27 CIP for Vision Zero is on the implementing the results of what we call road safety audits. So our team was out in November. And then again, I think it was earlier this month. So I got to participate in a couple of them. We were on Dearborn Drive near Old Oxford Road. And we went at one point during the daytime to see daytime conditions and at one point in the evening. And we were also out on Andrew Avenue by driver. Street and on that corridor. So these are high injury network corridors where we can make design changes to the roadway. We were out there with our partners from NCDOT. These are primarily state maintained roadways, Dearborn Drive, Andrew Avenue. So NC55 was another one of the locations. So what we've done is we had an interdisciplinary team of folks from engineering, safety, our traffic signals, signage, transit bike ped all out there observing and then bringing forward a set of road safety audit recommendations for implementation so the CIP funding will give us the dollars that we need to implement things like pavement marking changes additional signage paint and post things like that that will help us to For example, tighten up a turn radius at an intersection where if there's a slip lane and folks are making that turning movement at a high speed, how do we make that? We can use things like paint and posts to make it a 90 degree turn where folks have to slow down and look BEFORE MAKING THAT TURNING MOVE. THAT MAKES THOSE ROADWAYS MUCH SAFER. SO WE'RE DEVELOPING THOSE RECOMMENDATIONS, AND THAT'S WHAT WE'RE USING, VISION ZERO FUNDING. THERE'S ALSO FUNDING IN THE CIP TO ADVANCE MANGOVA AND ROXBORO. THE COUNCIL AWARDED THE FINAL DESIGN CONTRACT FOR THAT. SO THAT'S KIND OF AT THE MAJOR CORRIDORS WHERE WE HAVE We really have to transform the roadway design on a corridor like Mangum and Roxborough. And then there's also funding in the CIP for our resurfacing projects. So that every time we're resurfacing a city street, we've done a big ramp up in resurfacing with the bond funding for city streets every time that we're doing one of those city street resurface things every time that water management is digging up a road and then putting it back and then every time that ncdot is doing a resurfacing we have the opportunity to improve the roadway design through those resurfacing projects so there's there's funding in the cip so it's really a combination of some of these more small-scale road safety audit recommendations the taking advantage of the opportunity of those street resurfacings and then the major kind of transformative corridor projects corridor redesign projects like Mangum Roxboro we need all of them and we need to continue to invest in those and advance those if we're going to address our our vision zero goals

Thank you. And then in terms of the DNA, we've got the NACTO guidelines we have, and that also includes ITE guidelines. We have the, we're funding the, street design manual this year. We have the pending street cross section in the LDC. So once we are done with those, do you think we'll have everything in place so that we're transitioning toward better street design almost universally?

We're very good at planning. We struggle with implementation. So that's going to continue to be a challenge for us. So we can develop all the layouts and adopt reference volumes, but we really need to focus our efforts on the opportunities that we have, for example, with those street resurfaces. So when we talk about the Vision Zero goals for 2035 and 2045, Those dates weren't randomly set. We know that the life cycle of most of the roadways in the high injury network is about 20 years. So over the course of the next 20 years, through resurfacings, we will have the opportunity to address almost every roadway on that high injury network and address the design needs. But we also know that some of those roadways like Roxborough, they can't wait. So we need to move forward with those now and so but yeah that that implementation is going to continue to be a challenge one of the other benefits of Suspending the the speed hunt program is it allows our staff to spend less time doing traffic counts and engineering work based on a resident petition. And it allows our staff to spend more time doing data collection and redesign for things like the resurfacing projects. Because we're gonna get the most, we're gonna have the most impact by focusing our staff resources on the high injury network.

Thank you. And I hope that you'll reach out when you need help filling the gap between or building the bridge between the plan and the implementation. Thank you.

Thank you again, Director Egan, and to my colleagues for the questions. this brings to me to mind also the question of the crossing guards i think outside of like the courts the tennis courts and our workers perhaps the thing we've heard most about uh is around uh the the crossing guards and i know that the managers tried to construct a budget that does everything possible to maintain core services i realized that the four sites were a pilot but still when we talk about all the great work being done around safety and it's really important for to hear you share all the different ways your department and multiple departments are thinking about this, so thank you. But as we work on this jigsaw puzzle, as the mayor talked about, and try and hunt for basically every penny, I do want to elevate that request that we've heard, and that for me, when it comes to safety of crossings at our schools, seems pretty core. And so if there is a way for us to

uh retain that as we think about options i just want to state that here so um the proposed budget does not uh continue the pilot program the pilot program uh will end next month um at the end of the school year uh in terms of that the cost of that just we had that

Off the top of my head, my recollection, and I'll ask budget staff to confirm this later, is it was about $80,000 to continue the pilot?

I think it was like $75,000, yeah.

So... We have developed a really good partnership with the school system to evaluate those sites, but we'll be going back to the previous number of sites for the next school year. The way forward for us, you know, There are significant budget pressures here. One way to provide a sustainable funding structure to support the school crossing guard program is through those schools on safety camera enforcement. So the funding is required to go from citations is required to go to the school system. The school system's in a position where they're already managing a significant portion of the crossing guard program, and more and more of the DPS sites are outside of city limits, which makes the city managing those programs Challenging for us so the conversations that we've had And we in the last meeting that I participated in of that statewide coalition we had DPS represented there with us is looking at all right well could we stand up that school zone safety program and then use the citation revenues that would come from that as a way to expand and really sustain school crossing guard locations across Durham County because more and more of those sites are outside of city limits so that would involve the school system hiring additional staff to manage that program. But the revenues from the school zone safety citations should be sufficient to cover their administrative costs associated with expanding and sustaining the program. So that's kind of the path forward that in partnership with DPS that we're looking at for the school crossing guard program.

I just want to make sure, can we, for staff who are maybe keeping tabs, or maybe the clerk, as an agenda item, the next time we meet with DPS, is the school crossing guard exactly what you're talking about? Because we're having the next school, county, city meeting, because we're talking about... That's August. I'm going to forget, and I want to make sure we talk about it. Thank you.

All right. Yeah. The reason why this budget is, these conversations are so tough is because there are things that are projected to be cut that are close to home to people. And I am still stuck on the speed hump program. It's $20,000, right? I think about the speed home program at $20,000. And I also think about the West End Community Life Center, right? And Kent Street. And on Kent Street, it's a really interesting example of just over the times. If you are approaching, if you're entering Kent Street from the University Rockwood area, Once you turn left or right on Kent Street, you see some of the nicest homes. And there are four-way stop signs. There are speed humps. But there is a point about midway on Kent Street where all of that stops. And you see more dilapidated homes. You see no four-way stop signs. You see no speed humps. And it ends right there at... I don't know if that's First Baptist Church or whatever, but it is a predominantly black church, but you have the First Calvary, and you have the Life Center, Community Center. And you just think, when you look at the budget, you're seeing what's being proposed to be cut, and that's just... that's part of it, it puts us in a really tough situation. And when I think about the budget, I said in the beginning of yesterday, I become a fundamentalist when it comes to the city budget. And I started to look at, you know, the way I see it is, you know, you have this big glomerate of a building, but the one foundational thing is like the size of my finger. But it's so culturally significant that once that foundation crumbles, it projects much larger than a dollar figure. And that's what I'm wrestling with. I don't understand. how we can't find $20,000 for the program. I don't understand how some of these programs have to get cut. And then we are expensing other things that are not necessarily directly what our responsibility is when it comes to city services or city employees or infrastructure. And so that's what I'm wrestling with. And you'll hear me say this again today. There are some things we can't find money for. And then the other side of it is, we have a decision to make on what the city is going to fund and what we're not going to fund. And so it just has me in a really uncomfortable space. And I'll talk about this more as we go through, but our number one goal is to keep people safe. And when you think about a nearly $800 million budget, and then you think about $20,000, and if our top priority is to keep people safe. I don't know. Some things aren't adding up for me yet, but we'll get there. All right.

Thank you. I would just draw the contrast between the $20,000 for speed humps and the $1 million that's in the CIP for traffic calming improvements.

Yeah. And the other question, the other point is that that is really hard to grab, especially if you're probably at home watching this. It's the sources of funding. They are so all over the place, and they have their specific purposes. It's really hard to have all of that in one conversation. So I think we, as council members, are going to have to do a really good job of messaging sources of funding, what pays for what, what can pay for what and what cannot, and not having all of these things in isolation. Because I'm struggling with that right now, but I wanted to name it. And I can appreciate that. But that's where this is going to get really tough.

Yeah, it's a really good point. I think part of what, you know, we talk a lot about building for this kind of transit future, right? And so I think when residents think of, like, when they see traffic on their street going too fast, right, the first thing they think of is, like, can I get traffic up, right? And I think we're building new tools and strategies, Vision Zero, separating people from cars kind of thing. cameras at school, these are all things, these are new innovations. I think a lot of folks aren't aware of what the solution set is, right? And so the default is like, I just want some speed humps. And so I appreciate what you're saying about the million dollars in the CIP for traffic calming. I think there's a lot of tools that people may be new to folks. And so I think part of it is a communication strategy to make sure people know about all the set of things that we can employ to calm traffic in addition to speed humps. So that as people express concern about safety, they know there's a whole range of things we're looking at, including and beyond speed bumps, right? So big communications challenge. Thank you.

Yep. I just, as I'm going through this budget process, Kent Street is constantly in my mind. and how we communicate that, what funding is available. It's being projected to be cut here, but we're not talking about where we can still find funding for it. We need to do that more. So I think messaging is going to be important. I have not spoken publicly about this budget because I know there's still a lot of adjustment that has to be made. I'm uncomfortable with how much we've been marketing the projected budget when there are so many changes that may or may not be made. So thanks for that.

I'll just add on Kent Street in particular, one of the equitable and green infrastructure neighborhoods that we have done our initial engagement work and design work is the Lion Park neighborhood. So there is funding through the EGI program for us to implement treatments in the Lion Park neighborhood. So the EGI is another tool that we have to make sure that traffic calming is implemented equitably across the city. And Lyon Park is one of the neighborhoods that will benefit from that.

I appreciate that. I'm not necessarily talking about what you all are doing. I'm talking about what it appears to be. Kent Street as a community, what it has and what it does not have, where it has and where it does not have, is very symbolic of the overall economic City services reality in Durham. So it's not about what specific things we are doing. It's more so about the lived experiences of people without understanding any acronyms that we have or any type of investments we've made, any programs that we have. I don't want to give the general public government speak. So that's what I'm getting at. But I appreciate everything you guys know. I'm grateful to have the transit department that we have, transportation department we have. But it's less about what programs we're doing at Kent Street. Kent Street is just an example of the overall realities that some people live in Durham and how they're watching this process right now. And they're looking at what's projected and what's proposed and how they're feeling and how we need to communicate what we can do and what we can't. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next up.

Oh, just advance it.

Great.

Oh, Sean.

I think this is his phone.

All right, good morning, Mayor Williams, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, members of council, Manager Ferguson. My name's Ryan Smith, Director of the Community Safety Department. Today I was asked by budget staff to start off by providing a brief overview of funding for our department over its first five years of existence. I'll talk about that briefly, what the funding has made possible, and then I'll turn the majority of my time to talk about this year's budget. So the Community Safety Department was created five years ago. Our department has grown significantly over those five years from a pilot department of 15 staff in its first year to a proposed 93 FTEs under the manager's current budget. That growth has started off, as you know, we started with the pilot department and growing HART. I think of our story in three phases. The first phase was our pilot year where we both developed HART and then ran a pilot in a third of the city. The next phase of our existence was expanding HART to run citywide. As an operational department, HART currently serves the entire city 15 hours a day, seven days a week. And then our third phase of growth happened this this current year under the managers organization in which we developed a new division focused on stabilization services. This slide shows that growth in a chart form of our budget. That dark blue is the general fund. The lighter blue is the dedicated housing fund, which we received this year once some of the contracts that were in community develop moved over to our department. And you see the difference between this year and next year is primarily that yellow or gold bar, which is grant funding, primarily home ARP and ARPA interest dollars. Again, the main drivers of growth over the department were first the expansion of HEART from we were a 20 person staff serving a third of the city to a 47 person department that was covering citywide and by FY24. We really didn't have much growth that next year other than funding that was recommended to create the Office of Survivor Care by the Community Safety and Wellness Task Force. Then we had a big growth in our current year that brought in homeless services, the Welcome Home Program, street outreach, and then there was a hard expansion just for community response teams. And then this year, the major growth is driven by the strategic framework, which we just talked about last week. I want to talk very briefly about what that funding has made possible. Just one slide to talk about HART. Since HART launched, we are in our fourth year. We'll be celebrating our fourth anniversary of HART next month. HART has, over those four years, responded to over 44,000 calls and has done so safely and effectively. These are just a couple of ways of telling that story. We see that when heart response and mental health calls, there is an increase in the percentage of people who get transported to supportive services on a mental health crisis. Our responders have felt safe, and we have not had any significant injury throughout all of our 40,000 calls, which is an important indicator that we have drawn the boundaries the right way on which calls are eligible for a non-police versus a co-response. We have seen a growth and increase of support from our DPD officers, and this was I've certainly heard this from Chief Andrews when she was here. This has also been verified by RTI through an evaluation in which office support grew from 37% at launch to 94% who felt HART was helpful on calls. And we've also seen that translate every year to an increase in the number of calls that DPD is dispatched to and are requesting HART as a support on those calls this year over 400 times. We have an external evaluation that Duke is doing, which finds that 91% of residents say that heart is needed in Durham. And we also saw in the city's own resident survey that 57% say they're more likely to call 911 because they know heart is an option. Having heart saves the Durham Police Department thousands of hours this year over 8000 hours, which frees up our officers to be on calls where we need the most and other priority calls. We've also seen that when heart shows up to mental health calls or other things, a decrease in arrest 56% verified by an external evaluation. Stop there. Sorry, one second. All right, so that's hard. That was the first part of our story. The second part of our story was this year when which our departments grew significantly under the manager's reorganization. We added a new division focused on stabilization services. These are the major things that make that up. We have our HOPE team, which was formerly the homeless services team that sat in community development. These are staff that serve as the lead agency for our continuum of care and support our nonprofit providers. They rebranded themselves the HOPE team when they came to our department. The Office of Survivor Care that was again recommended by the Community and Safety Wellness Task Force, a resident body that recommended not only the creation of the office, but that the office sit in our department that has two staff. welcome home which is a program that origin originated in budget management services went to oewd and under the manager's reorganization moved to us which is two full-time staff and two part-time staff it's a peer support model welcoming people back home from incarceration and doing a better job of welcoming back in that in those first few months providing peer support and helping them connect up to other existing services The involuntary response unit, which was grant funded in this year, is proposed to be made permanent. I'll talk about that more in a minute. Street outreach, which used to be done for Housing for New Hope and at Housing for New Hope's recommendation, moved into the city last year. This is a team that goes out and works actively in encampments across Durham to support people in getting into shelter and housing. Familiar Neighbors, which is currently grant funded still for another year, that works with some of our neighbors who have the most complex needs at the intersection of homelessness, severe persistent mental illness, and sometimes substance use dependency. And then related to the HOPE team, another thing that we took on this year was our responsibility to coordinate our winter shelter and white flag program to make sure that we are creating as many safe warm beds for people during the coldest months of the year. quick question so yes so we now have so the hope team is housing for new hope working internally with the city no sorry uh the hope team is what our team rebranded itself it means housing outreach prevention and engagement when the staff from community development moved over here they renamed their team hope team so not housing externally hope team internally yes that's correct a lot of hope and a lot of confusion all right thank you for that we'll take it Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. And just on that point, the task that we took over for Housing for New Hope is under the street outreach. And there is, under both the street outreach and the winter shelter, there's federal funding for that as well? Or there's different funding sources for that?

There's lots of different funding sources. Yes. Yeah.

Can you just give us a very bird's eye view of that there are other funding sources coming in for those operations? Because we were contracting for that stuff outside the city, and now we've brought it in house. And so we've also brought that money in house as well to support those services, right?

Wait, my colleague, if I just add one thing, opposed to the bird's eye view, I would like an exhaustive list of all those funding partners and the dollars associated with that. So I don't know if you have that. Maybe the bird's eye is appropriate for this setting, but maybe later on we'll get an exhaustive list of that. And then also, if you have it available, just the stats for the street outreach and the partners who you commonly work with, but also how many of those folks are successfully homed and how many times you encounter those folks when they're successfully homed would be information I want to hear as well.

Great, I will need to provide that and follow up, but I can certainly do that. Thank you for those questions. I'm sure someone captured that. Okay, so the sources of funding. So I'll talk about this a little bit and then we can talk about it in more detail when we get to the end of the presentation. So as you saw, we have about 10 million in general fund, about 3.3 in dedicated housing fund, which comes through the less now than two cents on the dollar that funds the dedicated housing fund. And then we have, So our providers, we make possible as the lead agency, we manage the process to submit federal applications to HUD for funding. Our community gets several million of those dollars. It is our staff's job to manage that process, to create the application, to work with our partners in the Homeless Services Advisory Committee, to hold scoring committees, to hold this transparent collaborative process that then brings federal dollars. Those federal dollars exist because the city staff is supporting that process, but those paths go straight to providers and do not hit city books so that's a that's a you know three million dollar investment that we don't see in our budget but it is made possible by the work of city staff that are working and then we'll also talk about additional sources of funding this year that are through home ARP and ARPA interest dollars that are that would be new and proposed to support this work and I'll talk about what dedicated housing funds as we move through the presentation All right, my clicker is... Okay. Just very briefly, obviously the HOPE team has been busy this year supporting a big strategic planning effort with our partners, but they've also been actively doing work to create a more supportive city agency supporting our continuum of care, and that has shown up in a bunch of ways. One of the engines of this work is case conferencing. Before the team moved over to us, we were case conferencing 10 or 20 people a week, and that's grown to, we have significantly increased the number of people that we are bringing case managers across our system together twice a week to case conference, which means that we are talking about specific people experiencing homelessness in our community in a collaborative way to identify barriers. It's an important... service that the city provides to coordinate that effort and make sure we understand those barriers and can work together to address them. That's grown fourfold this year. We've done a lot of work to improve our data. Again, we were a system that primarily relied on an annual point in time count. We now have a public-facing dashboard that is updated monthly that provides better data, which is helpful for us for accountability and for understanding how we're doing and what changes we need to make. We've done a lot of work to build more connective tissue with our partners. We have an executive roundtable that we never had that we bring executive directors for regular meetings in our department to make sure that we're aligned on the work. Those are just a couple of things you see a bunch here. We also did significant work around white flag. We created a triage line because there was to make sure that regardless of the hour of night in which someone might want shelter, we had someone who was available to answer the phone and get that person to whatever available bed we had in our system that night. So a number of things that I'm really proud of the team that has worked hard this year on top of a significant lift to develop a new strategic framework of doing what we can with the resources we have today to better support our providers and our system. Yeah. Briefly about White Flag. So when White Flag came to us, we made significant efforts to increase the capacity. We had over 3,000 warm beds provided during the winter storm, during White Flag season. During the two winter storms, we worked in a, I think we really, showed what a strong backbone agency could do. We pulled multiple partners together. We increased 167 safe warm beds during those two storms, including our staff shifting and working 24-7 to run a hotel. We served 391 total neighbors across that season. And importantly, we worked with Durham Can and DCA and others to stand up a new campaign that we hope to build out called the 100 Days of Warmth, that campaign helped us get union baptist on board as a new shelter spot and help during the storm rally volunteers to support the shelters that we were running in emergency fashion so a lot of good things that we can build on Quickly about the involuntary response unit. So again, this is a two-person unit. It has been grant funded. It was grant funded through the North Carolina Governor's Crime Commission through a partnership with Durham Police Department. This unit includes a certified first examiner, so certified by the state to conduct first exams for involuntary commitments paired with an EMT. They respond with law enforcement. The goal is to be able to do a first examination out in the community as opposed to having to always transport the person to the hospital first. The reason is it's very common when we transport someone to the hospital that they do not meet the criteria. And so we've gone through a very time intensive process to transport someone to the hospital when they're not meeting the high bar for commitment. And instead our team, when that happens, is able to cancel the custody order and then provide, make sure that they are getting appropriate care in the community. When we do need to transport, we're able to provide better follow-up care. We're able to explain the situation to families. We're able to go with folks to the hospital. So there's a number of benefits that come from this. We have seen, so 60% of individuals have gotten to more appropriate, safer locations. And sometimes when we're not transporting folks places, we're able to safety plan with people in community to stay in community if they're not meeting the criteria. We've also seen in over 50% of folks that we engage for this unit are voluntarily agreeing to seek care either. Either they are ready to go to the hospital or they want to go to recovery and response 24 seven center. And then 98% were able to connect with long term community providers, which is really great to make sure that they have the support they need longer term. I shared this quote last time, so I won't read it again when I was here at our last work session to talk about this. We're really excited to continue to grow this work and excited that we'll now be able to do in the near term alternative transports when they meet certain criteria so that if someone needs to go to the hospital, we'll be able to transport them in a heart vehicle as opposed to law enforcement vehicle where they meet where that's appropriate. Office of Survivor Care, again, there are two staff in the Office of Survivor Care. Those two staff this year, because really it got off the ground this year operating, have supported 72 survivors since launch, 409 case management sessions held. They work with folks on average 88 days, and they're able to connect with someone upon referral within 48 hours, 93% of the time. There's a bunch of good work this team is doing. They're building out a new partnership with the Durham Housing Authority that I'm excited about for something that's called Care Reviews so that when a shooting occurs on DHA properties, this team is going on site. They will be canvassing, not only working with the house, the property or the household where someone was shot, but also canvassing the surrounding neighborhoods and bringing in community partners into that. They've done a lot of work to help increase victim compensation. They had this beautiful new partnership with Parks and Rec where they're doing for the survivors that they're supporting therapeutic walks and parks as a great partnership with Parks and Rec. I was just talking to a man who is a who lost two children this year in Durham who is working with the Office of Survivor Care, and he talked about the first time he went to the ENO was through one of these therapeutic walks and how much it meant to him to be able to do that. So it's a great way that our city departments are partnering together. So a number of great things that they are doing as a very small staff. Lastly, the Welcome Home program moved to us this year. It had been operating out of OEWD. It's a peer support program with two full-time staff and two part-time. These are the stats this year. So they have 118 participants. They have Welcome Home back from incarceration. They are quickly connected with a peer who has gone through that same experience. They're providing support and connection to other services. They're connecting with folks on average 27 days from the point of their release, but the meeting of that is five days, so it's pretty quick that we're able to make connection. 112 participants are working in workforce development. The recidivism rate over their first year with us has been 5%. And then there's a bunch of other support that they're providing in terms of coordinating, getting people to healthcare services. They get people, if folks are on probation, they will help them get to their probation appointment. Just a range of work that that team is doing. The important thing that was added this year was the city council recommended bringing the $1 million guaranteed income program into the city, into our department. That program went operational in February. We had funding to support 107 folks, and that program is fully, we have full participants, 107 residents. The focus of the program is for folks who have recently returned home from incarceration. They are getting guaranteed monthly payment for 12 months. And that program, so we're not yet through the six-month mark, but that program is underway, and I'll talk about that again in a minute. So turning to this year's proposed budget, 18.6 million across three funding sources for 93 FTEs. So 10.4 of that is for the general fund. The general fund funds our core operations. It funds the HEART program, things like Welcome Home, administrative staffing, IRT, Office of Survivor Care. The dedicated housing fund of $3.3 million funds core contracts that we have been managing. So first it funds street outreach, but it also funds White Flag. This past year, White Flag was led by Open Table Ministries, and it also supported some of the work we did with Union Baptist. It funds a landlord engagement, which this year was Housing for New Hope. It funds a homeless management information system, which is through the state North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness. And it funds coordinated entry, which is our single entry point for the homeless system that is Volunteers of America out of VOA. That's that 3.3 million. The 4.9 million, most of that 4.55 is Home ARP and ARPA interest dollars. um 4.55 of that is for the strategic framework the the part that is not the we have a 200 000 robert wood johnson foundation grant that we received and there is a little bit of funding left from a bloomberg grant that is also in our department but most of it is home arp and arpa interest to support the strategic framework Again, the big headlines that I'll talk a little bit more about, we have the framework, which I spent a lot of time talking to you about, and I know that we'll have more questions today. We have the involuntary response team, which was grant funded, that the manager's budget recommends providing staffing so that unit can continue. We have six positions of the net 18. Six positions are being transferred from the police department, four for victim services, two for co-response, which I'll talk more about. And then again, a net 18 staff. So this is the organization chart. Let me just talk about what is changing from our current organization chart. Under the management proposed budget, there are two new administrative positions added to support a department with growing administrative needs, including managing. We have two people currently in operations and two people managing our core financial administrative functions. We have a lot more federal funding that we're managing, so this is adding some core capacity in those areas. The plan supports nine new positions to support the strategic framework. These are one-time funding. It supports, again, the two – it maintains our capacity for involuntary response. I'll say those first two things are adding capacity. The last things on this are maintaining capacity that currently exists today. So the involuntary response team, which has been grant funded, it maintains that by adding two new positions as the grant expires. It maintains the capacity in victim services and DPD, but moves that to our department. And it maintains the capacity that we have in co-response, but again, transfers that from DPD to our department. New funding. So again, 3.25 million of home ARP funding one time to support the strategic framework and specifically to support the 2 million of that is for the flexible housing assistance fund that provides pathway clearing and helps us move people who are living in encampments or stuck in shelters into available units. And then the critically 1.25 for supportive case management. So as we're moving people into units, they have the support they need to build up stability and be able to remain in units. ARPA interest dollars of 1.3 million support, the staffing that I mentioned on the other side, the nine backbone staffing, technical assistance, which is about $100,000, and then $300,000, and unit recruitment, so making sure that we are working with landlords and getting more units online to move people into. um but i want to note about both of those one they're both one time and two home arp especially can't be used for anything it is primarily related to the homeless system happy to answer additional questions about that um happy to answer just questions about that and then budget might be able to answer more questions about arpa interest dollars but there are some limitations on those funds the general funds 208 000 to make permanent the involuntary response unit $394 for additional fleet. We have had, as our department has grown, our fleet has not kept up with it. We have had to rent vehicles. And so this is right-sizing our fleet to meet the operational needs of our department so that we don't experience any disruptions in service. All right, a little bit more about position moves and reductions. So I want to talk a little bit more about the six positions moving from DPD. Again, it's the first thing I want to notice. These were recommendations by the Durham Police Department and supported by the Durham Police Department. Victim services staff would move from DPD and work with the Office of Survivor Care in our department, growing that to be six staff. They would both continue core functions but have the capacity to grow. One of the things in meeting with DPD leadership is feeling like our department and Office of Survivor Care is the right fit for that work, to support that work. We will still be working very closely with the Durham Police Department as we do every day. on that work, and then two co-response clinicians. The thing I'll say about the co-response clinicians is they have sat in DPD's budget, but in every other way they function in our department. We hire them, we supervise them, they're clinicians. They function in every way. They work out of our department. They have just had a budget home. This is kind of cleaning that up and moving those two staff to our department. They already function as if they were our staff, but budgetarily they have sat there. Reductions, we have some reductions. We have two positions that are being eliminated in the budget. The manager's budget recommends ending support for legal aid, which administers the DEER program. This is a program that has been around a while. It supports free um free legal services to support residents in need of expunging criminal charges or restoring driver's license privileges it's a program that this city helped develop and get off the ground but it is uh run by legal aid and has other community partners that support it happy to answer questions about that the funding for that uh this current year was 245 000 so the manager's budget zeroes that out Also, the managed budget zeroes out support that the city's been providing for the DA's office. That funding is the amount of around, I think, $300,000. Bella asked Renee to fact check that for me in a minute. $300,000, that has supported three positions, two assistant DAs and then one paralegal. Those positions, you know, I know that Madam DA has come and spoken to council probably the last time we renewed that contract about the case for that. uh staffing in our office the the state has not provided staffing levels that support that office and and the da had through for i remember when it started but had come to council to seek support so that they could process cases in a more timely manner that's what those positions have been doing largely in related to some domestic violence cases in some cases related to gun violence but oftentimes in more misdemeanor fashion And then the guaranteed income pilot so we had a million dollars this year that program will will run that million dollars out And then there is no funding for that and the current budget for next year for guaranteed income So that program would come to an end So when I last spoke about the future framework, there was a question you want to see Council wanted to see the items and broken down by city county and community investment. So this is that chart for you. This is what we presented to the joint joint city county. When we initially presented the framework that called for $13 million community wide investment with 4.5 coming from the city, which is what the manager has proposed. You can see that the city's investment is divided across the flexible housing fund, system-wide case management, staffing, technical assistance, and then additional support for landlord recruitment and retention. VAS for the county was $2 million for the public-private fund, $1.2 million to support strategies to reduce the number of people who are entering homelessness, 130 for staff, 108 for technical assistance. And then community was $5 million to support the flexible housing fund. that's the the breakdown oh i just one thing i want to name about the city's investment is the city's investment is on top of of funding that we have of the key investments we've been making so we're not we're going to continue funding at the same level for white flag for coordinated entry for landlord engagement hmis and for the street outreach work All right, what this investment makes possible. I don't have a slide here where I go into a detailed explanation of the strategic framework because we had that conversation recently. I'm happy to answer questions. But a big part of the increase is supporting the strategic framework, which aims in one year to reduce unsheltered homelessness by 30%, veteran homelessness by 30%, and youth and young adult homelessness to reduce it by half. In addition, beyond those significant milestones and work over the next year, it will make permanent the involuntary response team, which sustains clinical-led voluntary commitment response to improve the experience for residents when they have to do the difficult thing of seek out an involuntary commitment. It provides a stronger office of survivor care by pairing it with victim services. And then it sustains our current crisis response level. So HEART does not grow next year. It will maintain its current operation, which is running seven days a week, 15 hours a day. And that concludes my presentation. The last thing, I'm sorry, the last thing I wanna say before that is it is a real honor to be able to represent the work of the people who serve in the Durham Community Safety Department. you have not spent time with us recently i would love to welcome you to do so i think that the people who make up our department would make you proud the way that they show up every day they don't give up on people they have incredible compassion they have a lot of courage that all that all first responders have and i'm just it is i'm very proud of the work that they do proud to be able to stand before you today and represent that work and i'll take your questions now thank you colleagues yep

Thank you. I did not realize, and it makes sense that we, with the basic income, that we had not made that reoccurring. So that's just a flag for us colleagues. I thought last year when we brought it in, we had made it a reoccurring amount. I understand clearly not. We're going to have to have some conversations. I get the two vacancies. We are starting to get some emails around deer. I think DEER is a good example of something that we helped fund and start in the hopes that it would get funding partners from other sources. And that never really manifested, not because the work isn't critical, but because there's just not places, basically philanthropic dollars that are funding that kind of work. If I'm not mistaken, the DEER model is now really being pushed at the state. Like what we did in Durham, had a massive impact across the state of North Carolina. And I have a lot of, quite frankly, heartache that it's getting zeroed out. I was on council, I believe the year it was created. It's one of the things I'm deeply proud of. I think that, I mean, you were in the IT Ryan when, I mean, that was y'all's work. So I'll just say that that slide in particular is troubling. I know we're gonna have some other conversations on, you know what are what are we giving up and what are we not and i know that that is a council decision um i'm just sharing my deep um consternation and concern in general i really appreciate the the presentation i think your department has done incredible work i have been on ride-alongs from the time that HART was created to now with police officers, and personally heard the stories and had not that there was ever any doubt, but just a little bit like, we don't know what's going to happen to, oh, it's a critical part of our community safety infrastructure. I know that your department, your staff, everyone who works in that department, that we are the model for the country. big and small, small communities, New York City. I mean, we get asked to go all over the place. So I'm deeply proud of that work. And I think that the, I have some more questions around homeless strategic plan. I want to hear what colleagues have to say about that. Well, I'll just say it. I'm deeply concerned that we have funded our part of the stool and that that has not manifested and that the stool may tumble because we have found the money. and I am deeply worried about the success of that framework, not because I don't have confidence in your staff, but because it was a collaborative effort with key partners. And if those key partners aren't putting in the necessary skin in the game, I just worry that we're not going to be able to really reach those reductions. And so that's something I do want to talk about here at some point. I don't know if we end up taking another meeting or whatever. But that's kind of where I am right now. Again, I think that the framework makes sense. I have some reservations on throwing so much money in year one when we don't have the return from our other partners. And I do want to have conversations around some of our cuts that are impacting community safety department. Thank you.

Can I speak to that last point real quickly? I don't know that it was a question, but it might come up from others. So one, if we do not get the full $13 million, then I'm here to say that we will not reach all of the reduction targets that we have shared. So I think that we built that budget based on reaching the targets of 30% unsheltered, 30%. So the numbers are based on that. So if we reach significantly less, then we will not reach those full milestones but i do want to say that we will make reductions with the money that we have so it is not that if we don't get at all the plan i do not think the plan crumbles i think the plan does not reach the full year one milestones if we don't reach the funding the other thing that i would add is when i talk to funding partners the one thing that i hear them saying consistently is we want to see where the city and county are at and So I think it's too early to say or to know for sure what we will and won't get at this point. I think other private partners are watching to see what the city and county are really willing to commit. And that either puts us in a better position or worse position to be able to get funding. We're going to learn this year. It is an important question. I don't know that we'll reach the full 13 million, but not reaching that full 13 million doesn't hamper our ability to make real significant reductions. That's all I want to add.

Thank you, and I appreciate that. I just, and this is not anything, people want to see the commitment. Philanthropic partners, other community partners want to see that we are funding our share. And at this moment, in this budget right now, we have met that goal. I hear my colleagues with our questions around if, other if the county isn't going to do their part are there other things we need to do with that money because we're not going to hit the target to your point and so i i just want to be real clear here that as one council member i'm open to having a conversation on that funding and tying it to if we don't get x from the county then we can't fund ours there has to be some real uh incentivizing and pressure we are diligently trying to shift how we operate city and county and not be quite frankly in a very i've been on this council and we have been in tense places with how the county city have worked together and i really want to credit both the city and county manager for getting this to a different place and our county colleagues because it takes a lot of effort and relationship building, and it makes me anxious and uncomfortable because I see this as a giant step backward.

Okay, thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I'll just have, like, I just wanted to follow up to what Mayor Pro Tem said, and I'll give my colleagues space, and maybe you'll answer some of my questions. I just want to know if we could, like, unpack the reluctancy from the philanthropic groups to actually participate or buy in at this point. Do you have any, like, insight in regards, because I know for me it's been, interesting trying to get information about this and thank you for your presentation but just trying to feel like some transparency and actually the objectives around it have been hard for me to kind of grasp so i want to know if other private partners are maybe having some of those same like feelings or what has been the feedback that you all received when you've pitched to some private partners or people outside the city

Brian, do you mind if I respond to that? So I want to be clear that the city has not launched nor have we been well equipped to launch a philanthropic fundraising effort that is not something the city has traditionally done in the past but we identified as this plan was announced that there would be a significant role for private funders and so we have begun those conversations uh and i think we are still learning the ropes of how to put together a formal ask so before i comment or have ryan comment on what we have heard from the philanthropic community i want to own the fact that you know the city is not an established fundraiser it's not something that we've had a lot of experience doing uh and that we are dipping our toes in so i have provided uh some guidance and participation in that. I've had some conversations with the organizations, and my response to your question is they're very interested in hearing from us, but that they feel like at this point They don't have a complete proposal in front of them, and so what we have heard is that if we can take some time to finalize our proposal in a way that philanthropic organizations are used to receiving them, which has really been the gap, uh that they think we have a compelling case uh for fundraising i think that middle part is this that that you have seen you know as recently as last thursday you know we have a long presentation uh and you know designed to reflect on a year's worth of strategic planning work and our data um what funding groups are used to is a very concise uh formulated kind of 15-minute elevator pitch. And so I think we are getting better at narrowing down our elevator pitch. But we have also kind of looked to and appreciated the assistance from council in that space because I think there is a shared responsibility of when those funding partners look about who is asking, they really think of the city council as well as senior staff as sort of representing those asks. To summarize that answer, I have heard optimistic responses from funding partners. We have not issued many formal asks, and the formal asks that have been made have been responded to with positive support. Those announcements have not been made yet because those groups have asked us to withhold any formal announcements until other private funding partners have been approached, and those other approaches haven't happened yet.

Ryan? Yeah, because there was a lot of words, so just being concise and how we're answering with it. So while you're basically saying they've asked you to follow, because I used to work under some capacity in my job, are they asking you guys to follow an official grant process where you have to go through some in the models for that to receive the actual funding, opposed to just having a meeting and hoping relationships work things out? What are we saying here? If they're asking you to say, hey, go ahead and submit a grant packet with your request in it, your metrics and all these things, what goes there getting back to you? Or is it just formal conversations that are happening right now to try to bring people in?

We have not been asked to submit formal grant applications. The three things that I have heard to be as concise as possible is support for the direction of the framework and support for wanting to invest in it, but no commitment yet as to what that will be. I've heard the other consistent point is looking to city and county to lead first. And the third point I've heard is that the city and county, from the view of private philanthropy that we have talked about, will need to bear a majority of cost and that we may not get to five full million in the first year. But that, you know, I have heard enough to believe that we will get, there are folks who have expressed strong support that I believe will lead to commitments, but I think they're waiting to see how this process plays out.

So follow up for the city manager. So what, if they're not asking for a granting from you guys submit a grant proposal, what are they asking you all for?

They have indicated that making presentations to their boards that make funding decisions would be the appropriate method to make the request of the groups we have reached out to. I think the other feedback we have gotten is that there may be other groups we don't know about. And so people who are in the fundraising space have offered us guidance and support about how to make other requests to other agencies that we haven't thought of. Because I think going back to my original case, We don't really know all the people who to ask. We know some of the leading names in philanthropy in the triangle, but there may be other groups. And so we are asking our funding partners to also help us network with other funding partners.

Okay, thank you for that. And so back to you, Ryan, in case you all, so do you have like a backup plan in the event that you aren't fully able to create the buy-in or investment, like what the numbers or metrics look like in case we aren't able to, well, it looks like you're getting your money, but in case something changes to where we aren't able to fully fund this, have you all like made a plan B or plan C to address this?

Based on the funding that we get, we will make a plan. So If we have the things that we need to get started, we need some amount of flexible funding. If we don't have any flexible funding, I don't think there's much that we can do. We need some amount for case management because if we have flexible funding and we get someone in the unit but we're not supporting them, It's not a smart investment, and the likelihood that that person may return to homelessness will be higher. We need some additional staff. There are some things that we need that work together to do this. We will be able to drive forward reductions with the amount that the city gives us and with the amount that I think that we will get from other partners, even if we don't get all to the 13 million. I think as we figure out how much money we have, we can come back to council and adjust what our first-year targets will be if we only end up, let's say, with $8 million as opposed to $13 million. We will need to adjust our targets based on primarily the driver of that is going to be flexible housing fund. I mean, the biggest thing in the budget is flexible housing fund. That is the engine for helping clear pathways. So I think once we know how much we have in the flexible housing fund, which I don't think we'll know until probably we get through the first quarter of the year because we'll be hopefully continuing to make approaches and get additional money in at that point i think we'll need to make an adjustment based on how much money we have in the flexible housing fund to me that's a key driver that we can't do this work without so i think we'll be prepared to do it so long as we have some money in those things there's work that we can begin to do if something like there's no money for flexible housing or there's no case management support that would be the worst option because i think it really hampers our ability to make meaningful progress

Thank you. And then to the topic of involuntary commitment, you mentioned there were some barriers that were in the way. That's why we need staff support to make sure the assessment piece. Could you just go into what those barriers are for someone who, what do they need to be involuntarily committed?

Sure. I'm going to actually ask my assistant director, Lee Mazur, who is our assistant director over crisis response, to come and provide more information about that.

Hey, would you, could you repeat the question for me? Just asking about some of the barriers, because I know it was listed that you'll need additional staff support to kind of assess the individual and kind of like guide them on the involuntary commitment process, see if they're actually even eligible. So just trying to identify, like, I know if you want to go into, you know, voluntary commit is a different process from someone involuntary commitment. I think that might involve like the sheriff or it's like a process. I wanted to like just publicly state the process for involuntary commitment. Oh, sure. Okay.

All right. So if you are concerned about a loved one or a friend in the community and you think that they are a danger to themselves or someone else, you would then go to the magistrate's office and you would petition the magistrate for an IVC. The magistrate would then make that determination as to whether or not the content you provided in that discussion meets the criteria for an involuntary commitment. If the magistrate is then going to issue the IVC, The, um, let's see, the officer can pick up that paperwork from the magistrate's office and then they're going to go to wherever that person is located if they can find them. That's a huge barrier. So if they can find that person, they then transport them to the hospital where they can get, typically that's where they received the first examination.

Okay, thank you. And so I think this might be for Ryan, but thank you. Let's meet you in person. Um, yes. So what would this process like? And I know we I think in a previous budget item, not budget item, but it was on an agenda to actually pay for the transport. So it's coming full circle. So what is like this, the job description is individual. So what they work with a family or because involuntarily, obviously assumes you're not doing on your own. So with this visual light work, consult the family or

Yeah, let me provide a little bit more context. So a custody order is issued. When that custody order is issued without an involuntary response team like we have, then law enforcement goes and they transport that person to the hospital for the first exam. We've done this in partnership with law enforcement because that experience doesn't work very well because when the magistrate is making a decision, All they have is they have the person who might be concerned about their loved one is in there and they're not mental health professionals and they're making their best judgment about issuing a custody order. what the involuntary response team gives us the capacity to do. So they are certified. We have a licensed clinical social worker who is certified by the state of North Carolina to conduct first exams. And as part of that, not only are they certified by the state, they have to conduct first examinations under the supervision of a physician for a certain number of times before they become certified first examiners. We have built that partnership through our grant with Duke Hospital so we can have our clinicians who are fully licensed complete the state exam, and then go work with Duke physicians to do enough repetition to become fully certified. As a fully certified first examiner, they and an EMT, because there's certain medical things that you're checking off, they will meet law enforcement on scene for an IVC, and then they can conduct the first exam right there. If the person does not meet the high threshold of harm to self or others, then instead of either police or us having to put that person in the back car and transport them to the hospital, we can contact the magistrate, cancel the custody order, and then that team is there to work on safety planning and connecting to other appropriate community resources. So they are both improving the first response, the first exam. They're providing additional support to families also in understanding what the process is going to be. If someone is transported to the hospital, they are going with them to the hospital so that they're talking directly to physicians or others on scene, providing additional support to families, providing follow-up after release. So there's a range of things that they add in our ability to extend care and improve the experience for folks in those matters.

Thank you so much for that, because I just know through family experience, if you've ever had someone in a voluntary committee, it's like a long process, and it's very arduous and time-consuming, but also emotionally burdensome to go through that. So I appreciate it. And I think the last question I have right now is for the city manager. I just wanted you to clarify the use of the ARPA interest dollars, and are there any, because I was led to believe at one point there weren't restrictions on the use of the ARPA interest dollars. So I just want to clarify if that is or it isn't.

I'm going to ask our budget staff to give you the technical answer on that.

Hello, Christina Reardon, Budget and Management Services Director. There are not restrictions on ARPA interest dollars, although we have tried to kind of keep within the realm of what the ARPA guidelines were. So this work would kind of fit in the overall ARPA framework, but we are not restricted in the same way we are for other ARPA dollars. Thank you so much. Sure.

Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Thanks to my colleagues for the discussion here. And thanks for the great presentation. I mean, obviously, as you mentioned, this is now one of the nation's highest regarded community safety programs. We're so proud of that and so proud of your leadership. As I talk to colleagues around the country, they all know about our community safety program. And so wonderful stuff. It's been a pleasure to work with your staff who are amazing and committed, as you said. So thanks for all that. I also appreciate, you know, the increased investments in things, as you mentioned, in this budget for things like the homeless services stuff we've been talking about. for the victim services piece and also for the involuntary commitment team. So all great stuff. I do want to ask you about, and I must say that when I saw the presentation last night, I'm surprised and somewhat shocked to see that we are now recommending ending the the guaranteed income piece now called rooted formerly a pilot known as excel um and i just want to note that um you know that's a that's a we engaged in the excel pilot several years ago the senator mayor steve shule we were part of the mayors for guaranteed income that that pilot was evaluated by the university of pennsylvania strong returns in terms of what that meant for families or individuals returning from prison in terms of reduced recidivism engaging with our families, connecting with families, so strong results there. Former Mayor Pro Tem and I were strong advocates of expanding what had been a pilot into a program at the city. And that's what the funding that we requested last year was approved for. We had a strong response from folks, especially from Durham for All, advocating for making this a permanent part of our cities, what we offer to folks. We know the data for folks returning from prison is pretty shocking, right? About half of those folks are re-arrested within two years, and about a third of those folks actually re-enter prison, right, or sort of re-incarcerated. So the numbers are shocking. We have served since February of this year, as you showed in your data, 107 folks, right, since February. And so to me to say, and again, when the request was made for appropriation was not to do a pilot, we've done the pilot, we've shown that's successful, and we've been successful here, it's been successful around the country and around the world, right? And so to see that identified as a pilot program, that after February, what's that, like a few months, we're saying now we're not gonna continue that, seems to me like a real miss on our part. So I want to talk about that. I'm glad that Mayor Pro Tem brought that up. I can't think of something we do in this city that's more, has more impact on homeless services potentially, on violence reduction, on workforce development, on shared prosperity in one single program. And so I'd love to know, you know, the manager said that there's no direct service impact on this budget. That to me seems like a major service impact. 107 people that we can serve with basic income. We know that folks returning from prison have a difficult time finding housing, finding jobs. And so I'd like to know if there's been some sense of like, are we saying the impact is not there for this program compared to other stuff? So what's the decision making on your end of the department to not recommend this? What's not there that we don't want to continue providing in the city of Durham? Sure.

Ryan, I'm going to answer first and then let you correct me if I say anything wrong. So first and foremost, I think it would be fair to say that the Community Safety Department would have gladly requested the extension of this program based on the experience that they've had. We had this discussion in early January after we'd already identified a $10 million budget gap, and I indicated at that time as we became aware of AT THE SAME TIME AWARE OF THE SIGNIFICANT COSTS OF THE HOMELESS SERVICES THAT IN LIGHT OF THE COMPETING PRIORITIES WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT THAT I DID NOT THINK THAT THIS WOULD COMPETE WELL. SO I WANT TO MAKE SURE IT'S CLEAR THAT THAT WAS MY DECISION, NOT RYAN'S. So let me explain my rationale and then let council consider the options. So first and foremost, and Director Ordon, please correct me if I'm wrong, this was not funded in the FY26 budget. This was funded in the FY25 budget, was not spent, and it was carried forward because we went most of the way through the FY25 budget trying to negotiate with the original operator of the initial pilot to extend the pilot using the additional dollars that had been requested, and those dollars were one-time dollars in the FY25 budget. Towards the end of the FY25 year, when we were preparing the FY26 budget, I decided to pivot from trying to work with an outside partner where we were having some philosophical disagreements about the focus of the program and how the dollars would be spent to using the resources of the community safety department to administer those dollars because primarily the main purpose was we believed we could put more of those dollars into the actual benefit. The contractor who wanted to run the program for us retained more of the dollars for programmatic purposes, and we believe that the intent of the council was to put as many of those dollars as possible into the budget, into the benefit. So at that time, the Community Safety Department confirmed that they believed they could do that. We approved a proposal for them to do that, and they administered the one-time dollars through this program. Those dollars remain in this program until spent. Is that correct? So this program, if council adds no additional dollars will continue until approximately what date? january okay so the money's encumbered so we'll continue the money is encumbered this program will continue until january um i will apologize here to council if i misunderstood that there was an expectation i i will go back and look at our budget discussions last year i have seen documentation that the budget staff sent last year that confirmed that this was one-time dollars but i have heard from council member risk that he was clearly not aware that this was one-time dollars and so i don't want to mislead however I would say that the circumstances that I considered were this. I believe strongly that council has clearly demonstrated a belief in the concepts of guaranteed basic income. As I was looking at needs within this department and within this area of work in the city, and I needed to help the department prioritize its requests I made the difficult decision as I have in other places across the budget that this was not a core municipal service where other new asks that were coming from this department were closer aligned. That is my proposed recommendation to the council and the council ultimately is the decider of that. So should the council wish for this to become a permanent program within the department, we will need to find money in this budget and I'm glad we've identified At this point, because Council still has the opportunity to find that. But if there was misunderstanding about the permanence of this program, I apologize. I will be doing research after today to remind myself. And if we did not identify that appropriately heading into this year's budget preparation, I'll certainly own that with Council. Thank you.

yeah appreciate that um yeah and thanks for the for recounting this sort of timeline i'm fully aware that we were all involved in those decisions i know that there was um um a challenge of working with a contractor we decided that made sense to bring in the city all i think all great decisions um and and you're right you you shared the budget briefing from last year with me this morning that does show that this was a one-time dollars i do know the request that mark anthony middleton and i made was for recurring so so yeah so that um that's that's where we are now um i do think that and this goes back i mean it's all about making choices right that's what we're dealing with here um as um others have said we're we're being asked and we're we're investing deeply in this homeless services um uh strategy that we've all been developing or that we have developed been developing with the county um we're part of that investment that we're making is in sort of building out the infrastructure right staffing and so forth to be the backbone organization and so for me like there is a question about whether the county will also support this which is part of what we need to get private funders also engaged so there's a question about how much do we invest ourselves in building the infrastructure if other partners may not come to the table to do that versus investing in something we know works as a way to help folks deeply who are returning from prison who need that support. And the impacts are undeniable, right? So that's so, I think to me, that's part of the conversation we need to have is like, what's the balance here? I would like to see more funding restored to this basic income work that's so critical to the shared prosperity and financial security for folks in this community. So thank you.

Thank you so much for coming for us and walking us through all of this. I think your department keeps getting bigger and bigger and adding more things. So we'll just see where that goes. How much bigger can you all get? But I think it speaks to a lot of the successes that have been coming out of the community safety department since its inception. And I think that there's a lot to applaud there. Regarding the homelessness services strategic plan, I think it's vital. I actually appreciate Mayor Pro Tem's kind of hardball. I do agree kind of pushing the county and how do we go about doing that? I think we all have a different role to play, and I think pushing hard on the county is vital because 500,000 is not what was in the strategic plan. The city is doing its part, and I'm glad that the city is doing its part. And what we're hearing is that doing our part has a major role to play, including a major role to play in being able to go to potential community partners. I think this is about empathy toward some of the least in our community, toward people who have the least in our community and who are most vulnerable. But it's so much more than that now. I mean, this is about economic development. This is about safety. It is all of the different things that we talk about on a daily basis all wrapped up into one piece. I mean, you don't need to be fully big-hearted philanthropic to see that it is necessary to contribute to this. given the direction that society is going, the growth of the unhoused community and all of the issues and challenges that we're seeing from that. My hope is that community partners will see that. I mean, this should be them caring for themselves and caring for the broader community, not just them being big-hearted and trying to contribute to something that they see no benefit for themselves in. I think there's a very strong case there. I don't think this is an option. I think this is a necessity. I see the importance of playing hardball with the county. I think we do need to have those tough conversations and do it the way that you are doing it. But at the same time, I also want us to sit here with confidence that we are going to um fund our part of of the of the plan um i think strategically that's very important even if it doesn't get fully funded and we need to push back some of our the dates for our goals and objectives so that's where i am on the strategic plan i think it's OSBT, Curt Brown, Vital I think we need to sit here with confidence that we're planning to find it. OSBT, Curt Brown, And I again appreciate I sent you an email about a half an hour ago. OSBT, Curt Brown, requesting to to come in and kind of meet with folks but appreciate you and your your work, thank you, thank you.

And before the mayor, well, you better run us out, but just want to add as a public administrator, I think that the thing that's top of mind for me right now as a council, as a city is at some point like being introspective and thinking about how our policies or even the county policies or any governing body, how our policies may impact. Our unhoused situation may contribute to our unhoused community. We are in a very real time with the cost of living being exorbitant as well as gentrification and all those things. So sometimes I think that we have great innovative ideas, but unless you examine fully the situation about how our governing policies contribute to this issue, then your department won't be fully successful, in my opinion, right? So just thinking about, like, as we look at the landscape and move forward this are we um i don't know i don't have a colloquial saying for this whole thing but just thinking about like how we making sure that we are not funding both sides of the issue by trying to eradicate um unhoused people who are unhoused homelessness but then also our policies are pushing more people out of their homes so i don't want to create a revolving door a cycle of this moving forward

Thank you. I just want to support some of what my colleagues have said. I work and live in this space, talk to folks who are housing insecure and unhoused quite frequently. And I think a lot of folks are now interacting with this population more than ever. We're seeing rising costs that are frankly impossible for us to deal with on a local level. We talk about it time and time again, but we are burdening the shoulders of our taxpayers to stem a tide that could be solved upstream by other governments with larger pots of money. That, at the end of the day, is what we have to grapple with and where we want to spend our dollars and what we want to prioritize. And we've got a couple of things in front of us here that I do think touch all of our strategic goals. And I don't like to see them pitted against each other. And so I want to just raise up that I know we heard from the manager yesterday that all departments were asked to propose a budget that saw three-ish percent cuts, but that wasn't equally distributed across all departments. And so to me, it feels hard to hear like, oh, these two are competing against each other within this department, when I think that These are two pretty baseline functions that our city government needs to be doing that do touch, as Councilmember Baker and Councilmember Rist were saying, that do really touch economic drivers. They really, really touch community safety. We have broad statistics about recidivism rates and how that impacts communities. We also have... The statistics about homelessness and the cost that we bear as a city government and then also private partners bear and our community members bear, those costs are massive. They're nowhere close to the investment that we're putting into it. And so if we have a plan of bettering that situation, that's going to be a huge economic benefit for our taxpayers and for the city government. So for me, these two things feel extremely, extremely high priority. I would completely agree that we need to be very sure in our commitment and that is a way that we can have a true conversation with private partners and with the county government about the need for other folks to step up and partner in the homelessness space. But I don't want to see that at the cost of these other programming that we're doing that's also like adding to the holistic service that we need to provide. So it was also my understanding that that money was reoccurring for the pilot for the pilot. And I'm glad you said that it wasn't a pilot program anymore for the guaranteed income. And so I would like to see both of these things funded. And I also am not sure why we didn't get that in our presentation before. we got this packet last night, because that does feel like a pretty sincere service cut. And I think in the future, something of that nature would probably need to be presented to us a little bit earlier, because I went back and looked at my presentation on service cuts, and that wasn't included in there. So yeah, those both feel really important to me. I don't feel willing to compromise on those things. I think that there's Again, a push and pull here, and we have to really think frankly about what contributes to the health and wellness of our community. But as the mayor said, Our number one goal is to keep people safe. And we have heard from every different community group about issues relating to both of these things, but particularly to homelessness. We've got community partners in the room who've brought this. Everyone from direct advocates I see in the room. I see our chairperson of DDI in the room. That concern has come from our business owners. Every I and I know Councilmember Copac said earlier that we're getting a lot of speed humps in our I'm getting tons and tons of information about or complaints about encampments and how we're dealing with that moving forward. And we are having these policy conversations about how to take care of our public spaces and how to prioritize public spaces when people need those places to live because they literally cannot live anywhere else. And if we're not going to make the investment, then like Again, we're just moving the problem around, as opposed to actually putting in solutions. I know we have limitations on a local level. I know we have limitations, too, because of the structure of our local government. But there are solutions, and these are ones that we have found that will actually work. Obviously, we're very passionate about this, but it is my ask that we fund both of these things. But particularly, I think we need to stick with our commitment to the homelessness framework.

Just real quick, Councilmember Cook, what was the second one? Because I was... Besides guaranteed. Oh, the 4.4 and the guaranteed income, those are your two? Okay, thank you.

yeah thank you mr mayor and thank you to my colleagues for your comments um you know i think what councilmember burris said is particularly sticking with me about how this and other issues we're facing are really the runoff in a lot of ways from an inefficient and inhumane system that we face from the federal level state level an economic system that doesn't value people and there are limits to what we can do on the local level but i believe we have to to to take ambitious action where we can to try and address what as councilmember cook said is an issue that we hear a lot of concerns about both from our neighbors who don't have anywhere else to go and also from you know residents small businesses others that you know are more and more coming into contact with you know our neighbors who are living on the streets. And so I think that this presents to us an opportunity. I agree we need to ask all partners to come to the table, but I think we have an opportunity regardless to do our part to invest in what Councilmember Baker said is not just about addressing a core human need, but is also about economic development and is about meeting so many other interests of our city. And so I do think and believe it is important that we lean in on this homelessness strategic framework and do our part as a city to be able to realize those reductions. And I believe that the work we've seen at the community safety department over time you know, has shown, you know, an ability to to set ambitious but but but still practical goals and then to show progress on those. And so I'm excited to see this put forward in response to resident concern and interest and what I believe every member of this council has shared as a core interest and desire. So I appreciate the information you provided overall on the department and particularly on the framework at the last work session and to see this included in the budget. You know, I'm processing The question around the Guaranteed Income Program, especially for my colleagues who have advocated and helped really to build this along with former colleagues, it's something that I have advocated in support of previously. And I'm just going to have to sit with that and talk with colleagues and others in community to think about this in the context of all of the difficult choices that we're facing what role this plays but i do hear what council member is saying that we do have evidence that it has worked um and i think it also surfaces along with deer the challenging exercise that our staff has faced put forward by the city manager to find cuts particularly when you see programs that You know, we know that Director Smith helped along with colleagues to build and grow, you know, and then to see cut from a department. And I think that's the case across our departments with staff who've worked for many years diligently on programs that have delivered real results and then have to come in here and think about what we stopped doing in light of the challenges we're facing. So that's what I'm happy to talk more about and I'm going to process. So thank you, Director Smith, and thank you, colleagues.

Thank you for your presentation. So yes, I remember the conversation around the guaranteed basic income. I remember when we took it from a pallet program to making it pretty much ironclad in the budget. So when I saw that last night, I was too shocked as well. I think, you know, considering we're having budget talks now, this is where, you know, the toughest conversations happen amongst council, amongst the community. So I think it's fair that we're, you know, just very honest about where our positions are. And I really appreciate what I'm hearing coming from around the dais. I do feel like we're digging ourselves a deeper hole because I don't know where we're going to get some of the money from, but it's definitely needed. But I want to be able to put myself in the hot seat here to ask the difficult questions, some of which, you know, actually most have come to me from folks that are just paying attention. One is, can we afford right now to have such a high dollar figure up front on this plan? on this homeless strategic plan? And the reason why I asked that question, because I think it's been stated direction-wise, the goal, what we're shooting for, everyone is on board. There are still a lot of details that are really hard to push with confidence on the philanthropic side of this. So I'll start with that question. And this may not be a question for you. It may be a question for, you know... My answer was going to be, I can tell you how much it costs, but I can't tell you if we can afford it because I think that's... I think that's what I just thought about. It may be a question for us, you know? On the other side of it is, you know, homelessness is one of the major things that we hear a lot about. The other is violent crime. And I know that we're working on a plan. I think where I sit in a very uncomfortable space is we're about to go through our philanthropic community and we're about to ask for homelessness reduction support. And I'm just assuming that next year we're going to go back to the same community and ask for support on the violent crime reduction when we get that plan together. And where I'm sitting with us is There are two strategies. There's a strategy to reduce homelessness, and there's a strategy that we'll have to reduce violent crime. And I think that in order to truly fund those strategies, we have to have a philanthropic plan. And right now, there's a saying, the math is not mapping. It is not... Right now, I feel like we're still in the conceptual world, and we've put together this hypothesis, these goals. We haven't even talked about valid crime reduction, and it feels like we're ignoring that really loud alarm that's coming from the community. But we'll get there. I'm hopeful that we'll get there when we have this summit and hash out the plan. But I do think that as we're going out to the public in the philanthropic community, we're going to have to be very clear and transparent that this is part of it. And I just don't want to lead folks to the point where they make a significant donation without the expectation that we're going to be coming back. So I'm just trying to bring all of this into context. One of the things, while small in number, one of the things that I had proposed to be in the budget was to generate more economic activity. Because right now, we have a lot of ideas. And we don't want to raise taxes. And things are costing more and more and more. And one thing we're not talking about is how we're going to pay for it. And I don't know, we're crunching ourselves into an impossible box to the point where I don't know how we're going to get there. We understand the importance of fare free. We can make the case for it. But we're not going to charge for buses. We understand the importance of reducing homelessness. Um, and it's a pretty big number that we're putting in, in the plan, in the budget this year with the tight budget. Um, but we aren't talking about how we're going to generate more revenue. Um, we haven't even gotten to valid crime. We're not going to get to it. Uh, we've taken, we've taken actionable steps this year, uh, that, that hasn't necessarily, uh, supported resource wise, or we've struggled on that. Um, I don't know, I'm just thinking about how we're in the weeds of it now, but standing back at 30,000 feet from the public view, what are we saying in this moral document? The dollars are very short, and I don't have a lot of confidence in how we're going to get there. I'm sort of glad that I don't have to crunch those numbers, that's this man's job, but it's gonna eventually come to us. And we are cutting some things that are very important and we are adding more that is very important. So I really just needed to put those comments out there. And there are people that are doing amazing work. I guess I'll get to my questions. How are we working with our partners? Have we, because we, to Councilmember Baker's point, we've added a lot in your portfolio. How much of the lion's share are we taking on in regard to our continuum of care partners?

Sure, great question. Before I answer that, I want to speak to one thing that you, it was a statement. So you talked about the tension, or not the tension, but we have a plan now that we're asking for funding around homelessness. We do not yet have a plan developed on violent reduction and concern around the ability to approach philanthropy and other partners with a single ask. I heard you name that. One thing that I want to suggest is to that, is a that part of what you're suggesting that council could guide is a fundraising tactical decision and i do think regardless you you could fund the city's part of the homeless plan and we could make a decision that we want to hold until the fall to make one approach because i believe that by the fall we will know not only the directions we want to go for violence reduction but we will know some funding asks so there is a world where we could get started now laying the groundwork doing the work that's laid out in the plan with the money that is there We could be strategic and have conversations about when we want to make approach to different partners. And if we want to hold an approach to a particular partner until we know both of those things in one, that is an option that funding the plan now doesn't doesn't preclude. The other thing that I will say is giving us a runway with the city funding helps with the fundraising because it gives us more and more stories to share of what this work looks like and continue to build confidence in this. We already have the story from the family housing sprint that we did right after the shelter. That's a powerful story of in 30 days getting 15 families housed. Right now we are doing a small pilot working in three encampments to move 14 people into housing that Anise can talk more about. when we get money we're going to be able to do more of this and as we do this it's going to have a more compelling uh we'll have more compelling evidence and stories to share that i think will build you know, that will further bolster the case for people to invest. So I just would say that I don't think that funding this plan necessarily ties our hands that now we have to go approach all philanthropy right now. We could make a decision to delay that a little bit. We still have runway with the funding we'd have to do that work. So those are options. I just wanted to name that. Could you remind me your other question, your actual question? I'm sorry.

Yeah, and I have a couple. Yeah. I'm not even challenging the success stories. This is Durham. And this is our community safety department. You guys have done amazing work. I'm just thinking now with my business hat on, If you're coming to me, what's not as compelling is a success story. It sounds good. It feels good. But what's more compelling is you're going to tell me that my investment is going to help you get to the root cause to stop this. Because I don't want to invest in the problem that has a bathtub with no plug. I want to stop the bleeding. And that part I don't have a lot of confidence in yet. I feel like we're going to get there with the plan laid out. But I do want to hear more of that in part Part of that being my concern is what, and the reason why I ask about the continuum of care partners and the lion's share, who has that now, as I know we're the leading agency, what is happening right now that the city is doing that is aligned with this work? Meaning keeping people from becoming homeless, removing people from homeless circumstances, We're talking about housing and homelessness here, but explicitly homelessness. What are we currently doing? What are we currently funding to address this, to either prevent people from becoming homeless or homelessness directly?

Great. I'm going to start off by turning it to Anise Vance to start to answer, and then I'll fill it in. You ready to answer that?

As you guys are answering, it's going back to the source of funding thing as well. I do want to know the funding with Home ARP and ARPA. I know ARPA can't necessarily be, but what can be encumbered and what cannot? And I am going back to wanting to see a broad... multi-departmental source of funding inventory, because I need to know what we can move around and what we can't.

So I don't want to cut off the departmental response, but councils, I think, had a lot of good discussion on this. I want to state the obvious. The level of investment in the homelessness strategic plan is the prerogative of the council. I think Ryan has previously been asked and answered that we will scale our results based on the amount of funding that council would like to put into it. I think we may be getting into a place where we're talking a lot more philosophically about how the city approaches homelessness. We have this responsibility. We are the lead agency on the continuum of care. I think some of Ryan's presentations demonstrated what we are doing now with the funding we have. last Thursday's work session and this budget presentation have described what we propose to do with an additional level of funding, and Ryan has also answered that should we scale that funding back, we will scale back our goals, but we will move forward with implementing those. plan i think the final piece i would add is as his slide showed a number of the dollars that are committed this year are one-time dollars a portion of those funds are very restricted some of those funds are not restricted so just laying out options for council today you do have options to fund less than the proposed budget you do have options to move some of those dollars to other one-time priorities and we'd be happy to host a discussion around that i'm not for stalling the answer to your question, but I think we're now starting to ask a lot of questions about what the whole system does. And I think, you know, council, we moved this strategic plan forward at your direction. We brought the recommendations forward for your consideration, and we are happy to implement it at the level that council approves. as well as divert funds from it to other priorities should council identify those. And I want to make sure that's very clear because otherwise, you know, I mean, until we get to a discussion of where you want, how high you want to fund it and where you want the other dollars to go, we can talk a lot about homelessness this morning.

So I want to be very clear. One thing I've had as an experience on this council is the day that we decide to pass the budget comes really quickly. And if I have to go to bed in this council suite tonight, then I'm just gonna have to do that. But I'm not going to, I just wanna make sure that I'm fully understanding my positioning on this. And so I wanna make sure all those questions are answered. I don't care how long it takes. And I wanna make sure it's answered. Because when we pass this budget, it is a moral document. And it's going to be the reflection of this council, which is the reflection of this city. So I don't care what it takes. But I want to know.

I'm here all day.

Sorry, say again? He's prepared to answer your question.

I'll probably try to answer first.

Yeah. Yeah, continue with care. That's the first question.

Sorry, there was a lot said there. Could you just restate the full question? I'm sorry. Thank you.

Give me the pie chart. Our partners. Who's doing what and how are we funding? Who's doing what? What are we taking in-house?

I'm going to start and then Anissa is going to step in and fill the gaps for anything that I missed. So first, let me just talk about what the city directly funds through the dedicated housing fund. Through the Dedicated Housing Fund, we fund White Flag Emergency Shelter, which is expanding safe, warm beds in cold weather. We fund the Homeless Management Information System. This is the data system that all of our providers use. We provide the funding for that so that everyone who is in the continuum is sharing data, which is critical. We fund... Just shout things out at me. And if you want to go back to that slide, you can as well.

Oh, yeah, let's go back to that slide. Oh, that's great. Thank you. Yeah. That'll help me.

All right, so we fund street outreach. We have six street outreach workers who are working across, as I think I've shared now, over 140 encampments. They are out working regularly with folks to try to support. It's a difficult position without the plan that we have laid out because they have wait lists to offer. That's it, and that's a hard position. We fund, already said HMS, then we fund $470,000 for coordinated entry that sits at DSS, that is the single point of entry into our system that is contracted out to Volunteers of America. And then landlord engagement is housing for New Hope, $150,000 that is working to recruit and maintain landlords who are willing to put their units to be accessed by the continuum of care. In addition to that, the funding that the city pays for the Hope Team staff, those staff, those city staff, they make possible the drawing down of over $3 million of federal HUD dollars. So we manage that entire process. We're about to announce the new notice of funding opportunity for our continuum of providers that include things like permanent supportive housing, housing renewal programs, rapid rehousing, a range of other things. And Anise or others can talk about the various providers that I won't be able to remember off the top of my head. But we manage that process. The federal government sets the priorities for that. And then our job is to manage a process and get every dollar that we can. Whatever the federal government tells us they're going to prioritize, our job is to put forward the most competitive application so we don't leave a single dollar on the table. We draw down federal dollars. We do the best we can with those dollars. What else? Those are the...

I know you don't administer these funds, but I think eviction diversion funds are an adjacent commitment that we make in this space. Correct. Call that a housing, call that a homelessness prevention, but I think that's another resource the city is committing in this space.

What was that, Councilmember?

I was saying repairs was another one we've discussed. I think there are others out there.

Okay. Let me ask Anise Vance, who is our assistant director over stabilization service and has really been my go-to on all of this, who knows certainly more than me. Would you fill in any gaps on related to funding continuum of care related things?

Thank you all good to be here with City Council in terms of funding sources I think Ryan hit the key ones that our department funds in terms of how we support the continuum of care so we act on behalf of the city as a department as the lead agency the city is the lead agency we just act on behalf of the city and that's our hope team that administers to the continuum of care so what that means is They run the funding competitions that Ryan alluded to. They manage all of the work of the continuum of care. They staff the subcommittees. They make sure every HUD regulation is attended to. And they perform the tasks that the committee is, that the HSAC right now is required to perform under federal regulations. That's performance scorecards. That's compliance. That's pit count. That's any number of other things that fall into that. So that's what they do to support the continuum of care. One thing that I will note is that we often use continuum of care in multiple ways to include not only the designation of what the HUD entity is, but then how we support all of our providers generally. One thing that we've started to do this year is have executive table meetings, which means all of the homelessness providers and the nonprofit providers, we gather the executive leadership once every quarter to discuss priorities and alignment, et cetera. We've had two of those meetings this past year and are hoping to do another one in the summer, and that's going to be an ongoing feature of the program. We've also invited all of our homelessness providers to quarterly check-ins with our leadership staff. In addition to that, we are standing up a community of practice for our case managers. And so those are the folks who are not necessarily your executive leadership, but who are working day to day with people who are experiencing homelessness and providing them with CTI training, critical time intervention training, which is really critical in the homelessness space. In addition to that, we had a provider appreciation day in July, and we're going to be doing that again at the end of this month to make sure that our providers feel appreciated and supported. And we work hand in hand with our providers on any number of projects. What Ryan just talked about a little bit earlier in terms of our intensive effort right now to try to house 15 people. That's hand in hand with Housing for New Hope. It's a Housing for New Hope and Durham Community Safety Department collaboration. Housing for New Hope is contributing five rapid rehousing spots to that effort in order for us to be able to really move people into housing again within 30 days, which is the entire vision of the framework. The final thing that I want to note for folks, for more information on the framework, this link is buried in our website, and we are going to elevate it in our website, speaking to your point council member on transparency and making sure that even though we have the documentation, it's got to be elevated a lot more. If you go to our community safety website, there is a link to Learning with Heart. It's on the left-hand side. When you go to Learning with Heart, there's a sub-link on departmental policies. When you click in departmental policies, it shows a series of folders. One of those folders is strategic framework to make homelessness rare and brief. It includes the two documents that you all received as part of the request that happened last time on the strategic framework, as well as a companion piece describing the strategy lanes. It includes eight one-page briefs on different components of the strategic framework, depending on what you're interested in. case conferencing, flexible housing assistance fund, landlord engagement, whatever you're interested in. It also includes all of the different assessments, tools, and reports that have helped to shape our work. There's about 20 documents in that bucket and that we use in terms of how we look at data, how we case conference, how we're going to administer the flexible housing assistance fund. It includes the RFPs that we just had on the street about a month ago and that we spoke about it at council, as well as the scorecards to that. And it will include, once they are finalized, when contracts are in place, all policies and procedures related to this. It will be a holistic place where anybody who wishes to know anything about the framework can quickly find information at the high level or at the nitty gritty level. Thank you.

No, you're not done yet. There's two things you forgot to talk about. Case conferencing and white flag coordination, just briefly about how we support the community. Wait, can I ask a question?

Because I feel like you were almost there and just kind of gave a break a little bit for you. Sorry, ma'am. No, ma'am. I'm only 38. Anyway. OK, so we had someone come to work session last. You said you're 35. Okay, we had someone come, a landlord, who spoke about missing components of eviction diversion program. So I wanted to know, like, then we talked here about the coordinated entry and working with the landlord. So I'm just trying to figure out how those two work together. Like, are we actually missing that component? Or like, what does natural relationship look like more so?

yes the the first thing i'd like to note on that is the eviction diversion program sits in housing and neighborhood services so it's it's very difficult for me to speak to anything on that and i'll leave that to my housing and neighborhood services colleagues on coordinated entry so you know our process the process that we are moving to and the process that is outlined in the framework And I especially encourage people to look at the landlord engagement brief there on this particular topic. Our process is to arrive in hand with units that we know that neighbors can move into. That requires a really coordinated, intensive landlord engagement process. In the RFP that we put out for Landlord Engagement Services, we set a particular goal of having 500 units available for lease in year one, which would enable us to then meet our reduction goals. The reason we felt confident about that approach is because we had talked to other cities who had done similar things. And I know we hear a lot about Denver. I'm not going to talk about Denver in this. We had talked to Dallas. We had talked to Orlando. We had talked to Newark. We had talked to any number of other cities that have performed this work and engaged in it at a really high level, to the point where in a couple of places, Dallas and I think in Maricopa County, Arizona, they actually are no longer recruiting landlords because they have enough units available. In Dallas, at any given moment, they have about 1,200 units available for their homelessness system, withholding fees that are available for people to move into currently. The way they've been able to do this is through a targeted approach to property managers that are at a regional level and that can then trickle down into the local system by being very, very, very clear about the expectations with housing stabilization case management, with what a landlord receives as part of this package, and with the amount of support that landlords get. We built all of those components into our RFP process to make sure that our landlord engagement services could meet the needs of the homelessness system. And again, I'm very happy to sit with anybody for a longer conversation. I'm not trying to take your time or the council's time here on either of those. But to note, the one-page brief is available in the link that I just described, as well as the RFP itself is available there. And the RFP itself, you will note, has not only sort of, you know, what we described as part of the program, but it also has the scorecard in terms of how we scored all of these programs.

Thank you. You're like a walking bibliography, like we're excited, but thank you so much for all that context and helping us identify where things are. For the city manager, just have a quick question on the scope of efficiency. So do you think that, I know you did a major reorg before I even touched council. do we think it's most efficient for the vision diversion program to sit in the housing neighborhood service as opposed to sitting in the community safety department considering like the overlapping to work a little bit uh i didn't evaluate that i'd be happy to bring options to council if they have questions about eviction diversion we have not done a deep dive uh

would say primarily uh eviction diversion remained in this budget in its current form because during the budget uh retreats there were there was a fairly highly uh scored request from council members to maintain eviction diversion so we did not propose changes i do know that last year there was a council conversation that reflected that was reflected in the new RFP to to start adjusting resources not just for legal representation, but also for mediation. So that is the only change we've made and that was based on council direction. If council has further direction on eviction diversion, we'd be more than happy to bring options on that.

I'm sorry, I'm on one today. Oh, no, never. The only reason I'm asking is because like in maybe hell froze over. I'm going to greet the mayor on something here. It feels like we have funded both sides of the argument. We're funding both sides of the plaintiff and defendant. So trying to figure out, to me, my idea, from what I've heard from some folks in the courthouse, and I would be repetitive about this, is that by the time someone gets to the eviction court, we're kicking the can down the road. And think about the implications it has. I'm like, not every landlord is like a large private entity, right? There are some people who just have like this passive income, maybe one house. So thinking about the impacts of that and in my mind is keeping someone in their house before they get to eviction court feels really important to me. So trying to identify a way that we can support that. And then maybe, I don't know if we reduce funds or just kind of like come in, I don't know, but just trying to figure a way to make sure we keep people, particularly like pregnant women or just these populations in their homes opposed to before they get to eviction court and figuring out how to make that work out together.

Just as council considers kind of what other information they want in this budget cycle, we certainly continue to look at that June 4th potential additional work session. We'd be happy to have Housing and Neighborhood Services come and present whatever information council would like to see on eviction diversion, how it's spent, and consider it as part of this broader conversation. Appreciate those questions.

Thank you. I actually appreciate all of my colleagues' questions. Y'all hit on so many things. First of all, could we get a, y'all did an amazing job. I did not write it down. Could you just email us a list of the funding and where it comes? And I think what I would also like, and this goes back to the conversation of eviction diversion wasn't ever just supposed to be attorneys, right? That wasn't the concept. It was supposed to be some rent assistance to Council Member Burris, as the mayor's point, to many people's point. A lot of times when people show up in the courtroom, it's bad, right? And so to get people out of arrears, to do all these things, it's expensive. And so the initial plan was that the county would fund some rent assistance. And they do some, but I don't think, like, I don't have any real sense of how many dollars, have they grown those dollars since 2018? And I think this kind of goes back to my just broadly question around continuum of care. i would like to know in other communities is it the city or a county that's the lead agency because i think my understanding is that that's a little bit of a rarity to have the city it's often the county that is the lead agency and at some point that was handed to the city from the county many years ago now but it was a it was a thing that happened um And so I think where I'm heading is historically the county has funded services and the city has funded infrastructure. We do hard, they do soft. That's like kind of what we often explain to residents. And what I'm seeing with the increase of your department over time is we are essentially now running social services. uh when we have a other government entity whose budget is over a billion dollars and i think what i would like to see is over time what has been the share there compared to our share and i don't know if we can i don't know if this is a conversation that has to happen at joint city county but um because it just kind of goes back to this there's two governing entities um this isn't necessarily community safety's department's problem y'all are doing phenomenal work but we have to pass budgets with constrained dollars, and we're going to have to keep making harder decisions. And I think we need to have some hard conversations on who is funding what, how is it being funded, how is that responsibility shifted or not shifted over time, and then what are going to be the horse trading that needs to happen if we have stepped up in a certain way to basically run social services. What's the trade-off on the other side? What are they picking up over there? Happy to do it. I think the city has done an incredible job, but there has to be a trade-off for us. And at this point, I'm not seeing a lot of trade-offs. I'm just seeing the city doing more and more.

Madam Mayor Pro Tem, just a quick question. I want to be clear on what part of that is a direct ask of our department and what part of that might be work that we do over a period of time with the county.

Yeah, I think it's going to be information over funding on their side over the years in the homelessness space. What are they responsible for? If you're looking at the totality of dollars, has there been a shift of the city caring more over years when I say over years, over like a decade? And I know that that's going to take some time to get that analysis. And it may be that we're going to have to do some information sharing. But I think that I said this at the last time. This job is only going to get harder because we likely have an amendment where residents may tie our hands on a property tax increase. So these are the kinds of questions local officials are going to have to start asking and digging and figuring out where do we have duplication, not just in our own house, but on the other side of the house, and also even if for some miracle it's not as bad as we think, we can't just property tax increase our way out of these problems every year. We have to get more efficient.

something go ahead and do a follow-up um just so we can actually come out of this with something uh sounds like we need to put this on jcc um and probably the june 9th is too too quick so maybe i'd be curious uh at what jcc meeting we should we should put this on maybe it's the next one because all three will be there right

I WONDER IF WE BRING IT UP AS A TALKING POINT AT THIS ONE SO THAT WE CAN MAKE SURE THAT THE STAFF MEMBERS WHO ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DO THAT RESEARCH HAVE THE NECESSARY TIME. BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO WAIT UNTIL AUGUST TO SAY, HEY, LET'S TALK ABOUT A THING. I'D RATHER SAY, HEY, LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS THING AT THE NEXT ONE OR EVEN THE SUBSEQUENT ONE IS FINE. do would we also want to um at that jcc meeting would that be the appropriate time to talk about the appeals process or do we want to do that on june 9th i don't think we're going to be able to provide them enough time to give us the information i think it's going to be the same thing hey and at some point sorry now i'm getting there had been discussion of developing a cadence of agendas because we're we know that there's a lot and so i guess this is that time um maybe we spend June 9th really digging into what are the topics for the next several months instead of what happens now, which is a few weeks ahead. Hey, what are the agenda items which seems not targeted and and maybe not as effective as we need it to be.

We have two big ones here.

I think just looking at the manager. I think we've already done. I think you all at the end of last. calendar year, I think, came back with a set of items that we'd all talked about in one of those JCC meetings as items to sort of work over the next year on. I think we may have had that initial list, so I'd love to go back to that, but I'll add this critical question of the balance of responsibility for social services and homeless stuff between the county and city, as well as the appeals process. I think these are all critical issues that I think we need to wrestle with.

Yeah, I believe that conversation then was, I think, superseded a little bit by a leadership conversation that the mayor and the mayor pro tem started having a couple months ago. And so I think we deferred as the leaders of those three governments were meeting in a separate conversation, talking about agendas. We presumed that that would take the place of staff driving that conversation. More than happy to support the council and county commission and school board any way that the administrations can assist in getting those agendas pulled together. Happy to do so. Yes.

I realize this conversation is going long, and we have ballooned out into the world of multiple other governments and other meetings months away. I do want to just go back to say that I fully agree with this conversation. Having worked in this space for a long time, I feel like I've talked to many of you about the complexities of what it looks like to have different governments with different requirements and burdens and how it actually makes this process more burdensome for folks that are going through it. I do want to be very clear that my interest in ensuring that we are not sort of taking on, as to the Mayor Pro Tem's point, more than we're sort of handing off, especially given that we're a more restricted budget, that in doing so we're not also actively getting rid of the systems that we do have in place that are working. I just want to We've talked about it a little bit, but eviction diversion is one of the biggest things that we can do to avoid homelessness. And so if we're going to invest in homelessness, it doesn't really make sense to add more homeless population. We already heard the statistic about the new number of increasing folks who are unhoused that we're seeing every month. And eviction diversion and specifically funding attorneys in eviction diversion is one of the main ways that has been tested across the country to help folks who are facing housing insecurity and to avoid increases in homelessness. And increases from homelessness from eviction happen in multiple ways. It's an indirect It's an indirect result based on financial instability and some other things. It's also a direct leading cause to homelessness. We have statistics over the 20 largest continuum of cares that for every $100 increase in median rent, we see a 9% homelessness raise in those jurisdictions. It is, again, directly correlated, and it is also a weird complexity of why we are having to work In court in the court process because those dollars actually were not available that the county provided Were not available to renters before they had an eviction filing. I want to say that again Because it's something that i've been bringing up for years The money that was funded for rental assistance was not available to renters before they had an eviction filing So the system that we put in place was actually forcing renters into the courthouse and Once you're there, it becomes exorbitantly more expensive to get out of it. And so the actual ask has been, how do we get folks before they get to eviction court? But it doesn't mean that we then can't have the attorneys in eviction court, because this is one of the most economical ways of keeping folks out of homelessness. Eviction lawyers help folks connect to resources. They bring defenses that tenants don't know that they have to bring. They help them be protected under federal guidelines like Violence Against Women's Act. ADA, Americans with Disability Act, and assist in also getting more time for folks to be able to move, to allow them to move with dignity and also without an eviction judgment on their record. If we were to lose that service, what we would see is, again, a major increase in homelessness, but also a major disruption of our workforce and ability to have economic drivers in the community. So this is also directly linked to economic instability. And it is long-lasting. So folks that go through an eviction and get an eviction and are displaced through that process generally tend to be not economically stable for the next two years. And it's not just that person. It's that person's entire family. So just want to be really careful that, like, We have a lot of work to do here. We have a lot of work to do to understand where our partners are playing a role and how those roles impact people in their real lives and how these systems are structured against the most vulnerable in our community. But it doesn't mean that we need to get rid of the protections that we have. I don't want to be Again, we're talking about funding sort of both sides of something, but I certainly don't want to be working only with homelessness services while adding to our homelessness population by removing the protections that we already have. So I'm happy. many, many statistics. I've been doing quite a lot of research. If anybody wants to see the data on the impacts of having an attorney versus not and then what that means for down the line for our communities and the cost that that then puts on to, again, property owners and other folks to bear because it's going to be solved through taxes, I'm happy to provide that.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I... I'm one person that doesn't have to be sold on eviction diversion. I think what my issue is right now is, one, it seems structural. Housing and Neighborhood Services is doing something. And then Community Safety Department is doing a lot more. And we're talking about homelessness in two different departments and also two different governments. And we're putting a lot of money into a plan while we're also funding other areas. That's why I was asking about the pie chart of responsibility amongst our continuum of care partners. And I It appears that we're putting a lot upfront to address the homeless issue we have. And I still want more information on the source of homelessness, as well as when do we get to the brick and mortar of it? Where are folks going to go? Because if we're just putting a bunch of money into case management, then what are we doing? What are we solving? If we're going to put it into attorneys, then why didn't we invest more into preventing them from needing attorneys? And we did put a policy in place that a bunch of landlords reached out to me and said, hey, I'm not one of those bad landlords. So why aren't we putting more into that? The landlord engagement program. And that's why I ask, what are we funding? What is working? What is funding allocated for already? Because I don't want to just take a big sum of money and put it towards something when we are cutting in so many areas when everything else is important. So the honest conversation is, how do we crunch? How do we streamline and still get the same results? So that is why I'm asking the line of questions that I'm asking. I have several landlords that have reached out and in regards to, I wasn't gonna talk about legal aid, but in regards to legal aid, I have several landlords that have reached out and said, look, this isn't necessarily working. And I'm like, well, I don't know the details of that, right? And we do have Durham Housing Authority, our largest affordable housing provider. Their collection rate is still low. It's 60 something percent. But there are issues. I don't want to say we need to do X because someone is about to be homeless. I want to know why they're about to be homeless so we can address that issue so that they don't become homeless. And in a tight budget year, we have to ask those deep questions. I can be the biggest cheerleader for the things that I want in the budget. But now that we're in this type of situation financially, we have to crunch every everywhere possible. So I do think it's very problematic that we're talking about homeless services, putting nearly $5 million into it. But when it comes to eviction and aversion, oh, that's that department, they have to do that. And I think there are some streamlining that's an opportunity there. And we're talking about a lot of case management already in the community safety department. And we're talking about landlord engagement, and we're talking about mediation. is there an area where we can invest more internally, rather than, we don't control what money goes out to these organizations. We have a scope of work, but we don't control that money. We're paying a salary for them to do a service. But it looks like this department, your department, Ryan, and Director Smith is taking on a lot of responsibility, to my colleague's point, We definitely have to have a conversation with the city, because we're now taking on things that aren't in our portfolio. But we're efficient at it. We're really good at it. But we also have to pay for it. And I'm not trying to be conservative. I'm just being cautious, because we're working within confines of not raising taxes, which I really hope we don't, considering the feeling of paying taxes after this evaluation. So that's what I'm getting at. I'm not trying to pit programs versus the other, but it's happening inevitably. We're supporting the plaintiff and the defense without addressing how we can better streamline and provide people what they need. You can tell me how many people are homeless all day. That is less compelling to me than what caused them to be homeless. And we can address that, which I've not heard a lot of talk about. We can address that. I'll feel a lot better. And if we can address the current body of people who are homeless, where they are going, what structures, we've done it before. We've literally, every person that was a veteran that was homeless in this city, we have addressed that before. So when I open up with my question, can we afford this? Let me rephrase it. Are we trying to eat the elephant in one bite? So that is the line of my question. That's why I'm here. Are we taking on way too much at once because it's a great idea? Have we really looked internally to see where we can streamline things? And in regards of the continuum of care partners, who's doing what? And if we're going to expand this department internally, are we duplicating services? Answer part of that what you want. Yeah, I'll do my best. Yeah, that's good. It's really dense, I understand. Yes. And I know that the hour is late.

Great. You know, it is what it is. OK. Are we eating the elephant all in one bite? I'm going to answer that directly. My answer is no, we're not eating the elephant all in one bite. We are laying out something that has a five-year plan and reduction targets along the way. Those are big bites. But we're not eating it all in one bite. To, oh gosh, there was a lot.

I'm sorry.

I gave you a lot. Just ask me for clarification. Yeah. There were so many things I wanted to say. First of all, you were listening. Do you have things you want to say right now while I'm thinking? Sure, sure.

That's good. That's good. So there is the question of are we duplicating services? No, the plan doesn't duplicate services. It expands services in some places. The thing that I think is really critical to keep in mind is we have all in the homelessness system operated under the assumption for many years that HUD funding is enough to end homelessness. HUD is not of that view and intentionally does not structure its programming and its competitions to support ending homelessness. It explicitly says that local partners and philanthropies and businesses and governments need to be at the table as well. So what we have done in this plan is we've taken the things that we know work really well in ending homelessness, not only in Durham, but across the country, and said, well, we want to add more dollars to that. So you spoke to landlord engagement. We said, yeah, we want to add more dollars to landlord engagement because we know we need a bigger units pipeline. We said we know we need to be able to keep people in units. And the thing that keeps people in units housing stabilization case managers who can work with folks towards self-sufficiency and a month 13 plan so that they remain housed we also knew that we needed flexible funds right and so that was the flexible housing assistance fund portion of this that would allow people to overcome that initial barrier when we did our family sprint one thing that I will note for you is there are there are families there who actually could afford housing but couldn't afford to pay off their arrears that they had Right. And couldn't afford that little bit of capital to get them into housing. So the Flexible Housing Assistance Fund is able to get people over the hump and then potentially use federal funding in conjunction with that, like rapid rehousing dollars or permanent supportive housing dollars to keep people in housing. The other thing that I wanted to name here in terms of our overall budget context. Right. And I want to draw a very sharp distinction. We have taken some lessons from other places, inclusive of Denver, which has been talked about a lot. But one of the lessons, what we don't talk about as often, is what we have changed from those models to make this more affordable here in Durham. So I'll take Denver as an example because it's the big example. Denver spent over $100 million in capital improvements, and then $57.5 million was its annual budget in 2025 separately. that money went to a lot of budget for for um for homeless services homeless yeah homeless and services right that that strategy was a strategy that they initiated that placed was very similar to ours but placed its emphasis on that interim housing piece They bought four hotels, they set up three micropallet communities, then they added two micropallet communities. That was a very expensive strategy. What we have done here is, well, we looked at those numbers and said, well, you all were able to move 6,000 to 7,000 people indoors with 1,200 interim housing units. That means most of those people eventually transitioned into stable housing units. Is there a world where we de-emphasize interim housing? We still have it. We still need it because some people absolutely do need it. But where we can have more people go directly into housing. And so our plan emphasizes that direct into housing while still maintaining some interim housing to bring those numbers way down, right? And so that's one of the lessons we learned there. There's other places like Newark, for example, that in 2022 had a strategic plan that braided these elements very similarly to ours. They saw in the next four years 31% reduction in unsheltered homelessness. And so we've learned from them as well, and we've learned from a lot of different other places. I'll stop there because I think I answered the question. If I did not, my apologies.

No, I appreciate you really leaning in. On the lessons learned, because as you know, mayors, we talk all over the country. Denver overspent significantly. Their audit stated it. And just the lessons learned, the conversations that I had with them was, which is inspiring my questioning today. Yeah, and that's great. Thank you. I don't want us just putting a bunch of money into a big idea. without those lessons learned.

Exactly. And so we very intentionally asked people for those lessons learned. Ryan asked me to comment on what was it? Oh, what we know about how people enter homelessness. I will name for you that our data team is taking a really hard look at that for Durham-specific numbers, right, to see what that means in Durham. What we know from every national study, and this is from NAEH, this is from housing for homelessness is a housing problem, this is from When We Walk By, this is from Built for Zero, this is from all of these places that have done these studies, is that homelessness is fundamentally a problem of, A, rent, higher rents, and particularly mismatched rents at the lower end with folks who are earning lower incomes. When you look at the numbers, it is striking that Detroit has such a low homelessness rate. The reason it has such a low homelessness rate Because people think, oh, my goodness, Detroit, you know, there's a lot of folks who have low incomes in Detroit. They must have a really high homelessness rate. Well, no, because it's about the match between housing rent prices at the lower end and low-income folks, and they have a good match there. So their rate of homelessness is lower than many people would expect, right? So that's reason one. Second reason I want to emphasize this on an individual household level. On the household level, it is rarely one thing that causes a family or an individual to enter homelessness. It is multiple events stacked on each other in a short period of time. So that might mean you lose your employment so you no longer have health care. Then when you no longer have health care, you have some sort of health situation. Then you have some sort of health situation, you can't pay for rent, and you're being evicted, right? There's multiple things that stack. All of the research on the household level suggests that it is rarely, rarely just one particular thing that leads to homelessness.

Thank you for that. Now we're getting closer to what I really want to get at. Because actually, according to data at Duke, Many of the individuals who are homeless that come into the emergency room have significant health care, actually, but access to it or using it They're not. So that's one data point that we don't talk about a lot. And I'm sure that as we engage more with them, that's something that they're going to bring up front. And then you have the ones who don't have health care or they lose it along the way and then they run into this situation. But we're getting to the core. We're getting to the core of where we can put dollars into it. You know, and I don't I mean, again, this is after today, but I do want. an inventory of sources of funding and what those sources pay for. That may be a lot of work, but I think it'll really help shape the conversation. Because you say no, but I do think there is some, it may not be specific or explicit duplication of services, but there are scopes of work that could be expanded that can bring in some things where we could find some dollars elsewhere and put towards something else. Yes, sir, absolutely. Okay, Burrs, Riz, Cook.

Thank you so much for this really robust conversation that seems to be never ending at this point. But I do want to associate the comments of Mayor Pro Tem in thinking about just like, are we actually in our lane and doing what we can do? To me, it's more about efficiency and sustainability. We can have all the great ideas in the world, but I want to make sure that we are able to meet the goals for that. And I do appreciate my colleagues as well. It's a lot of nuance and conversation, but it's not contentious, as we understand that behind these data points are actual people. And that's the most important part, that we all want to have a win, but the win is making sure people don't lose their housing, they actually keep housing, and that those people who have barriers, like once you're evicted, I don't know, having conversations with people, you have a hard time trying to find additional housing, the deposits that come down with that. So it's really important that we have those resources. So just trying to figure out a way for us moving forward to... keep the people at the forefront in this conversation discussion and think about more ways. And I also will be, I'm trying to Google it now, but thinking about from the eviction diversion cases, how many of those people are actually allowed to stay in their homes? How many instances are where landlords just say, hey, we just don't want you here anymore. We want our property back. I think that would help provide a better scope of how effective the program is and maybe help demystify the argument or just some of the the notions around we're funding both sides, if this is highly effective and people are able to go about living in their homes, or if it's a situation where people are caught up in a court case for three or four months and you were able to stay, but then they ask their property back. And so at this point, now you still have to find somewhere to go. So we haven't really. So I just want to be clear on the nuance in that, but also just thinking more about sustainability. But also to your point around Detroit, and I don't want to get too wonky in it, but I kind of love policy a little bit. They had a population decline over decades because of the major energy that left Detroit. So I'm wondering if their match is a result of the decades of population decline. And how do we see that moving in Durham when we have the inverse? We've had a population increase. Does it mean that our rents are going to still continue to have more of a mismatch going forward?

I love this question. Thank you so much council member for asking that. Yes, absolutely. So Detroit's housing market deflated for years, right? And it kept their market very different than around the country. Whereas in, you know, New York, San Francisco, Raleigh, Durham, you see all these places where rents start to climb very fast through the roof. Detroit doesn't experience that same level of acceleration because they had a lot of people leave and they had a lot of sort of challenges in the city in terms of like bringing in new investment, right? So those rents did stay the same, so they didn't have that mismatch. In Durham, we certainly see, as you all know, far better than, as you all know very well, that rental prices are increasing, right? There was a Durham Housing Initiative Task Force, again, on that link I shared earlier, one of the reports on there, is a Durham Housing Initiative Task Force that met all of last year and that offered a lot of insight into the housing market as well as a public-facing dashboard through the Durham Chamber that provides rental information. And what you see there is a very fast spike. And when you have that very fast spike, you see numbers in homelessness go up. That's part of the challenge we're facing in Durham. In our reply to the council's questions yesterday, we noted that over the last 12 months, fortunately, it's not 20 anymore. It was 20 when we shared the data some months ago, but we've been able to have some reductions because of system improvements. It's now about 14 people per month that are entering homelessness over the number of people who are leaving. So our population is still growing. And that, in large part, is due to that driving force when it comes to rental prices.

I'm gonna just follow up with you so we can have a one-to-one conversation. I think it'd be cool, but thank you so much for all the data. Yes, ma'am.

Thanks, Mr. May. On that point, yeah, so I think what you're suggesting is the big difference between us and Detroit is Detroit's losing population, supply and demand is like there's more supply than demand, right? Here in Durham, population growing, we have less supply, greater demand, right? So it's an inverse dynamic.

Exactly, exactly. And also, you know, I want to sort of quickly, I'm so sorry, counsel, but I want to quickly return to a point that Mayor Williams said that in Durham, there was a point in which we were able to get to functional zero on veteran homelessness. A real reason we were able to do that, the reason that people were able to do that across the country, actually, it wasn't just supply and demand. It was because there are federal set-asides for veterans, HUD-VASH and SSVF, that supply housing assistance dollars. That's why that is able to happen. That's why veteran homelessness is able to decrease at a much quicker rate because the resources are right there. There was funding for housing. There was funding for housing. And we provided housing. The federal government through HUD-VASH and SSVF allocates dollars for housing for veterans. It's like flexible housing assistance for veterans specifically. And so in our plan, part of what we're going to be leveraging in a more coordinated system is how do we get those dollars out more quickly for SSVF and HUD bachelors, the veteran ones, and then how do we target our own flexible housing assistance dollars for folks who don't have access to those dedicated pools of money. Thank you.

Yes. So, yeah, no, thanks. Again, love the passion. So this is a this is such an important conversation. This comes from versus like it's it's not going to end here, but this is such an important conversation. I just want to thank you for articulating also in terms of our plan versus Denver. I was in Denver, as you know, just a couple weeks ago and saw what they're doing. They're great stuff. As you're describing, our plan here is less about sort of the interim sort of housing and more to get people to permanent housing. Exactly. And so just to confirm, The way we're getting here in this plan and the budget, that's the flexible housing fund, right? That's the $9 million we're asking for. Correct. The whole community is asking for. And that's where, right, I know we're investing in a lot of different ways, but that $9 million is so critical, right? And so I appreciate the manager, again, like you've done an amazing job in sort of figuring out how do we navigate this sort of like tight budget environment no tax increase proposed, and yet still the $2 million that is our commitment to that flexible housing fund. And so, yeah, to really achieve the success that we hope to achieve and given the direction the model we're pursuing, that's a critical piece.

critical piece and you know I want to add two things to that one is for rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing, which are the two major hud funded. Financial assistance programs that get people into housing our current waitlist in Durham is around 400 people 400 households, excuse me about 100 of those households are families. we only have one permanent supportive housing opening about a month, right? So we are not driving down homelessness without new investments in flexible housing assistance. The second thing that I want to say about flexible housing assistance is in the commitments that we're asking from other entities, we're asking for that flexible housing assistance dollars, which go directly to neighbors. That's rent, that's paying arrears, that's That's like move-in costs, application fees, et cetera. And so Councilmember Burris, I know this is your world with your funding background. Part of why we've structured it that way is because we know that's the most compelling thing when we approach funders, that dollar for dollar, these dollars are going to the people who need it most. They're not going to overhead. They're not going to admin. They're not going to this, that, or the other. They're going to people who need that, and that will be our ask to our philanthropic funders and to our corporate funders and to whomever else. And I want to emphasize this to the public at large. This is not a plan, and I think we've tried to be, and my apologies if we have not been as clear on this as we ought to be. This is not a plan that any single institution or set of institutions can shoulder alone. We will also need the business community. We will also need the public at large. We will need resources, but we'll also need their time, their energy, their connections, their support. This has to be a community-wide initiative. endeavor. Otherwise, we will not meet our goals.

Final comment. I don't think we're going to get out of here at one. Just the I just want to point out, I think the obvious the irony of yesterday having the county tax assessor here talking about record levels of vacancies and then we're also talking about record levels of of unhoused community members. Great system that we have here. The one thing I like about the framework and one thing that gives me confidence in it is that it's not just throwing money at the existing challenge. It is, and this was on our last work session, of course, we're adopting the framework on Monday, talking about a paradigm shift. And going back to the PowerPoint, I think it's worth it. talks about the old way and the new way of doing things. And it talks about the structural changes that it's making to operationalize and to enhance efficiency. So I don't see this as taking the system that we have been working with and throwing money at the problem. I see this as investing money into this as enhancing a new system that can work more efficiently moving forward. And so I'm, again, very excited about excited about doing that um and i will just the last thing i'll just say um is we are adopting the framework on monday and um what we have is the powerpoint i'm not sure if i've received like a like a full document if there is one so um if if that's something that we can get before monday that would be great it'll be in your packet as a backup document awesome thank you so much it was submitted yesterday yeah it'll be published today in the agenda perfect thank you

All right. There's been a lot of discussion around this. One thing I think that I can say on behalf of the council, based on what I've heard, we're all for it. We just want to make sure we have as much information as possible. And just in my engagement personally out in the community, in different sectors, everyone supports in a good idea, but getting everyone to invest in a good idea takes a lot more work. And there are questions that we have to answer. And folks want to know, what is our plan? What is our plan to get there? And have we really cleaned up our own house as much as possible? One thing I do want to go back and visit after today is having similar work, whether it's the same work or similar, in different departments. in different agencies. The agency conversation is gonna come later, but I'm really interested in, which I, this sort of arose throughout the conversation, but housing and neighborhood services and then community safety and eviction diversion. And I can't remember which one of y'all made the comment, but I think it may have been Council Member Burris, but you know, As we're asking for more data, I think with our external partners, I would like to know their success rates or their data as well. Because if we're going to keep folks at the core of this, community members or the people who are in need of these services at the core, then I just don't want a resident to be the casualty between two governing entities. at the end of the day. And I want to make sure that we are supporting them as best as possible upfront. And again, you know, just making sure that being very targeted on, you know, preventing the problem as we're dealing with the problem, rather than just, you know, just building and investing out into just what we currently see. Right. When it comes to eviction aversion and we have, you know, we work with legal aid and have a legal representation. What does it take for them not to need them? If it comes, you know, we have, you know, a landlord that is, you know, evicting someone. What does it take to prevent them from evicting someone? You know, and and and also just the other layer of this this whole topic. Why are landlords getting to the point of needing to evict someone? Or why is someone? There are a lot of whys that need to be answered. And I don't want to govern in assumptions. I don't want to assume every landlord is a horrible landlord, and then we have to pass some policy that says tenant's rights or whatever. I don't want to have to get there. I know we need it for protections, because not every landlord is a good landlord. But not everyone is a bad. And not every tenant is a good tenant. Not every tenant is a bad tenant. And I want to get granular down to those levels to better understand that as well. If we're putting millions of dollars behind this work, I think we should know it all. So thank you for this robust conversation. Thank you all. Let's take a break for lunch and come back in. Let's just grab your food, use the restroom, then come back in about 10, 15 minutes. Thank you. All right, we're gonna go ahead and get started back. And next on the on the agenda is our Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

uh good afternoon afternoon mr mayor madam mayor pro tem council mr manager uh excited to be here today to uh share a little bit about what's happening at oewd as it relates to this year's budget um the budget team asked me to do sort of a past present and future on oewd today and so i will walk you through some of the past work of our department over the broader 25 year period that the department has been functioning. And we'll talk then about our plan for the economic mobility plan that will be developing over the next 12 months and some related information. So, Goal one in the council's updated strategic plan is inclusive economic prosperity. The work of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development is the operational expression of that goal. This is how we actually operationalize this big lofty goal of a community where we have inclusive prosperity across all of our residents. it's connecting business growth workforce development small business support and our neighborhood investment work into a unified strategy for shared prosperity uh the three primary buckets of our work are are there business growth workforce equity and neighborhood investment so the unique thing about our model is that in many communities you have workforce development and economic development in separate departments or approach as separate work. I think the magic of the OEWD model is those two things work in concert. When done well, that helps lift the economic mobility of all residents in our community. Business growth is expanding the commercial tax base. So a lot of conversations today have been about revenue. And I want to lift up or remind all of us that economic development is your revenue engine. We are the revenue driver within the city's infrastructure to help pay for so many of the critical services that we talked about today. And we do that through expanding the commercial tax base to lessen the burden on the individual taxpayer, through targeted business attraction, retaining the businesses that we have, and expanding our strategies that create quality jobs for Durham residents. The workforce equity piece is critical because as we attract those jobs, we want to make sure that those are jobs that are for Durham residents, especially those Durham residents that are facing systemic barriers. We want to create skills training and career pathways that are better aligned with the jobs that we are attracting and with the industry clusters that we know are relevant to Durham. Neighborhood investment is also a critical component of our economic strategy. That is reinvestment in our underserved commercial corridors so that they can then catalyze additional investment. The most recent example of that is the work we are doing on the Fayetteville Street corridor. But there are other corridors of interest in Durham, such as Northeast Central Durham, at the Andrew Driver corridor, among others, that require some neighborhood investment to catalyze additional private investment in economic development in those regions. Those are the three buckets, our work as it relates to this goal. As I mentioned, the budget team asked me to give you a little bit of the past perspective on what has happened in OEWD. OEWD in fiscal year 26 had an $8.6 million budget. Five of that, just over five of that from the general fund, and just under $4 million of grants, primarily for our workforce development work. OEWD has had a lot of success over its run in Durham, supported a $48 million adaptive reuse of the SunTrust building into the 21C Museum Hotel. Another great project is the $128 million redevelopment of the Ligon and Myers Chesterfield building. by Wexford. That is a 286,000 square foot lab and office space, hyper-focused in the life science industry. I think this critical investment helped Durham become one of the centers in the nation for the life science industry, building an infrastructure and ecosystem that has resulted in exciting announcement after announcement, including the most recent AbbVie announcement as the largest investment in the city's history from the private sector. Small business technical assistance, facade improvements, infrastructure investments are another very visible product of the work of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, as well as the Durham Legacy Business Program, which helps us preserve iconic businesses. You can see the impact of the Legacy Program in places like Citi's investment in the Chicken Hut, the City's infrastructure investments in the Andrew Driver Corridor, all as an opportunity to support our legacy business community. One of the most recent successes is the Durham Small Business Opportunity Loan Fund. $1.8 million was loaned to 234 businesses since 2020. 72.9% of those businesses are minority owned and 52% are women owned, which I think is a great example of our equity lens that we apply to our work. On the workforce and youth side, we are the fiscal agent and supervisory partner for the Durham Workforce Development Board. That board manages the NC Works Career Center. We deliver WIOA services for adults, youth, dislocated workers, and veterans through that effort. The general fund component of our workforce development work is Durham Youth Works. It's the city's flagship youth employment program. This has ages 14 to 21, which is the primary age range for our participants, but youth in the community up to age 24 are eligible for Durham Youth Works. In 2013, that program moved from the Mayor's Summer Youth Program into OEWD and is now serving 600 participants annually and continues to expand with 50 plus employer sites for in-person work experience. We created a Momentum Financial Academy with some ARPA funding over the past several years. We had 43 cohort graduates and $605,000 awarded directly to Durham micro businesses. We also provide Next Gen Youth Services, which is another WIOA grant funded program out of the NC Works Career Center that targets 100 youth and 40 businesses, with 20% of those being placed in work-based learning activities. Corridor investment, as I mentioned, is another key component of our strategy. We've talked a lot in this room about the $10 million ARPA grant to Hayti Promise CDC, and that work is designed to create equitable revitalization of the historic Fayetteville Street corridor. Hayti Promise CDC stabilizes vacant distressed properties, trains youth through Hayti Promise Youth Corps, and builds partnerships with NCCU, National Historic Trust for Preservation, Conservation Corp, and others. We also got some ARPA funding for a Fayetteville Street Bounce Back program, so an additional investment in the corridor. That supported 11 plus property owners with getting their properties up to code compliance, facade improvements, technical assistance for those legacy business owners along the Fayetteville Street corridor. I was also asked to talk about future facing incentive programs in our department. The only budgeted incentive program that we plan for year over year is our neighborhood revitalization grant. We earmark about $300,000 in the departmental budget each year for building improvements, infrastructure investments, and technical assistance along our targeted corridors. This is in line with a 2014 adopted incentive policy that highlights the corridors that I've mentioned before as in need of investment. for some of those properties to be revitalized to catalyze economic development. So that is the past. What we are doing in the next 12 months is building the future of not only our departmental work, but the economic development strategy and workforce development strategy for the City of Durham. Economic mobility is the umbrella that I'm using for our framework. Economic mobility speaks to both economic development and workforce development because it is rooted in a community where people can improve their condition of life and advance throughout the economic continuum. So we have already started our research and assessment process. That is due to be concluded here this summer, in 2026. The city's innovation team did a deep dive into our department. They presented us with a really robust report of findings. Since that report, we've held three departmental retreats in response to what the I-Team shared with us. to do an overall internal assessment of how we operate how we do services to the community we reviewed a ton of economic data and we're looking to collect more did some stakeholder mapping to identify gaps in things like our incentive policy which again hasn't been updated since 2014. we benchmarked our department against several peer cities with the help of the innovation team from the city on that work looking to be concluded here in the next uh few weeks Then we'll build into the community engagement part. As you build an economic mobility plan, it is important to engage your stakeholders. And I think there's a major opportunity for us to do that in the private sector, of course, with our educational partners and community members and residents to hear what they would like the economic mobility plan and the future of our city to look like. We'll certainly then structure that input and share it with City Council so that you all can shape the priorities of the plan. That will happen in the fall. By the winter of 2026 and the beginning of 2027, we'll have a draft of the strategic framework completed, sector targets, equity benchmarks, corridor priorities, as well as an updated incentive policy to present to you all for feedback. We ideally will adopt the final plan in the spring of 2027 and launch as we prepare for the following year's budget with that plan in place. All right. I've never been told I wasn't loud enough. Guess I wasn't. Thank you. So here's a look at what is in the proposed budget for our department for this fiscal year, FY27. Our departmental budget is $7.77 million, with the general fund about $5.2 million and $2.48 in budgeted federal WIOA dollars. We're budgeting 19 full-time FTEs. That is including a new position for YouthWorks, which I'll talk a little bit more about in subsequent slides. And this is just a breakdown of how that funding looks, a little bit of historical perspective from FY24 through FY27. As you see, we have, many of our FTEs are funded through those WIOA grants, where general funds fund about 13 of our FTEs.

Can you say that again, the WIA versus the general fund?

Yeah, so we have about 13, I think we have 13, including that new youth works position, we'd have 13 FTEs that are funded through the general fund and then six on the workforce grant side.

Mr. Gunn, can you break down an acronym for us?

Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act. All right, thank you. That's the Federal Workforce Development Program. So also was asked to share how the community will benefit from our work. And I know you all been here a while. I could go on and on about my passion for why economic development is good for the community and how it will benefit our residents here, but decided to condense it into just three categories or three buckets here. Better alignment between economic growth, workforce readiness, community mobility, essentially saying that more residents in Durham will be able to connect to quality jobs. I think that solves a host of challenges and problems that we've talked about today. We will get more folks credentialed. We'll build apprenticeships models. The governor, for instance, has required that every workforce development board invest 6% of all of their funding in apprenticeships works, which is a new push for workforce development boards. So I see that as an opportunity for us to think differently about how we approach apprenticeships in Durham and getting our youth and our community members in the career pathways that are most lucrative and most viable in our region. We'll build a stronger small business ecosystem, especially for historically underserved entrepreneurs. We'll have more proactive business retention and attraction to grow Durham's commercial tax base. This is a really big one, and as we dive deeper into the economic mobility plan, I look forward to sharing with you sort of what we haven't done in previous years around business attraction and retention and a major gap that I think will help us grow Durham's commercial tax base. So I look forward to sharing that with you in the future as we develop the plan. targeted investments in our corridors without losing sight of displacement risk. So an equitable approach to targeted reinvestment with minimizing displacement in mind. So what does success look like in one to three years? We'll have our mobility plan adopted. We'll increase our employer partnerships. We'll expand business retention visits. One of the key challenges that we've talked about today is philanthropy and private investment. So we're going to build a strategy to get the corporate community engaged in Durham in a different way, in a capacity that reaches out to them. One of the things that I've, in my assessment phase, I've talked to several private businesses around ways that they can invest in Durham. And many of them have surprisingly said to me, well, no one's asked. No one's asked us, right? And so we have an opportunity to ask the private sector for their help in supporting some of this work. Expanding YouthWorks participation is critical to this strategy, and I'll talk more about that in a bit, with a year round approach to YouthWorks, not just for the summer. More small businesses will receive technical assistance, capital access, and growth support. A vibrant Fayetteville Street corridor is a part of this one to three years of success. A measurable increase in commercial occupancy and property conditions throughout the Hayti Promise CDC's identified area. One of the things that is important to me is that we move from tracking outputs to outcomes in our work, right? And so a lot of what I've seen in our initial assessment is we track things like the number of people that we served, but we haven't, we don't dive deeper into what that service looks like and how we help improve the condition of those businesses or those residents. So we're going to build things like quarterly reporting dashboards, things, measures like jobs created and retained. You know, what income level did a person have when they initially walked into the career center for work for help? And what have we helped them achieve as a result of our services? So real metric driven work is how we're going to build this strategy. We'll look at workforce outcomes, corridor progress, And also what I think is critically important is look at direct tax base expansion. So how is the work of OEWD and the businesses we're attracting and retaining contributing directly to an expanded tax base for the city in a way that we can then share with residents and with council? We'll do an annual OEWD performance report with the support of the manager to the council. We'll have more YouthWorks data, which we've already began to collect, things like the census tracts that our YouthWorks participants are from, things like the income level of their household as we begin to look at intergenerational economic mobility as a measure of success, right? Are we helping those youth out earn or earn more than their household when they were young, when they become adults? Are they participating in the workforce? Are they getting jobs here in Durham? This is data that we don't currently have that we need to track, and we will as a part of our strategy. So here's a little bit of what I mean about what we're tracking today, just as a snapshot of YouthWorks. Much of this is what I would describe as outputs data, just in terms of how many people we serve. But I think it's worth celebrating because the program does continue to expand. And as you can see on this slide, there is increased demand year over year. So FY23, 863 applicants, FY26. So this is a little tricky to use fiscal year, because YouthWorks is a summer program, so it starts, it's already started now and it ends in August. So it's actually always spans across two fiscal years. So that's why you see, I'll see FY26 and 27 with FY27 and 28. We had over 1,100 applicants this year, which continues to show us that there is a demand for our program. We've enrolled just over 670 in our virtual learning program. We expect at least 360 of them to leave with a Microsoft credential and 50 or so paid placements across 16 organizations. If you're looking at this, you're probably wondering why we have 670 folks and only 50 people getting in-person work. I'll talk about that a little bit more in the future, but I'm calling that out as a part of our goal to get more in-person paid work placements for youth in Durham. with the new youth works director position if approved in this year's budget we'll be able to expand capacity so as you see in fy 27 and 28 we expect to continue to see more demand for applications but being able to accept a higher amount of our residents of our youth into the program We have already engaged private sector partners in additional in-person paid work placements. Duke University has agreed to accept 100 of our kids, of our youth, which is a massive investment from Duke, and also Duke reimburses the city's stipends that they pay. So that's a great win for us, and we're looking for more private partners to do that. So you see I've forecast at least 150 paid work placements for the following fiscal year, as well as additional credentials earned in the Microsoft suite. So I wanted to talk a little bit about why it's important to invest in YouthWorks and why we emphasize this so much in our strategy. And I'm using data from across the country for this slide. So YouthWorks is not just about workforce development. There is a three to one return on the public investment in terms of economic impact to investing in our youth. A YouthWorks program in New York City saw 17 percent fewer youth arrests while they were enrolled in the program. Boston, which is considered the best practice in terms of YouthWorks across the country, saw a 22 percent reduction in dropout rates for youth that participated in the program. And New York City also saw a 20% reduction in youth mortality as a result of their investments in youth works. What makes Boston's program so special and what I think is aspirational for our work in OEWD and here in Durham is to do universal acceptance. So Boston has scaled and staffed their YouthWorks program to accept every single youth in Boston that applies. So without exception, every single one of them will not only get into their program, but they have a in-person work experience for every one of their applicants. And so, again, that's sort of the best in class, and we have a ways to go in scaling our work, but I think it's worth calling out as an aspiration for the work here in Durham. And the new YouthWorks director position is the first step towards moving into that. Right now, we have somewhat of a lottery model, where we randomly accept as many kids as we have capacity to serve, as many youth as we have capacity to serve.

Universal acceptance is the future for a robust program.

There's other metrics here. I think it's important to share that the average cost per youth is around $3,300 to $5,000. Annual average cost of youth incarceration is over $100,000. So easy math here to see why it's important to invest in youth works on the front end. And it checks a lot of the boxes that we're wrestling with in our community. So what's the future look like? There are some headwinds and tailwinds as it relates to economic development and workforce development. One of the biggest challenges that we see is the federal uncertainty around continued workforce funding. There's proposed restructuring at the federal level to cut workforce development programs, including WIOA, which is the largest percentage of our workforce funding here in the city of Durham, which creates a significant risk for not only our career center, but of course the Durham Workforce Development Board. We, as a part of our economic mobility plan, will recommend some contingency strategies as we continue to monitor the federal situation, but it's certainly challenging. something to be alarmed about. Also, the obvious one here is the ARPA transition. A lot of the great work that OEWD has done over the past couple of years has been ARPA funded. So those programs are set to sunset. Fayetteville Street Bounce Back, for instance, the recovery fund for small business, those things are gone. So that federal funding is gone, and I think we have to develop additional local funding strategies to continue to serve our residents and our businesses in that way. There's a growing demand for this YouthWorks pathway. I've talked a lot about that this afternoon, so I won't belabor the point, but can't stress enough how important this is to an economic mobility strategy. And there's a clear need for year-round programming, right? So one of the challenges with many YouthWorks programs, summer youth employment programs across the country, is that the youth are engaged for that summer, and there's those great outcomes that I shared on the previous slide, but once they get back outside of the program, there are risks that are inherent And so additional touch points are necessary for successful youth pathways strategy. We need to be more competitive in our talent work. There's a growing employer demand in life sciences, right? We are becoming the life science hub of the United States. And I don't think that's an overstatement and I don't think that will change. We have the right infrastructure here. We have the right educational institutions. However, Our workforce development programming through WIOA can oftentimes be misaligned with some of those opportunities, those high paying jobs in life science, construction, IT, healthcare. And there are many private entities that I think have done some innovative things to get folks employed in the industries that pay the most. And I think ultimately as we're thinking about economic mobility, we have to be better aligned in doing that, as that remains a challenge for us. Affordability, displacement and equity. We know that that is one of the biggest pressures in Durham. So calling that out as it is a balance that we have to face when we are attracting investment and we're attracting businesses and ensuring that we're building anti displacement strategies that preserve equitable access to the opportunities. The last piece, flexible local funding. Many jurisdictions across the state and certainly across the United States have dedicated funds for economic development so that they can move quickly on opportunities, they can stabilize programs, and it would be my hope that we in the city of Durham can think differently about how we fund economic development as an opportunity to grow our tax base. For instance, if we look to our neighbors in Winston-Salem, they have a midtown development, midtown development fund or redevelopment fund for their midtown corridor where they have dollars set aside in each budget cycle to respond quickly to needs in that particular corridor. We are not currently structured like that in Durham. I would love to see us consider structuring a fund to stand up for future uses that is flexible and discretionary when needs arise. Last but not least, we were asked to provide you an update on the Business Improvement District that is managed by our friends at Downtown Durham Inc. Just making sure Nicole was still here. Nicole, feel free to join me, but I'll just, I'll do this and if you have more comments. So a little bit about DDI. DDI was established in 93. They became the bid manager 2012. They manage a 0.8 mile assessment district. They've helped catalyze $2 billion of investment in 20 years. That is worth noting and, I don't know, editorialize here.

I think that's incredible.

4,500 people live, 4,500 plus people now live in downtown. 300 plus new businesses since 1993 have opened in downtown. More than 1 million annual visitors added, 1 million additional visitors have been added each year to our downtown. 2 million plus square feet of new office space has also been added to the downtown in this period. Their new version of their work is Blueprint 2035. That's downtown Durham's new strategic plan. You all adopted it and you've seen it. So I didn't feel the need to build an exhaustive slide deck around it, but Nicole's here to talk a little bit more about where they're headed. Blueprint is its 2035 plan to think about the next version of downtown. I did have an error on my slide that I should point out. The city of Durham did adopt the plan. However, the county did not, not because they didn't want to. There were some jurisdictional legal things that they could not accept the plan. But they saw it. They heard it. I think they liked it. Making a shared planning document that directly informs OEWD's work. So our job is to partner with the bid manager, Downtown Durham, Inc., and make sure that our strategies are aligned for the downtown core. And we'll use that blueprint as the framework to do that. Yeah, so we have to make sure that we're aligned, and we are because we're here together. We're hanging out. So Nicole, anything you want to contribute? All right, so Nicole's here for any questions that you have about downtown or the bid, and I am here for any other questions.

Council Member Cook.

Thank you. And thank you to everyone who has stuck around. That was a great presentation. Thanks. Maybe a little too much data in that presentation. It's very dense, but I'm excited to go. I just was screenshotting into my notes instead of writing all the things down. But I have a couple of questions. But one thing that I want to target on since we've It's been, I feel, the theme of the day. The county also has an office of economic and workforce development. Can you talk a little bit about the partnership there and funding sources and sort of how our particular programs, how we're designating what we do in the city and how it sort of aligns with our city work versus the county work?

Yeah, great question. So the county has an economic development department, not workforce. However, they do some workforce funding. They partner with organizations like Made in Durham and support their work. But they have for some period of time been hyper focused on business attraction into two really key economic corridors in Durham County, which are not in the city limits, which are the Treyburn Industrial Park, and Research Triangle Park. So they have RTP, they've attracted thousands of jobs there through their work and they've really aggressively gone after bringing business and jobs to Durham. Durham obviously has a different jurisdiction and so we focus on the urban areas of Durham primarily and what I would describe as business nodes and supporting many of the small businesses in our region. is worth flagging that there's been a little bit of a strategic shift in maybe the past decade away from what I would describe as large-scale business attraction and more of a focus on small business technical assistance and support for micro businesses in Durham. And we work collaboratively with the county on several things. particularly those large scale business attraction projects, even those that are not in the city limits, because oftentimes they may have city water, which like RTP uses city water. And so there is a role for us to play from an infrastructure and support standpoint. And the county contracts with the Durham Chamber of Commerce as sort of the front door for any leads that come to Durham for business attraction.

about what the county does. The county has Nicole Thompson, President and CEO of Downtown Durham Incorporated. So happy to be here with you today. The county has been a longtime partner, as has the city of DDI. When this was formed back in 1993, it was a private sector coming forward, but also the city and the county that stepped forward. We have a separate economic development contract with the city as well as the county. And that has been ongoing. So in addition to the bid funding, those two sources of funding come through to us to do pure economic development. In addition, it is really weird watching yourself when you're, boy, I'm really sorry. I'm not going to look at you all because it's really weird. Also, a lot of the large-scale developments that happened in 2014, 15, 16, the ATC redevelopment, the Chesterfield 21C, One City Center, the city and the county both were partners in those, providing public investments and incentives to get those deals done, which of course brought back quite a bit of foot traffic and activity in downtown.

Thank you for that. And Director Gunn, I'm wondering if you can speak also to the other parts of OEWD besides just the attraction of businesses, but some of the programming that we're doing as well and how we've sort of prioritized that.

Yeah, so we again, there's been a little bit of a strategic shift in recent years away from the large scale business attraction and into programs like the Durham Legacy Program, which provides technical assistance, which provides funding oftentimes for facade improvements or infrastructure investments in businesses that have been in Durham for more than 15 years. It has historically focused on businesses that are minority owned or women owned as well. And that program continues to serve a large swath of legacy businesses in Durham. We do a lot of work in neighborhood investment, right? And so there's been a facade improvement program that the OEWD has run before helping small businesses improve the exterior of their buildings. We put a, for example, we put an incentive before you all last council meeting to help a property owner in the Fayetteville Street corridor renovate her commercial building. And so that's also a big piece of our historic work and I think a part of our future work as well. We ran Momentum Financial Academy, the Durham Small Business Loan Fund, or really opportunities for small businesses to get training or access to capital. We launched an access to capital accelerator in this fiscal year, which is helping businesses get capital ready. We just had graduation from that in this very room last week or two weeks ago, where we graduated 11 Durham businesses from that program to help them get capital ready, help them learn about what it takes to get funding. So much of our work has been in that small business space. I also want to lift up that, your question about the county, I left out some of the work they do in the entrepreneurship space. They were a catalytic funder for Forward Cities, the E3 Durham program, which was designed to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem here. That program has gone away, so flagging that as an opportunity for both the city and the county to think about how we invest in scalable entrepreneurs.

All right, Director Gunn, thank you so much for your presentation and your efficiency and your cadence. So hopefully we'll be home soon. I do want to highlight that I am super excited about the expansion of the Youth Works program, just thinking about the value that adds to our youth. So I just had a question. Is there any opportunity, as we think about expansion, to connect them to financial literacy? I think that's really important. Having a paycheck is not about how much you make sometimes, but how much you spend your and so making sure that we are supporting that. So I wanna know if you all have partnered with any banking institutions to help facilitate that process as well.

Yeah, that was something that I called out when I got here, sort of a best practice that I saw in my time in other cities. was to at the beginning of your summer youth employment program to open up a bank account with an institution. In a previous place, we were able to partner with a financial institution that would not only give them the account, but would put $25 in the account to help them to cover that fee to open the account. And there's a lot of data that I could bore you with at another time about how successful that has been for them long after they're not in YouthWorks just by having access to that credit union account. And so we have approached a local credit union here. And I don't know if we have signed on the dotted line, so I won't say the name. But there's a handful here that you could probably think of that is very community-based, that has agreed to do a similar pilot program for next year, where when they enroll, they'll get a bank account. We have not been able to convince anyone to give us the 25 bucks yet, but we're working on that as a best practice as well, because I think there is some value in helping overcome any barriers for the youth to have that account. And for those of us in this room, it might not seem like 25 bucks is a lot, but it might be. And what we found in sort of our assessment phase is that there's risk for some of the youth if they don't have their own bank account and they're getting paid to be in YouthWorks because maybe they put it in a family member's account and we don't know if they ever get the funding. So it's important for them to have their own bank account and debit card. And then as a part of the training, we've already built in financial literacy. So when they go through their asynchronous learning, which is the virtual component, they get some financial literacy already.

Thank you. And maybe the mayor, Mr. Fundraiser, can help get that commitment for our youth. Just saying, since you need some stuff to do. No, I'm joking. So also just want to... Okay, thank you, sir. I also have a couple more questions. And just around, I know that in this fiscal year 27 budget, there is for a capacity increase around the youth. Do you want to expand the program? Or like, what this person is going to bring in more so? Like, what you hope to see from the result of this new full-time employee and how it's going to impact the youth for its program expansion?

Yeah, I'll call out a couple of things that we're expecting. So we expect an additional demand, right? So I'll call that out in my slide. We expect to be able to accept at least 30% more participants in the next program year. And the other thing that's really missing is in previous years, YouthWorks had several other staff members beyond the program manager, which is the sole staff that we have today. One of the key things that that person did was employer engagement. So I referenced that we only have 50 or so in-person work experiences. And part of that gap is we don't have the employer engagement person anymore who spent their entire 12 months engaging with the employer sites, making sure they're prepared for the youth, asking them can they take additional folks. I want to highlight that our program manager this year has taken that on, which is how we help secure the Duke support for the program, which is massive. But we need to scale that. So we need someone out in the park, someone out in the community, meeting with businesses to say, would you be able to take some of our YouthWorks participants? Also helping us get creative around the funding for the stipends that the youth receives. Because a big limitation right now is we can only place them either in nonprofits or municipal or county roles or state roles because of the emoluments clause. The interpretation of the emoluments clause is that the city of Durham is paying them. We're essentially giving free labor and an economic benefit to the private sector or to a private entity, and the North Carolina's emoluments clause forbids that. So that has drastically reduced the amount of places we can put people. So this employer engagement person will be able to work with the private sector to say, hey, would you be willing to fund this or can we figure out a workaround with a not-for-profit as a pass-through entity, ultimately to make sure that people can get the in-person work experience because that's the most valuable piece of what we do.

I didn't think with the president we had, we're still doing monuments clauses around here, but that's my whole thing. Okay, I have a couple more questions. Sorry, I won't mention his name. Okay, and then also, does your department have any, since we've been talking about just efficiency, do you all have any overlap with the work of the city's youth services division?

Yeah, we do. We do. I think there's what I would describe as collaboration, right? So if someone comes to the Youth Services Department, I've had many city staff members refer them to YouthWorks, reach out to me and ask if there's summer work experiences available. And we continue to collaborate in that way, for sure.

OK. And then two more questions, I promise, and then I'm going to let you go. So this is our first, well, my first time really hearing about the training program offered by Haytai Promise. Can you just give a little details in regards to when that started and just what their scope is? And I just want to say this. I preface this by saying I am deeply excited about all the work that's going on along the Fayetteville Street corridor. Particularly, I had an opportunity to tour some businesses and see what they're doing. Also, I know that the Hester's and their enterprises have been able to do a significant amount of work. in the neighborhood stabilization, but also like the upfitting your homes in that quarter. So I just want to just know, like, because I know they also have a program called Righteous Gentlemen that a lot of folks have gone through as well. So I just want to hear about, you have really established program that's been happening that has a lot of success rates and well-accompanied people who are out here, gone through the program, and we have a new one. So I just want to hear again, like how, what they're actually doing and when that work started.

yeah uh so the work is has started um this year 20 20 26 i think they have either their first cohort or are planning to get the first cohort launched the model is primarily centered around the stabilization work that they'll do so in an ideal scenario we get folks trained here in durham to learn how to stabilize historic properties get real work experience paid work experience actually stabilizing properties on the corridor And the entity who is contracted to run it is now, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has a great track record in doing this in other communities. New Orleans is the one that comes to mind first, where they actually stand up businesses when they leave, right? So if you're a youth that goes through this and learns how to do construction or do contracting or preserve historic properties, once this grant funding runs out or once the CDC's program is gone, you have a wealth of talent in the community that can either be employed by existing entities, but in places like New Orleans, we saw them actually start businesses. And so that work now goes from, like in New Orleans, it went from the 9th Ward to the 3rd Ward, and it can expand beyond just the corridor. So the idea is to teach them the skills and the trades in this particular corridor, but for them to expand beyond that.

Okay. And then last question for now. Thanks so much for that. When it comes down to the WIOA, two-part question. So is there, I'm hearing that there's a state and federal body. And then also, I think you expressed, and correct me if I'm wrong, that there is some limitations about life sciences and where we're hoping to like, you know, attract folks to the new economies coming to Durham right now. But I know Durham Tech is expanding, doing a lot of work, expansion around life sciences. So can you talk, do you guys have a partnership with them or what does it look like for you all?

Yeah, Durham Tech is, I think, the primary partner for that type of training. I would describe the limitations are really in the way we deliver service at the Career Center and how we think about what it takes to get someone employed in that. For instance, Our partners at Made in Durham are able to quickly get youth through their program in partnership with Durham Tech. Made in Durham actually pays the students while they attend. They get, I think, a $10,000 stipend while they're getting their training. That training is less than a year. And then after that, they're employed, you know, making a really great salary at 19 years old or 20 years old. The WIOA infrastructure is just a lot more complex as government. It's not as nimble. And so I would say that the governor's office has also recognized this limitation and is working with workforce development boards across the state to be better aligned. I think there's a recognition that if someone walks through that door at the career center and has a desire to be employed in a full-time role, we should be helping them get employed in the jobs that pay the most and that are easily accessible. And we just haven't been structured in that way. And I think part of that is just the complexities of federal and government. Because the money comes from the feds, it passes through the state, and then it comes to the local area boards. And it's just a little bit complex, in my opinion. So I'm in the assessment phase of figuring out what's possible. Because there are things that we have to do that don't align with life science, right? Some folks might just need some resume building that particular day or they might need a critical service. They might be experiencing homelessness and need something that's more immediate. And so the Career Center serves that role as well. But I think expanding beyond just so we continue to serve our most vulnerable residents in that Career Center, which is a critical piece of it. But we got to do more because there's youth in our high schools that aren't getting this training because they're not seeing that pathway. So how do we get them exposed to that? DPS is doing some great work with Durham Tech around that. They've launched life science academies. And I think just connecting that ecosystem to that federal funding is the next step.

Thank you, Mr. Gunn.

Thank you, Director Gunn. It's helpful to get this overview and kind of your vision of where you see things going as well as the history of where we've come from and the shift of what I'll call the evolution from like the big game hunting to the economic gardening and thinking about the support for small businesses and legacy businesses and academic mobility overall in the plan. So thanks for helping chart that and lead that for us going forward. definitely sorry to see the the the end of the bounce back program and others I understand when arpa funding ends that leads to some tough decisions at least anecdotally I've heard some really positive feedback from small businesses for not a lot of money yeah I felt like they were able to benefit significantly from that so you know I'd like to see us as a council kind of return back to these sorts of programs you know under your kind of vision and direction in the future because I'd like to see us continue to invest in many ways, you know, in our kind of historic legacy corridors to help support businesses and other economic actors, kind of neighbors in those communities. So, you know, just want to say heard positive things and let's keep that in mind.

If I can respond really quick for the next thing. So we were able, you all authorized at the last council meeting, additional funding to continue the bounce back work, which was some general fund dollars that were remaining. And so we at least have one more phase of that program, that business enhancement and corridor bounce back program that is starting now. And so while we don't, what I was flagging is the sort of long-term future outlook of funding like that, but we did have resources to continue at least one more phase of that. And so I'm excited about that as well.

Well, great. Well, thank you for that reminder. And then also excited to see us growing the YouthWorks program again. And I'd like to have you stay in touch with us as a council, and I'm happy to be in touch directly too for ways that we can reach out to the business community, to kind of houses of worship, to the nonprofit community, to sort of all be engaged in that recruitment process to help support your staff. I'm really glad we have that staffing in place to help grow. A couple questions about YouthWorks. So first is, you know, the funding that you're seeking, like the $25 per account, is that for all 600 plus participants or is that for those who are placed in person? Or are all participants receiving some sort of remuneration?

Yeah, good question. My reference was to what I think the best version of the program would look like, not what we're doing now in terms of the $25, but the best version of the program would be every kid who enrolls, every youth who enrolls gets a bank account on day one with $25 in it.

So that's the best vision or version of it. In the immediate, is there a plan in order to kind of be able to pay to do that for those who are going to be employed by the city, the county, the state? Or is it just like all a vision at this point and we don't yet have the accounts? We don't have the accounts or the funding.

You're in discussions with the... We're working with some local credit unions to try and set that up. Because there is some administrative work that they have to do, right? I'm not suggesting that it's easy work for credit unions to do it. But there's value for both of us to get more youth bank accounts, for them to get more exposure to that market. I also want to point out that everyone gets paid. So all 670 or so will get paid something. So even if they don't get an in-person work experience, they get paid for the asynchronous learning that they do with the virtual modules. And so I think with that in mind, it's important that they all have a bank account. Because one of the largest challenges in the last program year was just getting people their money. We had paper checks and we had different addresses and people had transportation burdens to come pick up the checks. It was a cluster. With the support of city staff, we have fixed that for this program year where we're doing direct deposits for all the participants. But the next layer of that is then making sure that that direct deposit is for them and in their bank account and that they know how to access it and how to use it. and we're building that for the next program here. Okay, thank you.

In terms of the emoluments question, because I know the city used to provide stipends for private employers, and then at some point we reached the legal decision. I'm looking at our our attorney here, Tony Rayburg. I'm curious about the history of that. I'm sure you have a memo that was written at the time maybe that could be sent to us so I can review. I'm just curious about what led to that decision, like how high risk we considered that to be. Was there an actual legal issue that arose or was it more, you know, just being proactive? Like, yeah, how do we get to that point, that decision?

Thank you, Councilmember Capac. So I am not familiar with how we got that. OEWD previously worked with former senior deputy city attorney Fred Lamar for many years. And Fred retired in December. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go hunt for some background on what sort of advice we may have provided to the department and how we arrived at that. I don't know of any background.

memo off the top of my head but i'll see what i can find okay i'd appreciate that and obviously not being an attorney of any sort you know just my in my uninformed impression would be that that seems like a fairly like low risk you know it seems like we can justify you know of supporting a kid with a couple thousand dollars to work for a local business but once again you know i just appreciate at least the research to be better informed thank you

Isn't the issue in part who pays, right? Whether it's the city paying or the private business directly paying the youth, right?

Yeah. And when the city used to pay businesses to host, we had a lot more participation. We did. And then that was ended. Of course, you would expect to see a fall off from that. And while we want to do the outreach and get more private sector businesses to sign up and pay for it themselves, it's not a big dollar amount per youth to give this experience. and and and so i'd love if it were possible for the city to return to that practice which would help us dramatically i believe boost our participation so thank you for that we will work closely with the attorney's office on figuring it out thank you i have one more question about council members do you have someone the same topic

just gonna say around that we just want to also think about it just a nuance and we're trying to provide support for year-round and so where we might see it from a scope of like the the some like the August June the August or something I don't know the months anymore but we want to make sure that as we are answering that question that we think about it is gonna be a cost increase if we do get to the model of providing support for our youth with year-round like employment opportunities great

That's a good point, yeah. I'm just curious, finally, if you can talk more about your thinking at this point around the anti-displacement strategies, if there's anything that you want to lean in on that the department's thinking about, or is it kind of more of an exploration at this point, knowing that that's an important value?

Yeah, it is a very important. So thank you for that question. It is a very important value. I'm hesitant to answer without doing the full extent of all the research that we'll have to do to figure out what other cities are doing, how we can most approach it. There are several prongs that have to work. Right. One of which is making sure that members of the community can benefit from the additional opportunity that development can create. But there are also other levers that I need to explore. Right. And make sure that, you know, as cost costs do increase oftentimes when you revitalize a corridor. Right. And we've seen that in the history of Durham. And so how do we compete with those? How do we do what is needed and make the investments that are needed to catalyze opportunity in Durham? without unintentionally displacing the folks that are already there. And so more, that is a big part of the economic mobility plan that we'll have to build. Yeah, thank you.

Called in, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks, Director Gunn. Great to see you. Appreciate the presentation. Really appreciate our collaboration since you've come on board. You revitalized OEWD. So excited about this. Thank you. I do want to lift up what my colleague said about youth work. So excited to see the expansion of youth works there, including the additional paid positions, I think is really critical.

Yes, thank you.

You may have seen, actually, there was a big story on NPR just a couple days ago about Sarah Heller, who's a researcher at Michigan who studies youth summer employment. It's exactly what you said. It's not only a workforce strategy, but also reductions in dropouts, in youth violence. It's all that stuff. So it's a major, important investment. So thank you for that.

Yeah, thank you.

Also appreciate the focus, as you said, on sort of outcomes and outputs. And I know we've worked together on this on the Workforce Board. Because of our long meeting today, we did miss the workforce board meeting this morning. But I appreciate your leadership there to help us navigate this complicated federal, we owe a structure, the funding structure, to figure out how do we leverage those dollars to really get more impact and outcomes on our workforce size. So I appreciate all that.

Thank you.

I have two questions. One's more technical, and then one's kind of a little bigger picture. The first thing is just on the budget. I want to make sure I understand the sort of budget. And so if I look at the... You've got one slide that references the FY26 budget. This is on the history of impact. It references the budget for last year of $8.6 million, right? But then in the budget table a couple of pages later, it looks like the adopted budget for last year was $6.9 million. So I'm trying to understand those numbers and the difference between the adopted FY26 budget and the proposed budget this year, which is a slight increase, right?

YEAH, THERE MAY BE AN ERROR IN THE SLIDE, COUNCILMEMBER. I WILL COMMIT TO CHECKING THOSE NUMBERS FOR YOU. I DO KNOW THAT WE ARE EXPECTING, WE FORECASTED A SLIGHT DECLINE IN THE FEDERAL FUNDING FOR THIS NEXT YEAR, BUT ADDITIONAL INVESTMENTS FROM THE CITY. SO IF I CAN GET BACK TO YOU WITH AN ANSWER ON THAT.

AND THE OTHER QUESTION THERE WOULD BE, THERE'S ALSO THE COLUMN FOR THE ESTIMATED

26 budget that's larger it's like 9.2 million compared to the adopted so what the difference was there between this estimated there must been some infusion of cash yeah there could so some of the additional cash was arpa dollars that could be that could be attributing to what the numbers that you see are there uh but i'm happy to get you a clarification that'd be great okay

So my larger question is on this issue of the economic mobility plan, which sounds really exciting. And we know, and you also, so you referenced the affordability challenges, one of the challenges we face. I think that's also, I think one of my colleagues mentioned sort of displacement. So the affordability displacement, Huge challenge in Durham. We also know from the research that Raj Chetty has done, it's the best research nationwide, on economic mobility. I know Charlotte ranks really low, and there's a big sort of push in Charlotte to address that. I know that Durham's not quite as low, but still well below national averages on social and economic mobility.

Durham is almost at the bottom. Bottom, yeah. The third percentile.

Major challenge for us. So given that, and given the mobility plan you're developing, What I'd love to know is what's the role of financial empowerment in that strategy? My colleague, Congressman Burris, mentioned financial education or literacy, right? You've mentioned the $25 you'd love to provide for folks who are in the summer youth works. There's tremendous innovation going on around the country, as you know, in this area, thinking about tax preparation, benefits access, financial literacy pieces, but also wealth building. I'm so glad you were there last Friday at our announcement of the Invest America Durham campaign. I'm not talking $25 in an account. We're talking leveraging federal dollars as much as $1,000 for kids, for thousands of kids in Durham, and the $250 for as many as 36,000 kids in Durham. So major investments there. So there's a potential for so much investment in wealth building, benefits access in financial education. So what's the role that doesn't really appear in your slides here? So what's the role of financial empowerment working not just with businesses and workforce, but also directly with individuals to address this huge affordability challenge and the mobility, the gap we face here?

Yeah, thank you for raising that. It did not appear in the slides because I was intentional about not showing the plan before the plan is complete, right, and making sure that I We didn't get ahead of ourselves in the process. I will say that many economic development offices across the United States have recognized the importance of financial empowerment as a part of their economic mobility strategy. It's something that I am studying, something that I've enjoyed working with you on, and thank you for that. and certainly a piece of the puzzle here that we have to call out. And I think that the communities that are doing it right recognize that. I spent some time at a National League of Cities convening with Washington, D.C.'s OFE. And I mean, talk about we talk about affordability. They've been able to do some incredible things such as a four to one match savings account for someone to purchase a home. So if a DC resident puts $1,500 in, the city matches that four times and they're able to get closer to building that wealth. So I think there's some great models and we're going to study and assess them as a part of our plan and figure out what we think makes sense for Durham and share it with council.

Thank you so much. Look forward to working with you on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Good to see you, Director Gunn. Thanks for the presentation. The only question I had is around, and it's more a historic question. When we are contracting with, just in our own contracting procurement processes, are we asking, I felt like we were asking potentially private businesses to enroll, like that was like one of the things that we were asking them to be, would they be interested in? In enrolling? In this YouthWorks program, but I can't remember if that was just an idea we had or? We, like,

So at present, the practice, historically, the practice has been not to I shouldn't say historically either. In this recent period of time, it has historically not been a practice to ask private sector companies to engage because we have the interpretation that as we're currently structured, they cannot. We do proactive outreach to everyone else that fits into the category, right? So Duke, our nonprofit partners, and unfortunately, that's a very limited pool in terms of the amount of people that they can serve. But we do a ton of outreach to the folks that we think fit into the category.

yeah i thought for some reason at some point just within our own whenever we had contracts i know mayor shul would always ask folks are you interested in uh participating in the youth works that's clearly i think when the city was probably paying that i'm sorry i misinterpreted a question when someone is a contractor for the city yeah and i wasn't clear i was kind of um lost there for a second yeah i'm not aware of that as a current practice but i i can i can find out okay Just a curiosity if that's an opportunity for us to have that as a question. Would you like information? Would you be interested as a just a easy, potentially easy way to at least bring folks to an awareness that they may not have currently?

Thank you for that. That's a great suggestion.

And then I think on the the question of we used to provide the dollars and now we don't. I will just say, for me personally, I feel very differently of a smaller business, local business, they don't have the same means, versus a larger corporation paying for those workers. I mean, I think that that's just not the same. you know, economically. So that's the other question is, is it not just, are we allowed or not allowed? Are we then allowed to tailor it or not tailor it? And then I think it does get sticky, right? That you're providing a benefit that you aren't providing universally necessarily. So that would be just a question, not just cost, but like kind of the ethics of like, who are we helping and who are we benefiting who really probably just doesn't need the benefit. They can afford it if they want it. the large kind of life science businesses can certainly afford to pay a youth employee internship who then may get interested and follow a path that is a future, that is their gain in that case is somebody, a future worker for them that they would not have had that exposure to otherwise. So just want to highlight that that's a question or CONCERN I WOULD HAVE PROVIDING THOSE STIPENDS AGAIN, EVEN IF WE WERE ALLOWED. OTHER THAN THAT, I THINK THIS IS GREAT. THANK YOU. I KNOW THERE'S BEEN SOME WORK, A LITTLE BIT OF WORK, I THINK WITH COUNCILMEMBER BAKER AND COUNCILMEMBER RIST ON THE WORKER COOPERATIVE. SO JUST WOULD LOVE TO HEAR, I KNOW THAT'S NOT PART OF YOUR PRESENTATION, I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ALL ARE IN THAT SPACE, BUT WOULD LOVE TO HEAR A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THAT AS WELL.

I'm happy to answer that. Yeah, thank you for the question. Another piece of that plan that we didn't want to present before it was done, but the question you've just asked has already launched, right? So I'm happy to talk about that. So we are in the process of building a worker ownership campaign here in the city of Durham in partnership with the folks from Democracy at Work Institute. and the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center. So we have signed a MOU, the city of Durham signed an MOU with Dowie to be a worker ownership city. For reference, Raleigh has just launched their version of this campaign. What it entails is providing Durham businesses with the information they need around what it takes to become a worker-owned company, the benefit for the business, the benefit for the employees. It helps connect them to the resources that they might need. because there's a financial transaction that happens when that happens and can be fairly complicated for a small business owner to even think about what it looks like. And many of our small business owners don't know that it's possible, right? What we see happening across the country is, you know, family owns a restaurant, Kids don't want to work in the restaurant industry, they close the business. And that's a loss for the community. It's also a loss for wealth for that family. And worker ownership is an opportunity. They could then sell it to their employees. And I think if you're a small business owner working day to day, maybe you don't have access to that information. And so our campaign will be a structured, formal engagement with that community. And we look to launch that this fall. And we're right now doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work. Dowie and NCEOC are really leading that behind-the-scenes work and talking to our small businesses already, engaging with the employer-owned companies that are already in Durham, one of which is one of our major employers in downtown Durham, Measurement Incorporated, is an employee-owned enterprise and building that use case and that story for our community. So I think from an economic mobility plan standpoint, that is something that we would like to put in there.

Thank you. That's excellent news. And then I just have one last question. A few years ago, and I think we certainly have an employee, or we did, that was doing more targeted outreach to Latino-owned businesses. This was, I think, stood up. I think she went to go work for the city of Raleigh, but it was certainly during the pandemic. And just wondering what kind of outreach you're doing, if that's part of the plan that's going to come. That's great. And to other immigrant-owned businesses, that piece around folks How do you enter into procurement processes with the city and other government, all of that? And the tailoring for those kinds of businesses may need to be different.

Yeah, we do have a staff member who is leading that work today. We launched something called Trade Connect two months ago in partnership with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. And the primary audience is Latinx, Hispanic, Spanish-speaking businesses, but not exclusively. So the idea is international or immigrant-owned businesses in general, helping them learn contracting processes and also expand their capital markets beyond the United States, helping them learn what it takes to go global with their work and bring that revenue and that experience back here to Durham. So that remains a part of our work. Lola Compost on my team leads that work, but it's certainly a part of our strategy to expand it.

What was it called again?

I didn't get it. Trade Connect.

Thank you.

Yep.

thank you for for coming in um and uh and speaking to us and and great work on everything that you're that you're working on um i second some of the comments about the the energy that you've brought to deeply needed energy that you brought to the to the city in this space thanks um so i appreciate that um and council and mayor pro tem caballero asked the one question that i had so i just have a few A few comments. One, really excited about the economic mobility plan. I think that's necessary. We're talking a lot about strategic plans right now. We've got homelessness, housing, economic. But I also think that this is a really good time. We're, as we see with this budget, entering into a new paradigm. And we've got to be prepared for that future and that reality that we're facing. And so I think now is a very critical moment. We've also gone a really long time without doing this. And so I think values have changed, opportunities have changed, challenges have changed. And so I think That's a good reason for us to be doing that. So I'm very, very excited about moving forward with that. As part of that, excited about kind of seeing a picture painted of what our economy is as well. What is the Durham economy broken down so that we can understand it? I'll join the chorus of my colleagues lifting up youth works. I think there's really amazing work, really, really important, combined with the work that Parks and Recreation is doing in providing opportunities for young people when they're not in school. for things to do. Really excited about the work and looking forward to the public-facing launch of the worker ownership and succession planning as you really leaned on the succession planning aspect of that and the additional opportunity it presents to small business owners, especially who are aging. um i want to emphasize collaboration across departments um i think that there are i don't want us to get tunnel vision on just trying to grow the tax base i think that's one really critical goal but i also want us to be thinking in tandem with that about how do we tackle food deserts how do we promote other goals of the city regarding equity and sustainability and wages and all the other pieces we're doing small area planning how does this tie into that when a developer comes in wants to rezone How can we make sure that we're getting community benefits and community benefits agreements out of that? And they're informed from an economic standpoint. So really thinking collaboratively across different departments. How do we infuse economic development into our even residential neighborhoods? Like, are there opportunities for that? Coordinating with the planning department, coordinating with housing and neighborhoods, I think all of that is important. And regarding downtown, really, really excited about Your work as it relates to Blueprint, I think that's important. I think we need to get to implementing the downtown Blueprint plan. We adopted it, even though it wasn't necessarily spearheaded and created by us, but we did adopt it. I think there are a lot of good opportunities there. And downtown, one thing that's great about downtown is the placemaking, and it feels like a place, and you can walk around, and it's exciting, and there are a lot of different people. And that doesn't... We need to implement Blueprint, but that doesn't just have to be downtown. There are a lot of little mini or smaller activity centers around our city. And so how can we kind of build those out and invest in those places as well and think of Durham as a polycentric city? And I think that, you know, OEWD is in a good position to be able to facilitate and help out with that kind of work in a cross-departmental way. So those are my comments. Thank you. Happy to hear any reactions to that, but I appreciate all the work that you've done, and I'm excited for the work ahead.

Yeah, thank you for the comments and thank you for your leadership along with council member wrist on the worker ownership piece. I think it's going to be a great effort and going to make a big impact. So thank you for that. The piece about cross-departmental collaboration, again, not to show the plan before the plan is ready is another thing that My early assessment is identified as an area of opportunity for economic development and workforce development strategy. And I want to shout out my colleagues in the housing, Sarah Venus, Director Venus in the housing department, Director Ryan Smith in the safety department. We've already began that collaboration as we build our plans, right? And so we have recognized that what happens with the homelessness plan impacts what happens with the housing plan, impacts what happens with economic development strategy. economic mobility plan, that those things are all related. And so we formalized that collaboration with a standing meeting. We're looking to work together. So I appreciate your comments about collaboration. It's going to be critical for us to be successful.

It's my last comment, I promise. So just want to like round out and Council Member Baker beat me to it about the food deserts and just thinking about what is our role in trying to recruit some grocers to some of these areas where folks do not have access to grocery stores or just like they is not immediately available. But I do also want to uplift I'm thankful for economic mobility plan. I made a statement earlier, but I think that's critical at this moment that we think about how our own public policies are impacting our community members and maybe contributing to some of the issues we're seeing today. So I thank you all for having that foresight. And then I also want to clarify around the statement of emoluments because I don't want to become and I'm going to reach out to this. Thankfully, we have a school of government here that I'll reach out to to get clarity on the issue, the topic for it, because what I don't want to have is an interpretation that kind of happens with inclusionary zoning where We say, our in-house people say one thing, but then you go out to the School of Government and it's like, that's not how we're viewing that right now, which I have gotten when I asked the School of Government a train I went to earlier this year. And when I think about it, this issue with emoluments, like, I'm not saying go to a food line and say we partner with them, because obviously you're going to naturally hire a 16-year-old to work there. I'm thinking about the future in exposing some of these kids to trades. So I'm thinking about those smaller trade programs to where if you want to learn how to be an electrician or a plumber, things that we still are in need as we move to evolve into new systems, how do we make sure those folks are able to park in their city to get those kids their early access? Because as we know, we've been in college before, you can have all the theory in the world but they want that critical experience and most times we find out we go to the job market is that we have not had that actual on the ground hand experience to make it a little bit more looked for so i just want to kind of like bridge those gaps and barriers to ensure that our youth are as successful as possible but also appreciate the critical understanding of like how can we ensure that we are not our policies are not contributing to some of the things we're trying to fix so thank you so much for your time mr gunn

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember. I want to respond to the question about grocery stores first. We are involved in several efforts to address some of the food deserts. As it goes in economic development, there's very little you can say until things are materialized, but just want the community to know that there are several folks working to address some of the food deserts issue with real, tangible projects that are potentially going to be online in a matter of years. And OEWD is engaged in those conversations. From an emoluments clause standpoint, I had the good fortune of just completing the municipal and county administration course at the School of Government, and I will say that it is my understanding that the School of Government's interpretation is exactly the same as the City of Durham's on that, and quite frankly, even a little bit more conservative around just about everything, but in particular, the emoluments clause.

I'll still reach out, but thank you so much for that. Absolutely.

If you find out something different, I'm happy to take the input.

All right. Thank you so much. I just had a few comments. There was a comment made earlier. big game hunting to economic gardening. Was that you, Councilman McCuffey?

I like that saying.

I really do.

I'm going to use it in some context somewhere. I'm going to steal it without credit to you. I want to make it up like I said it. Now, I'll give you credit.

I didn't make it up.

However, I don't want to leave totally to big game hunting either. I want to better collaborate with the county and continue that because we saw yesterday in our tax presentation, there were 40 homes, 40 properties that valued at a million dollars, where one company was more like 80 million. So I don't want to pretend that those things don't exist, that level of finance.

Mr. Mayor, I appreciate you saying that, not to cut you off, but that's why I put that at the very top of my first slide, is business attraction is still a critical component of our strategy. So thank you for lifting that up.

Yeah, yeah. And I want to go deeper with it. We have a lot of programming going on, and it's going to take a lot of energy, and I support it all, and I want to make sure we do it. So on the budget, you have one addition that will be added to the team, one FTE for YouthWorks. I appreciate that. If folks haven't noticed out there, they probably will notice really soon that I have nothing in this budget. That is because I am gearing up to put a lot of my effort into economic development. I think that it's going to solve, it's going to contribute to solving homelessness. It's going to contribute to solving violent crime. I think that, you know, this is the way to go. You can teach someone how to fish rather than just you're having to fish out of the water for them. You know, debatable, whatever, but this is something I've seen work as an employer and an employee. I wanted to just kind of read off something really quickly. This is just regarding to just the triangle and just released for 2026 global ecosystem rankings. Number 29 globally in the entire world, up two places from last year. But basically, we have 176 Triangle Founders startups that are running companies valued at worth more than $100 million each. On the other front, where is it? On the other front, Durham, North Carolina, the Bull City, out of 250 cities, we placed number two in the Geography of Prosperity Index with a strong core of just about 65% out of 100. But basically, out of 250 cities, we're the second city in America that is like climate resilience, automation readiness, population renewal, social cohesion, governance, and foresight. And this is their respect to size. This is, I mean, number one is New York City. We're number two, Durham, not Durham, Raleigh, RDU area. This is Durham. I appreciate the position for YouthWorks. Would you say that a philanthropy officer might be also a position you'd consider in the future?

I would respond, yes. I think someone to leverage corporate engagement and philanthropy would be critical to our work. Absolutely.

And I put that context out there because part of the information I hope to see next year, which I'll be working closely with you on this, back to our tax presentation yesterday, we saw value properties or parcels, but we didn't go into detail the benefit that we're getting out of some of these major employers. And I go back to reading the stories about folks fighting South Point Mall from coming. I was in middle school, and I just saw the news from where I was. I didn't think that the grand opening of South Point, I'd be marching through there with the marching band at NCCU. That one property of 17% of our entire sales tax base. And I think we have to do a better job at communicating when we have these big fish that we're trying to catch, what the economic benefit would be. I remember when I was talking about a convention center and I kept getting, we don't need a convention center, we need a park. And I said, well, actually, we need both. We need both. But I can tell you that a park is not going to bring you $17 million in revenue. But there's a different value to it, proposition. There is a quality of life value. And so I think we have to find a better way of messaging our desires and our needs. And I think that will come out of your department is telling that economic story. Yeah, we look forward to that. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. We have a lot of data that's supporting how our market is so robust here locally from a global point of view, as well as a national point of view, and why this area is the exact opposite of Detroit. Detroit went through some serious population decline, as well as other Midwest cities that are still going through it. Detroit is on the bounce back. The mayor of Cleveland is one of my closest friends, Justin. they are now on the verge of losing professional teams. And our population is surpassing them. Cleveland, Ohio. So we have to better message what we do have as an asset. And I hope that that story will come out of your department. But I ask about the philanthropy officer because we can come up with some ideas. We can come up with some dollar figures. But what I don't hear is, how we're generating the revenue to pay for it. And I know there are some folks that are just anti-business, but that is where the sales tax revenue is coming from. And we could take some of that money to pay for some of the more social initiatives that we have. That being said, also, I really like the $25 bank account ordeal. If you recently saw his council member wrist, I was texting him. I was like, I wonder where she bring this up right now. CAUTIOUSLY BECAUSE WE'RE WORKING ON A BRANDING ISSUE FOR HERE CULTURALLY IN DURHAM. BUT WE'VE LAUNCHED THIS INVEST AMERICA DURHAM. THAT WAS THE RESOLUTION IN COUNCIL. I WASN'T AT THE MEETING BUT I REALLY APPRECIATE YOU GUYS FOR SUPPORTING THAT. BUT EVERY KID TEN AND UNDER GETS $250. EVERY KID BORN within the next last year and the next two to three years, get $1,000. And we've launched this $9 million campaign to match it. And we've already adopted one school where every kid gets $500. And the app, the application just went live about two hours and six minutes ago. It will. Oh, in 10 days. I'm sorry. It was announced that it's going live in 10 days. So there are some resources we can take advantage of. I can't remember which one of my colleagues talked about. access to benefits, food, deserts, grocery stores. There are donors out there that want to support that work. That $175,000 grant that came through my office is for those very things. And we have some partners, I believe, some things going on with another maybe half million dollar grant to try and launch some initiative. So just, again, the philanthropy officer, I think, can help us identify funding opportunities. And there are some policies that are on a national level that we can really dig into and tap into and support here locally by taking advantage of them.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Thank you. Let's do the economic gardening, which I think that's a beautiful phrase. And at the same time, let's continue working with the larger employers as well. You know, I love the model that Fidelity had when they said, look, we will sponsor the financial management services certificate at Durham Tech. If you go through that, we have 600 positions on site waiting for you.

Yeah.

for Durham residents. And those types of relationships, they're paying dividends. And of course, AbbVie, that's a big win, are nearly 800 jobs with low barrier of entry and high paying salaries. Now, we can match that with the wraparound services such as, preparation and housing, we're good to go. So that's the formula. It all works together. I just appreciate it. I look forward to over the next year, Taliesin, I'm going to be very present in my advocacy in the next budget because I think that we can generate some policies that will pay for itself.

I appreciate the comments, Mr. Mayor, and do want to emphasize the last piece of what you said around career pathways. The Fidelity example is great. AbbVie is the opportunity we can get in front of because we know the jobs are coming. And so I'm excited to have not only the ability to build the plan, but an actionable step to build that pathway for real jobs for Durham folks. So I appreciate you lifting that up, and we're excited to include that in the plan. Sounds good.

Any other comments, colleagues? All right. Thank you. Thank y'all.

Welcome. Good afternoon, Mayor and members of council. I know there was some questions about the numbers. And since this is a budget meeting, I did not want to let it go to waste that those are some numbers from our budget book that we don't expect our directors to be experts in their budget. But if there are questions about the budget, we're happy to answer them. So I just want to go back to that because I know there were some questions during the question period. in case anybody had anything. I didn't want to, we can also follow up with some information. But Carl, you had some questions about the slide that was, that had some of the departmental funding. And if, we've also copied.

Is this CIP?

So, yeah, it was just, there was some discrepancies on numbers, like growth from one slide in the OEWD presentation to some chart you were looking at.

okay i don't know what i just remember that well we will we will follow up we've been taking notes too and so we will put that in the follow-up if it's not an urgent i just did not want to let that go to to waste so um you know happy to answer those questions and have the staff here to do that

Thanks for keeping me. Thanks for reminding me.

Thank you for the offer. A couple questions. So first, I don't know if I made this as a formal request, but I'm interested to know, you had a great sort of benchmarking slide against other municipalities showing proposed tax increases for this year. But I'd love to see what those same cities or a subset have done in recent years. because I know that the city of Durham has seen some pretty substantial property tax increases in recent years, and I don't know if other communities have as well. So I think that's a helpful perspective to be able to see.

And I know that that was something that I had flagged as a follow-up item. So all of these folks that are here are taking notes. Well, thank you for being so diligent in capturing that.

I said it sort of off-handed, but I didn't sort of declare it. So thank you for that.

So they've been taking follow-up questions. So all the questions you say, I'd like to have more information about that. We'll try and get you an answer. Our hope is to get something back as quickly as possible. And then if there's stuff that needs further analysis, we'll let you know that. But we usually send a follow-up memo after these work sessions are over with.

Great. And then another question, which this is data you provided previously, I believe, in our session back in February. So I can look back at my notes, but it's just the top of my mind just trying to assess all the tradeoffs we have to weigh here, you know, trying to understand the financial decision to not do pay for performance. You know, that's a big one for a lot of our folks. And just like understanding once again, what the cost implications are and what like cuts or property tax increases would be needed in order to do that this year i just think it's important i just would like to have it top of mind um as we evaluate all the kind of difficult elements of this this budget so that's one more sure we can add that to the list thank you okay

I meant to ask this yesterday, so I'm sorry for not preparing anybody for it. But my understanding is that for our funds that we set aside for assistance with tax payments, that all of that was used this year for the first time. Was there more need than we were able to meet? What does that show for us moving forward? And do we need to be thinking about putting more money into that pot?

So I think, you know, I can say that the current budget is the same as the budget from last year. So we did not increase it. But I can get information about where we were with that tax relief. I know our finance, I don't want to put Tim on the spot. I don't know if he's here. But he is the one that kind of manages that contract for the city, for the county. And so we can get more information about that and provide it in the follow-up as well, too. Yeah, it would be helpful to know.

What I want to make sure is that... I feel like I'm I'm people are writing into us a lot about taxes. I mean, I know that my colleagues are getting these emails and I and I also know that it's very real. I want to be super upfront that like that's a big reason for me that I haven't wanted to increase taxes this year. I know the county is in their proposed budget doing that increase, but I feel I know that there's some tensions with things that are coming down on the state level. And so I understand that it's and that we have a very restricted budget. But we also have a lot of folks on fixed incomes and a lot of folks that are very burdened that are homeowners in the city, a really, really high percentage of our homeowners and particularly our homeowners that are people of color are cost burdened in the city. And so it is really important to me that we're ensuring that those resources are available and that we are meeting the needs. If I'm going to tell people that we have these resources, I want us to actually have them, and I also want to be able to make investments moving forward based on data that's – and I know that in the past we haven't used it, and so it's interesting to me that We sort of hit that mark, but then there was no discussion about what was needed to move forward there. So any information in that realm is helpful. I see that Director Flora just popped in. Do you want to add now? Yes, great.

Tim Flora, finance director, I can tell you where we are at as of today, which is I think we had invoices through January, and we have right around $25,000 left. So I suspect most of that has been spent. Based upon the trend, I would say that there was, of that $500,000, there was $25,000 left. that we have not paid the county for.

Can you also clarify, if I can jump in on this one also? So I know we contribute, I think, a half a million, and the county puts about $750,000 in. So there's a $1.25 million total, right? Yes. And is that just one big pool, or does our half a million fund some residents, like city residents, as a county fund?

I think it's one general pool.

So you're saying there's $25,000 left, last time we checked, in the whole pool?

of the of uh no of the city's contributions so they just invoice us for this right so do we know what the county pool looks like so so it's proportionate so if there's just 25 000 left with us whatever that works out yeah they do so it's so it should be about the same that if we're personally okay i just want to make sure that that money is being utilized as well right But that is more than we have had in any previous year. So I fully expect by the next invoice, which would be for February and or March, that those would have been expended. But I can follow up with the county and get the final.

Wait, can I just ask one question about that? So there's only $25,000 on city funding left, and that was before taxes were due?

Was the last calculation of that? No, the last invoice we got was for January, which would have been after the taxes. OK. Oh, OK. I thought you said January and February, and I was like, oh, OK. So the spend will be much

We got the bulk already included in what we've seen, but you think that we will be invoiced for the remainder of this, and then we could get some information on if there's more need than we're able to meet. And also, I guess that there's probably some projecting that y'all do in terms of that use of that fund moving forward and by y'all I mean maybe you and the county but I would say mostly the county we're just we just contribute to the the program that the county manages if there are projections about usage of that fund I think that would be helpful for us to hear I will follow up with him and and I don't recall hearing this but is there any increase in the county's budget to that fund that we know of I did not okay I did not see that I Yeah, I mean, that's fine. If you hear it differently, I'd like to hear that too. Thank you so much for answering those questions.

And one clarifying point on this program, am I correct that In like a prior year, we had not spent all of it. And then council kind of changed the parameters of the program to sort of reduce the number of years you need to be a homeowner in order to qualify. And if so, have we seen that be like a driver of the increased utilization of the fund, just homeowners who've owned homes for less time? Or is it more driven by like changing economic environment that we know of? Or are we seeing like a growth in utilization across kind of all 10 years of homeownership? Or is that a county question? That is a county question.

And I'm more than happy to relay that question. But there were changes to the criteria, yes. And there was an increased use of the funding. But I don't know that if I can make the correlation to that or not. I think a lot of it is just that this program now is in year four or five. And so I think the awareness of the program is probably a bigger factor. And the reval. really hitting home for a lot of people. Yes, that as well. Yeah.

All right. Go ahead. Okay.

Just a reminder that we do have staff available for reaction to yesterday's CIP conversation, so I don't know.

That was what my question was going to be, was what are our next steps? I think it's at the council's discretion. We are prepared to talk about CIP. We said that we would have those folks here. JJ Scott is here also. We sent you a spreadsheet last night, so we could have that discussion now. We also have the morning of June 4th as well to set aside And so it's up to you all whether you are past the time that we normally said we were going to have for this meeting, but it's up to you all what you would like to do. Thank you. Again, one person.

I'm pretty done for today with my brain. I'm just going to be honest. I'm not in the space where I can have an in-depth CIP conversation, and I'm sorry for staff. That doesn't mean others. I'm just being honest with folks that at a certain point, I just don't think we make good decisions when we've been going so long. That's all.

Definitely willing to honor that and talk the fourth versus today. I was going to ask the manager, but you can wait to relay this in a future session. Just if there's anything you had learned in hearing from council members that you thought was worth sharing that would help guide the discussion, but I'm happy to table that and meet on the fourth.

I think it'd be helpful to share. I received two requests in response to yesterday's conversation and I'M PRESUMING YOU GUYS ARE COMFORTABLE WITH ME SHARING THOSE REQUESTS, THAT THERE WAS ADVOCACY ON THE PART OF COUNCIL MEMBERS KOPAK AND RIST TO ADD ADDITIONAL FUNDING TO THE CIP FOR ATHLETIC COURTS. AS YOU'LL RECALL, THERE'S APPROXIMATELY $3 MILLION FOR ATHLETIC COURTS. COUNCIL MEMBER RIST ADVOCATED FOR THAT TO COME TO THE FULL $8 MILLION WITH ADDITIONAL ANNUAL FUNDING OF $2 MILLION FOR REPAIRS. COUNCIL MEMBER KOPAK requested that...

So I was suggesting $4 million this year in the CIP, and then $4 million next year, and then beyond that ongoing. So it's like $8 million over two years.

Got it. I apologize. I didn't capture that appropriately. So $4 million, which would be a $1 million increase this year, and then $2 million in future years.

Or like the second half of the $8 million next year. Okay.

So $4 million and $4 million?

And then beyond that, whatever's needed to continue the ongoing maintenance, of course.

Okay. And then, Councilmember Kopach, I believe your request was to increase by an additional $2 million. So that would be a $5 million request. So we did meet this morning before these work sessions. We do have options to present to you that respond to either of those requests. Happy to do that at Council's committee.

That's different because that's analysis that's being shared versus us trying to like go through this long table and and and wrestle it out and have conversations back and forth so I'm perfectly happy to hear that and I appreciate staff and my Council colleagues were doing that work for us So just because I was the one who's like my brains not gonna work hearing that from stuff it Sounds different and actually feels different

And I think one of the reasons I wanted to raise it too is not, you know, just the specific request, but just to help inform how we should be thinking about this. I think you had some comment in an email, Mr. Manager, about, or maybe it was Director Riordan. Yes. Do you want to comment on that and how we should think about the CIP and delays versus removal of funding, which also could change how we're thinking about it?

Yes, and we do have our finance director, Tim Flora, has also prepared to speak to this since our finance team is the one who does a debt model. So, unlike an annual fund where we're kind of appropriating money, we do appropriate money on an annual basis for the CIP, but the 10-year plan that we have brought you, if you were to think about it as a 10-year plan, there is capacity over those 10 years. And so, we have filled that capacity with these projects that are in front of you. And so moving it out a year does not necessarily give you more capacity. You would have to move it out of the model altogether to get more capacity. And if I've ineloquently said that, I'm sure our finance director can help me clarify that. Okay. But that is essentially it. So, in other words, saying, like, we will only appropriate the FY27, which is why that is the part that is in the budget book. That is what goes on our ordinance. But our intention is, is that we would kind of keep fidelity to that 10-year plan and not necessarily make a ordinance commitment, but say departments could work on the assumption that that funding would be available in the 10 years. And obviously, we would look at it every year to assess where we are with kind of the

spend and what how projects are getting Completed and things like that, but that is that is the intention of the 10-year model But you know happy to hear so like if I can if I understand so we're saying fidelity the plan means that over 10 years we have like There's a pie and we're not gonna expand the pie we could sort of ship things within but but fidelity means like we we're not increasing the pie, is that what you're saying?

It assumes that we would not be raising, there would be no tax increase, there would be no bond fund, you know, that there's no other funding but essentially the tax rate that we have now for our debt service fund and then the natural growth that happens.

I think that would fund a pie, sort of fixed amount. So we're saying we want to stick, fidelity means sticking to that pie.

Yes, unless, yes, that's the intention of it.

Basically, I had asked whether it was possible to move out two items a year as a way to, but they're saying is moving that doesn't change what we can fund overall in the 10 years. And I guess unless you assume that there's like the 10th year flips into the 11th year.

Yes, if you move something to the 11th year, that would free up capacity, in other words. You would have to shift.

So we do have some options. And Christine, anything else before we kind of walk through the options?

No, that's I mean, that's it, I think.

So I think in the interest of time, I know this is the work of a number of different staff members, but I'm going to try and do it from here in summary and we'll bring folks up to to address it. So assistant director scott or if our tv folks can bring up the screen i know we had a visual that we wanted to provide all right so uh the manager's proposed budget uh in uh includes three million dollars for athletic courts in fy27 uh that remains my recommendation but council uh two council members uh asked for some alternatives so here's how we wanted to frame it for you um this list is so there was a count i believe it was council member coke who requested the scores for the cip the raw scores that's the next to last column on the right so this is sorted from lowest to highest i'll remind council this was not the final factor in how we made decisions into the cip this was sort of the first level of analysis that then fed other levels of conversation but we did want to provide you with the scores and in that unfortunately it does show that the athletic courts were one of the last projects that made it in the cip so as we've indicated this was a very tight cip uh the athletic courts in dark green there are shown in their current format with uh a small amount of future year funding i think one point uh basically an additional million dollars so um I want to I want to give you sort of option one a and or option to a and to be option one is managers proposed budget option. To a so one of the conversations we had this morning and we have project management staff in the room, who could speak to this that. Part of the staff recommendation to only fund about $3 million is that there is only so much work that we are really able to successfully contract in a single year. And $3 to $4 million is about that amount. We can speak to it in more detail. I believe DCM Probst brought this morning that when checked with project management staff, who I know were consulted this morning, we've had difficulty getting contractors in the past because we are competing against other private tennis clubs, universities, and schools, all of whom try and do the renovation work in the same amount of time. So there was some acknowledgement that even if we put $8 million in this year, that it would be a practical challenge to fund that. I know in the past, we've also had trouble identifying willing contractors in the hot construction markets. So one option that council could direct is that you maintain the appropriation at $3 million this year, But give us direction going forward in next year's CIP to find an additional $4 million or some version of phased funding going forward so that you wouldn't be changing this year's adopted amount, but you would be providing staff with advanced direction on what you wanted to see in future years. That's really my top option. But should council want to really increase the, I'm sorry, yeah.

One piece of information, again, J.J. Scott, Assistant Director, Budget Management Services. We were reviewing the numbers this morning. There's an existing $1.7 million in that project. So we do court repairs. There's an existing $1.7 million that is in that project. That, in addition to the $3 million appropriation, again, would get us pretty darn close to that capacity of what we would be able to deliver. So I just wanted to add that. I don't think that had been shared yet.

Thank you. So just to summarize the first option, the first option would be to essentially stick with what is proposed, but to give us clear direction that you would like more funding in future years. It will still force the same exercise, but it will give us one year to see what other factors may be moving so that we're not forward deciding what other project loses out. Maybe we find some cost efficiencies in another project. Maybe a project deprioritizes. So that's a little bit of a kick the can down the road. But in kicking the can, it also acknowledges that we may not be able to spend $8 million in one year, even if provided. So that was option one. And I'll pause there for a question. Then I can give you option two, which is actual tradeoffs within the CIP.

I appreciate that. That was actually super helpful. Can you tell me, because you said it's 1.7 in maintenance this year, what is the maintenance next year? Is it even 1.7 every year, or is it...

No, I'm sorry. That is the available balance. So from previous appropriations that we've made.

Okay, so this is like carry forward or whatever it's called?

That is what is right now freely available. It is not encumbered in any contract. Okay. And so the assumption would be, you know, this is a multi-year process, so it stays with the project.

So next year, can we have that table back? Next year, what is potentially appropriated is just that one, a little bit over a million. That's it.

No, so $3 million would go.

I'm saying next year.

Okay. Sorry.

On the table, sorry.

Yeah.

Future planned appropriate. I guess it doesn't have a year. I was just assuming it's the next year. But moving forward in the future right now, as it stands, there's only a little over a million. That is correct. Programmed.

That is what is in the current plan.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted clarification on that.

So that being option one, option two, I'm sorry.

No, I just wanna, since we're talking about, sorry to cut you off, but the clarifying question, from what I heard, next year our budget's gonna be smaller, right? As we're having, like we said that they're not gonna incorporate, well, I think Director Reardon talked about how next year's budget, like the factors based on what has happened, like our budget may have,

I don't know if this would complete the entire thing or... Well, FY27 is smaller, but we expect that to be a one-time correction. Okay, and then 28 will be back to... Natural growth, and I do not expect that we know revenue, sorry, revaluation process, no appeals, that kind of thing.

Okay, I just wanted to keep it top-line. Thank you. And it is an important point. We did have to adjust the model with the information that came in.

this is based on a tax rate right and so same thing applied to this that has been built into it what you're seeing so uh the next option is to do trade-offs within the cip uh and that does involve removing or reducing other projects to add additional funding so i gave you some options and i'll tell you my recommendation from those options within the fund so first There are a number of parks and recreation projects grouped nearby this project in terms of scoring. Obviously, all of those are projects that I think everybody feels strongly about, but I wanted to make sure council knew in the space of trade-offs what your trade-offs would be. So Third Fork Creek Trail or R. Kelly Bryan Bridge Trail are both in there with significant allocations that would essentially prevent us from moving forward with those projects. But if we were to identify funding, those would be options. The Forest Hill Park Play and Spray Ground is another project. These are not ones that I ended up putting at the top of my list, but I wanted to show those to you. So we put parks and recreation projects in light green. If you wanted to look in other policy areas, so I identified two projects in this budget that are related to our carbon and sustainability goals. The rooftop photovoltaic array installation, that is a project that we could reduce. We would get less of those installations, but you would not cancel this project if you were to take the funding from this space. Another project in there is electric vehicle charging infrastructure that has about $1.325 million, but additional funding in future years. Again, this was not my ultimate recommendation, but those are options for you to consider. There is another Parks and Recreation project that's artificial turf replacement at $1.4 million. Those are at end of useful life in terms of the project. I know Director Walcott's here. He could tell us what field that is, but I know that that would essentially bring a field offline. My recommendation, if we are to go the trade-off route, it would be to reduce the level of funding in curb ramps and curb gutter repair. This is a project that the department feels strongly about and that I feel strongly about, but let me explain it a little bit. This, when we do your re-put paving program, and so you recently got your PCI analysis, you recently heard that we are really trying to get more dollars into our paving program. When we re-pave a street, that budget also supports concrete work that goes along with that street repaving so curb ramps and the repair to ada so ada ramps and curb and gutter repair has been part of the paving project one of the efficiencies that the department proposed this year and that i strongly support is to create a different cip project to handle the concrete work to make that more efficient and also to stretch your paving dollars So this is a new project. It scored very highly because the work on the ADA ramps is a federal requirement. Federal requirements and policy compliance is one of the criteria we use to rank the CIP. So this project scored very well in the CIP. And it stretches your paving dollars. I think going back to the resident survey, we see how street and sidewalk requirements maintenance and repair is one of the highest rated uh resident concerns so uh that is why this project scored as well as it did however uh because this is a scalable project it can be reduced without eliminating it um it would just you know kind of pits your street and sidewalk infrastructure versus your athletic court infrastructure So that would be another option. And on this list in terms of trade-offs, that would be my recommendation, but I wanted to show you some other options. So to summarize, my recommendation is we stay with 3 million and council provides direction to create a priority in future years to do additional funding. My secondary recommendation or my next option down would be to go to curb ramps and curb and gutter repair If neither of those are acceptable to counsel, we highlighted some other options for you, and then we can consider anything else you might want.

Thank you. Wow. Thanks to all for coming up with that information on a very short notice and for all the staff folks who have stayed in the room. I think we've heard compelling reasons from staff why allocating more in this fiscal year is not useful. So to me, though I appreciate all of these potential trade-offs and thank you for putting them into such neat categories. I don't see the need for that, especially if there seems like a large possibility that we won't be able to utilize additional funding that we put into the CIP. And yeah, I understand the want to put money aside in the future. And maybe this is a Director Walcott question. I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about how we prioritize within the athletic courts which ones get repaired and then also how we designate repairs. I'm just thinking about how We might, in six months to a year, want to prioritize other things in our CIP, and we're just, like, stuff could come up that we don't foresee. And I already know that there's things that we've been talking about for years that are not in our 10-year CIP plan that we, like, might want to add in. So I feel a little bit leery about saying this year, like, oh, we want to really, like, work on conscripting our CIP for next year. I am hopeful that maybe we can check in in, like, a few months as opposed to doing that right now. to see if that's still priority for the council. But I'll let my other colleagues weigh in. I guess, Director Walcott, my questions are about prioritizing within the courts when we're looking at this. And I know that we've heard from different advocates at different groups or from different neighborhoods. I went out to the Elmira tennis courts What I saw there was cracking that seems like it was happening very quickly after resurfacing. And they had talked a lot about drainage issues. And so I'm wondering about the investments that we're making. Are we doing these sort of repavings? Do they end up costing us longer or more in the long term because we end up having to do repavings more often because we're not maybe tackling some underlying issues? And how do we sort of measure that and sort of prioritize expenditures in those projects?

Sure. Wade Walcott with Parks and Recreation. I'm really glad you asked that question because we ask ourselves those questions and that's why there are additional fund requests for court improvements this year. It is traditionally a larger number than what we typically ask for, for the very reason you just brought up, is to look at the whole site or the entire site holistically. um you're right so some of our courts in our system have been repaired somewhat recently by showing signs of stress and cracks and so this go around the larger dollar amount ask is to have the site fully assessed and are there drainage issues on the on the site or drainage issues near the site that are causing these issues they're causing these problems so Our request this year for that full eight million was to a comprehensive approach at all the sites, including I think we have Elmira, Rock Quarry, Whippoorwill, WD Hills on there, and maybe Cook Road, maybe Oval Park, some of those, yeah. Maureen Road, basketball. Priority-wise, we look at our entire court system, and we look at safety as our number one priority, and that means are there trip hazards, issues for participants to play. We look at the use, and we look at the frequency of use, but the type of use as well, and so Through all those factors and probably a few others, we'll weigh all those and start to list those courts in priority order. And then we come up with a scope to make sure that we can address the full problem and so that we're not back in a year or two fixing small cracks.

Right. Okay. Those of you standing up there can tell me if this sounds like an absurd thing that I'm about to say. But it also seems like if we do kind of an in-depth study and we realize that we need to do a $5 million fix as opposed to a $4 million fix, Well, we don't have that information in front of us, I guess. And so what would it take for us to get there? And then could we reassess down the line and then sort of, I mean, I know it's like another delay, but we then roll over the excess money that would be appropriated for fiscal year 27 into fiscal year 28 and prioritize a larger pot of money if those bigger repairs are needed. And so we make the decision after we have more information about what is needed. I guess, what was the reasoning for the $8 million ask? Did we know that we needed to expend it already? Have we already done that study? Do we know that that money could be spent? I certainly don't want to do it in pieces. If we find that we need to redo it and it's going to cost $5 million, they don't want to throw some money at it and then have to throw more money at it later.

The $8 million was specifically developed through a Turner Townsend-Heary contractor with General Services looked at these sites and provided their professional estimate on what it would take for a full scope Analysis and design and so that that number didn't come from out of the blue that came from having someone look at each 1 of those each 1 of those sites to give us the 8M dollars is just for scoping and design. The 8M dollars was just what they believe in in turn towns and here is here. So they should speak to this. But it was to assess these sites because we knew that they needed repaired, and so they gave us those estimates that they felt comfortable with that would cover the needed repairs.

So it is design and repair?

I'll defer to Attorney Townsend-Heary on that. But I believe it is altogether design and construction.

Good afternoon. Mike Oresko with General Services and Attorney Townsend-Heary. So that $8 million was an estimate based on four sites. I don't remember the exact four sites, but it was a $2 million estimate in order to complete all preventative and assessments. Looking at the core, as Wade mentioned, from a holistic standpoint, geotechnical sub-base, and all the, I guess, ADA accessibility elements that are part of these trails. And the $8 million was not for the assessment. It was just the overarching.

Okay. I'm going to let someone else talk.

I want to thank staff and Mr. Manager for that exercise and helping us confront some of the choices that we had before us and give us options. You know, I agree that it's a little hard at this point in time to make a firm commitment about what will happen a year from now, but I do appreciate and support sort of a signal and a movement towards looking at what we can do in the next year's CIP to bring additional dollars to the courts. I appreciate the... the recommendation of looking at the kind of the curb and gutter work. You know, I would not want to impact any work around accessibility. But I am curious about portion of that fairly large budget that is repairs that is not related to accessibility and what else is in there and so as we look toward a future year if that's additional analysis we can have that isn't you know under like great urgency while I'd like to see more support brought more funding brought next year I also understand the capacity point that you've raised I mean, I'm curious to know if there's, you know, what it would take to sort of, you know, um you know kind of get past that and and what it means to have more capacity to deliver these sorts of projects but it sounds like part of it is also competition for available um vendors right but um you know from what you've shared like that sounds like a pretty pragmatic approach to think about what we can do over a two-year period versus a one-year period and then it's a question of us as a council figuring out what are all the priorities going to be in making a decision so

I will just add, we do have a letter of interest that's out to the on-call firms that provide civil and landscape architecture. So that letter of interest is going to be this study that we were kind of speaking of, the geotech ADA accessibility of each and every site. And then that will kind of help inform that $8 million in more detail. So that $8 million was a rougher estimate, about $2 million per site. But this letter of interest, as we kind of go through that assessment phase, will guide the exact numbers needed. So that does kind of coincide with a $4 million ask this year and potential future funds in a future year.

Series of questions, but just again so the eight million was two million for four parks just to make sure we're clear which parks were talking about Myra Whippoorwill rock quarry and Cook Road, I believe Elmira Park Whippoorwill rock quarry Maureen Road and WD Hill and then we have we identified the next future site being Garrett Road and

And so we're looking for the capital funding to cover the assessment, the design, and construction of those sites. And there may be, and I do not want, it's not hyperbole, but there may be some locations that if we don't start doing something soon, we may have to close for safety issues. And that was similar to the project the manager mentioned earlier of replacing the artificial turf at Twin Lakes.

So, yeah, thank you, colleagues, for your comments. Really appreciate that. Appreciate all the residents who've come out to speak about this. Appreciate Turner Townsend here giving us some cost estimates and DPR for being, waving your team for being all over this issue. Yeah, and I appreciate the manager. I will say, appreciate your 1A proposal, and I will share, just for my colleagues, because this was part of our email yesterday about this, part of my question to the manager and to Gina Probst, DCM Probst, was, if we had more money, can we even do more in a year? And so I think you've addressed that quite clearly. I think that $4 million is probably about, given limited capacity to do project management across different departments, that may be the max we can do in one year. So I'm happy with 1A that would be $3 million in the CIP now for court resurfacing, plus the $1.7 million that's sort of that we carry over, right, to address the top needs there. So it would be $4-plus million this year. Just given capacity, that may be all we can do. So I'm happy with that, with understanding that the number that Director Walke gave us is the number. And that's only four or five parks, right? We have 57 courts across 12 parks. So the needs will not go away in out years. So I'm happy to do the $3 million now. with the understanding that we've all heard this and we know that in the out years we'll need to continue investing in these courts, or again, some will go away. And so I think that's a decision we can make next year. I appreciate my colleagues keeping that in consideration as we think about next year's budget. But that seems the wisest way to do it. I also think from just a purely, just a public perspective, I don't think I wanna, I don't wanna put the courts in competition with trails and with other needs. We have curbs and sidewalks, that seems crazy. I will say, if we could put the list up of, again, of those, the scores, I do have one question about those scores. I'd love to go to, let's go to the ones that are the, let's see if we can get those up there. Right, could you go to the highest ranked ones? I know we had some, weren't there, there's some color coding, right? So if you go to the lowest ranked ones, if you could go back to the top there. Okay, so it does strike me we've got a bunch of parks and rec things that are at the very bottom of the list. Yes. And so, and you go to the top of the list, and there's no parks and rec priorities at the top of the list. Shaded green, right? Yeah, those are all different. So we got a lot of Ramblin' Street Services, stuff like that. So it does make me wonder about what does the scoring system look like and how come Parks and Rec, we talk about how Parks and Rec, how we rank so low in the Trust for Public Lands ranking. So how come when we come to score needs for CIP, parks and rec are all like at the bottom of the list? I got to wonder about that as well. So let's look at that formula as well to make sure that when our residents say on the resident survey, we love our parks, we want more parks, and that when we score CIP stuff, they're all at the bottom? I wonder about our scoring system.

I would add, too, that this is where I want to underscore and underline that the scoring system is the start of the conversation. I mean, I think if you look at the dollars in the CIP for Parks and Recreation, I think they are well represented and that the recent bond had a significant number of new dollars in Parks and Recreation. So the overall tax spend and capital spend on Parks and Recreation that the city is doing, I think, tells a different story than our scoring system and that is why you know again that's why sometimes we don't show you guys all the sausage making because if you take the if you take the systems apart and look at one slice of the data it may imply a different story we look at all of those other things what is the overall spend i think i would certainly be very uncomfortable bringing the council any cip that wasn't making significant investments in the parks and recreation space WHEN WE SORT IT BY THIS INITIAL SCORING, WHICH WAS ONE THING THAT COUNCILMEMBERS ASKED TO SEE YESTERDAY, BUT I URGE YOU ALL TO TAKE THAT IN CONTEXT BECAUSE I WOULD CERTAINLY WANT THE PUBLIC, THE RAC, AND COUNCIL TO KNOW THAT I DON'T THINK THIS STAFF OR THIS ADMINISTRATION WILL EVER BRING YOU A BUDGET THAT DOES NOT HAVE SIGNIFICANT DOLLARS GOING INTO PARKS AND RECREATION RESOURCES.

I'M HAPPY WITH 1A. I THINK THAT MAKES SENSE FOR THIS YEAR'S BUDGET.

Ms. Thank you. That seems fine to me. I just want to say it would be helpful, and I think we're not going to do this today, but in the fall after our break to have, we've kind of flagged it a little bit, having a deeper conversation on the CIP philosophy. Because I think it would be important to A, I mean, and it could be, where is it tied to the strategic plan? Was it hitting? Is it an internal or external facing thing? Like, I understand we want city operations to be great, and it could be moving forward on our own goals around environmental and sustainability, but I would say, at least for me, stuff that's serving residents just is more important than whatever thing we want to do in City Hall, unless it's literally falling apart. And I might, again, that might just be my perspective, but I think that that's kind of a conversation that needs to happen. And then within the scoring thing, part of it is it, We have lots of resident, like, do we need a separate CIP group, or do we take it to DOST and RAC? And, you know, what is our process around it? And so that's not going to get resolved now. I'm comfortable with the decision. I appreciate what staff has done. I think it's a good pivot and a necessary pivot. But this conversation, sometimes I feel like it's Groundhog Day here. I think we're very much due for a deeper conversation around RCIP. because it brings in also a potential bond schedule. And I don't, like we bring these things up and then sometimes, and I know we're doing better about having those kinds of presentations at a work session, but this is my ask as a council member to make sure we do it sooner rather than later and not waiting until January or February. Because at that point, honestly, it's too late. We need to have this conversation September, October, so it can inform basically pre-work for budget.

All right. Thank you all. Thank you so much. That was the CIP conversation. Until we have a deeper dive in it, which I think we're I think we have I look forward to that conversation because I think there is a way to even look at participatory budgeting as a model and two different types of CIP. Yeah. All right. One before I forget this very important thing. This actually, I want to let you have final comments that I have some things I need to address for the council. So go ahead, director.

I don't have any final comments. I am I'm assuming that you are maybe thinking about a June 4. So that would just be my my request is if that you are planning to do that, but that we kind of the clerk can notify and everything like that. And otherwise, you know, we don't have any other comments from budget.

June 4th is the, you have a work session June 4th in the afternoon. It would be that. It would be the morning. And, you know, so the presumption is you're not accepting the proposed budget as presented. If today you said, all right, We talked about some stuff, but we don't want to make any changes, then we wouldn't point you in that direction. Given that there was some robust discussion and some consideration that you may want to adjust some of the funding considerations, that would point to the need to a follow-up conversation. If that were a very limited list, it is possible you could put that on your work session. However, we just did agenda review for that work session yesterday. It is an extremely full agenda, as your last agenda of the year usually is. So I don't think you would have that opportunity unless you thought that in your conversations as individual council members between now and then you could come to some consensus. If not, I would say it looks like we would need to add that Thursday morning budget discussion to get you to some final decisions.

I'll just publicly say where I'm unsettled, and there are some requests that I'd like to have. This source of funding inventory. I can either trust staff to find funding, or I'd like to take a deep dive into at least better understanding what is what. I would like to see if there's still opportunity to streamline some resources in regards to similar, I know we talked about eviction diversion, two different departments, not necessarily two different governing bodies yet, but to see if there's some additional funding that can be found that could get us to this point. All of those proposed external organizations that were proposed to be just cut at 100%, at least for the sake of planning, I just feel really uncomfortable. And I understand the data that tells us, you know, for example, the Community Life Center at West End, it's like, look, the lease our programming priorities have changed. But that is also $191 that an organization was relying on that is going to be cut to zero. You know, I'd like to give these organizations time to plan, you know? So at least instead of, I met with the Durham Symphony. It was like, we are cutting our entire program if this happens. My response to them is, you know, not just to the symphony, but anyone, you should never be totally relying on one source of funding. You should never be relying on the city government to just totally fund your organization in full. But at the same time, I do want to be able to function and, you know, partner in good effort uh and and not just you know uh this budget will go live july one that's just a little over a month out and these organizations will have to figure out mid-year how to how to plan uh to cover such large expenses I don't know how we do that. I'm trying to see where we can find additional funding. And the reason why I'd like at least a document that shows the source of funding inventory is because I do want to be able to help communicate to the public. When people say, how do you fund all these street pavings, but you can't give us a raise. And I want to be able to help communicate the different sources of funding, what funding is intentionally purposed for whatever cause. But on the outside looking in, I understand we have council priorities. But, you know, non-city services versus city services. Non-city service, you're getting cut. City service, you're staying, except for something. And I want to be able to better communicate that what plays in that is council priorities, what had enough support and what did not. And I have to be able to message this. I received a message last night, Mayor, you're such a disgrace, getting rid of the Black Community Center program. That's not how it works. But if we're not communicating or we're not properly equipped to communicate, then that is going to be the perception. So I want as much information as I possibly can to be able to communicate to folks. But on a functional side, just totally going to zero to these external organizations, and literally within a month from now, I feel really uncomfortable with that. Yeah, and regarding legal aid, as we were talking about earlier, I mean, I understood, Councilmember Cook, I understood your points on that and the great work that they're doing. But it just really seems like there's maybe not specific duplication, but there is a lot of case management that's happening. There's landlord engagement. I really think that it may not be explicit duplication, but there's some similar things happening. And I really hope that we can look into streamlining some of these resources. And considering a tight budget year, I'd like to be able to see what exactly has been spent and how in the success rate of it. And I know we can do that by just looking into our own departments. And of course, in the future, I look forward to this new social work department we have maybe streamlined and better with the with the county. It's amazing work. It's a reason why we're probably taking this work on. But I think the more we talk with our colleagues at the county, the better we can partner. on some of these things. Maybe more ILAs.

Appreciate those comments, Mr. Mayor. Just to make sure I'm clear, is this some of the discussion that we will have with the session on June 4th? Or should we be continuing to bring stuff up now?

It's going to happen then as well.

But one thing, the last however many years... Because I thought we were wrapping, so I just want to be careful about how much else to raise. But if this is the time to... or the fourth, right? Okay, I just wanna make sure I understand.

Yeah, we're gonna have to come back on the fourth as well. I'm just stating why I'm gonna ask you guys to come back on the fourth from my point of view, from my perspective. But yeah, so yeah, go ahead.

so just because i know we're at capacity or some of us are at capacity um to associate with some of the thoughts in the mayor when it comes to some of our community investments i don't want to i do have attention where it feels like we're putting marginalized communities against each other so i want to make sure that we're not doing that and like creating more of a scarcity feeling so definitely want to unpack that and look forward to meeting my colleagues about with that and i'm going to assume in this world that we're going to get all of the materials we need between now and June 4th so if we all read our materials and come here prepared then we might not have a really long meeting if we were able to like I'm just trying to figure out like how we can because we have a work session today as well and so like for me personally like our brain my brain goes and mush and I don't want it like you know going from what so I'm just trying to figure out how do we what do you have any advice for Council to make sure we have productive conversations

I think it's as clear as we can be about what you would like, what information you need before we get there. It's hard for us to respond to something here, so we've been taking notes about, you know, we'll have a follow-up memo, but if there is something that you need to make a decision on June 4th, it would be helpful to know ahead of time.

I mean, I would put out there then in the spirit of what Mr. Manager, you shared today on CIP is that if you're hearing other council priorities that haven't yet been funded and you're hearing a reluctance to wanting to raise property taxes, it's elevating. What are the next X million dollars of cuts that you would propose that we would have to trade off if the council wanted to advocate for additional things that aren't currently in your proposed budget? I think that would be helpful.

I think the one thing I would just say as a base layer for that conversation, and I don't say this defensively, I just want to remind council, the proposed budget included the elimination of 10 positions. That was a serious and painful recommendation. It accepted... basically any cut that could be accepted where we could modify our service delivery in a way that really wouldn't impact residents. So there are absolutely more options to do trade off. But I would want you to leave this and head into that conversation with the understanding that it would be really helpful for you to have an idea of where those come from, where you would like us to look at if the notion is that additional cuts will fund for additional funding. And I don't say that there isn't places, but I know you know we went through the exercise. I know I've heard you ask some questions like, what didn't get taken? I will just make it clear that by showing you the cuts we did take, you can probably presume the types of cuts we didn't take. For instance, in a department like the fire department, where almost the entire budget is personnel, the 3% to 5% cuts were personnel. They were just additional firefighters. There was virtually in some of the departments that really just have. So I don't want to have you leave this session with the presumption that it's that there is just some more comfortable cuts that we didn't put out there. I absolutely would be happy to walk you through all of the proposals, but I just want to set your expectations that those proposals, in many cases, were severe enough that I did not think you would want to consider them. So I do think, to your point, Councilmember Kopach, coming in with the notion of something you have already seen in the budget that you're willing to trade off, coming with a presumption that you might be willing to do a tax increase, those are the most likely places to go. I know you are being advocated to restore uh some of the merit increases that you know i do not see possibilities to do that without going back to a tax increase um so those would be some of the things to be thinking about as you head to that meeting and to councilmember burris's uh very well stated point the the more firm you have your thoughts so that you can propose ideas to your colleagues and to us for analysis i think that's that's what makes those conversations the most constructive

yeah and certainly don't presume that those will be easy i mean it was a painful exercise to go through the cip and think about what i would move out or cancel in order to find money for something else and so i think that it's valuable to daylight that even further for council and for the community that if we are weighing additional things that that we value that staff values the community values what that will come at the expense of And so just like reviewing that CIP list, if there are other things, I think that's helpful to see.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I know several of us still have to have conversations on the budget. I think one thing that would be helpful is I think the number that was provided on one of our slides was if we did do the merit raise, how much money it was. I can't remember the money, but I know it was included. I think the opposite would be true. I would like to see, because we're getting a lot of pressure from certain departments. And the attitude is, and I get it, that's their job. Their job is to advocate for their folks in their department, not necessarily. If we weren't doing a tax increase what would be reductions in force to get that merit raise i do want folks to have that understanding i want folks to to just like we had to have a hard conversation for cip i want our city workers to understand what exactly are they asking for um because uh That to me is also an important conversation. Right now, we're saying we're presuming no tax increase. So to give you that merit, that means something's got to go. And I'm not saying that a tax increase is 100% off the table, but it's something that I know staff worked very diligently to achieve, and it was pretty Consensus at the budget retreats that all of us were pretty clear in that moment that we really didn't want to do a tax increase And so I think that would be one thing that I know that takes some analysis And so that's why I'm not going to pose it on Thursday morning And then pretty much everything else for me is going to be conversations that I need to have with colleagues in general I really appreciate I think we're just I'm just gonna I know we're late thank you so much to all the staff for the most part there are some in my mind some tweaks that need to happen and I think that's going to be a conversation among us that's colleagues being prepared for Thursday I really want to highlight the city clerk staff for all the food and just keeping us going keeping staff going it's very it's makes it a lot easier to sit in the seat when you know there's coffee in the other room waiting for you. And then just to your staff, always just incredible, being super prepared, every single department director who presented in front of us, and also the city manager. I know this is a very, very hard budget and tough year and always impressed with the expertise, dedication that you have.

Yes, Council Member Cook.

Well, I actually had my hand raised to say quite a lot of what Mayor Pro Tem said, so I really want to appreciate.

No.

No, no, I appreciate. I just want to echo everything that you said. I just appreciate that really strongly. I want to add the one piece, which is that I agree that we were very decided upon no tax increase at the budget retreat, and I feel that We have really worked off of the language that we used in that budget retreat and the strong stance that this council took. And so what we've seen now is staff pushing out messaging about not increasing taxes. And I just want to name that because that information has gone out to the community in a really, really strong way. And that's based on decisions that we made. And so I think that as a council, we're going to have to own up to the fact that We did make those statements in February. Clearly, we did not know about some of these major shortfalls, which we obviously didn't learn about until the end of April. And so not all things can be known in advance. But I do want to own that we made those statements in a really strong way. And I think that staff has appropriately messaged in accordance with the statements that we made. And I would feel wildly uncomfortable about changing that after we have sent that messaging out to the public. Not to mention the fact that I still do believe what I believed in February about not raising taxes. So I want to say that that is still a priority of mine. It's not that I've changed. But I feel very strongly, too, that it's going to be maybe some small tweaks. But I don't think that at this point in time we're going to be looking at any major, major changes on Thursday. And that also part of what we're looking for is kind of just the budget itself and I want to really caution us against this like. There is a line, I think, at which we are very informed and then, at which point we are starting to sort of micromanage within departments and I want to be really careful about that line as well. as we're asking y'all to provide information. And we're like, give us everything. Well, everything is the budget. I mean, that is just the budget document is everything. And so yeah, I just want to be really cautious about going too far and having too much to work on in light of the fact that I don't really feel comfortable changing in an extreme way on next week.

Yeah, we got a lot of work to do. I feel everything what folks saying and I feel very differently, but we have a lot to get to and that's why we're here. That's why we get paid the big bucks of a few dollars. But I also have a lot of confidence in our staff. You guys are magic makers. And, you know, I know you're going to grow some gray hairs on this budget, but I know we can all accomplish it. So June 4th, 9 a.m. June 4th, 9 a.m. One major announcement, colleagues. In one hour and 50 minutes, your evaluation is completed. Okay? All right. That's what I had. And we will see you all June 4th, 9 a.m. Strong two days of work. Thank you. June 1st, actually. June 1st. June 1st, Monday night. June 1st.

We're adjourned at 310.