City Council - Regular Meeting

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Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the March 11th, 2026 city council work session. Thank you for joining us in this virtual meeting format. For work sessions like this one, there is no opportunity for public comment and those wishing to access the meeting can do so by watching the live stream available on our website, the broadcast on Comcast channel 21 or by calling into one of the phone numbers listed for this meeting on the public webcast and meetings materials page of the city of Eugene website. Thank you again for joining us today. And I now call the March 11th, 2026 work session of the Eugene City Council to order. And we will turn right over to the city manager to introduce our first topic, which is a work session on long range financial planning, benchmarking, and

next steps. Thank you, mayor. Um, this will be the first in a series of long-range financial planning work sessions that we hold with council this spring and early summer. We have our chief financial officer Twyla Miller here along with a consultant Sarah Emmens from SME Consulting that will present data about benchmarking that was done as part of the tag process from last fall as well. And we'll also talk a little bit about next steps for this uh long-range financial planning conversation. So with that, I'm going to hand it off to Twilight.

Uh good afternoon. Um, Twilight Miller, your chief financial officer. I'm some audio issues today, so if that um continues a bit later, I can always turn my camera off. Um, but today I'm here with Sarah Emmens. Um, in February, uh, Sarah, if you want to go to the next slide, that'd be great. Uh, in February, you received the final report from the technical advisory group on fiscal stability or TAG. As part of that process, Sarah gave a great uh benchmarking presentation to that group which she's going today. And while benchmarking jurisdictions, I think you'll find this very information informational informative as you think about the future.

So after Sarah's presentation, yes, this is Mayor Kudson. We are having issues with your audio, so feel free to turn off your video. Thank you. Is that better? It sounds like it so far.

Okay. Apologies for that. Um, so as I was saying, Sarah's going to give a great benchmarking presentation. Um, and while benchmarking isn't apples to apples given the differences between jurives, I think you'll find this uh presentation to be very informative. After Sarah's presentation, I'll provide a brief overview of the long-range financial planning work that will be coming back to council after um your break this spring and summer. And at the end of our presentation, there will be plenty of time for questions. And with that, I'll turn it over to Sarah for her presentation.

Great. Thank you, Twi. And thank you, mayor, and uh members of city council and um city manager for the opportunity to be here again. And really thank you again for the opportunity to be a part of the tag because that was um just a very enjoyable process. I really enjoyed learning about Eugene and actually the excellent questions that the tag asked when I did this original presentation um I think will make the product that we look at today even better because I was able to not only add another year of census data but also kind of refine the analysis based on their presentation. So um that just to note that some of the numbers that I show today might be just a little bit different than the t the numbers that are in the report uh appendix to the tag report. Um and that's because I have updated data. So uh just to start um as a reminder the city was benchmarked against a handful of cities that are um similar and different as we'll talk about uh to Eugene. These are Salem and Bend in Oregon, Boise, Idaho, Fort Collins, Colorado, which is home to Colorado State University, and Spokane, Washington. All of these cities were selected because they are um regionally similar to Oregon. They're either located in Oregon or they're in the the Northwest or the Mountain West. Uh and a few of them have either a large um university just like Eugene does or at least a major employer that really drives a portion of the economy. And I would I would say for Salem that's the obviously the state government and for Benz that's obviously the recreation economy. Um so we'll talk a little bit about some of those um aspects of these communities as we move forward. The key findings that we're going to talk about today um this is not organized in a way that you can kind of tell the themes. But we're going to talk I'm sort of circling here these first three themes which really relate to community characteristics. So, I'll spend a little bit of time talking about some demographic analysis that was done to kind of show what these communities look like uh in comparison to Eugene,

how Eugene is similar and different different in terms of uh primarily age, income, and um housing uh uh issues. Then we'll talk a little bit about fiscal findings. So, uh, don't worry, I will show these kind of, um, in the sections that we'll spend more time talking about these as we go through these sections, but we'll we'll we'll talk about kind of the fiscal findings um that that were that became apparent through a comparison of state of city budget data. And that relates primarily to property taxes and the fact that Oregon cities are more reliant on property taxes and that as you know um Oregon's property tax is is significantly more constrained than um that of the other city states in this group. Um we'll also talk about the fact that Eugene uh does a lot. It's a it's a full service city in my opinion um compared to many of the cities on this list and you can kind of see that when we take a peek at the the headcounts um for each of these cities. uh but despite that it does spend less on a per capita basis than the other cities in the group. And then finally, at the end of this presentation, we'll turn back to some economic data that I showed you last month when I was in Eugene um related to job growth and where Eugene um compares in terms of job growth. Uh before finally turning to somebody else's work, a different benchmark um showing the the quote best managed big US cities that the city manager Prom um actually sent to me. It's really interesting and I wanted to share with you all today. So just again, these are the the cities that we'll be talking about today. They're shown here in the order of their population from largest to smallest. So you can see Eugene's kind of in the middle here. Um Bend is is um significantly smaller. Uh Boise and Spokane of course are significantly larger. Um we have them here. They're showing the square miles. So Eugene is the second smallest in terms of square miles of the cities on this list. And we'll talk about this with one of the metrics that we'll look at um later on.

And then we wanted to include higher ed enrollment. So again, not all of these cities are what you would call like college towns. So Spokane, um, Salem and Bend certainly aren't college towns, but just for reference, we did include the higher ed enrollment of the schools shown on this list. And that is because we will be talking a lot about census data. And when you talk about census data with a college town, um, that younger population does kind of funny things with the data that we can't always control for. So, we just wanted to make sure we had the relative populations of the higher ed institutions um on this list. This is like my my spiel that I have to give um whenever I give a benchmarking presentation. Uh and it's really important to think about this um when you hear this data. Uh so, as Twila mentioned, it's really almost impossible to do a perfect comparison across cities. Um we're going to talk about where there are similarities. We already did in terms of size and and geography. Um we'll talk about where there are differences that might impact the role that the city plays or um how the city functions within the region um that might uh be apparent when we talk about community and economic um characteristics. And then really where this is important to remember of course is when we look at the budget data because cities have different responsibilities. They have different author authorizing environments and it's really impossible to control for these. So, as we go through the data, I'll point out differences that I note and you u members of council might hear things that you are curious about or have observations about um how Eugene functions that might be different than these other cities and we I would love to hear those in the um the Q&A portion as well. So again to start we'll take a look at some census data and these are the takeaways from my analysis from uh of uh mostly American community survey data um from 2024 and these are that Eugene has fewer children and fewer people of working age which I'll define in a in a couple slides um than the other comparable cities. Eugene's younger

households have lower incomes and are less likely to be um of the homeowners in Eugene. they are less likely to be these younger households even compared to um uh Fort Collins which is another kind of large population uh college town. And then third that Eugene has more homeless people which again you know is a statewide issue um and more cost burden renters than other cities in the group. I'm actually going to flip to this next slide and then go back to the previous one because I had these out of order. Um, but we're going to start with by looking at the age of people who live um, in each of these cities. And just to orient you to how these slides look, um, all wherever Eugene appears, it will likely be highlighted in orange. Um, the the Oregon cities will be light blue and then the cities that are in other states will appear as dark blue um, on these slides. So to start, um, the this this chart shows population by age. So when you look at the underage age of 18 category, Eugene has fewer um a lower share of its population is under age 18. So it's proportionately fewer children than the other cities on this list, especially when you look up here at Salem, which almost 22% of the population is under the age of 18. Jumping over to here to this age 25 to 44 category, this is the other category that kind of pops out to me. Eugene has fewer of what I would call a working age population. So people in in the age of 25 to 44 um 26% compared to 32% in Spokane, Washington. These populations uh you could think maybe go together because these this is the population that might have children in the underage 18 category. Um so I just thought that was interesting once we kind of split out this population by age and and looked at it uh more closely. And of course, uh, this right here, this age 18 to 24 category is really where you would see your what we would think of as

student age population. Um, the the University of Oregon population. Uh, although of course some of them might be kind of trickling over into this category as well. And then it was sort of middle of the pack in terms of um, population between age 45 to 64 and 60 uh, the 65 plus population. So, um, I just thought that was interesting. And this is what I would consider to be kind of like your older working population. It's the it's the age range that I fall into. So, I'm not I'm not trying to offend anybody by calling it that. Um, but also actually maybe at the lower end of this this um range as well. So, um, when we think about those populations, it's interesting to think about income. And this is really an aspect that I I didn't get to spend as much time on with the tag. Um, but I'm really glad that they were asking the questions they were. Um because when you look over here on the left, this is uh total income or sorry, median household income in the past 12 months for each of these cities. Eugene had the lowest income. And this is the only data point that I showed when we met with the tag. Uh and so of course we got the question, well, you know, um Eugene has the University of Oregon, so how as much is that population affecting um the household income? So that's the chart that I'm that's the breakout that I'm showing you here to the right. And my takeaway is that Eugene's younger household, so not the student age population, which of course you would expect, does have significantly lower incomes than other cities in the group, but really this younger household population. So uh households that are headed by people aged 25 to 44 have lower incomes than um the other cities on the list. Uh and they they do as well for that um that 45 to 64 age range as well. So they're second lowest um above Spokane only uh for incomes in this group. Uh the 65 plus population, these incomes would include any kind of um obviously salaries and wages, but also

any kind of regular retirement benefits as well, but it was would exclude um any capital gains related income. So the takeaway again is that younger households have lower median incomes than they do in the other cities in the group. Also, just before we move on, thought it was interesting that uh the very young population has significantly higher incomes in Bend than these other college towns. I'm imagining that's because younger folks there working in the recreation industry uh tend to be just working more than than the students. So, now we're going to take uh a look at a few slides that relate to housing. So this chart on the left shows um housing tenure either renter occupied homes which are light blue or owner occupied homes which are dark blue. Eugene does have more renters. So there are 52% of um people in Eugene are renting and 48% are um living in owner occupied homes. Uh and Fort Collins is kind of the second most renters. And this makes sense just given the relative share of the student populations was so high in Eugene and Fort Collins compared to those other cities. Another interesting aspect of Eugene of of that I we took a took a look at with TAG um relates to the fact that Eugene is a relatively low square mileage compared to these other cities. So I did like a very rough measure of of density uh which is just population per square mile which is not a planner's definition. Um, so forgive me, but I thought it was interesting to point out that, you know, in addition to having a lot of renters, Eugene is uh has a higher population per per square mile, so greater population density than these other cities. Uh, this is a breakout showing the percent of homeowners by age in each of these cities. So, the way to read this is not that 22% of people under age 44 own a home in Eugene. It's of all the

people who own homes, how many of them are under 44? And this is organized, sorted here by the um share of homeowners who are over the age of 65. And I thought this was really interesting, especially when we think about the fact that fewer people in Eugene own homes that so many of them are over age 65 relative to these other cities. And that was the case for the other Oregon cities as well, actually by a significant margin. Um, when you look at the greatest share of people in Boise, for example, who own homes, they are in that kind of older working age population that we talked about, the 45 to 64. Um, so I wanted to point that out. This slide shows how homelessness, which is of course obviously a statewide issue. Um, I believe uh Oregon ranks only behind Hawaii and New York in terms of of homeless homeless counts. Uh and Eugene is is uh has one of the highest counts in the state. So Eugene has higher rates of homelessness which is shown here um on the left compared to both of the Oregon cities which themselves are ahead above all of the um cities in this sample. So here's Spokane, here's Boise, and then here's Colorado. Um certainly there are uh probably weather aspects that play into um you know the lower counts here. It's inhospitably cold. Uh but obviously homelessness is a complex issue. Um and so unfortunately one of the things this analysis did not get into is kind of resources to address or to help homeless people um simply because of the time and the focus of the tag. Um the chart on the right shows uh a measure of cost burden among renters. So housing costs over 30% of income in the last 12 months for Eugene and Fort Collins. These are the at the higher end of this rating. Um and of course, you know, this would directly relate to the fact that there

are um so many students in both of these cities. Um although in Eugene because there's such a a large portion of the market that is or sorry, a large portion of the population does rent. Um I think it's an important stat to point out as the um as you all as decision makers are thinking about kind of what the city looks like and and just you know making decisions about housing and and uh that sort of thing. the owned in terms of owned units um the uh housing costs as a share of income were were at the bottom end of the of the um the range here and I don't have the chart that shows the median rent or the median income or sorry median household or home value but they Eugene was kind of in the middle of the pack um when we uh looked at across these cities so this is I think primarily primarily a function of income and then here probably of age. Uh we also talked a little bit about crime rates and and we included these uh sorry this was included when the tag was meeting because of the discussions around how the city is spending its resources and we'll talk a little bit about that um later on in this presentation as well. um how these cities invest in public safety. And so uh crime is just kind of one aspect both on the the um demand side and the service side that I think is directly related to public safety investment. Um so Eugene has the second highest property crime rate of the cities in this sample um shown here highlighted in in orange and behind only the city of Spokane. But its violent violent crime rate is in the middle of the pack um exactly in the middle of the pack here compared to the other cities. So that's the um the overview sort of the context for um you know how the city of Eugene looks, how uh you know its population looks compared to other cities. Um there were a couple of data points that I realized this morning I forgot from the tag and I'm happy to

answer questions about those at the end. um but related to employment and educational attainment um which I I wished I'd included um but you know hopefully that'll give you kind of an overview uh it was intended to give the tag an overview of how the city feels um as a community as we turn to the budget findings. So in terms of the fiscal findings, the things that um that were takeaways from an analysis of uh this is fiscal year 2025 adopted budget data from these cities. Um and the year was chosen primarily because um of the timing of the tag and when that analysis and data were collected. Eugene spends less on a per capita basis than all of the cities in this group in fiscal year 2025. Another takeaway that we'll spend a little bit of time talking about because it does directly relate to city budgets is sort of what the responsibilities are of Eugene as a city compared to the other cities on this list. And the takeaway for me is that Eugene is comparatively full service um compared to these other cities which directly relates to the headcount. The city does have more FTE inhouse than other cities that we looked at. Uh, the Oregon cities are more reliant on property taxes than other cities and the property tax system is more constrained than other states in this group. I know there's a national study out there. I tried to find it before this presentation, but um but at least at least compared to this group of Idaho, Colorado, and Washington, I think that's directly relevant obviously to the um the solutions that that uh that you all are are um struggling to find. So when we talk about city budgets, it's really important to understand what the city itself as an um government entity is responsible for in house um compared to other uh jurisdictions or districts or entities that might operate in in um

these regions. So this chart has the various functions um that are uh in operated by Eugene or some of these other cities with an X and the X denotes um you know does the city have staff inhouse that do this thing uh except for utilities which are um denoted by a number and that simply means how many utilities each of these cities is responsible for. So the first takeaway for me when I looked when I put this data together is that everything from I mean every city has central services which is kind of your mana man management and um um administrative functions and every city is required of course to have police service. But when you go from municipal court all the way down to streets which are also something that every city has to take care of. Eugene is the only city on this list that has an X in every um every line here. So, uh it's the only city that um for example, it's uh Eugene and and Fort Collins are the only cities that operate uh 911 dispatch um which is we'll see when we talk about um police budget in a in a few slides. Um it's the only city that operates both parks and libraries um or one of the only one of the only cities that operates both parks and libraries. Um and so I think that will really be apparent when we talk about the headcount for each of these cities. Um of course the other takeaway is that you know there is uh there are parks and library services in Bend for example. Um but parks is operated by the Bend Parks and Recreation District and library is operated by the Dashuites Public Library District. So service recipients in each of these cities are still paying for these services. They're just not paying the city to do them. And we will take a peek at property tax rates kind of toward the end of this section of the presentation and talk about um what that looks like um for the people who live in these cities.

So with that kind of context in mind, the first part of the next few slides will focus on city spending. So this chart shows total spending um which is the black numbers up here and then general fund which is the dark blue portion of this bar and other fund which is the light blue portion of this bar. Again from fiscal year 25 adopted budgets for each of the cities and Eugene is the second lo lowest in terms of total spending. Um there's some nuance there related largely to utilities that we can talk about in a few slides. And the third lowest, excuse me, in terms of general fund spending, although you can see it's kind of on a par with Fort Collins and Salem, which actually are are um very close to it in size. Um one of the reasons that Spokane's light blue portion of its bar here is so big is that it administers four utilities, the fourth one being um garbage collection and its own pension fund. Um, and for Fort Collins, one of the reasons that the light blue portion is so large is that it has a very, very large and complex enterprise park system. Um, that's actually quite a revenue generator for this city, and we'll talk about that later. Uh, and just the fact that Spokane and Boise are significantly larger cities. They're about 50 to 60,000 more in population than um than these three cities on the list. Um, Bend of course is about 70,000 people fewer and it's pretty close in size to Eugene's budget. So those that that difference in population is one of the things that um I want to address on the next slide. Um because as you know it's really it's um you know total spending can only tell you so much when these cities have different responsibilities and are different in size. So um we took a look at the city spending data in two different ways attempting to normalize it both across population which is the graph that's shown on the left as well as as a share

of household income which is the graph that's shown on the right. So by both of these different measures of um of comparison Eugene is um at the lower end in terms of total spending but about the same in general fund spending as the other cities. Um and again that total fund uh the fact that the total spending is a little bit lower may have to do with the fact that Eugene doesn't operate as many utilities as the other cities do. Uh and the fact that its general fund spending is on a par with the other cities is interesting to me because many of the functions that I called out in the service chart are what you would consider general services that are typically funded at least in part from the general fund. Um, so Eugene is really stretching these dollars um far when you think about how many responsibilities it is it has um in-house. I know I'm going really fast because questions are at the end. So I'll slow down a little bit so you can look at these. Oh, one additional note that I wanted to make on here um because I think this came up uh actually as a question when I was um meeting with the tag is that uh this percentage here does not mean that people spend 6.8% 8% or households spend 6.8% of their income um on city expenditures. Rather, this calculation is just intended to kind of show relative um size. Uh so it's really just simply total expenditures divided by aggregate household income, which is a measure that the census provides. So I don't mean to imply that 7% is how much people spend on government. Okay. So as you know um for most local governments and Eugene is no except exception the uh personnel costs are really one of the true drivers of spending levels. So um we can't talk about city budgets without looking at headcount. Eugene does have the third highest uh per capita headcount of all the cities in the group uh and the highest headcount of the Oregon cities

on a per capita basis. And again this uh directly relates in my mind to the number of functions that that Eugene is responsible for inhouse. Not a not a normative statement at all. Just kind of trying to explain where the data are coming from. So the way to read this is for every thousand residents in Eugene there are 9.5 city employee citywide employees and of those 4.5 uh FTE are charged to the general fund. So 4.5 general fund FTE per thousand residents and you can see the total um FTE counts here. So there were three areas that um the TAG was interested in learning more about and um and so those are police, fire, and parks. Uh so we'll take a few slides here to kind of look at relative spending and relative staffing within each of those functions. Um so what you're seeing here is per capita spending on police. Um the bars are organized by police. I didn't want to change the order for each one. Um fire and parks. Um Eugene has the second highest spending in terms of police, the third highest fire spending, so that's this middle bar here. And the second lowest spending on parks um of all the cities in the sample. Again, Bend is part of this Bend Parks and Recreation Department um district, excuse me. Uh but I didn't want to include per capita. Actually was um probably could have grabbed it, but in the interest of time, um I wasn't able to grab it in time for this analysis, and it doesn't align perfectly with Ben's boundaries. So, um, wasn't able to use the city population. I would imagine that it's probably at the higher end here, but we can, um, circle back if that is of interest. So, city staffing again, um, just for police and fire are shown here. Um, and for police that's, um, the the Eugene

has the second highest um, total FTE per thousand residents. Um, this would be an imperfect measure. The best way to do this would be to look at commissioned staff. Um, but this is department level. And the the um one of the reasons that Fort Collins and Eugene are are um higher at the at the higher end of this group is that they both include 911 dispatch functions which are not staffed in-house in the other cities um on this list. Uh in terms of fire spending, Eugene is about second or third lowest in sorry, excuse me, fire staffing. Um Eugene is the second or third lowest in the cities on this sample. Um and again Eugene, Bend and Salem do operate ambulance services inhouse and that would be um some of these FTE would be a portion of this 1.2. Um so something to to to note just in terms of the city responsibilities. Spokane also pays for ambulance services but does not operate it. So it would appear in their budget but not in their their headcount. So that's kind of that wraps up sort of the spending portion of the analysis that was shown to the tag. Again, I'll have happy to answer questions about that later. So now we're going to move to the revenue side of the ledger and sort of how those services that um that we just talked about are paid for. And of course um property taxes are the largest source of general fund revenue um in the city of Eugene and and the other uh Oregon cities as well. Um and so this is a chart that helps us understand um what the limitations are to property tax authority in each of these cities. All of them all all states have some sort of constitutional and or statutory limitations on local property taxes. Um I won't read this chart but I will point out that only Oregon has both a growth limitation so a limitation in how much um city how much uh property

tax levies can grow per year as well as a rate limitation. So a limitation on the overall size of the rate. So Washington does have both a growth limitation and a rate limitation. Um, but I think one of the differences between Oregon and Washington, and why I have a statement here that says Oregon's system is more restrictive, is that Oregon also has a permanent rate, which the um state of Washington does not. Um, Oregon also has uh I forgot to put it on the slide, but it occurred to me during my cram session for this presentation. Oregon also has the um the the the um freezing of assessed value at kind of 1997 levels. And I think um that's also critical to kind of understanding why property taxes are so constrained in Oregon. Again, I'm sure there's a national study looking at how restrictive state um property tax systems are. And I'm sure Oregon would be at the higher end. And if nobody has written that, I should probably write it in my spare time because I've been looking at this issue not just in Eugene, but in other Oregon cities as well. So outside of property taxes um what city what taxes do these cities have access to or authority to implement to pay for general city operations. So this is you know of course outside of enterprise functions like utilities. Um and so we looked at um a few different categories of taxes. Uh city sales tax um it is actually legal in Oregon but very very very uncommon. Um, I think there's one city that has a food and beverage tax, but other than that there, you know, this is not a common um, this is not found in Oregon. Um, Idaho cities are also not, I don't know if they're not allowed or they just don't do it, but they don't have a there's no local sales tax in Boise, but the city does receive a portion of state sales tax revenue, and as one of the larger cities in Boise, that portion is significant. Um, Fort Collins has a a relatively high

um sales tax rate and 4.35% on on sales other than food. And then Spokane has a 1.1% 1% is general operations. They have a 0.1 for something. There's a a bunch of different kinds of local options here in in Washington state where I'm based that cities have access to. Um, Eugene is the only city on the list that has a local gas tax. Uh, and then there are different other kinds of excise taxes. And by excise taxes, I mean taxes that are designed to excise a portion of um economic activity that is happening within city boundaries. So everybody but Boise has some sort of excise tax tax in Washington state. Um there are a number of different kinds and they are very principal revenue sources for local governments. Uh and then in terms of other taxes, Eugene of course has the community safety payroll tax that's shown here. Um and Spokane has these other different kinds of um really they are all excise taxes but the category would have been too big. Um then a primary one being a utility tax which is like a gross receipts tax levied on utility providers within city boundaries. Um and so the takeaway from this is that in terms of other tax options and we will see this in the data in a few slides uh Oregon cities really don't have as many or don't have as really many commonly used um options as these other cities. uh cities and other states do um not not appearing on this list but relevant to our discussion are Salem's operations fee which is uh I believe deposited into its general fund because it does fund general operations and then a transportation fee that's imposed in Bend and is designed to take care of um capital and maintenance and operation needs in Bend. Uh both of these are fees that are collected through utility bills. Um and they're very very they're becoming increasingly common in Oregon. Um but they uh they are designed to support broader city operations.

Um I see a raised hand. I I think we are doing questions at the end, but I would defer to the mayor if she wants to allow one. Um somebody has their hand up. Yes, Sarah, please continue. We'll do questions at the end. And counselor's link is just adding himself to the queue. Thank you. Oh, got it. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for um signaling. I wasn't looking at the boxes, so I'm sorry if I missed other hands. No, no problem at all. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Um Okay. In terms of city revenues, so that I just wanted to provide that context on the property taxing authority and the other taxing authority um before we looked at the city revenues because I think you can kind of see the impact of those restrictions here when we look at the the data. So just a broad view. Um this is the same view that we looked at on the expenditure side, but this is total revenues shown here in black. Other fund revenues, so things like utility fees, um and and the community safety payroll tax here in Eugene. And then the dark blue would be um general fund revenues. And in Eugene, about 40% of revenues went to the general fund in fiscal year 25. Um usually these light blue revenues are uh reserved for for specific uses. in fact almost entirely um put in other funds because they are reserved primarily for other uses. Um and Ben's transportation fee that we just talked about on the previous slide is part of this um light blue portion here that goes into a separate fund as well. Uh there's no right or wrong about where the funding goes. I know Corvalis actually puts its local option levies into the general fund. So it's really just a budgeting mechanism. There's no good or bad about it. Um so this is the general fund only and the dark blue portions of this bar denote taxes and the light blue portion of these of this bar um are other sources of revenue. So things like license license fees, charges, etc. There's a note here um at the bottom. So Salem collects a city operations fee um which is uh based you know again based on um a monthly flat fee uh that's um attached to the utility accounts. And so that would be a part of this y this lighter blue portion. And it's one of the reasons that when you look at kind of the balance of of um other re other revenues and taxes, it it's about 50/50 in Salem. So the general fund is

significantly less reliant on property taxes than um than the other Oregon cities. And here's Eugene right in the middle. Um again, this is not normalized for population or anything else. So it's it's simply a um total measure. So, we talked about reliance on property taxes in the previous slide. Uh because Eugene does have a community that its community safety payroll tax, um it's significantly less reliant on property taxes compared to the other Oregon cities. Maybe a little bit more resembles Boise, which again has that infusion of state shared sales tax here in the light blue. But you can see when it compared to the two cities that are in states that allow sales tax, they are significantly less reliant on property taxes um than they are on other taxes like sales taxes or excise taxes. Again, not a good or bad statement, just kind of pointing out um one of the differences. And so these are the dollar amounts, but when you look at the um shares, you can kind of see what I'm talking about. Salem is only n almost 94 almost 94% of Salem's taxes are property taxes I should say. Um whereas in Eugene it's about 77%. And then you can see those two states that allow cities and states that allow um other types of taxes. This is a an attempt kind of like that you know apples to apples slide I showed earlier to just show the uh amount of taxes collected by the city. um on a um per on a per household basis. Not again not meaning that in Eugene households spend $2,500.13 on taxes. Um but really just that, you know, if you took the total amount of city taxes collected in Eugene and divided it by the number of households, this is about where you would land. This is a very commonly used but like kind of horrible measure of tax burden, but I wanted to include it just because I

think it's of interest. Um, you know, not all taxes in Eugene or any of these cities are paid by households. Um, many of them are paid by businesses obviously, especially and when you're looking at property taxes. Uh, and frankly in um, Fort Collins and Spokane, which have sales taxes, many of those many taxes are paid by visitors because they are capturing kind of economic activity from visitors who are um, buying things in city boundaries. So, um, when we talk about, um, tax burden and and kind of comparative tax bills, uh, it's important, at least in the Oregon context, to really understand property tax rates and the differences in the cities that we looked at for this analysis. So, Eugene has a higher city property tax rate than the other two Oregon cities in this group. Um, although, of course, the city only receives a portion of the permanent rate because the rest goes to urban renewal district. And so this top chart alone is what I'm talking about right now. This chart shows the um the permanent rate in um each of these cities, the local option rate if they have a a levy for you know parks or something else and then the bond levy on top of that. And the totals are shown here. So Eugene's total city property tax rate is $8.20. in Bend it's about $4.14 which sounds low but on the next slide we'll talk about kind of what that means in the in the context of home values as well. Um and of course as anybody who has paid a property tax bill knows that's you know that's not your whole property tax. You're also paying uh uh taxes to other districts that are levying property taxes in in this city as well. And so what we show down here is not just the city um portion which is the dark blue like this whole bar here would be shown down here for Bend but also property taxes paid to the county property taxes paid to other districts. So in Bend as I mentioned before there's

both a parks district and a library district. So this yellow portion is is really large here compared to the other cities. And then to um for schools and for I know there are you know school boundaries do not always align perfectly with cities. So what I did here was just kind of grab the rate from the um district that had the most assessed value within that city just to kind of show what most homeowners would be paying um to schools in their in their boundaries. So the layered local tax rate, while we talked about city taxes earlier, the layered local tax rate in Salem is actually a little bit higher um than it is in Eugene. And of course, property tax bill, so what people are paying is not just a function of the rate. Um values obviously play a role as well. And it also plays a role in kind of how much revenue the city or whichever uh entity is is levying the tax is receiving from um from the bill. So though it has comparatively higher property tax rates at least in this small sample of three, the average tax bill in um Eugene is significantly uh lower than than Bend and relatively close to Salem, although I forgot the bond rate, the bond levy on this chart. So be a little bit higher than what it is here, but you know, not completely out of line with what um with with tax bills in Salem. Um but when you look at the city portion, this is where you really see kind of that full service aspect that I talked about. Uh Eugene really does have um probably a greater share and that would be be because the city of Eugene is doing so much um certain other functions that you know other entities are doing in Bend and Salem. So they they're receiving a little bit more of the the revenue here than the other cities. So this last section we're kind of going to come back to um the information that was talked about in the previous um

council meeting where we discussed job growth in the tag. And I know that we've that that you all have probably spent some time with these data. Um, so I I won't spend too much time on them, but really was remarkable to look at job growth in Eugene compared to the other cities in this group and how much Eugene's growth has lagged compared to those cities. Um, and in fact, it's the only city where population growth um, despite not being remarkable in Eugene, has exceeded job growth. Uh, before circling back to the benchmark, um, that I referred to earlier, kind of that best managed big US cities. Um, and that's where I'll like pull the rug out from everything I say by telling you benchmarks can only tell you so much. Um, and we can reflect on that at the end and I' I'd love to hear your questions and thoughts about that as well. So, this is probably the fourth view of this chart that you all have seen. Um, but this is the uh again showing metropolitan employment. So, unfortunately we don't have city employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics index to 1991. So this, you know, where everybody's at one, that's kind of the start year. And there's no kind of magic to that number. It's just when this data set started. Um, and then over here at the end, this is 2024. So what this chart is telling you is how much has employment grown in the time period of 1991 to 2024. And in Eugene, it is has grown significantly less than in the other cities. The Eugene has seen the Eugene region has seen 33% growth during this time period compared to 50% in Spokane, 60% in Salem, 96% so almost doubling in Fort Collins, 143% in Bend all the way up to Boise which has seen just incredible growth over this um this time period. Um and so Eugene is clearly kind of lagging at least in this in this group. Another way to look at this data is to kind of compare it to what I would call

a demand for services. So obviously population growth can be a good thing. Um demand for ser population growth also does mean demand for services. Um so one takeaway from the fact that regional employment which is this dark blue column has grown less than um population which is this light blue column. Uh Eugene's really the only city where we see this pattern. Um it's the only city where population has the city population has grown more than regional employment. Uh even though population has not grown astronomically. In fact, it's the second lowest growth of all the cities on this list except for Spokane. Um still it's grown faster than at least one measure of economic um health or economic growth which is the number of jobs. Um so we can read this as the demand for services has grown faster than the economy. um even though population growth has not been um you know off the charts here and again this is that same time period 1991 to 2024. So obviously a lot of relevance to the the broader work that the city is doing in followup to um to to the tag. So, this kind of brings me back to um this brings us to this benchmark from um this in this case, Wallet Hub. And this is called the best and worstrun cities in America. Although, I'm really not sure if it's really the worst run because I didn't see anything actually bad mentioned in these other cities. Um I'm also not really sure how they grabbed the 148. Like, there's some very very tiny cities. For example, I think the number one city ranked city in this list was um Nampa, Idaho, which is like the size of the bub bubble denotes the the um size of the population. It's obviously very tiny. And then Fort Collins and Bend are not on the list, which I don't know if that's good or bad. Um but anyway, Boise was number

four on this list. Eugene was number 32. 32, so in kind of the top fifth. Uh Salem was number 49, so in the top third of this ranking. And then Spokane was number 87. So right in the middle. And what this indicator, what this ranking attempted to do was to take a number of factors like financial stability, um, economy, safety, and infrastructure and and then some other aspects like education, health, and pollution and roll them up into sort of what how well-run are these cities. And I think this is really interesting and it kind of brings I I just thought this was an interesting view of um well the methodology I think was interesting because um a lot of these factors I think are in control of cities like obviously financial stability that's what we're all talking about or what you all are going to be talking about a lot in the next couple of years and have been spending quite a lot of time talking about and then there infrastructure you know how well how much cities are investing or how much they can invest in infrastructure and then there are some aspects that are like clearly outside of city government's control like how good the education system is. Um and so to me it just kind of reminds me and I hope this is one of the takeaways for you all as well that you know you that city entities are not acting alone in a bubble. Um I think it's and you know relates to the work that you all are doing related to collaboration and regional collaboration with other entities. Um, but you know, it gets back to sort of what did each of these cities as an actor do to make the dark blue portion of the bar grow grow and that would I think would require a lot of additional research and probably you'd get different answers depending on who you talk to. Um, so you know, there's a lot of aspects of these rankings that I think are really important and that, you know, city decisions makers can move on and then there are other things that I think are more like what kind of community do you want to be and how much is that in our control and how can we

work with our partners to kind of get to the place that we want to be. Um, so I'm sorry for the rant, but that was sort of my takeaway when I when I was reading this. Um, really helpful, really interesting. I think it's cool that Eugene is in the top fifth and I don't disagree with it. And also I hope that you know the data I showed you and and things like this analysis can kind of put Eugene in the context um of what uh what you need to decide. And that is what I have. So I think I'm supposed to give it back to Twila. And actually Twi is still having some connection issues on her end. So, I'm going to go ahead and uh walk through the next slide here, which is um the long range financial planning process and next steps, and then we'll turn it over to questions. And again, I'm Neil Obringer. I'm the city's assistant finance director. So, um just walking us through where we are um where we're going next in terms of the long-range financial planning process. Uh starting on the left side here, we've got uh the benchmarking and long-range financial planning overview, which is um our meeting today. Next, we've got April 8th, which at PDD will be bringing back an economic development conversation, which will be an extension of the TAG conversations around economic development. May 11th, uh that will really be a a laying the groundwork for some of the additional work that will be coming over the spring and the summer. So at general education and background um Twila and Ritzio will be bringing a financial condition update with a focus on the general fund and distressed funds. Um and then we'll have a strategic plan uh overview and touch point. May 20th um it's been a number of years since we've um updated the organization's financial policies. So we'll be bringing uh a conversation to you all around the financial policies

and giving you some background um there for future conversations as well as following up on past conversations around the core mandated and essential functions of the organization. Um June 8th uh setting this the stage for future strategic plan refresh conversations. there'll be a touch point on the strategic plan. Uh unfunded needs, we're going through uh an organizationwide effort right now looking at uh unfunded critical needs from across the organization. So we'll be bringing that information back to you all along with information around debt capacity and tools and levers that we have available to us. This is all laying the groundwork for a June uh council workshop um where we're really developing the focus of that workshop with our new incoming city manager. Um but we'll plan to discuss financial policies including service prioritization as well as other items. Um so that's the June council workshop. Uh and then into July, we'll be um continuing that conversation on the strategic plan refresh that we started um in the month prior. And all of this is uh work that's being developed to help inform and um and guide the future budget development processes which will then start in the fall this coming year. So um I think with that that leads us into questions for for Sarah and others. So, I'll turn it over to you to the mayor.

Thank you, Neil. Thank you, Sarah. I really appreciate this presentation today and and this update. Um, I will add myself to the queue in our discussion, but I just want to say at the outset that Sarah, some of what you shared about um the ways in which the city of Eugene is stretching the resources that we do have. I I would think that that would be one of the um components that would lead to some of those distinctions around uh being one of the best managed cities in the country to be very creative and collaborative um and to be resourceful in how we're meeting uh some challenging community needs especially in light of the rest of the information that you shared in this presentation uh which I think paints um a picture for us that will help this council and our new city manager um and future councils to do really important work building um greater opportunity and greater stability in our community. I think this work illuminates some blind spots that we have had and also um provides us with the opportunity to um interrupt some long-held narratives that perhaps are not serving us um as well as they could. And all of that I take to be really positive. Um, I think that this is incredibly important work and I very much appreciate that you have updated information here even since the technical advisory group uh looked at this uh same information um or same questions last year and appreciate how their questions have informed the group. Um I have councelor Zelinka, councelor Clark and councelor Groves in the queue and so councelor Zelena over to you.

Yeah, thanks Mayor. Um, you know, one of the things I've learned over 30 years experience with the city of Eugene doing this stuff is that benchmarking is very fraught with problems, uh, and need to be analyzed and used very carefully. Um, uh, often it's apples and lizards as comparisons. Cities are so different in structure and circumstance that it's often very difficult to make comparisons. And I take all of this with a with a big grain of salt. Uh it's much more complex than it appears with numerous factors affecting all these different comparisons. Um interest it's interesting but simple straightforward uh um or it is not and we we need to be careful about uh policy decisions based on this kind of data and these kind of benchmarkings and be very wary of people cherrypicking data points. Um the this is why we have not in the 30 years I've been at the city uh relied on these kind of comparisons to make budget and policy decisions because they're very fraught. Let me give you some examples. Um uh for instance the general fund totally depends on how the services are accounted for and if they have dedicated funds or if they're in the general fund. Uh and FTE per capita depends on which services you're providing. Like if you tried to do that with Springfield, New Eugene, we have parks in our city. Springfield has William Lane, so they don't show up. Uh we have an airport. Other cities don't. Uh so what's this package of services that makes it very very difficult to make comparisons like this? Um like police and fire FTE per capita is so much more comp complex than the comparison that was was shown. Um total employment growth. I mean all of that over time does it there's a lot of

things that are unclear in that were not reflected in it like economic transitions um that took place like Eugene's transition from a timber wood products into more of a high-tech so there's been this shift in employment and those types of grow total gross numbers don't necessarily uh see those transitions it can be mass in there and so that makes the comparison very difficult Um, but I will cherrypick one even though I said we shouldn't. Uh, and the the one that struck me was the more ser we provide more services for less cost per capita than all the other cities, meaning we're better bang for our buck in the city leading to that one of the best managed cities. Um whether or not that's true or not, I think it probably is, but uh I don't know that we make a whole bunch of decisions based on that cherry-picking of that one, for instance.

Councelor Clark,

thank you, Mayor. I suppose I will grant to my friend Allan some degree of truth in what he's just said or agreement I suppose is a better way to say it that you know everybody has their differences all the communities being compared have significant differences that certainly true but I wanted to say Sarah thank you I have longed for us to do this sort of comparative financial review and uh analysis for years, I have wanted to look at the statistics of how we stack up compared to other cities and other communities in in the general west uh in a similar way for a very long time. And I'm really glad we're doing it. I'm going to stay the optimist here and say that I think that from this sort of data, we can learn a great deal. If we find an area we'd like to grow and we'd like to do better, I suspect there are ways we can take advantage of the knowledge based on what other people do that can assist us. We don't have to take the the bad parts. Um, so I I thank you for the work. It's phenomenal. I really appreciate it. I only had one question at the beginning with the with the demographic pieces of it that were interesting to me in the compared communities. Sarah, did how would you say or how would you list or notate um the surrounding cities to each of the listed communities? For example, uh we had and and the reason I want to know more about what kind of information is available. I 10 years ago I make made a lot of arguments that I thought our land use policies would make us more dense certainly but it would create a a reality where young families would move

to the surrounding communities and that may not serve us. That was my argument at the time. And so I I think in this data we see it reflected that a lot of uh younger families with young children don't live here comparatively to other communities but I believe they live in the surrounding areas around Eugene and interact and use services in Eugene. Is there measurement of that in between the comparative cities of some nature?

Sorry about that. I was trying to unmute. Um, it's a really good question and um, I should note that I um, I worked as a part of the city of Springfield's uh, work that's sort of relevant. We did a very similar analysis for their work and um, that we did look at household size. Um, and I did I did note in that analysis that spring the city of Springfield had significantly larger households and more children than Eugene. Um I haven't looked at neighbor cities in these other city in these other um regions, but um I'm thinking obviously visibly I think that Eugene may be unique in having that kind of nextoor neighbor city right there that has kind of relatively robust services as well. Um I'm also doing similar work in the city of Corvalis which has Albany right next door. And so some a lot of the questions that you bring up are I think really relevant especially in in cities that are not like the kind of big anchor city in a regional like a lot of small suburbs.

As we move forward, can we get any further information or research that you have done or may at some point do about regional uh statistics with regard to the comparative all the comparative cities in this particular set? Yeah, definitely. I I'll I'll give it a thought. I can at least provide a little bit on the Springfield analysis and maybe Corvalis Eugene and then give it some thought as well.

And I would I would include the our areas of like Venita Elmyra and Kreswell and all the and you know Junction City and Coberg all of the surrounding smaller communities make up a different nature I I think than in many cities and that's what I'd be interested in having. Thank you

councelor Groves. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Sarah, for providing a very good uh presentation. And Neil, I appreciate the timeline. I've been asking for something like that. It helps me understand uh how we're going to start putting these pieces together. Um you know, I I I did appreciate the sideby-side comparisons. Um you know, I recognize it's not perfect. You did catch the difference between 911 services. You did catch the difference where some fire departments provide ambulance service, others don't. that definitely has an impact on staffing levels. Um, the airport piece I think was a significant thing that maybe could be better explained in there. Eugene runs an F part 135 index C airport that's heavily used. Um, Bend has a general aviation airport. Their commercial airports in Redmond. Salem has a few commercial flights, but most of it's again GA uh a GA airport. Spokane's an international airport and so is Boise. Um, so I mean that that would just help with some of those adjustments, but we are we do run a full suite of services. As far as cherrypicking the data, my observation with this council is we cherrypick our issues that we cherrypick the data for. So I I don't think that, you know, having something like this to look at is a bad thing. I mean, you know, there there's certainly some qualifications in there. And then I also I agree with councelor Clark. I was going to raise the issue of wanting to know more about the effect of our surrounding communities because they're all growing um not just in housing, but they are growing in jobs as well. And I I I would be interested to know if they're growing at a faster rate than we are at the same rate or a slower rate. That would be something we want to look at as well. And part of that is because um some of

them have available land when we are have a constrained um land inventory. And I think all these these pieces go together as we try to put together how we're going to build our economy, how we're going to handle housing. We're already, you know, more dense than these other communities. I I think there's there's more digging we need to do on this. So that's all I have for now and I appreciate uh the work. Thank you. Eric, could I respond just to one? Um, I think what would I think what would be helpful in followup is not just the information that councelor Clark requested, but I should probably also provide the definition of the metropolitan boundary here because I don't, you know, if there's jobs that are happening in some of the cities that you're interested in, they might they might or might not be in this in these data.

Thank you, Sarah. Very appreciated. Uh, Councelor Kushinsky.

Yes, thank you. I very much appreciate the report and the uh research and the information and being able to look at these kind of comparisons even recognizing that there are differences um uh is very helpful and I I really appreciate the way that you highlighted a lot of those differences. So like emphasizing you know Ben doesn't run a library um and so that's probably the cause of some of those changes. I had a a specific question um specifically looking at the city spending on police, fire, and parks comparatively. Um, one of the things that I kind of take away from that slide, um, which I think was, uh, 19, um, is that Eugene is putting a greater share of its resources into public safety compared to those other cities. Is that is that a re reasonable conclusion to draw from that? I think that that was actually as if I recall the tag discussion correctly one of the observations the tag made. I mean I think that that is maybe more of an appropriate question kind of for you all as at your level and for the tag and kind of what they were pondering. Um but yes I mean that that's one way to to view the data. um is that you know I think it we'd have to have a whole pie chart probably to make that distinction and and to councelor Zillant's point there would still be six million caveats that I that I wouldn't be able to to cover. um especially with respect to public safety. um you know each when you think about public safety spending and public safety staffing um that's why this this chart is so terrible which I I didn't spend enough time explaining all the caveats but like cities pay you know a lot of money to do staffing studies and there are many different ways not just uniformed officers but like all kinds of different ways to do a better

job of just than than this and also just in the context of the tag that was kind of the the the depth to which I was able to go while covering kind of a full view of the city. But yes, to your point, um, Councelor Kosinsky, I think that's one way you could view this data. Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful. And thank you again for all the information. You're welcome, Councelor Keing.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, Sarah, thank you for the the breadth of information. Um, I have three things that stand out. First, I just want to um uh denote or editorialize. Um, I I started my radio career in Denver and uh I would think that a Boulder, Colorado would be way more of a Eugene vibe than a Fort Collins, Colorado. But I I see what you you were getting at in regards to population size. Um, Fort Collins square mileage is is significantly uh larger than than Eugene and Boulder significantly smaller. A city that is right around the same is Paris, France. 41 square miles to our 44 square miles. And when we talk about density, we could do so much more in our community as uh as Paris packs around 2 million people into 44 square miles for Paris proper. So I would uh urge our colleagues to continue uh to um look at policy that inspires or encourages Eugene to grow up and not out. Three things that jump out. Number one, public safety. The fact that you pointed out Eugene is uh hovering near Spokane in regards to property crime is a sobering statistic. Uh I wanted more about the public safety piece and where we stacked up uh stack up with the the cohort that you've created. um the taxing authority. Um it is uh curious that with the exception of Eugene having a gas tax that we don't have more of a consumption fee at the local level when we clearly can and I would argue should um and and then when I say that I want to say that with the caveat not a regressive consumption fee uh but I think there are avenues to explore in regards to a sales tax or consumption fee that's not regressive.

And finally, Bend is clearly booming both in population growth and in regional employment. Sarah, what's your like highlevel takeaway as to what Bend is doing, right? Why is Bend attracting people and attracting the businesses within that region? Well, my takeaway is probably that, you know, Bend is as beautiful as any city, including Eugene and the surrounding area, but didn't already have a University of Oregon there, you know, so that the recreation economy could become the anchor. I I am not an economist, I should say, but that's kind of my observation. Um I do know that when we talked about these this chart and the previous one, it kind of came at the end of the tag process and um one of the members had said, you know, how what's what's going on with growth and what's going on with jobs and so we kind of pulled these data in and there was a discussion and this was my observation too that it wouldn't it be great if we had more time to figure out what the cities did and what the regions did and how this came to be. There's just a little bit about that in the tag of obviously the recreation economy in Bend. Um, in Boise there was a huge growth in tech that I think we talked about and then some downtown revitalization efforts both in Boise and Spokane. Um, but you know, I think that like what actually happened here is really important to understand and to the previous point that you made um when you when you talk about your comparables, you know, this this group is great. I was kind of advocating early on for Bellingham, Washington because I think that's that's a really interesting place and has a similar vibe. Um, but we stuck with six and it was plenty of work. Um, but you know, I hope when when this work continues that, you know, it might be interesting to kind of look at like not only what did these cities do, but what else were other cities doing that Eugene either is like or aspires to be like the cities as an actor and then what was happening at the macro level that's like outside of the control of the city and then what were they doing with their regional partners including the private sector.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor,

Councelor Gay. Yeah, thanks mayor and thanks Sarah so much for bringing this data and uh I also enjoyed uh the way you set up your slide presentation. So thanks for that. It was uh easy to see. I think this is one of those cases where if you think that this data is mis misleading and much more complex than it appears, you're right. And if you think it's useful and a starting point for additional research and discussion, you are also right. Right? It's it's not a a an andor. it's um you know this can be useful information and we can find a way to use it and while we keep in mind the ways that it might be misleading and the complexities that are behind them and I think that um as a group we are more than capable of doing that we have smart folks on this uh council that I'm I'm always happy to work with so I am not not concerned in that area that we will be able to use it appropriately I did have I don't know if this is a question that can be answered but um I often uh do not prefer to think of our neighbors as our competition, but more is like how can we think about these things regionally, right? I Springfield is a lovely town. I I have no problem with people wanting to live and work in Springfield or someone who lives in Eugene maybe getting a job in spring. So, you know, how do we is there ways that we can take that into account so we're not always looking at our neighbors as our competitors? Is that a question for me or just sort of a Okay.

Well, maybe it's more just a keep in mind. I don't know if that's a more of an attitude we just need to bring to it. That's the attitude I would like to find a way to bring to it. I mean, we need to advocate for our city and we need to find ways to, you know, meet our budget needs and all these things, but when we're always like, you know, Creswell is the, you know, oh no, we don't want people moving to Creswell. I don't know that that's the answer. Um, I don't know.

You don't have to answer anything. I'm just making a statement.

Thank you for clarifying, counselor. Um, are there counselors in the queue? Okay. Then um seeing no more discussion from this group, I will offer one one closing thought and and then Sarah will move on and Neil will move on to our next agenda item today. And I I I think it what councelor Yay just expressed is really important with this data. And I hope any of our local media or community members who are listening along to this work session today do exactly what was advised which is to really look at the the summary and the conclusions that have been presented by people with expertise in this area and also observe that as the presentation builds more complexity comes to this circumstance that we find ourselves in. I think it is um incredibly important that we have more and better information as we think about fiscal stability and economic development for our community because um as a body of elected officials, we are always striving to make the best possible decision that we can within a limited amount of time and with the best information available. And I really do think that this information and the tag processes led into it, the additional workshop, workshops, work sessions, and retreat that council will have in these coming months with our new city manager, uh, Jenny Haryama, that all of that is more and better information to inform our decision-m into the future. And we clearly have some important areas to do work in terms of expanding opportunity um, and economic development in our community. So, um, very much appreciative for this presentation and the way that it kicks off the, um, series of council work sessions that we'll have focused on this work. And again, just want to appreciate Sarah, your team, um, and also Neil jumping in, um, to help cover some of, uh, the information from our own finance uh, experts in our department. So, um, city manager Rodriguez, I see your hand raised and after your comments, then

we'll move to the next item. Just briefly want to echo the kudos to Sarah and to our finance team who did amazing work in the fall and we're really excited to be having this conversation with you on long-range financial planning building on some of the work that we did through the technical advisory group um process. Uh just councelor yay just a little bit to your question that didn't necessarily need to be answered but I think uh one of the opportunities where we are having conversations about what are our strengths as a region and how we come together as partners is in the south valley innovation corridor conversation. It is um kind of a different way that we're looking at this together and assessing like with all the partners what what can we bring to the table so we're strong as a region. So, I think that's a there's a lot of really positive energy in thinking that way as we move forward.

Thank you, city manager. Turns out prosperity and economic development is a team sport. It always has been. Um, and we're going to be a really strong player on that team in our city. Uh, thank you everyone. This concludes our our first uh agenda item today. And now I will turn to the city manager to introduce our second topic which is a work session on uh the Wednesday work session formats for city council.

Thank you mayor. So uh this is on the future of Wednesday work session formats in order to give staff enough time to implement process changes during council's upcoming break if you choose to move forward with them. This topic was separated from the remaining uh two operating agreement discussions that will be coming back to you after spring break. And now I'll turn it over to Katie Lella for a brief presentation.

Thank you Matt. I am I think my screen is sharing. I'm sure someone will tell me if it's not. Uh Katie Lala your city reporter and I am back to talk about the Wednesday work session format. Just some quick reminders. Matt covered this for the most part, but this conversation started um within your operating agreements discussion. Um and we were not able to get to all of the topics due to time constraints at the February 18th work session. And so those additional I know some of you had questions those additional operating agreements items will come back in the spring. Um but today we're going to focus on Wednesday work sessions. So uh you've already seen this slide but just as a reminder Wednesday work sessions are currently held in virtual only format and this started as a budget reduction strategy implemented during the 2325 bianium. Um, council has discussed uh coming back fully in person, which would include um bringing inviting the public in um and um we've done some estimations of the cost associated with that. And this has a bit more of a breakdown than I think your last presentation did. So, uh approximately 39,000 um annually for 27 work sessions. And I've got the meals uh broken down. um 11,000 for meals. Security includes EPD support as well as the support we get from the Holt Center to run the security machine in the lobby. And then about um 8,000 annually for additional staff time to set up. Council has also discussed uh implementing a hybrid uh inperson option where council and staff would only come back. Um, and in this case, that would reduce the cost to about 15,000 for a total of 27 Wednesday work sessions.

Your meals would stay the same. The security cost would be eliminated and the staff time to set up would be reduced um to about 4,000 annually. It's a very quick presentation this time. Um, you I'll turn it back over to the mayor for discussion. You do have two uh possible motions available to you. one for the hybrid option and one for the inerson and I will stop sharing my screen. Happy to take any questions. Mayor, thank you Katie and thank you for that brief summary and presentation. We may need those slides back depending on council discussion but I have councelor clerk Groves and then Kashinsky as the first three in the queue.

Thank you mayor. I just wondered on the the line item expenditures for security and and additional staff. I'm trying to separate or or drill down on those numbers a little bit. I I heard you mention the the Holt Center piece of equipment and I assume what we're we're interf transfer. We're paying the Holt Center within city budgets from one department to another for the use of that. Perhaps not. This is what I'm asking about drilling down on. Um, would those police officers and and security staff be paid e this is additional money that they would not be paid otherwise or or the staff as well? Are these additional dollars that we'd have to budget new dollars for or would that be something that's already covered within current budgeting?

Thank you for the question, counselor. Um the machine we've already purchased. Uh the halt center staffing um are extra dollars. They are because their staff are so knowledgeable about having to use that equipment. Um we do um through basically like paying them the CMO pays them to send staff over to support us. So, um, we are that's an extra cost that wouldn't be associated with the standard meeting format, um, that we had before or that we have currently right now. Um, and APD,

forgive me, I apologize. It's still a city expenditure within the framework of the current budget. It wouldn't be an extra expenditure to the city budget. Am I correct about that question? Those staff are not salaried full-time employees. They are hourly temp. I think I think they're under temp, but I could get I could make that more clear um with an email email follow-up if that's a question. So, no, it is not already an expenditure that is being paid. Thank you. And I think you said the EPD piece um right now they are currently getting I we uh for our Monday night meetings that is overtime. Thank you,

Councelor Groves. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Katie, and staff for the work that you put into this. Uh, I do appreciate it. I I think I think in-person meetings are more productive. I think it's easier to carry on a conversation and I support them. At the same time, I am concerned about adding any new costs. Right now, we're already trying to maintain a balanced budget. We are looking and considering potential new fees and I I just think we need to be running on an offer um cost system at this point. So I I will be a no vote on this unfortunately. Thank you.

Councelor Kosinsky. Uh yes, I think I would I would agree with councelor Groves that that in-person meetings I think are much more um produce much better collaboration, much more uh constructive conversation. Um looking at how we can achieve that with the while still moving forward that that cost savings. Um I had a couple of different questions. Um, first of all, personally, I would I'm I'm buying my own lunch now for the Wednesday meetings. So, I would be fine with not getting lunch on Wednesdays if even if we went back to in person um just as part of that cost savings. Um the uh question I had with the hybrid format where we wouldn't have the the public have access to that. If we allowed the media to be in person for that, would we have to have the same level of security EPD there at all?

My sense is yes, but I see popped on. Basically, if it's internal staff or council, we wouldn't run the machines. If it's external parties, we would, but that is my understanding, and Brooke may have a different opinion on that. I I agree with that. Um I'd just note that um the definition of media is quite open and vague in terms of the um state and so it um while it you know is nice to be able to extend that option for things like um executive sessions, it's very challenging to regulate who is and who is not media.

Okay. Um, with that with that in mind, you know, I I feel like it sounds like if we take if we do the the sort of hybrid option where we're in person, public is virtual, it's really the same experience for the public as they're getting now because they can only watch us on the computer now. Um, and particularly if uh we look at sort of those meals, I I feel like we can get this down so it's like, you know, two or $3,000 to switch back to in person um for us. And and that seems that seems, you know, if we can do that sort of lowest cost option um and go back to in person, it feels like it kind of accomplishes both goals. So, thanks, Councelor Zelinka.

Yeah. Um, I'm kind of in the ain't broke, don't fix it camp. Uh, it appears to be this kind of appears to be a solution looking for a problem to solve. Um even in the hybrid the additional cost um even if we went minimal I'm the the benefit of us being in person seems pretty minimal uh especially if there's a cost associated with it and if we have cost associated I'd rather pay for home energy scoring staff to do it then than have watch us talk. Um, so I I'm not sure even a hybrid one gets my vote.

Councelor Yay. Yeah, thanks. Um, so my question is, are we required to provide ourselves food when we meet in person? No, counselor, that is um a benefit.

Okay. So, I agree with Councelor Groves and counselor Koshinsky that I do think we do better work when we're in person. Um, I I just think it's easier to communicate with people. It everything is better not staring at a screen, you know, apart from each other. And but I do think that folks who are concerned about the costs are also not wrong. Um, I think Eliza's um idea that maybe we we do them a h the hybrid option, but you know, we have to bring brown bag our lunch and we're all adults. I think we're perfectly capable of doing that. I I I would be in favor of doing that because I think the benefits that we get from being in the room together um outweigh the inconvenience of having to get there. Um, that's what you know, we did a hybrid version when we were at LCC when the public was not in the room and that seemed to work fine. Um, I don't think that there was an issue with that. So, I would be more than happy to do that if there are enough people interested.

Council Keating.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I I am in agreement with um what sounds like the majority of of of my colleagues in regards to council being more effective when we can gel together in person. Um, it's better for council and our staff relationships. with Jenny, our new city uh manager, coming on board, it is a perfect opportunity for us to have just one more in-person touch point and work so much better together as a team in in uh three-dimensional space rather than this uh onedimensional or two dimensional, whatever we are in the virtual space. Um, regards to lunch, I'm planning on eating leftovers from Monday night's council meeting for my lunch today. So, like I'm an adult. I can figure out what what what I can do for lunch. I'm not going to let that uh be a barrier. The hybrid uh approach with the affformentioned tweaks is where I would like to see as council go with the caveat that uh some of us for the first six months in the new year in 2027 will be working in Salem. And I would want us to recognize that it will be incredibly difficult during that time to be in person in the middle of the workday. So I understand through our operating agreements there there are some carveouts for for folks who might uh need to to chime in remotely. I would like us to maintain that flexibility with the um with the goal of when we can uh if provided we're not ill, provided we're not working uh that we can come together in person and gel together uh for the benefit of the entire community.

Councelor Leech.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, yeah, I'm I'm with the majority of of my colleagues here that we do better work. And when we say we do better work, we mean we are better policy makers for our community. We do um better working together and with our teams and our staff and hearing uh presentations from people who are coming into and doing an incredible amount of work um to put together information for us. So, we're I think we owe it to the community to put ourselves in the best space and the best possible um ability for the outcomes that we want um for the work that we all are very committed to doing. Um I don't have a problem with bringing my own lunch or having my own lunch. Um so for me the the the minimal cost is absolutely worth it if even one decision that we make a year is a better decision because we are able to work together more effectively. Um I understand yes I I love that we are able to be hybrid because like right now at this week I have COVID and I can't be there you know in person with y'all but um so it's good to have that option. I think it's incredibly important though that we have the opportunity to be together. Um that this it's the additional conversations. It's the ability to um to connect on all these different other points that we have um to to work on. And so I'll be supporting moving forward with um with a hybrid option today.

Councelor Clark.

Thank you, Mayor. I actually just asked the questions because I was looking for a solution. I agree with almost all my colleagues who've mentioned this that um I think we do much better work in person and it allows for other conversations on you know to take place and for us to work out the details of things in a manner in which I think is more productive and leads to better decision-making. I I'm entirely for it. But like Randy, I have some concerns about the cost. Thus, the questions I was asking about what we might how we might restructure it. But I do want to note I did have a note from a constituent who knew that we were having this discussion in advance and and made what I thought was a valid point, which was that the public has a right to interact with us when we are having a public meeting. And if we're going to be somewhere in public at a public meeting, having the public present is their right. Doesn't have anything to do with us. And I thought that was a valid point. If we're going to have a meeting in city hall, we should allow the general public to be in. And that's going to drive the expense issue that Randy mentioned and thus lead to me thinking, do we make the whole expense or do we don't? And I'm not sure the answer that 100%. and I tend towards I don't think we should do the extra expense but I I sure do understand the value of it. So thank you

councelor Keading.

Thank you mayor. I just want to share my response to the um public engagement piece. Um our work sessions are are built and set up in a way we don't accept public comment right now anyway. we do on our Monday nights uh or our Monday evening meetings and obviously when there are public hearings. Uh and any constituent can reach out to us via email at any time about any topic at any time. Um and the public at large can view any work session or any um any gathering um of this body at any time as they may be watching as we speak. I wouldn't uh I would encourage colleagues not to let um let the the the public participation piece or the perceived public participation piece be a barrier uh in that as I understand it the hybrid format doesn't change anything than what we're doing right now in regards to public engagement. It's a work session for council to hear from experts and to ask each other questions and ask experts questions and come up with policy recommendations for implementation. Um I'll I'll I'll leave that there and encourage uh support of of the hybrid approach as mentioned earlier. Thanks

councelor Zelinka. Yeah, my question is what is the hybrid approach? So we have these three costs in the in the uh AIS. I assume people are talking about minimal cost scenario, hybrid scenario. So the meals go away. That's And then the security cost would go away if we just limited it to staff and and us. Um so does the administrative support cost still uh would that still be a cost if we did the hybrid where part of it was um us were in person? Some of that

just 8,000 bucks. Some of that will be reduced even beyond the four that I've estimated because some of that estimation is related to food setup and cleanup, but it doesn't go away completely. There's always a cost, a staff cost associated with running an in-person meeting. I just want to make that clear. Okay. So, $67,000 in that range. Okay. I'm sorry, counselor. Just to be clear, Katie, you were saying it goes below $4,000. Correct. In in the hybrid with no food, it would go below four, but not it's not zero. It's somewhere in between

three to $4,000 for additional administrative costs. So that But the other ones don't need to be incurred. Okay. Thanks, Council Kashinsky.

Yes. I just wanted to say that um I received the same email I think councelor Clark did. Uh and I I do feel like that that was a sort of valid sort of perspective. I think if we were discussing moving from what was in person where the public could attend to a a setup where the public couldn't attend. Um I would feel a little bit differently about it. But right as it stands right now, the public can't attend this meeting except as as names on a list in a box over here. Um, and so, you know, I think it's we're not making things worse for the public by doing it this way. Um, and that is why I asked about the media because I felt like if if the media allowed us to kind of have that representative of the public there, it would be nice. But since the whole point of doing the hybrid is to save money if it doesn't save any money. So thanks. Thank you council for for that discussion. Um if we have concluded I am going to turn to the council president to put a motion forward.

Thank you mayor. move to direct the city manager to transition the Wednesday council work sessions from the current virtual only format to a hybrid format where council and city staff are in person and the public is virtual and to address any budgetary needs through a supplemental budget request. Do I need to amend that to also include okay and make it noted that meals will not be included in this meeting. Second. Thank you. Council President, council vice president, uh, deputy city attorney. Want to confirm that that uh motion meets the reason why your hand is raised? Yeah. Sorry.

That's okay. That addressed it. Thank you very much. Um, and thank you, council president and vice president. Um, any discussion from council? I see councelor Zelena. So does that because it says only staff and the council that mean the security costs are are moot point right? Okay. So just and and because we're not doing food it's really only around three or $4,000 and you still have the option to be remote even if you uh if you can't be here as a counselor. I mean thanks Councelor Clark.

Yeah, I don't mean to be a stick in the mud here. I just want to ask the manager a more specific question. We have had uh we have had council meetings in person where people may feel the need to protest and know that we're there and may want to communicate with us whether we're inviting them in by opening the door or not. And that's part of my reason for saying that people have a right to be there if we're meeting in a particular place. Um would would we still think it wise not to include security provisions if we're meeting in person but not having the general public invited in

counselor. I think that's something that we would monitor to see if it becomes an issue. um council is able to access the main building without right directly exiting the council chambers. So there are some different things that we could look at if that did become an issue. But you're comfortable with we could proceed with this without security provision. Well, I think ultimately it's up to the council to make that decision and we we would adjust depending on what we saw. If it became a concern, we would definitely work with council to see what to do and what we could do to assist. Thank you, Councelor Kosinsky.

Yeah, this is just this is probably way too small to actually bring up, but when we say uh the city staff and council in person, would that include any invited presenters who may not be employed by the city but are there to present to us like the presentation we got today? Yes, that would be my understanding of how we would facilitate a meeting where a presenter was non city staff. Typically, they have a city staff partner that is shephering them through that process. Okay. Yeah, just wanted to make sure. Thanks, city manager.

Yeah, just briefly, I'm sorry, I was reminded by one of our staff, but just uh councelor Clark, another piece, we do actually have security on site during the day normally. So, that is another resource we would have if we had any concerns.

Thank you, city manager. It's a great team. Um, I think that concludes our additional discussion of this motion and second. So, I'll now take a vote for this motion. All in favor, please raise your hands. One, two, three, four, five. And all opposed? one two and the motion passes with a vote of five to two. Um, thank you everyone for our meeting today. Thank you for extending our meeting to create the time for this discussion today and to our presenters. That concludes our agenda and I now close the March 11th, 2026 city council work session. We are adjourned. Heat. Heat.