Council - Special Meeting

Welcome to the East Lancing City Council uh special discussion only meeting of April 28th, 2026. The meeting will come to order. Could we have the roll call, please? Council member Whan here. Council member Meadows here. Council member Singh, Mayor Prom Griggsby here, Mayor Alman here. Uh, Council Member Singh is traveling and will not be able to join us. I would entertain a motion to excuse her absence. So move. Moved by Meadows. A second. Second by Griggsby. All those in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries. Council member Singh is excused. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Moved by Meadows. Second.

Second by Whan. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed. Motion carries. Agenda is approved. Communications from the audience. I have no slips. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to address the council? If so, please approach the podium. State your name. Yeah. I just want to uh follow up on my comments from last week. Uh after the uh public comments is the clock running so I don't know how long I have. Could you also state your name for the record please? Lee June. Thank you.

Uh L East Lancing resident. I just wanted to follow up my comments from uh last week. Um, after the public comments, uh, you went around the table and you made some what I would call empathic comments about the situation in East Lancing and that was much appreciated. You showed some empathy in terms of what's been going on and my hope is that that empathy will now be followed up by some concrete actions. And so we will be looking forward to those actions. And I've been in, you know, major positions and I understand the difficulty that you face as you make these challenges. But I would encourage you to be bold as these issues arise. There are two ways of creating problems. One is that problems happen and you handle them badly. Another area is that you can take an action and also create problems. And so I want to speak in my next few minutes to that action. One of the things I like to do is to look at situations and ask the questions if I do X or Y, what will be the outcome? Even if X or Y does not occur. And so I would encourage you to as you move forward to not take some actions that we can predict that will create problems. And so I believe in prevention. And what I would hope you would do is as we move forward that there's certain things you won't do. For instance, I've heard that there's a plan to maybe get rid of the human relations commission, police oversight committee, or to

reorganize it. I think that would be a bad move because a city without a human relations committee and a police oversight committee does not send a good message to the community. The other area I'd like to speak directly to is I want to commend you at least at up until this point that you have not eliminated the diversity officer and the diversity office in the city. many places are doing that and the person who currently occupies that from my standpoint is well known in the community and uh has a set of expertise that I think the city needs as we go forward. So I would just plead with you that if you took any of those actions you can you will know the outcome and the outcome would not be positive. So I'm trying to present to you a preventative step that I think you can take and I know hope at least you will take. So I mean I know Dr. Alman, I know Miss Singh, I know Mr. Meadows, I know uh Mr. Griggsby not extremely well and I know the other ones. So I know I hope you'll be people of integrity and not take those kinds of actions that if you took them we know what the outcome would be. It would send a very chilling uh message to the community and I want to continue to live in East Lancing and for it to be a community that I'm proud of. Let's not turn back the clock. And as I mentioned the last time and I'll close with this, you know, Malachi 6:8, you know, love mercy, do

justice, and walk humbly with God. So in the words of Spike Lee in his movie, I would hope as we move forward, you would do the right thing. And since you would know what the right thing to do and it's not to do some of the things I hope you don't do, just do what Nike said. Just do it the right thing. My prayers are with you and I hope I won't be coming back to this mic that often. This is only my second time in 20ome years. But we will be watching and we want the community to move forward. And the last point is that as I mentioned before, you have Miss Hardy and the commissions that will give you good advice. There also people in the community who can do the same, but we won't be calling you. We hope if you really want to hear and do the right thing. Maybe you would call us. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak, please approach the podium and state your name?

Hi. Uh my name is Nazita Leavari. I'm a resident of East Lancing. Um I wasn't planning on addressing you tonight, but I wanted to um echo the past speaker. I it came to my attention today in office hours uh that the funding for the human rights commission and the ELIPO group is considering to be uh reduced if not eliminated. And I just wanted to urge the city council to think about that before they do so. These are entities especially the human rights commission that has done some extraordinary work in terms of checks and balances. I think it's incredibly important in terms of a healthy democracy uh speaking from a political scientist uh perspective to have those checks on on our our government. Um and I then wanted to address the city council. I know this is an issue that probably um you're going to tell me this is an ongoing investigation you can't do anything about, but I want to talk about the murder of Isaiah Kirby. Um this is one of our students um Michigan State student. Uh this is uh you know the murder of this child has echoed throughout our community. It is something that is being discussed uh over and over and over again among our students. Our students do not feel safe. Um I have students who are telling me that they're afraid to go off campus. Uh again this is happening in my office hours. Um, and I don't know really what to tell them. Uh, because of course not a lot of information has come out from this investigation. But I am afraid for our students and they are afraid as well. Um, I don't think that they take it lightly, especially many of them being students of color that they may not be safe. Um, if an altercation happens, if a they have a mental health crisis and something escalates, that they would not lose their lives. And so I felt an obligation today to come and to share with you what was um shared with me from my students. And I I really

hope that um in your capacities and whatever you can do, you can at least provide some information. Um there are so many kids who are about to graduate and they feel this immense um fear and sadness for the loss of their classmate um and in such a brutal way. And I again like you know wasn't going to speak today but it was uh it was something that came up in office hours and I felt I should I should share that with with all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would care to address the council? Please state your name please.

Hi I'm Sunshine Morgan McIntyre Jr. Good evening mayor members of the city council community leaders and residents. My name is Sunshine Morgan McIntyre Jr. and I proudly serve as president of the Lancing NACP youth council. I'm here today representing the voices of young people across the city. I stand firmly in opposition to the dissolution of the Human Rights Commission and El Pac. These commissions are not just groups. They are safeguards. They exist to protect fairness, ensure accountability, and give a voice to people who might otherwise go unheard. As a young leader, I care deeply about the kind of city we are building, not just for today, but for the future. And decisions like this shape how young people see their community and their leaders. If we remove these commissions, what message are we sending? That equality no longer matters or that some voices are less important than others. Young people are paying attention. We will be a voting age soon and we're learning from you. We need leadership that stands up for everyone, not just when it's easy, but when it matters most. I urge you to vote against dissolving these commissions and to stand on the side of equity, accountability, and justice. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to address the council? So, please approach the podium. Seeing none, are there any callers? There's one caller in the queue. Caller with the phone number ending in 552. You are now free to address the council.

Good evening, Cathol.

Uh I am an inaugural member of the East Lancing Independent Police Oversight Commission, so I'm not speaking on behalf of the commission. uh my experiences are valued and while some of the speakers tonight may have talked about these uh proposed changes to the budget as dissolution of the commissions and your push back would be we're not dissolving these commissions. Defunding us has a a similar impact to disillusion. You've already altered our ordinance to the point of making us pretty much ineffectual and removing the funds, the $43,000 worth of funds that have been in our budget, you know, is retaliatory on behalf of the city manager who hasn't liked us. Speaking out and the city council um the same. Um the the comment before the budget item that says, you know, we haven't spent these monies and therefore it's it's okay to get rid of them is ludicrous. The first item for a bias investigator we've been talking about for three years. We have asked for investigators. We were provided a list of We asked for bias investigators. We were provided a list of retired police officers. We already had ELPD telling us there was no bias because nobody used the N-word. We needed somebody who was trained in antibbias to look at cases and and bring forth a recommendation to the police department. So then we were told to ask for a reviewer because that was different than an investigator. We asked for a reviewer. Months pass. Nothing comes of that. No one no one tells us that that we can move forward with that. And then we're told we can shove it because uh uh Mayor Brooke over had recommended an independent review and it would cover that only to find out that the independent reviewer is not an antibbias reviewer. The independent reviewer protects city governments

against civil litigation. And so to take that $22,000 out of our budget when we have complaints dating back to our origination that we have concerns about were biased that we would like investigated but we can't because the city manager, the city council, the police chief don't want to really hear that there's bias in their department. When we move down to the independent review of police data to say that we didn't spend that money, we spent that money last year on Cedric Caro. Cedric Gho did a great statistical analysis of the use of force data and surprise surprise came out with a finding that there is bias in our use of force that black people have forced use against them more often than white people and more often their percentage in the community. This police chief, this this city manager and this council didn't like that outcome. So what do we do? We're going to cut the funding for that and not fund Cedric Caro to do an analysis on the 2025 data because we cannot change if we don't know what needs to be changed. And that's exactly how it's being handled by the city attorneys and the city manager is we don't know what needs to be changed. We don't have to change it. The Nicole board training was a training to help us understand the ordinance that we had. We had somebody lined up to come in and do that training and then the ordinance was changed. So, we had to put a pause on it. An ordinance that in the midstream is changed. There's no point in having that person come do a training for us on the old ordinance. So, we put a pin in it and now that funding is going to get cut. And then the last one, because we didn't have a modifi moderated um community meeting last year, doesn't mean we can't have a moderated community meeting this year. That's again a ridiculous assumption that we don't need those funds because we didn't spend them last year. All of these things are important to the to the commission's

work, especially since so much of what we could do was removed by the changes in the ordinance that having an independent investigator look specifically at bias in the police department, having a the ability to have a Naples, an outside person look at our ordinance and help us understand how we can best use it because the city manager, I mean, the city attorney is not going to help us in the best way to use this ordinance. They're in cover your ass mode and so they are trying to keep us from using the ordinance in the best way possible and then having community input with a moderator to remove that shows again exactly what you don't want to have happen here from this community what they would like to see change.

You have 30 seconds remaining. My last few comments are simply focused on the the shooting of Isaiah Kirby. There are things you can do. Our previous police chief released the video footage within days of the shooting of uh DeAnthony Vanaton. Release all the bodywn camera footage. There is the only people holding you back is yourself. Be transparent, open, and accountable to this community and release the footage. If they did everything right, so be it. Everyone will will see that with their Thank you for your comments. Your time has expired. Are there any more callers? There are no more callers. All right, that brings us to There was one person.

Please address the podium.

Good evening. Thank you, Mayor. Uh my name is Kelly Ellsworth at just and I wanted to speak on some of the succession of changes that have been coming out of um the city as well as the city council in regards to uh the changes I spoke on last week with the um moving um the city asset from Elaine Hardy from the um police oversight commission as well as the human relations commission. And now the funding that's being addressed, they're looking at removing um 40,000 from the police oversight and the 2,000 from the um human relations commission. I served on the study commission along with Chuck Grisby. And we found and the city council also found that there was a need for oversight, for transparency, for accountability, not telling police what to do, not trying to defund police, but having we reviewed the data, not our data, your data, um on the overpolicing. And I am surprised to see Chuck, you sitting here now in this role that you've walked back on the importance of the police oversight commission. That is surprising to me. Many of you I know that um Mr. Meadows um and mayor when you ran you ran you particularly mayor ran on um the platform of the city government that we had before or the city council

that we had before that it was in chaos was your words that you used and I'm seeing nothing but chaos happening right now and so that's what I want to address. I'm asking for consideration. We need accountability. We need transparency. There's nothing wrong with that. And I'm not sure what why people are afraid of that. If there's nothing being done wrong, then be transparent to the citizens. Be transparent to the community. You talked specifically, sir, when you ran about the chaos also within the staff not having trust, the staff no longer having trust in city council, having um someone with their stellar career and talent such as Miss Hardy being blindsided that erodess trust. And so I'm asking for reconsideration. I'm asking for us to remove chaos. That was what you ran on. But now you are supporting chaos, creating chaos. Mr. Bman is not working in a vacuum. He's not making decisions absent his leader. He reports to you. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would care to address the council? Okay, then that concludes uh communications from the audience, which brings us to communications from the mayor and council members. Council member Whan, just a few things. I do um again encourage patience and allowing um this very very difficult situation on so many different people's parts. um appreciate patience and decorum and support for um all those involved. Also on um another situation, I was made aware that tomorrow is a um day to wear denim in support of sexual violence violence victims and um survivors. I think that's a um huge issue in our community to make sure we are made aware of and um have ad advocacy for. That's all I have.

Mr. Meadows

just briefly based on the comments that were at the uh podium made at the podium there has been zero discussion of the elimination of DEI or the elimination of ELA or the elimination of the human uh rights commission. So, I don't know where that is coming from and if you have heard that. It's not from anybody who has any knowledge of it because no council member has had that conversation and the council hasn't had that conversation. I've not had that conversation with staff, no one is proposing that. So, to the extent that was something that anybody was worried about, I'm not I don't know what'll happen 20 years from now. But I will tell you right now there is no discussion with regard to that.

Mr. Griggsby,

u thank you. Yeah, I want to I echo that. I I um don't know of any conversation of some of the things that were said to um in at the podium just tonight as well. Um, and in regards to anything that um, you may hear about where I stand or what I don't stand, um, either it's going to come straight from my mouth or it's going to be coming from um, publications and things that I send out. I recommend people take a look at that information. It's out there available. Take a look at the information to get a hold of me as well is out there as well. Um, and I think once you have an opportunity to look through thoroughly, um, some of the things you're concerned about, uh, you may be a breast of where I am and who I am and what I stand for when it comes to those certain issues. Thank you. And for my part, I will just note that uh at our last meeting, we amended our meeting schedule to move start times for uh discussion only meetings for the rest of the year to start at 6 p.m. And we moved start times for regular business meetings uh to start at 6:30 p.m. Um and so I'll ask people to make a note of that and I hope we can um arrange for communications in various ways to make sure that that reaches the the public. Which brings us to communications from the city manager, Mr. Bellman.

So, my first communication, I'm going to phone a friend and ask Cliff Walls to step up and announce the event at the library that he wanted me to share, but I think he could do much better than I. Mr. Falls GPW.

Um, yeah. So, I mentioned this at the meeting on the 7th that we had plans if you adopted the new framework for pollinator landscapes that we were planning on hosting an event to kind of explain those changes and have an opportunity for the the public to ask questions and see pictures and hear it from us um you know from our mouths. So, that's happening from 6:00 to 8 on Thursday at the library. I'm going to start with probably a 20 30 minute presentation of the ordinance changes the policy framework where to find those on our website and then there's a panel for the remainder of the time which has experts from MSU be the US fish and wildlife uh pollinator task force coordinator um Michigan autobonds conservation manager and um a woman from ADAPT it's a local ecological community group and they um help residents and neighbors implement some of these themes. So, just wanted to make sure to elevate that uh to the community. It was on short notice because it's been under a month since that was passed. So, we threw it together. I think it's going to be a great program and invite you all and the whole community to to come out.

And this is the Nom Retirement Party. Yes, that's correct. That's that's the catchy name to hopefully address what we're doing, but it's the evolution of Nomo May into something that um we think is better and more impactful. Thursday at the library. Thursday at the library from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

6:00 to 8:00 p.m. All right. Appreciate that announcement. Thank you. Any further communications, Mr. Bellman? So, the other item I wanted to share is that um Wendy Wendy Yan uh human resources administrator and Carrie Samson, communications director, helped uh arrange for a counselor funded by the city to be available today to any of the residents at 25 East, to anybody at Big B or U Marcos or even the construction workers at the Meer Gas station if they wanted to talk to somebody about the events that played out on April 15th. Um, and so that was today. Uh, I don't have the final report of attendance, but we continue to extend any, uh, counseling services that may be needed for anybody in the community. I know MSU did their own for their students or affiliates and I just wanted to make sure we offered something um to East Lancing residents and then if I may just before we get into budget discussion. So, as has been shared in communications to council, the budget process of course starts um in earnest in December looking at personnel positions and then we start looking and meeting with departments um to not only analyze uh year-to-ate estimates for the current fiscal year that can then inform the uh financial forecast that's shared with you in February. but also to look at trends of where revenue actually is track uh tracking and where expenditures are at. And so that helps the finance department that helps me that helps departments identify

and align the resources that we truly need within the revenues that we have been provided by our residents either through property taxes, the income tax or uh fees that they pay for certain services. So yes, you have a laundry list of items that are before you that have been adjusted based on those trends and it is not intended to uh dissolve any of our boards or commissions uh which two were impacted more than others because the others only have $2,500 in their budget and they use that for training. the two boards and commissions that were identified tonight, much larger budget and we looked at what was actually spent um over the past couple years and adjusted them. They're in my memo that I provided to you um dated April 13th. Uh just to call out, some were new items that were added uh over the current fiscal year. And so our goal was not to increase the deficit, but try to find ways to reduce the deficit. I think the community as well as everybody uh at council knows the city put a ballot issue before our residents to ask for dedicated funding for parks and recreation. That failed in November and the message we received was live within the resources you have. And so that's the discussion that you started on um the 14th of April. That will continue tonight. that will be the subject of a public hearing on the 12th and changes that may occur all the way up to and after the budget's adopted here in May and takes effect in July. And I've always said to my staff as well as I've said and will repeat to any board or commission, if there's something that's not in your budget that you think is of value, come back to council and ask for appropriations

throughout the year. My goal was not to budget a deficit that could result in the elimination of existing positions when they were budgetary deficits and not actual needs at this time. If there are actual needs at the time they need it, they can come back and ask. So, thank you. Thank you. Um, that brings us to uh item 3.1, which is discussion of the fiscal year 2027 preliminary budget with emphasis on specific divisions. Um, Mr. Bellman, do you want to lead us off?

So, the first item in your packet is uh answers to budget questions that have been um raised by uh council members from the last uh uh discussion on April 14th. So, the questions are identified and then the answers are provided uh so that council has that uh in their possession. And again, if there's any questions that are raised tonight that we don't know, uh, we will also research and get that information back to you. Um included in the packet go again is the April 13th memo I provided you that identified additional requests from departments be it in positions be it in funding as well as uh the adjustments that were made uh to the human rights commission and the independent police oversight commission um and of course all the supporting documents. Tonight we're going to focus on I think DPW is up first. So Ron Lacass. So every all things DPW and environmental services will be shared with you this evening and then we'll move into um parks and recreation.

Welcome Director Lacass.

Thank you. Now, I' I've been told that there's a little bit of a delay or could be a little bit of delay between uh when I say next slide and the next slide actually appearing on the screen. So, we'll have to uh may have to wait a little bit before you see the slide that I'm moving to. Uh good evening, council. Uh my name is Ron Lacos, the director of public works and environmental services, and I'm here before you to talk about the uh public works uh fiscal year 2027 budget. Um the DPW budget spans several seven different funds and generates uh GIS charges uh fleet rental rates and DPW labor charges used by several other department heads in their budgets. Um this budget also generates water and sewer rates which are paid by residents uh for their water and sewer uh services. Um while I'm the one up here presenting it, I did not present this by myself or did not prepare this by myself. Um, who I have with me tonight is Romy Fitch Fitchen. I always have trouble with that. Um, she was lucky enough to start two months before the budget kicked off. She's our budget accounting analyst, a new position uh because last year was my first budget and I spent much of that uh budget season breathing into a paper sack. Uh Roie was able to change that for me and and has done a lot of work to get up to speed in two short months to to help a tremendous amount uh with the budget. Um so I can't thank her enough. she is a large part of putting this together and orchestrating uh this. Um also involved is is environmental and sustainability manager Cliff Walls, engineering administrator Steven Clayton, the operations team of Orlando Chapel, uh Homer Allen and Marcus Gons, uh the WRO leadership team of Josh Moore and Martin Fabric, uh GIS and asset management analyst Dina Fitzgerald, and department coordinator Brad Phillips. Next slide.

Uh, as you can see, the Department of Public Works um, operation consists of 88 full-time Oops, back a slide. Sorry. Um, consists of 88 full-time staff. Um, and a budget of just under $83 million. Uh, which is a 13.9% increase uh, from fiscal year 26. You guys all right? You good? Yep, we're good. We're just trying to locate ourselves.

Um, as you can see on each slide, there's a there's a budget document page number to help you kind of locate what what we're looking at. Um, it's a 13.9% increase from fisc 26. And this is uh primarily driven by uh capital project costs um for the WROF and the CSO, the combined sewer overflow project down in the Cedar Village area. Um the general fund portion of of DBW is is administration and portion of engineering, a portional envir portion of environmental services. Then you have sidewalks, alleys and private roads, uh uh drains, parks maintenance, downtown maintenance and street lighting. And you can see the the uh portion of the pie that's related to that in in brown. Then we have the internal service funds which consists of our garage and public work works services pool um which is fleet GIS and the DBW labor pool. Uh you have enterprise funds which consists of your water and sewer funds and then our special revenue funds which is our major and local street funds. Um solid waste management funds uh which is rubbish recycling and yard waste um which is funded by a millillage. Next slide. So the administration uh engineering and environmental services piece of the general fund um is the the admin functions of of public works. There's a lot of of uh uh payroll invoicing um that type of overhead stuff. meetings as well as our downtown maintenance, sidewalk, drains, alleys, and private roads and street lighting don't have um admin or labor associated with it besides the pool and engineering doing project work. So, all the work to process the the invoices and

administer those projects are lumped into this administration piece. um engineering, just over 61% of their labor costs are build outside of the general fund to water and sewer on projects, streets, uh sometimes parks and wreck if they're helping out with projects, parking, that type of thing. Um and the remainder um stays in the general fund and those are for things like reviewing site plans, um some permitting, uh customer service and the transportation commission activities. Um, we're working on our work order uh process moving forward, which is one of Romy's tasks moving forward to try to increase uh make sure our time is being allocated to other funds appropriately. And I I expect that number will will increase uh next year. Environmental services uh consists of several items that were housed in other funds prior to 2024. Um so the urban forestry storm water functions were in engineering. Urban forestry was in parks maintenance and and it became apparent that we needed to to create it our own division to to more adequately adequately reflect the environmental services piece of things. We took all the environmental and sustainability pieces and pulled these other pieces um from other divisions of the general fund to create their its own division. And so when you see environmental services and you see in the budget narrative it was started in 20 uh 24 that doesn't mean all that funding is new from 2024. We shifted things from other areas of the general fund into that fund so it made more sense. So I wanted to clarify that piece of things. Um the budget for this section of the general fund is is just over 1.7 million which is a 14.4% 4% decrease and that's primarily due to the completion of the wet weather resiliency plan project that

was majority grant funded but that still shows up in in this section of the of the budget. Next slide. Next up is the garage uh GIS asset management and the public works services pool. Um, so the garage at DPW actually owns the entire fleet and that includes police and fire vehicles, parking vehicles. Um, so any vehicles you see with a with a city logo on the side are owned by DPW and and all of the rest of the city pays a rental rate. So it's sort of how it owns all the computers and everybody pays the rental rate for that. Um, so we uh if the vehicle is in the fleet, the rental rate they pay is for the maintenance of that vehicle, the sale of that vehicle, the purchase of the new one, and the upfitting. Because when you buy a vehicle, you don't buy a plow truck. You buy a a chassis, and then you have to pay an upfitter to actually build the plow part, the underbody, the front, the plow, the dump box, and all that. So, anything you see that's not a standard truck you'd get um is upfitted somewhere else. And then uh uh all the maintenance that happens during the service life life of that equipment is handled by that rental rate. Um and what that what that means is you have somebody looking at the vehicle that has the city's interest at heart when it comes to making repair decisions versus replacement and you get um you know immediate turnaround. You're not sitting in a queue at a at a a big truck shop when something rolls in and we're in the middle of snow and ice operations. That stuff gets the priority. we get that stuff back out usually within, you know, an hour or two versus waiting several days. So, it's a huge advantage when it comes to service, especially emergency services. Um, GIS, asset management, uh, manage as much of the city's infrastructure and data. Um, so the infrastructure data and asset management uh, process. So, as asset list, service

life, uh, maintenance act drives, maintenance activities. Um, if you've seen any map provided by any other department, if you've seen data provided, that comes from that system and and Dina Fitzgerald u hand handles all that as well as asset life, all of our services that we do when we're jetting sewers, televising, cleaning catch basins, all of that data is input. you've seen our our staff with tablets, they input that into the system so that we can pull that up and say, "Oh, we jetted that sewer, you know, 6 months ago or when we get sewer backups or whatever it is, we can track that maintenance and we know not only what's been done, but it helps drive where we're going." You don't don't really know where to go with maintenance unless you know where you've been. Um, so it's a huge part of our operation. And then the services pool um acts as the labor pool for the entire city. So it's it's a lot of the maintenance work that goes on. So, it's uh activities related to infrastructure, grounds, um obviously sanitation and recycling, uh yard waste, um and and parks maintenance. Um also serves as the city's primary response to to weather related emergency response such as rain events, snow events, and wind events. Um in addition with police and fire, DPW is right out there during those events um tackling those and cleaning up and clearing ways and and uh that kind of thing. Um again uh that is pulled in the uh in this account and that is charged out as we perform work. Nobody pays a flat rate for the service as we perform work for different areas whether it's parks and rock, whether it's parking, whether it's uh anybody that is build out as we perform that work. Um and again that touches lots of different areas. Police, fire, um all these all these functions. Um our police, fire, parks and wreck, planning, clerk's office, the library. It's citywide. But for all these services, um budget for

this is just over 8 million. Um which is a 5.9% increase. And uh this is primarily due to to normal inflation, uh cost of living increases and step increases for staff. Uh, next slide. Uh, downtown maintenance and parks maintenance. Um, this used to be um one division of DPW. Um, if you remember, the DDA approved a new uh DDA lead worker to focus on the downtown. We had two parks maintenance staff that worked in the downtown. And it was sort of a a side job, if you will, for our parks maintenance lead to try to manage the downtown as well, which is difficult. Pulled a lot of different directions. Um, so the DDA um recognized that need and they funded a a downtown lead worker and we're going to take those two staff out of parks maintenance and put them in a new downtown division. So, the B3 staff that'll be housed downtown and we'll be able to focus much more proactively on downtown um maintenance issues and and uh it fits perfectly with the addition of the DDA executive director. They'll right now the proposal is to have them housed in the same office so they'll have daily contact. So, I think it's going to be a great partnership and and obviously Lori Mullins has lots of experience here so that makes it even even a more seamless transition to to go that route. So, we're in the process of of looking at that lead worker position and um we'll move that forward. Um catch up on my notes. So, downtown maintenance, as you as you know, uh this staff manages efforts in the downtown related to all the rubbish and recycling, uh landscaping, all of the stuff that's down there, the bike racks, benches, tables, that type of thing. um snow and ice removal, uh which again will instead of getting lumped in with parks where they run through the

downtown and then they're off doing different parks things, this this crew will now stay focused in the downtown, which which will be a a large improvement. So, you know, the side the street plows come by and all the sidewalk ramps get plowed in. Well, this team will be able to clear those back open. And so that'll be a big improvement um in the snow and ice in the downtown. Um holiday decorations and supporting downtown events and related activities. And then parks maintenance will will uh uh stick to the the stuff they do outside of the downtown which is activities related to mowing, landscaping, snow and ice removal outside of the downtown, recreation complexes, um maintenance of parks as assets and uh such as playgrounds, tables, benches, bathrooms, all the all the stuff you see in the parks system. Um and it's important to note that that parks and wreck is where the programming and the capital projects are budgeted. It's parked maintenance is what is what this division does. So anything programming or capital is is parks and wreck. Um I also think it's important to note and this is true of of all DPW divisions is is the park parks maintenance staffing um isn't really changing in this in this uh new setup. They're going from 11 to 9 because the two staff that are already in the downtown are just are going to get moved over. Um, but we were 11 staff in 2010 and had a dedicated supervisor to just parks or I'm sorry, we were 15 staff in 2010 with a dedicated supervisor. Now we're 11 staff and the supervisor is split between all the different DPW divisions. So this this is uh uh still an area that we that we struggle to to maintain and as everybody knows a lot of new uh parks amenities, a lot of new events that developed out of COVID and things like that. Um so this this division continues to work really hard and that's where you're going to see us

uh looking at, you know, doing some smart reductions if we can if we can, you know, reduce some of our mowing and do some some some native plantings or or wildflower type things to reduce mowing. Um, you've seen out front of Hannah, you know, reducing some of the landscaping, trying to focus on more targeted landscaping because although we mowing is work, it's a lot less work. Landscaping is the most labor intensive. So, you'll see us doing some of that stuff uh so that we can make everything look good with less staff and still provide a a quality environment. Um, so that's kind of the the balance you'll see in the coming years. We're going to try to do some of that stuff and we're meeting monthly with parks and recck staff who shares that same goal. So, we're it's been a great partnership and and you'll see some of those results. Again, this is a 2.9% um increase in these areas and again primarily due to cost of living and and step increases. Next slide. Uh sidewalks, drains, alleys, uh private roads and street lighting divisions. Again, a G general fund uh section uh sidewalks manage uh general sidewalk maintenance uh the hazardous sidewalk program uh snow and ice removal and ADA sidewalk ramp improvements. Um drains ma drains manages the city uh drain maintenance. We have three big drains. Um the gorts which is down kind of through the flower pot neighborhood, the Taylor which runs north of the fire station. Um and the Freel that's up by Abby and and uh behind Meyer there. Those are three city open drains. The rest are county, but we have to maintain those. Um and then we pay county drain assessments. Uh as we discussed previously, there's lots of drain assessments that that were um put in place before we made the change last year to have some of those passed to property owners. Um and then uh administers the Eagle NPDES permit which is National Pollution Discharge

Elimination System permit which is our our separate storm sewer program and it's to a process where we have to eliminate and track um uh pollutants in in storm water. uh we have a consultant that goes around and during dry weather tests outflow coming from storm sewers and if they if they detect that there's waste then we have to track that and see where that's coming from and and uh uh eliminate that. So that's and that's part of that that program that we have to have to administer. Um alleys and private roads uh manages maintenance of all of the alleys you see throughout the city and and there's private roads in Hawk Nest that we agreed to maintain. um as part of the development agreement when that was converted from a manufactured home park to a single family residential neighborhood. Um and that's by development agreements. So we have to provide road maintenance up to kind of heavy maintenance. We pothole, we crack, seal, clean, catch base and sweep. Uh but we don't do uh paving, that type of thing. That's on the on the neighborhood. Sign maintenance. We pay the street light bill. Um and then street lighting uh which that pays the uh electric bills and the maintenance. Uh the the street lighting is is primarily owned by the water light and consumers energy and we pay an annual fee for each street light depending on the type of light. Your fancier lights cost more. Your more standard um roadside lights cost less. Um and the DDA contributes I think 121,000 in this budget uh for downtown street lighting for that. Um budget for this is 3.1 million and it says a 19.5% increase that should say decrease. Um and that's primarily due to reduction in uh drain projects. We had some drain projects we were trying to get through

um and we ran into a lot of challenges with Eagle. when it comes to working on open drains, it's quite a process. And then with the wet weather resiliency plan, some of the the solutions that they are proposing uh include like the fire station, the pond north of the fire station and other um projects that we might impact. So, we didn't want to do a a multi-million dollar project only to have uh the wet weather resiliency plan propose something else and and waste that effort, especially since it's a general fund expenditure. we thought we better um pause that effort and and we're we're going to finish up that wet weather resiliency plan um this fall and and wait for the results of that. Make sure we're not we're not throwing money away on on wasted projects. Uh major and local street fund. Um revenue from major and local streets is the is the Michigan transportation fund which is gas and weight tax and the new neighborhood road fund which is uh primarily marijuana receipts. Uh the total impact of that um funding is not completely known. Uh Romy dug into the the websites and did some research. We've budgeted conservatively on the revenue that we're going to see from that and and I think the marijuana lawsuit is still pending. So, some of that funding is still not not completely settled, but uh that's a good news for the for the road funds. Um but we're cautiously optimistic on that. Um there is continued risk to to the funding mechanism for roads because of of more fuel efficient vehicles. If we continue down the the road of hybrids and electrification of vehicles and then high gas prices, how long they going to stick around and how's that going to impact consumption, which which of course could impact uh the money we get. So might get offset um the extra revenue may get offset by lower gas and weight tax. Um we get money for trunk line maintenance which MDOT funds are the maintenance of of Sagena Michigan and

Grand River. And again that's routine maintenance. It's not heavy maintenance that we perform on those trunk lines and we are reimbursed for that cost including retiree healthcare costs. It's a fully loaded reimbursement rate on that. Um, and then our our efforts in the in the street uh area, we utilize a pavement surface uh evaluation rating. It's called a Paser rating where we drive all of our streets every two years and rate the pavements and that helps drive our capital projects and actually our maintenance and capital projects. Based on the PAR rating, it'll drive the the the maintenance versus uh construction uh uh decisions as we move forward. Um, and then we pair that with utility information. It's a it's a it's quite a picture you have to put together to balance all that and make sure you're you're taking everything into account, but that's primarily our rating system for our asphalt pavements. Uh, the map you see on the left there is the is all the different jurisdictions that surround us. The the roads that are not highlighted are East Lancing streets. All the other colors are somebody else's. So you can see the coordination it takes when you're when you're doing projects or uh doing you know anything around the city is all those other the red ones are private streets but all the other colors are somebody else's jurisdictions. You have to coordinate efforts and detour routes and all kinds of stuff. So it's it's a complicated picture. Um funding for this is is just over 12 million a 9.2% increase and that's primarily driven by um increased uh local street projects in the coming year. uh solid waste um which is funded by a millillage of 1.825 mills. Um again covers the uh rubbish recycling and yard waste. Um the largest cost risk to this is is the landfill tipping fees. We have kind of one game in town which is Granger. Um and for whatever reason they've not increased our fees for

several years and I back checked and looked and it's accurate. Um, but now they've they've woken up to that and are have contacted me and are looking for, you know, as much as a a a doubling of our rates over the next few years. They would like a very aggressive rate increase. I think we can more slow roll that, but that's that's one of the things we're looking at and I we meet monthly with City of Lancing um just as a collaboration and they are getting the same conversation. So, I think it's they're trying to catch up some of some of the municipal customers. They're still offering a 20% reduction over their non-un municipal customers, but uh their no increases for years have have ice kind of caught up with them. So that's our biggest risk there. Um we're also coordinating. We have a a regional facility that we bring our recycling to. When that facility came to town, uh there were certain material thresholds that we had to meet, volume or tonnage thresholds we had to meet to get rebates. and that was to entice them to come here and set up shop cuz they had no customers. Um, and we're renegotiating that with Lancing. It's a partnership with Lancing. Now that they have other customers, Granger brings their uh recycling there. Um, so they no longer, in our opinion, need that level of subsidy. So, we're hoping to renegotiate so that we start seeing um uh some paid back on our on our materials there. So, it isn't just a cost out endeavor, which it has been up until now. Um, and then we'll be performing a comprehensive analysis of our rubbish and recycling programs, which you'll see in the strategic priorities, um, to address issues such as unpaid carts, overfilled carts, uh, carts not out, that type of thing. It's become more of a problem as time has gone on. Um, with people shifting carts, they move around, they they just give their cart to their neighbor who puts it out. A lot of overfilled carts and that's all, uh, revenue. That's since it's a millage paid by taxpayers, that's other

taxpayers paying for certain residents to get more more rubbish than they're respon than they're entitled to. Um, so you'll see that uh going forward our efforts there to make sure that we're uh keeping that that process or that the solid waste part of our operation uh cost effective, especially with the tipping fees going up. We need to make sure that we're we're getting the revenue per the current ordinance and we may even come back with some some adjustments to that. uh budget is 2.8 uh million which is basically flat. Um but this may change depending on how how negotiations go with with uh Granger. Uh and everybody's favorite, the water and sewer fund. Um this obviously funds our our uh water distribution system. The water treatment facility is a partnership. It's a it's an authority between Meridian Township and uh uh East Lancing and one of us we alternate sitting on the board every year. Um but it also funds the sewer collection system and the uh water resource recovery facility. Um funding from that is primarily water and sewer rates that that people pay. Um and then at the WORF uh MSU pays 40% of the capital costs of projects and there the operations and maintenance costs are based on the percentage of flow. Uh Meridian Township um pays 33.3% of the WARF capital costs and again operations and maintenance is based on percentage of flow. Both of them also have shared sewers because at some point the sewers uh combined like along Timber and between Meridian Township and East Lancing, both sets of flow go in there. So there's several shared sewers and those are the maintenance and capital costs are based on percentage of flow um between MSU Meridian and East Lancing. And the Woodingham pump station is also shared with Meridian Township because

their flow from Tower Gardens north of Lake Lancing Road comes in there. um risk to water and sewer is average consumption's actually dropped over time. We used to average our average user was 12,000 gallons. Now it's dropped down to 11,000 gallons and that's just uh the newer housing stock is obviously way more efficient. And over time more and more people with older housing stock replace their toilets and fixtures with lower use uh uh fixtures which which decreases revenue. Um and then also the uh uh reduction in development. There was a lot of investment made in the northern tier to extend utilities and and since the 2008 downturn things have slowed significantly up there. So not as many people buying into the system and helping share share that cost. Um and again I circle back to the water authority. Um that split on&m and capital uh cost about 43.84% 84% East Lancing and 56.16% Meridian Township. Um we use asset management plans uh to inform our watered sewer and and WR design and construction projects as well as our utility maintenance activities. Um and also the meter shop is housed here which is they go out and and uh read everybody's meter and and generates water and sewer billing. And that's one of our big projects is to upgrade that uh so that we can potentially go to monthly billing and then put more of the usage um at the in the hands of our our uh users so they can see their their um usage. Um challenges is a is a aging utility system. Uh lots of lots of things uh need work around town and trying to balance that uh also with street projects. Uh, you know, this year was was a super cold winter and our main breaks were about 178% of the average.

We averaged somewhere in the upper 40s to 50 and we had over 80 this year. Um, and then changing weather. As everybody's noticed, these these systems were built, especially the combined sewer system for a for a different time and and all of these systems were were on a different design storm, different different weather patterns. So we have to um you know at least the the combined sewer portion of the sewer system is funded with with sewer funds and that's that's a challenge going forward is not just looking at condition but also the upsizing that's needed. Um the city made the decision back in the early 90s to to do a separate to do a storage solution to our csos which is the tunnel down river and the and the retention treatment basin out at Kazoo and Harrison instead of doing a full-blown separation like Lancing did. um to meet the Eagle requirements at the time and I'm guessing nobody anticipated the storm events that we're getting with the frequency we're getting now and what impact that would have on on the residents remaining on the combined sewer system. So that's one of the challenges um going forward as well. Um budget here is just over $53 million, a 17.8% increase and primarily again due to capital projects. Um, next slide. And just a little bit about rates. Um, we have a a rate model that was developed in 2008 and we've had it updated um the last two years by a consultant. Um, it's made up of three distinct parts. Uh, first new new users that come in pay a capital connection fee or connection fee which is buying into the system. they're they're buying into the system that they're connecting into and it's based on meter size because the larger the meter the more capacity that we're agreeing to to give them in both the water and sewer system. And then the administr it's the the monthly bill is an administrative charge which is the fixed uh charge to cover

cost of reading meters and preparing bills. um that doesn't go away every month based it's not dependent on usage and then a readiness to serve charge which is your fixed charges u which is your capital cost and your debt service. So if everybody stops using water tomorrow you still have to pay your debt service you still have to invest in the system because it gets a year older every year. So that's why those the administrative and readiness to serve are fixed charge and are not dependent on on water use. And then there's the commodity charge which is the variable cost which is the the maintenance of the of the system the operation of the treatment plant that's that's based on how much water comes through the system. So that's how the the bill is is uh is divided up. So as we do more capital projects that readiness to serve piece that fixed piece will start increasing and and you'll see that in the in the rates uh over the past few years and and this year is no different. um our our total fund our total increase for this year for the average user there's in this table there's 6,000 11,000 15,000 and 18,000 gallon users. The 11,000 is our average residential user. It's about a 43% increase or or just under $11 a quarter. Um, and then we're uh comparing to our neighboring communities. Um, we're right in the middle. We're the sixth. All we can do is compare our 27 proposed rates to everybody's existing rate. So, this is our 27 rates, everybody's current 26 rates, and we're sixth on the list. Uh, which puts us right in the middle. Um, a lot of the communities that charge more are older systems like ours. A lot of the ones that charge less are newer systems. So, it makes sense where we're at. So I'm comfortable with where we're where where we at right where we are at weightwise. And then just a slide showing kind of all the pieces of the pie. Oops, sorry. Next, next slide.

And this is the conclusion if you if you want to know where all the pieces of the pie are. There it is. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Questions for Ron?

Mr. Whan. First of all, I really really appreciate um many people enjoy their lives in East Lancing because of what you do on a dayby-day um basis and also all of your staff. Incredibly ready to serve, incredibly. So, I really really value the many many aspects that you really help add to the the lives. So, first run at this. This is my um just a few issues on the page 50 on that consolidated budget. A few items are have pretty huge increases and help me to understand um the three I if we can have a little bit more information on the capital improvement then the automobile parking system and then the sewage disposal system. I think what you said is the sewage disposal system. It's got a 24% increase that is going to be shared with Meridian and campus and

correct th those are primarily the two big SRF projects and and uh the project at the WARF will be will be split with Meridian Township and MSU and the Cso project in Cedar Village is is shared with Meridian Township portion to MDOT as well. So we have some income to counteract that. Yes, there there is there is uh and then the automobile parking system. It's a increase of almost $4 million. That one that one's not me. That's parking. Okay. And then um the capital improvement funds. That is not you either. I think that's later on the agenda. Correct.

Yeah. So there's a combination between uh the capital projects, improvement projects oversaw by or overseen by DPW and what is managed by parks and recreation for not only parks and recreation facilities, but city facilities, be it Hannah, uh fire stations, uh valley court, community center, city hall, etc. So that's Listen, I I looked for that through the budget. I was trying to find, you know, where that would be in this. So, the capital improvement plan that you have in your online agenda and also is it in the binder? No. So, it's on your packet for tonight's agenda. I looked and looked for that.

What's that? I looked and looked for that. So, so um yeah, I'm just kind of looking at the low hanging fruit, the big items.

Yeah. So, I think the parking one was um in part the uh fall prevention that is hopefully going to be funded by uh grants. I think it was right around 3.4 million. And then some ongoing improvements done to parking facilities that they need to do every so many years, be it the addressing the deterioration of any of the concrete um or other elements of it. And I don't know if Jennifer Lacass wants to go into any more detail, but generally that's what that number that dollar amount you identified.

So that's the three million I think because it's a 6 million the fall prevention. So $6 million. So the fall prevention is only 3.4 million. The other 3.1 million is really capital improvements that are undertaken right every so many years. and it's being used as a match for the federal funding that we're seeking that we're hoping for. Yes.

Okay. Um, thank you. So, yeah, I guess maybe it's the off then the capital improvement is the biggest jump from 3.1 to 12.2. I guess that'll be listed out. It's listed on the online.

So, on the online on starting and I started glancing at it. Um, it starts on, give me one second. Here is the capital improvement program document. It's draft form being presented to city council as is consistent with our practice and will be uh formally adopted as part of the budget in a separate resolution. But, um, let me get the first page. Yes, I'll be addressing that in a few minutes. All right. So it's on starts on page 23 of 85. Okay. In your online packet. Thank you.

And so there's a bunch of narrative. You really want to focus on the uh spreadsheets that are reflected in that and they're broken down by um buildings or major and local streets or water and sewer. And so um that will be coming up and we could dovetail into that. Now, if you want to jump into the capital improvements, I can invite uh Justin drink. I don't want I don't want to redirect where we're heading. So, we can Well, it's a it's a it's a tag team between Ron on any DBW and then Justin on any again parks uh and recreation or facilities.

Let's cycle back to capital later. Other questions for Ron? Anything? Chuck, Mark, anything? So I have a few questions um just in order that they sort of occurred to me. So you mentioned that with um with sort of a a closer look at the the allocation now that you have a budget budget analyst um is there a chance that that could end up reducing burden on the general fund by charging costs out to other funds? Yeah, there's certainly that potential of of depending on where they perform their work in a given year. A lot of it's project driven.

Yep. Because I could imagine that the default is always to go to the general fund, right? Unless you take a step to allocate it somewhere else. That's we want to make sure isn't happening is just by default charge general engineering and or you know whatnot. So that's that's what we want to make sure isn't happening. Um parks maintenance. I wrote this question and then you sort of cycled back to it. So, it it sounds like you're you're looking for ways to reduce maintenance in the parks and you mentioned the landscaping um and so forth and switching to native plantings and so on and so forth. So, it sounds like and you also mentioned this at the financial health team. It sounds like that's sort of an ongoing project. Absolutely.

Then related to that, you had 15 staff at one point, now you have 11. Are they doing the same amount of work or are they doing less work due to tech advances or more work because there's more parks? Yeah, I mean I I can't all of the above. It's

we're we're spread pretty thin and I I I mean I I still you know I worked with the previous supervisor who retired years and years ago and he he always gives me an earful of things that that were not doing as well as he used to do and I'm like you know the city ended at Lake Lancing Road when you worked here and and uh you had you know four or five more staff and a dedicated supervisor. So, it's uh you know what we're doing at hand is a good example of if we tailor the the landscaping towards the front of the front of the building and and we can reduce the maintenance and and make the whole facility look better. Not we're not looking to have everything be turf, but we're hoping to to more tailor it to the site and um dial it back so that we can you know, nobody likes to to run around with their head cut off and not feel good about the product that they're leaving behind. And that's the challenge is is not um having staff, you know, kind of feel like you're

you're not doing a good job. Oh, yeah. And and obviously other divisions, everybody backs each other up. So, it's not just the, you know, parks maintenance doesn't just do parks maintenance when there's uh big events. We staff, all our divisions are staffed for average day. So every time there's a, you know, large rain event, everybody's out clearing catch basins and everybody's, you know, so it's it's a lot of of uh out working outside of your home division

depending on the the the what's needed. You know, art festival will will take, you know, most of the staff for several days to set up and tear down and all that stuff for that. So it's um also those type of things. When was it that you had 15 again? So now you're 11. When was it that you had 2010? 2010. It it really you'll see the drop across all divisions when the the results of the '08 downturn. That's that's when we started seeing the tax reductions and and the service really started to to to dip uh because there just wasn't the money to do it. There wasn't money to buy the stuff to do it. Therefore, we didn't need the people to do it.

So, that was but then everything kind of came back of the '08 downturn and people want us to do the stuff again. and only the people didn't come with it. So that's the the trend that you see. And I I want to just take this chance to just to echo a point that we it's probably pretty important to echo. We've been whittling away at public safety and public works for almost 20 years now. And we we're asking you to do more with less. Um, and this is why across the board budget cuts aren't going to work because we've been cutting core functions for years and not without service reductions.

Without service reductions, without noticeable service reductions. I want to echo, you know, Steve's comment. You guys do amazing stuff to grease the skids for everybody else. And um, we we just can't keep cutting. We just can't do that. And this is why when people propose across the board budget cuts, it just shows that they aren't familiar with the history of the city. Um, I read somewhere I think in the documents that Eastwood Eastwood Town Center sends its outflow to the warf.

It does. There's a there's an agreement their sewer flow um comes to the city. Correct. So we get our the the water consumption from the board because it's board water and light water and then we bill the sewer rate. Okay. So we bill correct eastwood for that. So we we get recovery from the cost recovery from that. Okay. Um tipping fees if tipping fees go up our millage isn't going to go up right. Is there are we looking ultimately at moving from the solid waste millage to a fee that could try?

There's already a fee. Um you get you get up to a 64gallon cart for free. If you want a 96gallon cart as a normal residential user, you pay a just over $100 annual fee. Now whether that fee continues to go up um but again part of that is when you when you have you know a 64gallon cart's worth of trash heaped out of your 96 gallon cart you're kind of getting trash for free. So we're we're looking to see if there's ways of of collecting revenue from those who are actually using more than their their fair share as well as unbuild carts if people you know have inherited carts from their neighbors that moved away and that type of thing. Um we know that happens because we find it. So it's it's a um you know process that we need to go through but we'll we'll look to do that first and and obviously increasing recycling as part of that effort reduce trash if we can if we can renegotiate with the with the uh uh regional recycling facility so we start getting credits back you we we already get revenue for tin and cardboard but start getting some some rebates on some of the other items um through that and we can increase curbside and and other means of recycling that also reduces that. So, we're um it's, you know, sort of driving that. The the cost increase proposal by Granger isn't driving that. It's something we want to do anyway. It just adds some motivation to to look at that uh sooner.

Um you mentioned that we've we've now got the downtown lead worker is is paid for by the DDA, right? Correct. Do we have two other workers that are in the downtown full-time? We've always had, again, by full-time, it's it's their home division, but it doesn't mean they they stay down there. It's it's they're they're down there to they they show up at 5:30 and their goal is to clean up any any mess from overnight. So, people showing up, you know, at 7:30 don't know what happened the night before type of thing. They do an amazing job. They just do an amazing job. It's a Yeah, if you see those people, it's it's a thankless job because everything you did the day before gets undone, you know, especially on on on weekend nights.

Yeah. Um, but they do get they also cycle to, you know, uh, uh, city hall, Hannah, the library, and there's still going to have to be some play as to where the work divides up between what leaps parks maintenance and what go what goes to downtown because the downtown team isn't fully the DDA agreed to fund it, but they also do uh uh ground trash and like parking structures and that gets built to parking. So part of it automatically goes there. A part of it also when you're downtown is is Bill Sharp Park. There's sidewalks. There's there's other things downtown that aren't general fund necessarily. So it's it's like everybody else there. Not all of their their expense is there. We we bill we bill based on a work order system. Um so where exactly that ends up laying out will will depend. And then if does the DDA want increased service for their increased uh funding? I know I know the proactive piece of what we haven't done, you know, as far as fixing bike racks, benches, that type of thing that slipped through the cracks. I I know they're expecting that, but where else that goes, I don't know.

So, that's where I was going with this is are we getting cost recovery from the DDA for all the stuff that we that the city does for them? And that's all under the umbrella of the municipal services agreement. Is that right? Correct. So that building is done pretty accurately and they're they're pulling their weight. It is that that's a number we provide to them and they budget for it and we get that amount once a month or 112th of it every month. So it's that we get for sure. And then in terms of um sewer fees and infrastructure, could we be more aggressive? So it sounds like the the cso tunnel might have been the wrong strategy right 30 years ago. Hindsight. Yes. But

it met a requirement at the time and Right. And you know, prediction is hard, especially about the future, right? So, they did what they thought was right. But now we're in a situation where um you know, after the rain event 2 or 3 weeks ago, every other driveway in my neighborhood had a truck in it the next morning because their sewers searchcharged, right? So, this is a a big issue and it's not going to get any less big. Could we be more aggressive with sewer separation and just put the money on sewer fees?

Certainly we can and we can we can look at uh at raising sewer rates more aggressively to to ramp up projects. Um that's the but that hits that fixed charge that you know some people um will say hits your more because that fixed charge you know if you look at that chart that I provided on that on the slide the percent increase is more for the lower water user because that fixed fee that comes with capital projects keeps going up and we debt fund a lot of that through SRF because it's a low interest loan and lets us get more more project done. Was this on your radar potentially becoming more aggressive with uh sewer separation in reaction to the weather events that we're seeing?

The storm water. Yeah. I mean, I think that's that's certainly something we have to consider and and the the piece that's going to dovtail into that is the wet weather resiliency plan because some of that overlaps in in certain areas and and and is recommending improvements

in some of our cso areas as well. And and then there's the other side of some of our separate areas are are pretty wet. The the flow, whether it's footing tiles, whether it's sump pumps, that type of thing. And we've we've never done in my time here, never done a a a program where we try to eliminate some of those connections that are easier to eliminate. Footing tiles are tough. Sump pumps are easier. That type of thing to try to dry up the separate system because it's easy to just take your sump pump and tie it into your sanitary sewer line in the house. That type of thing. uh roof gutters, that type of thing. So, there's there's lots of different ways of trying to to reduce that, but it all takes funds and there's a balance between what people can pay.

Would that kind of stuff be something that you could pay out of the sewer fund or would that require storm water utility, the storm water component of it? I mean, a lot of the a lot of the work out of the wet weather resiliency plan is going to is is not fundable through sewer. It's it's it's storm sewer stuff. Um, so we're going to have to come up with a with a way to fund that. um moving forward if there's cso component then we can pay for it out of uh the sewer fund and and the SRF is eligible for that and there is a if you have this asset management plan which we're working on there is a storm water SRF program as well that will now be eligible for that we but we still got to make payments with general fund dollars

so there's a lot of a lot of stuff that's got to move move forward but we're positioning ourselves to be competitive for that because not a lot of places have this plan that we've been developing.

So the sooner we can get access to those funds, the better potentially. So I mean I think if you go around and and ask people whether they would rather have an, you know, have their sewer rates maintained at the same level or go up and have a chance that their basement isn't going to get searchcharged with sewage. I think they're probably going to prefer to, you know, have the problem fixed. And the problem of course is that um these events occur maybe once or twice a summer and then they leave a scar and then people forget about them right and so we can't we I think have a responsibility to keep momentum on these things and if we know what their trajectories are in terms of storm intensity and so forth we need to be looking at all things not just the storm water utility but also in my mind um getting more aggressive with uh with ST with separation.

Yeah. Project that's an important part of combined sewer is no matter how much upsizing we do, let's say we upsize all the combined sewers to a 50-year storm, that means anything bigger than that, it's still going to searchcharge. There's there's there's no way to say it's not going to happen. There's always going to be a storm bigger. So that's that's when you're in combined sewer system, it's it's not if, it's when, and how often. So it's that's just the the nature of that. And so it really is separation that we have to be looking at. I mean to to work on towards elimination. That's you know and we're going to I'm going to come back to you shortly with a update to our backup prevention program for backflow preventers and that type of thing as well.

And then last question was really pretty small on the administration fees on the fee schedule. I've there's there's one guy who always asks me why is there a fee both on sewer and water? And my answer to him was always, well, they just take the total fee and divide it in half, but that's not the way it works. So, could you briefly explain um h where those how those administration fees get computed if you know off the top? Yeah, I mean it's it's more or less the the admin fees, but the the the rate model is very complicated. It's a multi-page spreadsheet that calculates and that that admin fee it% yeah there there's it's actually calculated separately. Okay.

And so the the admin fee is based on running the water side of the model, the sewer rate side of the model and how much of the the admin fee should go towards each depending on on the the the dollar figure. Yeah. The allocation. So it's it's a there's so it's a it's a complicated way of saying it's yeah it's splitting the fee but based on the allocation of water and sewer. Okay. Um so it's it's a it would be if you wanted it lumped together it' still be the same fee. It would just be an admin fee and it but it' be the two of them combined. Okay. Um so I guess the short answer is it's complicated, right? Sewer staff. Yeah. Oh, there's sewer staff and there's water staff.

There's a sewer fund and a water fund. You turn on your mic. Oh, it's it's on. You just got to lean forward. Do I have to? Okay. There's a sewer staff and there's water staff and infrastructure and projects and they're different funds. So, you know, when you go to those pages, they're separate funds. So, the revenue needs to come in to cover the expense that's in this fund versus this fund. Got it. Okay. So, it's really tied to the work done in each of the two. Yeah. In service of each of the two funds. 10-year model that put you put in the entire budget for sewer, entire budget for water, all the capital projects projected out.

It's so it takes everything into into account in both both funds to come up with that projection and then it tries to smooth it so we're not doing 3% this year and 20% next year. That type of thing. Okay, great. Any other questions? No, I appreciate the questions that you brought forth and you know, I really appreciate this department and um I I know you're working really hard to try to make it all work with less and I I appreciate that. I appreciate this uh lady coming in and making your life easier as well. So,

lifeaver. That's good to hear. Okay, great. Thank you. I think we are on now to uh parks and wreck and then we'll do some tag teaming with uh capital improvements when the time comes. Director Drankie, welcome.

Good evening, council members. Let me pull that a little bit closer. Okay. Good evening, council. My name is Justin Drinki, director of parks, recreation and arts, and I also oversee government buildings. Um before I jump into the parks and recreation fund this evening, um I want to first acknowledge the hardworking department staff for not only all of the work that they do all year long, but um their extra work, particularly going into this budget year, helping coach me through all of the intricacies of their programs. Um I asked them to do a lot more work, give me a lot more information, and they, you know, exceeded the mark. So I want to acknowledge specifically Heather Mahano, Jim Jennings, Tim Lane, Dana Philon, Lois Fogery, Julianne Jennings, Kathleen Miller, Colleen Armmitage, and Carlos Barahas. Um, and I think that I'd like to give a special thanks to Jane Stone, not only for her exceptional work kind of putting everything together for this budget, but also for keeping me on schedule. So, uh, could not have done this without Jane's hard work on the budget. Also want to say thank you to both Audrey and Mary in finance for their detailed review of all of the funds that we oversee. Um so tonight I would like to start with the parks and recreation fund which starts on page 181 in your budget document. Okay. So to start with the um slide on the screen is is really intended to give a highle overview um kind of that 30,000 foot in the air perspective of the parks and recreation fund for 2027. Um and really shows how kind of the different categories of both revenue and

expenditures compared to previous fiscal years. Overall compared to fiscal year 26 our budget for fiscal year 27 is expected to decrease by 3.4%. um we're going to decrease of 212,000. Um a couple of the key points on the that make up the difference. One would be charges for services is down just over 300,000. Um two big programs that we stopped administering in fiscal year 26. First being the middle school sports program for East Lancing Public Schools. Um as well as the All of Us Express Children's Theater will be moving on to their own nonprofit as of May 18th. Um, rental income overall is showing up about 68,000. Um, a big piece of that would be ensuring that all space rental users here at the Hannah Community Center are paying a a standard rate. Um there were kind of some agreements previously that certain programs might get a discount or there were certain users that would get kind of a um slightly reduced rate, but really wanting to make sure that we track um the the true program cost across all programs and users um and that we establish that standard rate across the board. Um as a part of doing that, uh the current budget shows a general fund transfer amount decreasing by $24,000. Um because we are eliminating a space rental discount that was previously offered to the prime time seniors program. Um a portion of the general fund that kind of equates to what we would see um the impact of uh space rental revenues. It will then go back go from our fund over to the seniors fund. Um grants community sport and other is up by about 45,000. Um the big story with that component would be that we will be recognizing a portion of the school age care out of schooltime grant

in fiscal year 27 for the expenditures that will be spent in fiscal year 27. So the grant that we have for our before and after school care program follows the state fiscal year which does not align perfectly with the city's fiscal year and so we have to recognize a portion of that in the upcoming fiscal year 27. On the expenditure side of thing, personnel services is currently showing down $122,000. Um, with that, I have frozen the assistant director position for one year while we figure out um the implementation of the wage and job study and really figure out what that position will need to be and and what gaps um in in skills and and future planning for the department leadership will need to look like. Um, and operating costs are down 89,000 again largely to the departure of All of Us Express Children's Theater and transitioning middle school sports back to the school district. Um, the other thing that you will see throughout the budget document, um, is the implementation of a recreation and culture indirect cost allocation. Um, and this is really to kind of give a picture of um, rather than having all of the administration costs sit in a separate administration division, really to show kind of what that overhead looks like by each of our divisions within the parks and recreation fund so that you can start to see maybe what the true cost of each program is that we administer. Um, and then what is not included in here, but what was included in the separate memo memo um were three requests to um reclassify or adjust three positions. Um, and I just wanted to acknowledge that those would not have any impact on the general fund. Um, that those would be contained fully within the parks and recreation fund. Um, if we are able to move forward with those. Um, and on the next slide, please. Um the other part that I have prepared for the parks and recreation fund on the

slideshow um is a history of the transfer from the general fund to the parks and recreation fund. And what I've what I've called out specifically are some of the um large variances in that amount. So fiscal year 27 transfer amount represents 43% of our fund revenues. Um historically the highest kind of share of revenues came from the general fund transfer during the co pandemic. Certainly we had we had this facility closed for a portion of that time. We couldn't run many of the programs in the same way. It made sense that we didn't have as much um program revenues coming in. And prior to the introduction of the general government indirect cost allocation and transferring the community events programs into the parks and recreation fund, we averaged around 30% of our revenue came from the general fund subsidy. There were two places where the general fund support um was used specifically for facility improvements both in fiscal year 2018 and 2020. I wanted to call that out specifically because those are the types of projects that are now supported with the income tax revenues. Um and so you would see projects like that reflected um either in the capital improvement fund or the parks capital improvement fund which we'll talk about in a few moments. Um, and then the other component that I just wanted to cover at the high level overview before the uh before I'm happy to answer any questions on the parks and recreation fund um was looking at the strategic priorities um that are included in the budget document. And one of the items that we've identified um is establishing a cost recovery program and um hopefully decreasing the need for general fund support for our programs. Um, and I want to call that out specifically because at the same time I believe that equity and financial account access account accessibility are important and it'll be important to continue identify opportunities for scholarships in order to ensure that our

programs can remain financially accessible. Um, we currently have multiple um scholarship funds including we have a roundup for scholarships program. So if you were to sign up for a class and maybe you wanted to round up $2 to an even $20, we can use that as a scholarship fund. Um, we also receive some funding from CDBG for program scholarships. Um, and I will pause there to answer questions about the parks and recreation fund. Questions for the director. You mentioned briefly uh cost just toward the end you were saying setting you were saying about the cost recovery program. Could you say what you said again please?

Yes. So one of the recommendations in the strategic priorities which I can tell you the exact page number that says personnel um so that would be on page 16 and I'm looking at goal four under financial stability. Okay. Um and that would be to um reduce transfer from general fund to the parks and recreation fund. And part of that would be to establish a cost recovery policy where we kind of look at program by program. What is the expectation for those programs to have cost recovery from fees versus what is something that the city is willing to subsidize?

And I look at that I consider that in the concept of is something in an individual benefit or is something have a larger communitywide benefit. Yep. And that will presumably drive questions about whether certain programs are sustainable. Yes. Right. Okay. Great. That's great. I think forge ahead unless there are any more questions. So you're still sorry. So you're going to hit on the park parks capital improvement fund. Yes. And then I'll get to the capital improvement fund as well. I'll be

okay. All right, we can move ahead to the parks capital improvement fund. Um, and if you want to go to the one slide after that, please. Um, same format of the kind of highle overview of the parks capital improvement fund in your budget document. This starts on page 249. So for the parks capital improvement fund, this is where we would budget for kind of our largescale park and trail uh improvement projects. And the the interesting thing about these projects is they don't ne neatly fit into one fiscal year. we're talking about construction that, you know, happens in the spring, summer, maybe early fall, which of course is is perfectly bisected by changing over to the fiscal year. And so sometimes we do have to estimate what's going to be fully um constructed by June 30th, what's going to linger into the next fiscal year and do some projection on um what carries forward yeartoear. Um but included in the fiscal year 27 budget um on the revenue side of things um we do see some de decreasing um in the grants community support and other and the big piece of that was um we had planned to use some of the fund balance in fiscal year 26 um that were not then carrying that same use of fund balance into fiscal year 27. A part of that was just revenues coming in for fiscal year 25 that we then end up spending the project on fiscal year 26. So that's where you'll see the reappropriated equity or the use of fund balance um both sides of that kind of go up and down yeartoyear because these projects don't neatly fit into one fiscal year

which makes it tricky to sort of track spending.

Yes, it does. Which is why we can why I look at our tracking by by project, right? And so kind of seeing how that um investment looks at maybe the different different parks, different trails, that kind of thing. Um or you know we could look at trying to smooth that and figure out where um you know what is the five-year average kind of thing or um really looking at the funding side of things as far as the the funds that the city puts into those projects separate from any grants that we receive. Um that might be a a more reliable way to kind of track the city's investment in those pieces. Um as far as a you know medium or or long-term trend. Um what we do see in the grants and community support for fiscal year 27 um includes receiving some funds from the natural resources trust fund grant that we have for the northern tier trail extension as well as um CDBG funding both for the trail extension by the soccer complex as well as a recommended project to realign the trail by the fire station. And the income tax allocation is budgeted just over 851,000. um that's up $225,000. That's um a big portion of that is due to the compliance efforts that have been undertaken to really receive those income tax funds. And that amount really is is determined by what's coming in. It's not driven by here's the project that we're going to do. Um but rather what's the 20% that comes in that has to be dedicated to infrastructure and how does that get split between streets and sidewalks. Currently about 8% is dedicated toward facilities, parks and trails. Um the other thing that you'll see on there is bond proceeds. So that is identified for recreation facility parking lots. So that would be the parking lots for the soccer complex as well as the aquatic center and softball complex. Um that was one of the projects

that was on the list that we discussed at the March 10th discussion only meeting. Happy to talk a little bit more about some of those projects um as we talk about the capital A and expenditures. on the next slide. Um so the first image that you see on that slide is the northern tier trail by fire station. So this is a um would be a new project that we introduce in fiscal year 27. This is recommended for funding by the CD advisory committee for CDBG funding in the upcoming fiscal year. Um, and this is a project where I was approached by the fire chief that what he's seeing more and more is conflict where the trail overlaps with their driveway. Um, and while the picture on the slide is staged, that is a frequent occurrence um where the emergency vehicles um often need to wait for pedestrians to clear out of the way because the trail currently overlaps with with that fire station driveway. Um, so we've identified that we would need to um basically construct the trail off of that driveway in order to mitigate that conflict. Um the other piece, the parking lots, we had originally um expected to span both fiscal year 26 and 27, but based on kind of the expected timeline of when those would work best for those facilities. Um those projects really would all appear as expenditures in fiscal year 27. Um and the image on the slide shows kind of the current condition in some of the areas of those parking lots. Um the other thing that we are able to include in this project is building an accessible pathway to the dog park. Right now it's a kind of a gravel walkway. Um we would be able to include paving that within with an accessible pathway as part of that project. Um, we have funding included in the fiscal year 27 budget for Luchia Unaro Fox Park that would help with uh neighborhood engagement and planning for future installation of park amenities

and/or lowmaintenance native landscaping. There's also some funds for some natural improvements in parks, including um potentially Exotica Park habitat improvements, as well as pond water quality restoration in Albert A. White Park. Um, we've identified playground equipment and park amenities, potentially Robert Shaw Park for improvements to the play equipment in that park. Um, as well as continuing work on the Valley Court Park um, improvement master plan and connectivity plan. That is kind of an ongoing collaboration with the DDA as far as it relates to the connectivity plan. Um, and really that next step would be additional community engagement to develop kind of a more detailed phased construction plan and specifications to really identify here's what exactly would need to happen first so that we could then pursue grant funding in an upcoming cycle. Other projects that are not pictured on the slide but are included in the narrative would be um the northern tier trail extension to the soccer from the soccer complex to Kulage Road. Um as well as fence repairs around the Hannah Community Center or Britain Field. Um and then an allowance for individual amenity repairs that um as well as as needed architect or engineering services and labor costs for DPW engineering staff to do inspections for active projects. So that is the parks capital improvement fund. Would you like me to move on to the capital improvement fund as well or do you have questions on this part?

I just I just had a real brief one about the valley court connectivity plan. You said that's ongoing. Um and then as you go along uh you have to have community engagement to kind of go about that. So is there not a full gauged idea of what that's in going to end up being like right now or is that just where you got to get the community engagement part to kind of really go forward with the direction?

Yeah. So what we have is we have an approved kind of master plan for the park. So we have uh we went through a community engagement process um where we kind of said what would you like to see in the park? What kind of things are important to you to see in that park and where do those kind of fit in? And so we have kind of a what I would call a rough sketch of, you know, these are the things that we'd want to see in the park. Um, but we have what we haven't done is like construction drawings or identifying which part of this would make sense to build first. Right? If you're talking about a full-scale park renovation, but you don't have the funding to do maybe the entire park all at once, what part would would make sense to do first in order to kind of get that out of the way so that you could then build another part of that second? Um, and really kind of have some more exact level of detail, right? So, one of the things, for example, that's on the the master plan is to include an amphitheater in the park, but it doesn't say exactly what size. It doesn't say exactly what all of these things look like, right? What kind of roof shape or those kind of pieces? And that would be kind of that next level of starting to fill in some of those details. So, I guess the best way to say that is we have, you know, we have a coloring page. We have the outline, but we haven't started filling in the colors on it.

And and that that the funding from that originally came from where how did that work? The connectivity part of it. So that was a a collaboration where the the valley court redevelopment plan for the park itself um came through the parks capital improvement fund using income tax dollars. It was a collaboration with the downtown development authority who was focused on the corridor and the the street improvements that would lead people from kind of along um Elbert to the park. So there's a collaborative funding piece there. Okay, that's the piece I was missing. Thank you. Just a couple of questions. Um,

so 1.5 million for parking lot improvements right at the recreation facilities. Um, is there any chance that we can recoup that through fees? Yes. And we had a bid opening a couple hours ago and I'm pleased to tell you that the total cost is going to be much less than that. Okay. um base bid on those was about 1.1. And then the idea So the idea would be to fund that with bond proceeds but then allocate those charges to fees to those facilities

to to those facilities and and that would dovetail with the cost recovery program to try to figure out how we can avoid transfers from the general fund. Do I have that logic approximately? You absolutely have that logic exactly right. And I'm just pulling up the exact roughly um for example, it would be maybe um 26 to $28,000 a year for the aquatic center that they would then recover through their user fees. So they have to make up that amount on their um users who visit that facility, right?

Um which ultimately if you talk about a per visit cost, it's less than a dollar per visit. So that that's very helpful context actually because I wasn't sure how all the pieces fit together. Um but that uh that's reassuring because when I see 1.5 million for parking lots I think do we really need a new parking lot? And I understand you know pavement deteriorates right? Um, but I'm glad to know that we can pay for it from the fees paid by the users of those. Um, the realigning the northern tier trail by the fire station.

I imagine if that truck parked there were to blow its horn, those people would scatter. But I guess that's not the kind of thing we want to rely on in that sort of situation. Well, I'm looking for quick fixes to expensive. Yeah. Um,

problems. the, you know, the the easy quick fix is to repaint the line that says here's where you're supposed to be or, you know, you've seen maybe some of those temporary barricades that maybe get glued down where they're kind of identifying um here is a um bike path or whatever, and it might just be like an an orange fiberglass kind of stake or whatever. That could be kind of an a a shorter term solution to say here's let's clearly demarcate what is pathway versus driveway. Um although I would certainly need to run that through the fire chief to make sure that we weren't taking away the maneuverability of their of their driveway. Um so I think there's both kind of the short-term here's what you could do right away as well as really trying to identify what's the best solution longer term.

Yeah, I sure don't want to stand in the way of the right solution to a real problem. But um and I'm not interested in nickeling dimming anything. It's just

the the question did that occur to me. Um and then going back to the um your presentation on the the parks and recck fund. I had a question about the the OST grant. Is that ending or is that a continuing grant? That's the So the grant is one that we received and I want to say that we received notice of that in um either late November or December. Um and that grant period goes through um September 30th. Um so this is the third time that we have received that grant. Okay. Um but it is a competitive application every time. Um and from what I understand, unless they change the program requirements moving forward after you have received that three times, there's um a score penalty for future applications. So you are less likely to receive that um in future years

because that covers a significant part of the cost of that program. Yes. A big component of that is is that the grant um reimbures a part of the program fees to those families. Oh, so we don't see the benefits directly. We see some of the benefits directly um but it also benefits some of the families directly. But it does allow us to offer several additional programming as well as um covers the cost of um the some of the staff for those programs as well. Is this something else that we could consider uh turning over to the school board?

I don't think that there's an appetite for that. But that would be a question for the school district. I will say that many communities run a before and after school program through parks and wreck or a third party nonprofit. Okay. It seems like a third party nonprofit might I don't I don't know. There's this line that I'm trying to find for myself about what businesses should we be in? Mhm. And and some of the legacy of that program is is that that was part of the um East Lancing Recreation and Arts nonprofit that um was dissolved and merged into the city to create parks, recreation, and arts in 2002. Um and so that had existed separately as a a partnership then a nonprofit between the city and the school district. Um and I don't have all of the context of exactly why that wasn't the best solution at at that point in time. um other than it it made the most financial sense for that program to come into the city at that point.

Yep. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions on this? Steve, I do I do Steve Steve. I'm sorry. Thank you. Um, so I do appreciate I can see where you've really tried to cut some expenses through a lot of these different categories and these are tough days and I you're stepping in as first of all, welcome. We're glad you're officially the director now. Thank you.

And you've got amazing staff just like DPW. Um, I interact with quite a few of your staff and I'm very very impressed with their attitudes, their perspective and they've got a high service mentality and they have for many years. So I appreciate the many areas you've cut from even last year. Um, I guess my big picture concern is having a budget without a bond. Um cuz there's a lot of things I know that it would be really really very very helpful and wonderful to do. I'm just not sure if and I think I'm an isolated voice in that argument that right now considering the the the vote last fall and um even though there's a lot of really valuable processes so I don't know how could we absorb some of the cost of some of the projects within the budget I don't know that you we are going to be able to do that of all the different bond propos proposals. Um, again like the fire department, I spent a lot of time in that back parking lot. It's not a parking lot that's really designed for the public.

There is several parking lots, parking spots out front. Um, I think yeah, creative. I appreciate in so many ways you've really been very very creative on trying to save costs. I guess has that been a consideration? What happens if we would choose not to do maybe this is more for the city manager. Are are you inquiring about the parks capital improvement projects? I just want to get some clarity. Right. Okay.

Um so right now fortunately the um we've been very beneficial to receive um a substantial allocation of income tax revenues based on how um the charter says that those need to be distributed to infrastructure. And if we did not move forward with the um bond issue for at least for the parking lot project, all of the other projects that are identified in the parks capital improvement fund um are income tax or grant funded. Um and if you look at the total available fund balance that's projected at the end of fiscal year 27 is about 1.5 million which means that we could use um kind of fund balance or you know addit income tax dollars to pay for those parking lots separately from doing a bond issue.

Thank you. Mark you had some questions.

Yeah a couple of things. one uh I'm glad we are talking about bonding uh because these uh capital improvement projects are capable of being bonded as opposed to using our other funds with regard to it and it's up to the public then to decide what they want to do. Uh we use that bonding to construct the aquatic center, the softball complex, and all of our basically all of our other recreational opportunities within the community. And to the extent we need to maintain them, we can bond in order to do that. I think we just need to make that pitch to the public uh and see what they want to do. With regard to Valley Court Park, which is on your your picture list anyway, uh we have a plan to improve that entire park.

Correct.

And the cost of that plan should be part of a bonding uh opportunity. I know you've limited it to the to the um Valley Court Community Center, which I can't remember exactly was built 1927, something like that. It was the original public works garage. So, um we've talked for a long time about um redoing that entire property. And uh as part of a larger plan, I think it would be useful for us to talk to the public about what they'd like to see there. Um and not just put 350,000 more into a building that is old and requiring more and more money being put into it. So that's my reaction to that. Although uh you know, we'll see how it goes during the budget process. And then I want to talk about before and after. Um, I'll just note that, uh, when I came here, uh, you know, I came here with three kids. I was single parent. Um, we didn't have a before and after program. School district began the the before and after program after a number of single parents uh, approached the school board to talk about the opportunity to have that uh, at the Bailey School. And um I'll just uh note that in the first grade class of my son, I think there were 23 students in that class, 17 of us were single parents. So 17 of those students had a single parent. It was a critical need within our community at that time and I continue to think it is at this particular time. So when we took over the program after SCAP

and um Elra um Elra we had a financial problem with it was poorly managed and uh the city took over all of those uh recreational efforts and created this great department that we have now. um and we assumed uh the before and after program which was at several locations at that by that point. So the whole idea of turning that back over to the school board which probably can't afford to operate it I think that is something that is expected to be operated by the city of East Lancing. It's certainly something that needs to be offered within our community. So I would be very resistant to us reducing or eliminating that program.

Chuck, any comments?

Okay. I I I just have a comment about uh you as the director and coming in and doing this presentation. I know I'm very impressed with everything I heard about you and then you came in here ready to rock and roll and very thorough and I appreciate that and I know you take a lot of pride and doing a great job and as uh the other council members says about trying to make this thing work and keep this thing afloat. Um uh this department's dear to me um and to some of the comments that um council member Meadows said as far as the before and after program and how um people benefit from that in our community. I you know the whole area of what we do for programming and you know I I said in my very beginning that you know we're responsible for three things infrastructure public safety and quality of life and I think with a lot of the things that you are charged with and managing is part of our quality of life and our culture and I think it's very very important for us to be as creative as possible to keep as much as we can in a way that really is representative of who we are as a culture. culture. So, thank you. Thank you.

I just had a couple of uh couple of leftover questions. One was about um installing amenities in parks. Certainly. Um so, there was for example a plan to upgrade some amenities in Shaw Park, right? And we've we've put a bunch of stuff in Stoddard Park and various other parks. Um once we install those things, we have to maintain them. Yes.

Right. So, that's an expense. And then um there may be some additional maintenance uh that DBW has to pick up. So is are we thinking along the lines of perhaps scaling back? So it's one thing to have a park. We don't we want to keep our parks, right? Because we don't want to let them go away because then they're gone. But we can choose to put amenities in parks or not depending on how affluent we're feeling in a particular time. So, is it something that you're thinking about that maybe we need to scale back on amenities? Would that save us money or would it not?

I potentially uh what I'm thinking about is is looking at the places where some of the existing amenities are 30 or 40 years old and they're requiring substantial maintenance um and working very collaboratively with public works and the park maintenance team to identify what are the lower maintenance type of amenities that we could replace that with. um things that might still also be under manufacturer's warranty. Um I've had conversations with um the GIS team at at DPW about making sure that we put that on a calendar that says, "Hey, if the warranty is going to expire in 5 years," that we're out there at four years and 6 months inspecting it and getting every last warranty claim that we could to make sure that we're not, you know, um paying for any replacement parts after that period of time. Um, and so I do think that, um, you can have an existing level of amenities if you make smart choices about what those amenities are and if you choose the, um, lower maintenance type of options. And that's a very collaborative process.

Okay. Um, but I'm guessing you're also considering just pulling out amenities if it makes sense. There are times where that might be the correct answer depending on what the the needs and the of that type of of park might be. Um, and certainly communities and neighborhoods grow and change over the years. And if that park has not been upgraded in 40 years, the needs of of today's neighborhood might be very different than what that park was designed for 40 years ago.

Right. And then I wanted to address the issue of bonding for maintenance because my understanding is that bonding is for infrastructure um, and that maintenance needs to be funded by other means. And I was going to ask the city manager to address that issue if he was able to. Sure. Um, yes. The bond that we've talked about is for capital improvements in either um public facilities or as Justin indicated, the parking lot at the aquatic center um typically have a useful life of 15 to 20 years. And so instead of cash flowing it, you try to spread the cost of making those improvements over the useful life and therefore not drain your reserves. Maintenance is something that we're funding through our annual operations.

And maintenance, of course, is what we tried to do with the millillage, right? Because we can't bond for maintenance. And that's why we went with the millillage because we used bonds to build a bunch of infrastructure that we have now been maintaining out of the general fund that we can't afford to maintain out of the general fund. That was the basic logic there. Okay. Onward to the capital improvement fund. Certainly. All right.

All right. The capital improvement fund. If you will go to the first chart in that slideshow. Great. Um this will be page 241 in your budget document. Um again consistent format as far as what this kind of highle overview of the fund looks like. Um but the you know big uh story on this which we've already started to talk about is that the fiscal year 27 budget does um assume issuance of a um general obligation limited tax bond to support facility improvements. Um an initial list of identified projects was presented at the March 10th discussion only meeting. um other items that are in here. So, the capital improvement fund predominantly works uh to um fund the infrastructure improvements for city-owned buildings and facilities. There's also a portion of this that is um for the Aenddale Square Brownfield plan and that project. So, you'll see kind of Aenddale Square called out separately in the full chart in the document um separately from our facility projects. This is also the fund where we ran some of the ARPA funds for facility projects which are now complete. So you'll see as those have fallen off, we've wrapped up those projects. Some of the um ARPA funded projects being complete will show decreases in the expenditures. Now, um but the grants community support and other includes the Aenddale Square Brownfield plan as well as a grant from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council um for improvements to the theater here in the Hannah Community Center. Um the decrease that you see is due to reappropriated equity that was used in 2026. That was kind of the last bit of ARPA funded projects. Now that those projects are done, we're not reappropriating those funds to expend in in the previous fiscal year. So that's

where that that decrease in total um other comes from transfer from the general fund is purely for the Aenddale Square project that's related to the brownfield plan projections. The income tax allocation we don't have any transfer planned for into the capital improvement fund for this upcoming fiscal year. Certainly depending on how projects shape out, we could certainly amend move some of the income tax dollars from the park capital improvement fund into the capital improvement fund for specific projects um in a future amendment. Um and then this then would include the bond proceeds. Um that's part of the um discussion that we've been having already. Um the facility capital improvements would show up under the capital outly. uh debt service would represent um the Aenddale Square debt service as well as the bond issuance cost for that um facility improvement bond. Um and then other operating costs are rel reappropriated equity for construction costs. So the other kind of important highle overview of this um is that the budget assumes that we issue the entire bond amount um in fiscal year 2027 but realistically it will take across three fiscal years to construct all of those projects and so not all of the expenditures are reflected. So that a a large portion of that would be held in fund balance for expenditure then in fiscal years 28 and 29. And if you could go to the next slide it'll show that a little bit more. So, what I did for this fiscal year 2027 budget is out of that list of projects that was in your agenda packet from the March 10th discussion only meeting identified the highest priority projects um or the things that really realistically could get done within fiscal year 2027. Um and that amounts to about $3.8 million in expenditures. Then

I kind of show you fiscal year 28 would be about 4.9 and about 3.2 million in fiscal year 29. So that total um bond issue that's included in the fiscal year 27 budget of the 12 million, not all of that gets spent in fiscal year 27. So you're really accounting for three years of spending in in that first year. Which is why when you look at that inbrief on page 50 that you mentioned, it jumps up from 3 million to 12 million is because you're accounting for three years of projects in one revenue. Um I I just wanted to highlight a couple of the projects that are on here. Um specifically, um for city hall, there are certain projects that are critical. Um and without doing, uh debt service debt financing or doing the facility bond, um we would need to identify alternative funding. Um one of those being that the boiler at city hall must be replaced before this upcoming winter. Um it's requiring basically daily intervention from our maintenance staff and uh we need to replace that before it gets cold again. Um the elevator modernization projects that are identified for both city hall and this building are a code requirement. If those projects are not complete by December 31st of 2027, we can't operate those elevators anymore. Um the generator at city hall is ident is is currently operational. when we do regular preventive maintenance. Um, but based on the last assessment of that, it's only able to output about 80% of its rated capacity. So, that's definitely something that we want to look at replacing, especially because it supports the emergency operations center as well as the data systems for the city in order to make sure that those things can stay online. Um, as well as looking at replacing the sump pumps that have exceeded their expected service life, putting those on a duplex system that is connected to emergency power to ensure that even if there were a power outage that our are

some pumps that work in the basement level of city hall would still be functional for here at the Hannah Community Center. Um, looking at again boiler upgrades. The current boiler is 24 years old. It's at the end of its expected service life. So, it's fortunately has not far exceeded how long we expect that to last, but it is at the point where it would definitely um need to be replaced. Also, would be looking at upgrading the um building management system. The remaining parts that are on a pneumatic control, temperature controls, we would convert to digital control, which has the added benefit of being able to alert our maintenance staff when something is broken. So that you don't come into your office in the morning and identify, oh, it's very cold in my office because we would have already gotten that alert that something is wrong well before any user would would even notice. Again, there's an elevator modernization project on here. Um, the other piece is we would look at actually upgrading the generator and HVAC in one of the one of the HVAC units for this building to really help the Hannah Community Center serve as a resiliency hub. Um, we'd be looking at replacing the generator with a whole building unit. Um, that would really give us the power to kind of operate all of the rooms if there were a power outage. um as well as replace the kind of HVAC unit that provides both heat and cooling for the executive conference room. That's the large conference room on the second story. And what's important about that is it provides one space that is cooled separately from the main chiller, right? If you think about this as a res residential, it's like having one room of your house that's separately cooled from your main air conditioner. So if your main air conditioner goes down, you still have one space that's cooled that you can go to. It's important for us to kind of have that backup so that in the event of an extreme heat situation, we

could operate a cooling center and even if that main chiller went down, we'd have a backup space for that. Um, so really that's about um providing a level of um service to the community, operating as a resiliency hub. Um, and then continuing work through our roof asset management plan. There's um different sections of roof area that are identified different periods of time. It's not like a a residential house where you do all of your roof at the same time. We've got different areas that are different sizes at different elevations. Um, one of the areas would be over the dance studio that's identified as being in poor condition and and due for replacement. Other project we talked about um briefly at the discussion meeting was the fire station, expanding and renovating those sleeping quarters um and potentially rebuilding that parking lot um as well as work for the Valley Court community center. So questions

questions, Mr. Griggsby. Yes, thank you. And I I don't want to sound like I'm nitpicking. um on some of this here, but I'm just I just really want to get a real feel for So, is the is the Hannah Center community service elevator modernization, is that codegenerated for compliance or is that I mean, and then the hydraulic jack replacement is is that code Yes.

compliant. Okay. Yes. So, if I if I may just give you a little bit more context, the state updated the elevator code. They adopted a new safety standard for elevators and there's a phased implementation of different sections of that code. Um, and the part that we need to make sure that we upgrade the elevators and comply with, the state gave all of the people who are operating existing elevators until December 31st of 27 in order to make those upgrades. So, I think the rule officially went into effect in 2024 and there's a phased implementation of that. Um, but it is code driven.

Okay. Yeah. you know, you know, as I think in my mind in this discussion about prior and certain things and and trying to get away with others, you know, um you know, I try to as as the mayor was looking at ways to kind of really be creative with that. And then so the same thing is with the Valley Court uh replacement of the uh HVAC equipment and things like that or is that where I mean is that like a 80% situation where it's you know, how poor is it? So, that one is something that could be spread out a little bit longer. Um, I think in the previous version of kind of our five-year capital program, we identified spreading that o over three or four years. Um, the reason that was kind of all lumped together in this was the idea of if you are going to bond finance some of your projects, if you kind of lump all of that into that one issue, you only have to pay that kind of setup charge one time. Um, as opposed to if you are doing multiple issues. So, say you, you know, issued a bond this year and then you did another one the next year and then you did another one the next year. Well, then you're paying the setup and servicing fees three times to kind of create that. Um, and so as a part of trying to generate some maybe uh efficiency um or economies of scale really pulled all of those numbers into that one issue that really would cover the critical projects. You know, I identified a three-year expenditure for those, but really it would cover kind of the the most critical projects within the next three to five years. Thank you. Further questions, Mark?

Just uh have more of a comment actually, but I I think I think people should realize that if we do bond uh you know, let's say we we bond for $12 million, then uh you know, that money goes into a separate account that we have to maintain with regard to the bond. We can invest that money as it's used. it is pulled from the account. But that $12 million can end up being more than $12 million over the period of time that is actually used. In this case, over a three-year period, we are likely to see some gain anyway that can offset some of the legal costs that were originally associated with it. And so that it's a better way of doing business um if we're going to go in this bonding direction on this. So, I just wanted to mention that.

Appreciate it. And this is my first go. So, I apologize uh to the public. I'm learning as we go along. And I really appreciate um like I said earlier about kind of what you're you're you're doing with us and I appreciate my colleagues in and asking some of the questions that I haven't got there just quite yet. So, this is a tremend I just want to get it right and be a positive uh force to our budget and come into answers at the end of the day. So, thank you and your patience. Couple of questions. Um, the the investment in the Valley Court Community Center, is that something we could recoup from leasing fees?

Uh, it it could be. Yes. So, under the current agreement that we have with um now Forester Woods,

um, they do not pay a space rental fee. That agreement, I think, expires at the end of June. Um, so that that will be up for some renegotiation. The history of that program is that the city used to operate the kind of adult day services program that was then spun off into um gosh I can't help hands respit center at the time and then merged with Forester Wood. So the city used to operate that program directly kind of passed it off to a nonprofit. And so there's kind of that that legacy of um the city had paid uh I think about $10,000 a year to say, "Hey, you're going to operate this program for us um and you can use this space at no cost." That's why that relationship is set up in that current way.

Yep. I mean, the issue is that all this stuff costs money, right? And we have to figure out how to pay for it. And that's the origins of my question. I understand. Um the the debt service that you've listed on this slide um for parks and recreation fund it says it includes expenses for thirdf flooror renovation. Does that refer to this building? Yes. But that's not on the list of projects here. So those that would be part of are you on the slideshow or in the budget document on this slide here?

Well, yes. So that would be something that realistically would not get started until fiscal year 28. So, it's kind of part of the amount for the issue, but not in the um fiscal year 27 budget. And I think that's a great segue to point out kind of the five-year capital improvement program document, which I believe um Robert had shared the page number was I think the five-year spreadsheet starts on page 41 in your agenda item report. And that will show all of those project expenditures for the next six fiscal years, including this fiscal year. Um and so the interplay of that is that first column that shows fiscal year 27 is what's in the budget document and then the future years are kind of forecasted. Some of the projects that are identified for bond financing are a little bit more um I would say there are more robust estimates of those future costs um compared to maybe a project identified 5 years out. I can't reasonably predict what level of inflation might hit in 5 years. Um but the projects that are identified at least for bond financing have a um pretty reliable estimate of probable cost.

So for the third floor renovation, we've been talking about this for a long time and we've been talking about it since you know this turn of mine on the council. We were going to spend some ARPA money on that and decided not to and it turns out it was good that we didn't because we needed that money for other things. Have we uh so we continue to budget for that renovation. Do we continue to think that it's a good idea? Yeah. So, let me provide two observations. Okay.

One is the biggest draw back to renovating the third floor was a belief we needed to install an exterior fire escape um system. after thorough review by um building official and the fire department, they've issued a memo and said that is not required. Did we know that? No. Well, we just found out or we just Okay, we just found out in a couple weeks ago. This is a big deal. So, this is based on updated uh code and

like adoption of updated building and fire codes. Um and they ran that through um the IFC or IC whatever that um kind of code authority is. They ran their interpretation of the code through that and identified that no we would not need to build an exterior egress that the two stairwells that are existing would be sufficient. So that's about a $ 1.5 million cost that this budget assumes we would need to do. Um and within the last couple of weeks we heard otherwise. So that would take $1.5 million right off the top of that. and and really second point is making the renovations to the third floor much more achievable. You know, so we in years past applied for congressionally directed spending for that fire escape as well as the renovation to the tune of just over $6 million. not very attractive to some our uh federal legislators. But with this being removed and then looking at the potential of certain programs in this building that are very popular but limited because of space, does opening up the third floor also generate additional revenue to help offset some of the operating costs of this building? So those are things we want to analyze before we say for certain that it's much more in reach than prior years.

So then my last question is if we include that in a bond, if we include money for that in a bond and then upon further analysis decide that it's not within reach or not indicated,

um are we committed to spending that money that way? you you're not committed to spending it specifically on that, but it would have to be on a public facility. Uh so there is flexibility in it. We would make sure that the language in that bond offering references a little broader approach to renovation of this building and other be it city hall, fire department and so um have some flexibility but again I think there's going to be an expectation by the community that if we do start talking about and analyzing the possibility of renovating the third floor, I'm sure there's some stakeholders in this building that would kind of pressure you to continue to move in that direction. And I see council member Meadow smiling because he's probably already heard some of this. But more importantly, before we even move to a bond issue, we'd make sure we had our numbers

um refined enough and um looked at what the revenue projections would be to help offset some of those costs. What I will say is that you know high level overview the expansion to the third floor would allow us to expand programs that we could achieve some um economies of scale with some of those programs that are currently artificially limited in the number of participants based on their room size. There are programs where we have weight lists of 16 or more people that if we could expand those into a larger space, receive additional program revenue and help offset any of their operating deficits. Yep. and fixed costs like administration and so forth.

And so then my last question was you mentioned fixed essentially fixed overhead for bond issuance, right? That makes it better to issue one bond as opposed to three for example. Can you give us a just a ballpark estimate of what those fixed costs are for bond issuance? How much of a hit would we take for for this particular bond? I mean, is it is it 1% of the bond? Is it? No, it's actual costs of like um your bond council. So, attorney fees, your underwriter charges a fee somewhere between 60 $80,000. So, based on that preliminary estimate that we had received from the um bond adviser, the amount for the issuance that's in the budget is $341,600. That's the fixed cost. Yes.

So, every time you do a bond, you're looking at something. It's proportional to the amount that you issue. I see. Um but so a portion of it's proportional and the other part is is the Yes. Okay. But potentially at least tens of thousands of dollars if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes. If you're going to issue two versus one. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any final questions concerning capital improvements? Mark, you got something?

I I'll just say that uh this news about the the outside fire escape and the million half dollars that we would have had to invest in that is really good news actually. and it changes my mind completely about the third floor. I'll also note that in a meeting with the LDFA director uh last week, she brought up the third floor as a potential location, which of course would be a revenue stream for us uh as well if that was available for that purpose. But I I smiled because uh almost every senior commission meeting talks about the way to expand the program and the number of people waiting to actually take these classes. So this is this is great news actually.

It's it's certainly the same with our program and I I hear from the the seniors commission almost regularly. They've been very generous to say they would wait until we got through our budget process before they started emailing me regularly again. But I think we're at a point where the we are have broad community interest in in moving forward with that. Um I will say that the the caveat to that being in order to really effectively use that um additional space um we will likely need to look at expanding the available parking spots. Um, I have did some additional calculations in the work, but I believe the original site plan approval limited us to operations on the first and second floor unless we offered additional parking. Where would we offer additional parking?

Uh, we might have to reconfigure the kind of turnaround um where you maybe have that loop or whatever. It's a this is a very very preliminary conversation as far as what might be necessary. I'm still waiting for um the principal planner to get back and say here's the exact number of spaces that you would need under the zoning code um to be able to put together kind of that highle overview. Um but it could be done with some some reconfiguration of kind of the existing surface area. the um the circulation plan for this parking lot was uh controversial when we when we approved the the plan and part of the consideration was and I think that might have been in what you're referring to is that if we ever need more parking we're going to change the circulation uh because we've given up a lot of parking spots to have this nice kind of curved and um way of getting to the parking lot. So,

if this is even a twinkle in people's eyes, do we want to be spending the money on the new sidewalk right now if it means that we have to I I think that's a good question. Um and I I'm hoping to be able to have the information on the number of parking spaces that would be required and have a a concept plan of that before we move forward with that. Um, yes. I I would say that if we know that we're going to tear something out, then then certainly we're not going to install something in a couple of months. Right. That's what I was thinking. I'm right there with you. Okay. Great. Any uh final questions? Is there anything else we need to know, Mr. Bellman, Mr. Drankie? Anything else we need to know?

Concerning u Well, that that's up to you. So, I I want to go to the memo I issued today. Yes. Oh, right, right, right, right. Okay.

Which starts on page 49 of your online packet. It was emailed out uh to each of you. Um it was our um attempt to kind of provide council with some recommendations of reducing if not eliminating the approximately $1.7 million of general fund use of fund balance in order to address the deficit. Um, so I'd like to walk through that uh with you this evening, kind of get your feedback. I know some of the items impact DPW, uh the clerk's office, um the police department, parks and wreck, and so I I want to kind of walk through that and get some direction so that if you want to see some of these items incorporated, Audrey Concincaid knows that and she can make that available in the document that is uh being ready for the public hearing on the 12th as well as the final document for your consideration and approval at our last meeting in May.

So before you start, I think this would be great to walk us through this. Um there's also the other memo that you presented us with a few weeks ago with uh department requests for additional positions and other recommendations. Right. And at the last meeting, we s I think we sort of deflected that back to you looking for your recommendations on on those items. And are those going to be coming separately or Well, we can talk about both of those memos this evening. Okay, that's that's fine. So, so which one would you like to begin with? Well, why don't you start with the one that you sent us this afternoon,

which is more positive? I mean,

yes. Right. So, the um yesterday uh Audrey and I met, we tried to identify opportunities to reduce uh or make some budget adjustments in the general fund to reduce or eliminate the $1.7 million. But I wanted to start out as the memo indicate the deficit in the general fund is right around 2.3 million. And the first effort to reduce that was this vacancy factor that was brought up as part of the discussions with the financial health review committee and implemented by the finance department. So they looked at vacant positions in the police department, finance department, and 54B district court knowing that yes, these positions are budgeted for, but realistically trying to hire someone and fill them all within the fiscal year may not be realistic. So there was a vacancy factor that reduced um expenses. I think Audrey indicated a contra account was established totally $643,000 that then reduced the deficit down to the 1.7 that we're going to speak about other options to reduce. So on the list was um modifying the current practice of budgeting for family health care plan for all vacant positions uh to a double or twoperson plan would reduce the employer healthc care contribution by $106,040. Uh next is the healthcare task force met um which includes representatives from all of the uh bargaining units as well

as the non-union and they were reviewing ways to reduce the 9.1% increase that we are going to receive from the West Michigan health insurance pool for next year's healthcare costs. And so they looked at plan design redesign. uh they looked at whether to uh introduce and move to a high deductible health plan or follow PA 152 which is the 8020 or the hard cap. They ultimately chose the hard cap. So using that calculation the employee co-share would be $261,310. Um again reducing the employer u portion um of those expenses. DPW Environmental Service DNR tree canopy grant matching revenue wasn't uh initially included in the budget. So that's 50,000 on the list. And then election equipment funding, the $195,000 is identified. We believe we'll receive funding either directly through the state or through some grant dollars that, you know, we had the uh initial uh Michigan LEO $1 million election grant. We had uh just over 500,000 left of that grant. We have until September 30th of 2029 to spend it. Uh the equipment doesn't get descertified until 2027. Um I understand from Emily Gordon that the election bureau is writing the RFP. The county clerk will, as with all counties, will be the ones, you know, hopefully getting feedback from local clerks on which vendor uh they want to select and hopefully there's some funding that will come from either the state uh that election grant or

representative Cernigloo was putting in some a request for some state appropriations to assist us with those costs that um would reduce the deficit by 612,350 uh updating the use of fund balance to just over right about $1.1 million. So some additional um items is the other 270,000 that is identified for election equipment replacement um that would come out of that grant or through representative Cernigloo or covered by the state fund. So we put all the entire amount about 4 um 50,000 for election equipment. We removed that from the budget knowing or expecting funding from other sources. So the 270 is the other portion of that. uh DPW environmental service eliminate reactive pruning carryover uh replace inventory plan with tracking protocol representative about 82,500 hazardous sidewalk general fund contributions. So annually the general fund contributes $250,000 uh to replacing a deteriorated or hazardous sidewalk in the community. We're on a cycle that we're supposed to be what, nine, 10 years, five years, and we're probably closer to 20. Um, so this year's budget included appropriating about a half million dollars from the income tax infrastructure uh allocation to also assist with sidewalk. So, the council could remove the general fund and just use the income tax half a million. um it'll get us a little further along but not as far as what um Ron projected with the total 750,000

um police department reduced legal personnel matters. So there's $100,000 in the police budget back again looking at trends that's dedicated to legal services for personnel related items. Looking at the trend we spend about $30,000 a year. So reducing that 100 by the um 70 gets us down to the average amount. Plus there's 100,000 in the police budget for general legal services. So they have about 130,000 to work for legal services be it personnel or general legal services. um HR training estimated initially in this fiscal year at 17,000. After uh HR Director Kenny looked at what um training programs her and her staff wanted to attend, we were able to reduce that uh by $5,000. Um, we're still looking at the fire budget to see if there's additional reductions or revenues that could be offset with some of the services they provide. Uh, parks, recreation fund transfer reduce the transfer from the general fund by 389,000 roughly. Um, and that is representative of three things. So, it represents um there was a fund equity, let me make sure I get it, uh replenishing fund equity by about $48,000. And my statement was if the general fund is going to transfer 2.6 million, why are we replenishing the fund equity in parks? We should reduce the general fund by that $48,000. There was some analysis that is in the budget document um that shows indirect costs being assigned to the aquatic

center um totaling $28,820 and to the school age child I mean main care program of $131,495. Both programs have historically been self-sufficient. So, the idea is to um make them self-sufficient or better yet when I had the conversation with Justin this morning, he says if council does remove that 300 um and 89 or n uh $90,000, he would like the flexibility on how to reallocate that uh reduction throughout other programs um and uh other adjustments. And I recommend embracing that recommendation and just indicate that we're going to reduce our transfer by that 389,000 and allow parks and recck to work with uh finance on how that gets absorbed as opposed to us saying it must come from the aquatic center or it must come from the school uh age childare program. So that would in essence bring us down to roughly a $30,000 deficit. There's also in here that um building and code uh fees. Uh I'm having some initial conversations with Tim Schultz, the building official, and Ely Hodes, director of planning, building, and housing about ensuring that our building fees, permit fees align with their actual cost because they are supposed to be full cost recovery. And we're also examining the relationship we have with Meridian Township where our plumbing, mechanical, and electrical inspector provide services in Meridian. And we get 50% of their permit fees. We want to make sure that the 50% is

covering the actual time and cost associated with those services. So, there's some additional adjustments that could be forthcoming, but don't have them for uh tonight or even probably before your budget adoption. But as you mentioned, mayor, that this budget is a living document that we adjust throughout the year, uh either with reductions or additional um adjustments for grants or programs and services that we need that we did not anticipate. Um, and that goes back to uh in part that April 13th memo where the reductions to some of the boards and commissions um were again tracked not having been spent. I think you heard from one of the um comments under public comment that you know they've been attempting to use those dollars over three years. they haven't been successful. And so those are the ideas of removing them until we're ready to expend them and then come back to council.

Questions, comments?

My comment is that uh I'm in support of every everything in this memo and uh you know I think we should proceed in this this manner. I would like to um if it if there are fee increases that will be reflective also in this uh I know that we'll see them before we pass the budget but as sooner rather than later I think would be uh what I would hope uh and you know as as much as I'm supportive of the before and after program I'd have to say that you know I I I want it to pay for itself And uh as long as we have some kind of programmatic ability to um help those low to moderate income residents of this community to participate in that program, um I don't have any problem with raising the regular fees on that. So

just to to clarify by fee increases as soon as possible, did you mean the fee increase as soon as possible or notification of the fee increase as soon as possible? Yeah, I'm if there's going to be proposed fee increases as part of this, then um I just want to say and I'd like to see them sooner rather than later so that we can absorb them and and make a decision uh individual decisions as to whether we're going to support those or not.

Steve, I really applaud the amount of work that each one of the staff have put into this. finance director, the finance team, each of the different departments. Um, I just am very impressed. I know coming at it very simplistically say we can't spend more than we make. Um, Mr. Bell and I really appreciate the due diligence on this. Um, I think it speaks very loudly to our community that um, we will live within our means and um, I know it's hard. It's hard to charge more money for programs or it's hard to lose some services, but it seems like you've really um adjusted where it does not touch the people as much in many of the ways. So, I really appreciate all the work you've done on this and I think that goes to each of the directors. I know I've talked to several directors in passing and for several months they are working on their budgets day and night. So, I really appreciate all the work that's gone into this.

Mr. Griggsby,

yes. Thank you. I I just want to ask you about the P reduced legal personal matters and and I apologize. I missed I missed how much of a significant cut that is when you look at the 70,000 from what was there. I I missed it. I I apologize. Can you hit that back up for me again? So there's 100,000 for legal relative to personnel matters and another 100,000 for general legal matters. So they had 200,000. When we went back and looked at how much was spent on personnel matters, it ran around 30,000 a year. And so that's where that 70,000 um would be reduced and 130 overall would remain in the police department budget.

Gotcha. Thank you. So on that on that point, it seems to me that there's a mix of things on your list here. And some of it is uh what I think of as pressing air bubbles out of the budget, right? There's there's budget lines that are for whatever reason are higher than they need to be based on past spending and you have identified some of those and removed them so that the budget's actually more accurate representation of what we expect based on past spending. Correct. Um, I would characterize it that way, but also looking at, you know, the budget included um election equipment replacement that we believe could be funded by something else in or another entity. And so instead of building that in, waiting until we actually know whether the state will fund and whatever that dollar amount they won't, we'll come back and and present that to you,

which is again sort of a ma a matter of trying to be as accurate as possible on the assumption that some of this money is going to come from elsewhere. Um, but there are also some cuts, right? And one of them is the 389 for parks and wreck. And I'm I would I'm supportive of the proposal here and also the flexibility um associated with with that. Um and then I did have a question um concerning the vacancy factor. So the I'm still a little confused about this in my head, but I think that the basic point here is that if we end up filling all those vacancies, then we will have to find an additional $630,000

if we happen to fill all those vacancies within the fiscal year. Yes. Right. But and and in the future that vacancy factor may shrink as we fill these positions.

The one thing I've learned two things. So first of all, timing of those filling will also impact that dollar amount. So uh once the fiscal year starts in July, if you don't fill them to December, you have six months worth of saving versus and that's why it's a factor and not uh completely. I think in fact for finance uh the factor that was used is that the first six months might be vacant so we removed it but the final six months the position would be filled. Um so yes timing is is everything and then future um I would love to say that we will always once we fill stay stable and full but in the two and a half years I've been here that has not been the case. So there's always been some turnovers um either for greener pastures or just retirement which may also be a greener pasture for some.

So it may be that the vacancy factor is actually something that's that we continue over time. Yes. It's just a constant thing and it may not be the same dollar amount. Right. And then I had another question about the um the 82.5K for eliminating reactive pruning carryover and replacing inventory action plan with tracking portal. I understand the individual words but I'm not sure what any of that actually signifies. So I'm going to phone a friend. Yeah. Okay. Cliff.

Thanks Justin. Cliff Walls DPW. Um, can you repeat the specific request or question? So, the the line item in the memo here is DPW environmental eliminate reactive pruning carryover. I have no idea what that is. Oh, yeah. The the carryover question, the the second half I think I'm better suited for, but

Okay, we got the big guns. The carryover question is I think we had some um uh emergency pruning that was carried over from that wasn't completed in 26 and we're just carrying that dollar amount over to 27. Um rather than carrying that plus add of 27, we're going to assume that there's just one year's worth of emergency. And obviously that is something that if there's no storms then we don't have that. But um this would include an amount but not the full amount that was originally included. Okay. So, so that's backing out um about $30,000

and that's just money that was not spent on emergency pruning the year before and we originally had carried it over but now we're not going to carry it over. Correct. And so the reactive pruning contract includes not just like the emergency, you know, calls in the middle of the night, but when we identify something that needs to come down because of its age or a hazard. Y um and then also the stump grinding and the restoration of that landscape.

So some of it is predictable in terms of like there's just a a mortality rate and just a a general rhythm to the life cycle of these trees. But yeah, we we typically budget it for what we historically use, but it's so variable because something like last June could happen or it could not, you know, god forbid, but a tornado could or tornado type winds could come through. So, I think this is a safe bet in terms of um you know, budgeting modestly and then if something happens, we can come back. Like I I have no concerns with it. Um, it's just we typically have I've probably overbudgeted just so it's there,

but trying to get more into the practice of coming to council needed something happens versus budgeting for that if if that makes sense. It makes total sense and it's in keeping with everything else that we're sort of doing here. Um, and maybe with the block pruning program. So the block pruning program is the 250 that we budgeted both this year and we'll continue to budget to be proactive. Yeah. And as that continues that may reduce the amount of reactive pruning. Right.

Correct. Right now I would say it increases it because we're looking at looking for problems that we've not looked for for 50 years plus. And so there's um you know when you send a bunch of arborists out to look at all these 80-year-old trees, they're going to find some problems and we were reacting to that and those removals are coming from this. But as time goes on, not just, you know, we'll have made that full sweep that handles a lot that deferred maintenance. But what we're doing with block pruning is you know uh removing vectors of decay eliminating the possibility of um you know uh co-ominant leaders and you know other technical arborist terms um but overall there should be less to react to.

Yep. Exactly. And then the other question was about replace inventory action plan with tracking portal.

Yeah. So this is something it's it's kind of related. There was a budget for updating our 2012 sustainability action plan. This was something the commission on the environment was really interested in. I was really interested in am really interested in um did some research with uh the Graham Institute, the school down at U of M. um and got some pricing for what other communities of our size have paid for, you know, one of these planned developments. The admissions inventory is similar, but like working with a service to kind of benchmark ourselves, like our facilities, our community, our transportation programs, all of that to understand kind of where we're at and then comparing, you know, moving forward be able to benchmark against that baseline. It's just something we haven't done probably in six years. But just for some inside baseball, I guess, um, we're working with this company. It's us, Detroit, Kalamazoo, Sterling Heights, all the sustainability cohorts. Um, and the U ofM School of Information. Basically, we have this free trial for this program that's NSF funded and it's just pretty legit and cool program um that basically aggregates the existing plans that we have like our 2012 plan, our comp plan, all the policy resolutions that we have and kind of develops rather than taking a snapshot in a moment of time through like a plan development and focus groups. It would basically be a living document that as you pass resolutions would just feed into it and then there's this dashboard that you can um you know share with the community to show the progress that we've had on different action items you

know new goals old goals um very metric based which is something that I've really been interested in our plan that exists now is very goal oriented like let's recycle more but not you know, by we want to hit 30% by whatever date. So, this is something I've been kind of trending towards anyways. It was I put the budget together, you know, months ago or my request and this is part of just the direction that I'm hoping to take anyways. And I've talked with the the commission leadership on something that is more living and that it helps tell the story of what we're doing as a sustainability program because you know you get talking to people and they're like, "Oh, I had no idea you guys were doing that. Oh, that's really cool. I didn't know about that." A lot of this stuff is buried in that we're somewhat integrated into a lot of different divisions or like the the outcomes that the community is looking for in terms of the environment and sustainability. You know, I don't always have my hands on it. it's just like embedded in the culture of the community, but finding a way to kind of tell that story not to not just to the community, but council um can be done in a in a probably better, more modernized way than what traditionally has been done. That's I just rambled on there. I recognize that. I guess

he's taking something that I want to do anyways because what I originally proposed is a few months old and things move fast and new opportunities arised and we're reacting to them. Okay, this is all great news. So that's way to tie that up. No, this Sorry. No, this is great news and uh um so it's a it's a worthwhile strategic shift as well as budget benefit. Cool. And like who knows what it'll exactly look like? Like we're not going to say we're going to go with X company or not, but this exercise that we're going through with some of our peers is showing possibilities that are exciting and

this aligns with that. It's also cheaper, so that's good. Well, that's right. All right. Well, thank you for clarifying that, both of you. Um, that helps and certainly addresses my question. Every 50th word of his and then subscription. Okay. So, any more questions on the memo that the city managers just took us through? I think do you have sufficient direction, Mr. Bellman, concerning from us concerning this memo? Okay. And then the other memo was the uh older one. So, the April 13th memo, the April 13th memo

kind of identified uh at my request, I've asked departments not to include new items, but if they wanted council to consider them um be it positions or programs um to get them to me in a spreadsheet and I'd send them or a memo and I'd share that with you um to let you make the final decision on whether you wanted to allocate resources. Now, I'm going to go through this that all of the items in here would increase that $30,000 we just reduced to.

Right. And last time we talked about this, we basically punted it back to you to say which of these do you recommend? So, um I'll run through some of these um just to provide and um keep in mind that some of the positions I'm going to comment on, you know, I uh respect the request of the department, knowing the operations uh more intimately than me. Um but again, knowing our financial position, we may not be in a position to approve them all. city clerk, the addition of a second part-time administrative position. The budget impact is about uh $30,000 at this point. I would uh wait to get a better handle on where we're at as the year progresses. Um the fire department training captain again, $141,000 uh uh almost $142,000. Uh I would wait on that. It was a request they submitted last year. We did not fill it. Um I again would recommend not filling it this year only because of our resources uh limitations. Parks and recreation part-time school age care specialist um cost is 55,000 but the budget impact is 27,365 I believe this position because that program again is self-sufficient uh should proceed plus it helps us meet uh changing requirements in the program. Right. All right, Justin's giving me a thumb up on that one. Uh reclassify personal um trainer to regular part-time uh position cost uh estimated 65,670. Uh impact of the budget would be 14,370, but it would be netneutral because we would adjust our fees um to cover those additional costs. So I recommend that item number two under parks and rack marketing and sales specialist

position cost is 86,292 impact on the budget is 9,972 and again these positions exist and so we're adjusting them either by increasing time or um including benefits if we're making them full-time. And on this one, I would like to implement and try to see if that helps us generate renting of space in this building during the times that are not being used by city departments. And so I think the $9,900 is a good investment in the parks and recck fund to see if it generates more revenue. And we'll continue to analyze that throughout the years. So the three items under parks and wreck, I recommend proceeding. Um the police department the police records assistant total in uh impact of the budget is 81,350. I do not at this time recommend proceeding. I'd like to get a better understanding of the workload in that department and uh to ensuring the the need. Um the second item is there I believe is budgeted for eight part-time and the idea would be convert four those to two full-time. uh impact to the budget is 157,000. I do recommend doing that. I think one of the biggest complaints we're hearing is the lack of enforcement, be it parking or code enforcement. They do generate revenue. I think they would pay for themselves and so that uh would be the other one I would recommend proceeding with.

Questions? I don't have a question, but you know, I'm supportive of his recommendation. And I'll just note that I think as you mentioned earlier that there's a potential for an additional 1.5 million or so in revenue u based on other things that may happen over the next couple of months. So, I think we can offset that with that additional revenue and um keeps us um I think paying our own way, so to speak. So, Mr. Riggsby,

yeah, I'm also in favor of the recommendations and um your expertise in and in and going forward with with what you're talking about. Is there any more of that memo that you would like to uh review with us?

So the um other aspect of the memo is um parks and recreation, the increase of cultural arts grant funding. I think the actual letter from the commission was included in the online packet and they're asking for an additional 10,000 to their already $45,000 allocation from the general fund. I do not at this point recommend using general fund. If they had monies in the art fund that could be used for this um and they feel important to proceed, I recommend using that fund that has been set aside. And so I don't know if Audrey has whether or not the art fund itself or Justin has money in their fund balance that could be used if we want to honor the request of that commission

to that point. Yes, there would be a fund balance to cover that $10,000 increase. However, under the recently adopted changes to the um public art percent for art ordinance, the public art fund is restricted to what it can spend money on as far as those specific projects. Um the monies that come in are related to the percent for art ordinance. That uh definition of allowable expenses has been broadened. Um, but it may require the arts commission to go back and amend some of the program requirements for the cultural arts grant for that if that $10,000 increase were to come from the public art revenues.

I guess my reaction is under the circumstances I I think that having a $45,000 cultural arts grant fund is pretty generous and I'm not inclined to argue that we should be increasing it um by 20%. I'm in agreement with that. Anything else? No, that's all I have. Okay. Um, anything else that we need to touch on in terms of budget? Is there anything that staff would like us to know that we don't know that we haven't heard that we haven't asked about? Nothing I'm aware of, but Audrey's shaking her head. No. So,

going once. Going twice. Okay. Boom. Anything from council? So, Steve, mayor, I'm sorry. What's the procedure now? This is again the first time. Well, so this was discussion only meeting. Our main goal tonight was, I think, to um hear the presentations, ask questions, make sure that we're satisfied. That was one main goal. Um, another important goal was giving the city manager direction about his deficit reduction plan and his other memo. And I think he has the direction he needs. Yes.

From us now. And so the budget will be amended accordingly and presented uh for the May 12th public hearing and again um on the final meeting in May for adoption. And I actually just quick go ahead and then the financial commission that financial health team recommendations would likely be for next year's budget not although at least one has already been adopted right and other will have that in June. So, and you could always amend. Yeah, we could always after the fiscal year begins to incorporate any of the suggestions that they bring forward. There's a interim report. Has that been submitted yet?

No, not yet. So, it'll probably be on your May 12th agenda that the commission I mean the committee has put together an interim report at your request. Uh we'll put it into an AIR and submit it as part of the consent agenda. So the vote would be on May 26th, correct? That's when we will adopt the budget. Thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Any further comments, questions? Mr. Meadows?

Just a couple of questions. the u you know in 2025 uh the ELIPAC the committee the commission recommended a budget of $100,000 but I don't recall the commission voting on a budget recommendation this year. So if you can check that out for me. I haven't been at every meeting, I have to say. So, it could have happened when I wasn't there, but I don't recall it happening. But I just want to note that uh unless I'm reading this wrong, the the total um budget for all our boards and commissions is 67,330, which is correct.

Largely small amounts for most of our boards and commissions. And of that, 40,400 is for Ely. That's correct. So almost twothirds of the money is going to Elac. So I'm not sure um why we're being criticized for a reduction that may or may not even have happened. Uh but I'd like some clarification on that as as we go forward. Okay. So I I believe I provided budget information and my memo to uh their staff leaison which is HR director Emily Kenny and I believe she's communicated that to them. Okay.

But I don't know if anything's come of that other than the comments that we've heard tonight. And do we have an official budget request from the commission? We do not.

Okay. Well, it's hard to reduce a budget that hasn't been re recommended. Um, and I'll note that, you know, just on my basic stuff, you know, our budget has been reduced by $47,665 and the city manager's budget has been reduced by 47,000. So, we're all sharing the pain here. Let me just say that. And I guess that's the point I tried to make to Fox 47 and other news outlets that this has been an acrosstheboard approach. It wasn't specific to any border commission or any department. It was a approach that we tried to ask everybody to realistly realistically look at their expense trends and align their budget accordingly. if there was something new again that went into that memo and brought to you

Chuck anything good. So I did so I think this is really remarkable progress. So we started off with you know depending on how you counted 1.7 or 2 something million dollar structural deficit and we're now down to few tens of thousands of dollars. to temper the good news a little bit. I just wanted to confirm that um assuming that we implement all these suggestions that's still net of bond service costs for infrastructure, right? So if

so if we go to to uh sell a bond to do our capital improvements, we would have the annual debt service. Some of that would hit the general fund. Some would hit other funds that um those improvements support, but that is not in the current budget. That is not in the current budget. And when that time comes, we will have a breakdown of how much will hit the general fund and how much will hit Yes. And so that started with, you know, the preliminary list that was provided to you as part of the uh March 10th discussion only meeting. So that gives you some sense of and we can pull that back out and I'll send it to you. give you some sense of what those dollars.

The overall debt service cost was going to be about a million dollars if I remember right from from Justin's slide. Um, and I'm thinking the general fund is probably 700,000 of that. I don't have just as a ballpark. I had Audrey uh Audrey had to pull up the slide deck for me again, but it's about 320 to 360,000 is the estimate for the general fund and the rest would be other funds. Yes. Okay, that's lower than I thought.

Uh the big portion of that that total amount in includes an estimate for all of the fall protection for the parking facilities, which would be in the parking fund, but also may not be necessary if there is alternative funding for that. Okay, great. That's helpful. I'm I'm again, you know, the fall prevention is a grant we're seeking. If we're unsuccessful, you'd have another opportunity to discuss whether you want to invest that 3.4 million in that way or in some other way for Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, this is not bad news at some level. I'm a little startled. Not quite sure what to do, frankly. Um,

take it. take it is exactly exactly right. All right. Any final discussion items on the budget? If not, that brings us to the last item on the agenda, which is adjournment. Is there a motion to adjurnn? Move. Moved by Griggsby, second by Whan. All those in favor say I. I. I. We are adjourned. Thank you all.