City Council Work Session - Special Meeting

Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming to our special strategic planning and capital improvement meeting. We welcome those who join us in the audience, those who may be remotely joining us. We thank you for we thank you to the council members that we know this is kinda kinda unscheduled, so we have a few council members that will not be here today. Council member Hare had a commitment in Raleigh on some advocacy, and I think the others will will be here filling in the blanks. But we'll move forward with it. We'll call the meeting order. As with every meeting, we typically start with a prayer. Ask that we would please stand for the prayer immediately following. If we could repeat the pledge of allegiance, I'm gonna ask council member Brenda McNair She could lead us in the prayer.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your love and kindness. We thank you for your grace and your mercy. God, thank you for the light that is shining up on our city. Father, we ask your wisdom and your knowledge and your understanding upon this meeting today. Church, the council members that are here and those that are not here, our city staff, our city manager. Father, I pray that we are in harmony with each other so that we can move this city forward. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, councilwoman McNair. Thank you. And council with that, we will ask for the approval of the agenda. Entertain a motion, we'll use our Sure system. Alright. Mayor Pro Tem, there's a motion to approve, seconded by council member Green. Any discussion on the motion to approve? Alright. Council, I look to you for your votes for that.

Gotta

get a head count on here. So we got seven vote. Eight. Okay. Alright. Alright. Motion carries. Counsel, with that, we'll move to five 0.01 strategic plan. We see see them here. We see our strategic planning team, and I don't see mister Hewitt. I did have a question for him about that, but I guess he'll he'll pop in shortly. But I'll turn it over to you, mister mister Lowry. Oh, Jeff's here. Yeah. Yes, sir.

So thank you, ACM Yates. So as we get into this, just to kinda recap, typically, after we came out of our strategic plan, notice came to us before council meeting, and we wanted to have a little bit more discussion to make sure that what was what was presented, you know, that, all questions were answered and everything was in alignment. Today, I know out of the strategic plan that's adopted, you typically build the capital project recommendations. But today, you're doing both and. So before we adopt this and and if council has any any amendments, changes, or adjustments, how do we align what today's goals are with being that you have recommended projects already?

Absolutely. It's a good question. Thank you,

mayor. What you have in front

of you today for CIP is just the initial start of the discussion. And the proposed priorities for the upcoming year, if you remember, were consolidation and narrowing from last year's, not an elimination. So the CIP that we're gonna have in front of you today drives off of those same priorities. So it's roughly in alignment as we go through the development process with the CIP and the work sessions. If there are areas that aren't, supported or projects that don't align with those, we can make those tweaks. Today's discussion on CIP is just to start the discussion with council, but it's not, by any means, finalized. So we can bake it all together, if you will,

in that process. Yeah. I did have a couple council members, here, as I said, who won't be able to hear today, but, I know that they would we wanna make sure the full board is here for any any decisions they made. So what you're doing today, after we get past the first presentation is just a a presentation of some of the recommendations, but you're not looking for parking lots and us to start that process.

We we we have the parking lot available to us so that if there's something specific that the council has on their mind that they wanna add to that, we can go ahead and start that process. But from the CIP today, it's really just introduction, and it's gonna allow us to work through it. So it's really to put it in front of you for you to read the document. I know you got the documents at the earliest on Monday. Some, I think, picked them up today. So there's a lot of work to still be done from the council's perspective, but we wanted to go ahead and get it in front of you and then have those ongoing work sessions in small groups and other opportunities. So we're not asking for any any decisions today on the CIP

Okay.

Or other than just putting it for you and the public to kinda hear the initial presentation.

Alright. Thanks, sir. I just wanted to kinda get some clarity on it.

Thank you. Okay.

So good morning, mayor mayor Perthem, council members. So this row, I'd say, rehashing of the strategic plan, comes from the March 23 meeting that we presented the priorities to you. Just came back at the special meeting to make sure that we captured everything that was discussed at our retreat, to make sure you had more time to focus on it, and to get clarity on our priorities. So we brought them back down to those four priorities. Fountain Works will be here to discuss that to make sure we captured everything that you wished within those priorities.

Today, would with approval of this, if you decide to do that, would just be the approval and adoption of those priorities, the language within those priorities. From there, staff will start going back and doing the trying to get actions and tactics that we can bring back to you for adoption that fits your priorities. So we want to make sure that we're actually capturing activities that actually moves your priorities along. So at this point, I'll turn it over to Fountain Works, miss Julie, and miss Laura. They'll come here. They'll present and recap everything, and they'll make sure that we capture all of your information. Also, I'll turn it over to miss Julie at this point.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, mayor, mayor pro tem, members of council. Good to see you all. Thank for having us back and giving us this opportunity to make sure we've got the priorities right so that the staff can build out their work plans, their tactics based on the priorities that the council set.

So we are here I know you've got a big agenda. We're here as long as you want us here. Our intent today is to walk you through the key milestones that you have gone through with strategic planning as well as what staff has been doing. And then the main thing is to confirm the council priority language that we heard out of the retreat and make sure that we've got it right so staff knows what to build to. So if there are other things you need us to do related to that, we're happy to do that.

As you know, we presented at the council meeting highlights of what happened at the retreat and where we got to. Strategic planning is important for the city for its annual planning cycle. It helps you all review prior performance. It helps staff look at audit insights. It helps the senior leadership team and their staff align their activities and resources to the council priorities, helps you confirm the direction through presentations and discussion, makes sure we're establishing the priorities properly, and it informs the annual work plan and the annual capital improvement plan.

So just a reminder of the key strategic planning activities. In January, the council had a longer work session, special session on the strategic plan presented by city staff, got you all oriented to the strategic plan, and reminded you of the progress you're making. We also held special small group conversations with each of you to get your input into preliminary priorities and what you wanted to see out of the strategic planning process. In February, we had the all day retreat with you. We condensed it a little.

It had originally been two days. Snow made us condense it. We roughly got the same amount of hours with you at that retreat as we would have in two days because we had a longer day and shorter breaks. After that, the staff sent out what they heard as your priorities, and we used those priorities with a session with the senior leadership team to say, this is what counsel said at the retreat. Start telling us what you would do in terms of tactics and actions to support those priorities.

We then came back at that March 23 session and shared an update, shared those priorities back with you. And then we're back here today to make sure we got those priorities right. We also have planned next week another session with the senior leadership team, a little bit broader than the senior leadership team. So once we confirm these priorities from you all, they will use them to guide their tactics and develop out the strategic plan. So we don't have that level of detail to share with you today.

You're still at the setting the vision, setting the priorities level. Staff is saying, these are all the things we're going to do to support it. So that will come back to you at the very last line on this chart As a full strategic plan presentation to counsel, it's usually timed around the budget time. So that's the overall plan. Just a reminder of the counsel retreat.

We spent time learning about some of the things that the staff is sharing our priorities, sharing what you all said were priorities. And then toward the end, we consolidated different ideas that you had in terms of your priorities and how do you dot vote? We combined some of those priorities. And some of them were reusing prior year priorities. One of the themes many of you have said is we want to build on prior priorities rather than changing direction every year.

So a lot of the ones the circles that are on this board were ones that were from last year. And so many of you prioritized prior year priorities. So you all had three votes. We grouped similar responses and voted on those priorities. After that, as I mentioned, we met with the senior leadership team for the first of two retreats.

So they heard what those draft priorities were and worked through a structured exercise to say, how can we measure success? What are some of the tactics and actions we can do in the short term? What are some longer term? So that's still in process and being sort of filtered and consolidated by Chris and Andy in the SPA group. So what we came out with I keep referring to the priorities.

This is what we shared with you last month. This is what we heard that you all had voted on as the four priorities that would guide the guide the staff in setting their actions. What I'd like to suggest we do today is look at each of these four and ask, did we get it right And if we need any adjustments or is something missing? You'll recall that we have priorities that the council sets for the next one to two years. They're nested within the overall strategic plan.

So the first priority listed here is continue implementing a comprehensive approach to community safety. That's one of the priorities we heard from council. It's nested with the safe and secure community goal area in the strategic plan. We're asking staff to focus on what the council priorities are rather than the strategic plan. They work together, but we're asking them to follow what you all have said are your top priorities.

So the safety one is listed first. The next one is enhance economic growth opportunities throughout the city, then expand housing and neighborhood revitalization efforts with emphasis on affordable housing needs. That's one where at the council presentation, I know Council Member Hare mentioned that he thought older or historic neighborhoods was missing from that title. So when we get to that one, we've got a suggested addition should the council want to add that. And then the last one is to improve and expand transportation, transit, and overall connectivity for residents.

So those are the four priorities we heard, and we we would suggest walking through each of those to make sure this feels right. Does that work for you all? I'm seeing nods.

Yes, ma'am. I think as we get into it, you may have a question or two.

Great. So the first priority is continue implementing a comprehensive approach to community safety that connects to the strategic plan goal of a safe and secure community. Any feedback if this again, we're asking you to stay at the priority and goal level, not all the tactics, not the specific actions staff would take. Is this big picture priority what you intend?

And and yes, ma'am. Thank you for that. And and the key part that you said in the beginning is that you're looking for to make sure you've got the language right. So so that's why I think we wanna just make sure that the language is is in line with what we're saying.

Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll pause there. Does the language for continue implementing a comprehensive approach to community safety

I don't see any questions so far.

Okay. Silent, so I'm going to move on to the second Yes,

Go ahead. We'll stop you.

Okay. Second one, enhance economic growth opportunities throughout the city. That's connected to the strategic plan goal area of economic and strategic growth. Nods? Okay. You said just stop me.

I said I will. And I'm looking at the lights, so they know to press the button. So then

I'll stop. So the third one, what we had sent out with staff was what's on top, expand housing and neighborhood revitalization efforts with an emphasis on affordable housing needs that connects to the economic and strategic growth goal area. Based on the conversation with Councilman Hare, we added the phrase on older neighborhoods in the second version. So this is one where we'd like feedback from you all.

We definitely know that that came up the other night in the meeting. Is there a way to articulate that and not use the word older neighborhoods? You know? So maybe legacy or or, you know, historic, but something that doesn't seem demeaning. You know?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I I'll say we didn't use the word historic because a lot of times in planning, that has a specific meaning to be designated as a historic neighborhood. But legacy neighborhoods

Just just something, you know, other than older, I guess. Mature.

Mature. Yeah. Any other questions or feedback? Or do you wanna settle on the word legacy?

Legacy. Sounds good. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, could, you know, possibly attainable, just like you said with historic has a certain definition. Affordable has a certain definition through North Carolina Housing Finance and Mhmm. So is there a way that maybe council can consider making that attainable? I mean Tangible. Because what you're trying to do is make it where it's affordable for everyone, but it may not meet that. That's a good catch. What what's your thought as from a realtor perspective?

And my favorite passion is flipping houses. So to me, the word revitalization almost captures what council member here desired almost. What if you put in addition to revitalization, you say revitalization and refurbishment efforts? Because to me, that lets you know that it's an older neighborhood because we're not just revitalizing the entire neighborhood. It's about refurbishing homes within there. So maybe that would say it without saying older neighborhoods. I mean, we all understand. We're talking about neighborhoods that Lafayette Village, Broadell. We're talking about homes built in the nineteen seventies and prior. Right.

It's it's my belief of what his intention was.

So, you know, I mean, councilor Liebherrat, your pleasure. I mean, I think legacy touches, I think refurbishing touches it, but it it's up to you all, however you wanna do it. Council member McMillan, well Jones and then McMillan.

Yeah, I I prefer the legacy just because I think it it's it's to the point. I think revitalization, it does. I think it speaks to many thing and legacy I think encompasses what we want us and and councilman Hare. I I like the legacy.

Alright. Council McMillan and Hodros.

Yes. Good morning, everybody, and thank you. It's good to see you all again. I came into this with some questions. I still have a question about this this piece and the emphasis on legacy neighborhoods. Anybody chime in on how they see this playing out programmatically and resource allocation wise? I know I have a very clear picture of what our development efforts look like in terms of affordable or attainable housing. How do you all see the tactics, the follow through and the programs as a result of us prioritizing older neighborhoods or legacy neighborhoods?

So that's a great point. Kind of an example I gave the other day, right now we have a program that's partnered through Urban Ministries that usually runs out of money, you have more requests than money. And what they do is come in and they make repairs and they prioritize it by emergency. I think what council member Hare and Tent and some of some of the areas that we represent that were built in the sixties and seventies, you have people there who may wanna make improvements as these neighborhoods come back and may need vinyl siding and roof replaced or something that they don't have the funds. And so is there an opportunity to expand that program either loosening up some of the restraints?

Because right now, I think it's it's still maybe operating off the low to moderate rules even though the the source of funds don't come from CDBG. But something like that to let's say if there was a grant for someone who was a working class but lived in a legacy neighborhood, that wanted to make improvements, you know, $5,000 would make a world of difference on bringing back pride on the street. So I mean, it could be something like that.

Yeah. Just a follow-up to that. Do you think that do you think in terms of scope and scale that those efforts, those programs and those opportunities would have any parity with our existing efforts to focus on affordable, attainable housing? And if you don't, do we run the risk of making this look like there's parity in including that into our stated priorities.

So so I do think that the more homes that you know, let's say our home ownership program has someone that qualified for a $125,000 house in a legacy neighborhood Mhmm. That their neighbor across the street is an owner but needs to refurbish it. And I think the more inventory we have, that helps with the affordability part. You know, right now, we got a tight rental market because it's not a lot of available units. So we've got a tight housing market because there's not a lot of new construction.

So as we try to figure out how to do it, I think you're gonna get more infield development programs that we have that that get activated with some of these things. Mhmm. But I don't wanna get us down a rabbit hole. Let me let me get to the other two council members and Yeah. And I'll circle back. Appreciate the explanation. Yes, Council member McNair? Oh. Is that you over the top? Oh, that was Hondros and then McNair. You're trying to cut council member Hondros.

Thank you, mister mayor. So my question is not so specific to this, but more general. So do we have this PowerPoint presentation?

And where

if we do, where can I find it?

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't see that.

This is a a virtual whiteboard that we're using so we can take notes while you're talking. You do have the PowerPoint that was shared last time, and it has the same information except for that schedule.

Right. Okay. That's that's some of the frustration. Some of my colleagues have questioned, you know, why are we revisiting this particular agenda item today from, you know, when it was on the agenda last time? And it's sometimes the the language on some of the things is vague, and then the devil's kinda in the details.

So staff goes back and and creates the action items or the strategy. And, you know, if if the bullet points are vague enough, you could fit a lot of stuff in there that may or may not fully encapsulate or pull in the same direction that council was going. So that that's kinda my concern. One of my frustration, not just for this item, but just in general, is when, you know, we got a lot of stuff about the retreat in our CCAM from the March 23 meeting, today's meeting. This is from from the retreat, but we don't have that.

So we'll we'll be discussing agenda items and looking at stuff on a PowerPoint presentation from staff or consultants like you all and not have the information where not only council members, but any resident that pulls up the agenda packet online can't see what we're seeing. You know, when we talk about transparency and those things, I mean, that if we're looking at it on the board, we should be able to to have it. If a resident says, hey. I like that PowerPoint presentation you all were discussing today. Can you email it to me?

You know, if we have it, it's an easy thing to to email or whether it's a PDF or whether it's a link if it's on our website. When we don't have it, we don't have it. So just more of a general frustration there.

Alright. Thank you, councilmember Mahondres. Councilmember McMahon.

Thank you, mayor. I just want to kinda, like, reiterate what councilmember Green was talking about refurbished homes. Those are my passion of mine as well. It speaks volumes to investors, but, however, legacy homes sounds a little more professional to me without any I just say I like legacy home. Leave it right there.

Okay. Alright. Well, you you had something else? I do. Okay. Yes, ma'am.

I do like the blue note that you put up that that suggested on the blue note that she took down.

Can you put the blue note back? That's right here.

Oh. Oh.

Yeah. I think that kind of captures it all.

Everybody's words are in there. Y'all okay with that? Because it still has legacy in there instead of saying older or old. Yeah. And this Yeah. Yes, sir. Council member first. Thank you, mayor. Is I kinda see that is the same thing, revitalizing and refurbishing. Refurbishing is a

part of revitalization. It just

but that's that's fine. I mean, it it just seems Redundant. A little redundant. Alright. Alright. Councilman Jones.

Yeah. Just just to reiterate, think on this to me, it does. It's in line with building out our current programs, think like you were saying. And to me, it is also showing the community as an extension of the bond that they passed in 2022. So it's showing it's still the priority. We took out this bond for the community for these purposes. So to me, it continues to speak to that. Thank you, miss Mary.

Alright. So, any suggestions on how we reconcile?

Yeah. So what we've typed on the blue note here is a third option. So it has a legacy and attainable, but the question I'm not hearing consensus from council on is if it should be revitalization and refurbishment or just revitalization or refurbishment in the

first Mayor Tamm has his lighter

Well, let me just say that's why I'm glad that you have this program up where we can see it and finalize it and vote on it so it doesn't have to be rehashed again. I think it's pertinent that we see it so we don't have to anticipate something coming back to us that we haven't seen.

Yeah.

So I

think this is the perfect opportunity for us to look at it, take a vote on it, move this on to a another topic. So are we ready for the vote, mister mayor, or

Just trying to make sure I capture everybody's input. What's that? Yeah. Councilman Hondros.

Real quick. You know, words are important and have meetings. So I just wanna make sure I know we all it sounds like the consensus is we like legacy, but is that really what we mean? Because it it a legacy neighborhood means something else to other people. So

So so this may this may be helpful. And just for just no no pun intended, but this is going to somebody's data center. But, Google, which popped up Gemini. But refurbishing versus revitalization. Refurbishing, involves cleaning, repair, and upgrading existing to enhance appearance, functionality, and lifespan, without complete demolition, And and then it goes on and then revitalization, modifying existing buildings for modern, sometimes new, purposes to enhance community vibrancy, in particular in high impact areas.

And and so I think I think it it may be a both end, if it's not too wordy for everybody, but, you know, you can certainly weigh in, but that just gives us something. But this this the blue note, I guess, captures it. Right?

We'll take the parenthesis.

Is it okay. Let's put it this way. Do we have any why don't you just take a a pulse of the council if that's where you're going, mayor pro tem. Is everybody okay with this wording? Does it cause heartburn for anybody?

On which post it?

The blue note.

I just think legacy means something different than what we're talking about. Legacy neighborhood.

So you're back to older. Mature.

A quick Google search. I'll just read it. A legacy neighborhood is typically well established, often upscale residential community known for its enduring appeal, custom homes, and strong lasting character. These neighborhoods prioritize long term value featuring mature landscaping and a close knit atmosphere. Examples include Legacy At Traymore in Fayetteville and Legacy At Jordan Lake in Chapel Hill. So I just wanna make sure once we codify this that we're gonna send the resources to the neighborhoods we want and not the ones that say, no, actually, we're legacy neighborhoods.

How about existing? Do we have a problem with the existing? Existing it covers you know, because it's not built yet. So I guess, I mean, it it captures that, but open to suggestions because we're we're wearing, Gemini out this morning. Don't pull her in. This isn't she's just trying to make sure we're legal instead. Alright. So council councilor Mahondres will do it and then we'll we'll we'll take a ping on it.

I I just wanna my fear is if we use legacy I have no problem with the word legacy, neighbors. That's fine. But then what if a Haymount or a Van Storey or other neighborhood say, hey. We're we're legacy neighborhoods. We want these resources. And is that the intent of what we're trying to do today? Or is it for

older maturity You don't think they fit that description? I mean, I think historic does, doesn't it?

I just want us as a council to understand what we're doing.

Let let me chime in, mister mayor. And I think councilman Mahendro, since he pulled out the definition, makes a good point because he used Legacy Traymore, which is in my district. Legacy Traymore is nowhere close to what we're talking about here. You're talking about five, six hundred thousand houses in Legacy Traymore. So I take that point exactly. So maybe existing

might be

a So we do

we wanna allocate resources to that?

They wouldn't qualify no way.

So Okay.

So does existing have any anyone have any issues with the word existing?

Well, they all are

existing. Well

But

you you revitalizing and refurbishing, so that won't apply to everything. So it won't Legacy and Trayvon over there where Derek lives at. Council member Metropolitan live may may not qualify for for a refurbish or or revitalization. So I I mean, I think the intent of it and miss Julie, what what weigh in now. You're the wordsmith here. The

the words that I think mean what you wanna say, I think, have the judgment that you don't want. I think it's the older and the lower income neighborhoods that you're targeting. Mhmm. But you're worried about sounding judgy. Can I

offer one more definition real quick since I'm googling this morning? A mature neighborhood is an established residential area typically developed before 1980, characterized by mature trees, established infrastructure, and the lived in feel. These areas are defined by unique non uniform home designs, larger lot sizes, and close proximity to established city amenities like parks and schools. I think that more fully encapsulates what we're talking about from

I I said that in a couple of words.

Mature Mature. Neighborhood.

Oh, yeah. Alright. Councilman McMillan, you had something?

No. I like that. I like that in accordance with the definition that was just read. I just wanted to state and maybe this could guide the staff. I think what we're talking about is neighborhoods where houses are headed towards dilapidation, where there's seniors that are on fixed incomes that are struggling to make repairs. Mhmm. And aiding those those those types of families in those in those types of situations. Right? Yeah.

Yes, sir.

A portion of that. Right? Because you could have someone who just bought the home, gets up, works every day, still of a certain age, of a mature age. I'm a tell my kids to use that instead of old. A mature age that needs refurbishing and revitalization. So I mean, I I understand. I think our intent is the same, but I think mature gets it. Does this council have any issues with mature? Nope. Alright. Let's let's let's take a consensus on that. Okay. Yeah. Can do hands. Those in favor of of the wording as listed. Alright. In the blue. In the blue.

Do you wanna read it out?

Oh, gone.

Yeah. What is can you pop that through

the Yeah. Oh. Expand housing and neighborhood revitalization and refurbishment efforts with emphasis on mature neighborhoods and attainable housing needs.

Good? Yeah. You're not good with that? What's what's the what's the issue?

I'm still not, feeling this refurbishment.

Yeah. Let me take it.

It puts me in

the same frame as, older.

Okay. I think revitalization covers refurbishment.

Alright. So what we'll do is we'll take a consensus on as is and if that doesn't make it, then we'll because we we got 15 more pages to go at least. Alright. Gotcha. Show of hands on blue note. You okay with the blue note? Alright. One, two, three, four. Alright. Those in favor of what happened to my okay. Alright. So the change that you're asking for is refurbishment to be removed. Yeah. Everything else? It was added, so just right where it was. Without refurbishment? Yeah. Alright. Alright. So show of hands for that version. One, two, three, four. Alright.

So that's 44. Right? It is.

Mister Harris. Sir.

Doctor Harris is not here, but he rightly pointed this out from an interest of his, and I think that's one of the reasons we're on this. Again, doctor Harris is not here, but when he speaks about this, remember all the efforts he put in to Broad Ale about trying to recognize him as a historic neighborhood. I think some of which y'all are also wrestling with is the fact that older or more established neighborhoods have had homeownership changes multiple times. And so I think councilor Mahondro's giving a date, 1980, we can argue about the date one way or the other, but I think that was really what doctor here was talking about was that as Toquet, for instance, as you have those huge large lots on Toquet, as they as the generational owners move on and the kids leave, is that gonna switch to a rental neighborhood? And and we all understand the challenges if you have residential neighborhoods.

So I think it the biggest compromise about not only revitalization, I think that councilor Bahadros and some other things really again, doctor here is not here, but I think that really captures what his interest was was about don't forget the neighborhoods that are established, mature, but also are in the fabric of the neighborhood could change, you know what I mean? And that's and I'm not sure how you add that in, but I think that what you have, the mature probably speaks that, but I mean it's really the homeownership change, like the house I'm in, I'm the third owner and it's 20 years old.

Right. Well, I I think I think they were okay on that. I guess we're back to refurbished versus revitalization. Right? Mhmm. Alright. So can we can we get to another can we put a little asterisk on that, circle back to that? Sure. Alright.

The fourth priority was to improve and expand transportation, transit, and overall connectivity for residents. And this connects to the desirable place to live, work, and recreate goal.

Councilman Ferguson, you had your light on about this one? Oh, that's old. Okay. Alright. Council, any any, comments, questions on this particular one? Alright. K.

So, mayor, that's all of them. Do we wanna come back to the third one? Do we want to leave it in draft form for the staff?

Can because, you know, one of the folks who you know, councilor Mayor was a champion of it. I know Davis would have some perspective of it. He represents a lot of the inner city neighborhoods that may be included in this conversation. So if you can kinda leave a leave a to do on that one.

Yes.

But I know you got many more things to talk about.

No. Actually, sir, this is we wanted to confirm the priority language with you and just remind you of the next steps. So if we want to come back to that, we can. Or if there's other parts of strategic planning that you'd like to talk about, we can. The next step is we would take this priority language back to an expanded senior leadership team next week.

So maybe one of them will have a perfect wording for this. We I think everyone understands your intent. It's just the wording might be a little imprecise. So we'll take it back to them next week, have them flesh out those tactics and actions, and then it'll come back to you in that sort of budget timing when you traditionally adopt the strategic plan and it's fully fleshed out.

The the only part that I think, since you're basically you kept it high level, but your report of the strategic plan is detailed. Right?

Yes, sir.

And so are these the exact notes that went from staff to you, or is this the result of what you took from that meeting and put it back to them? Because I think to councilmember Hondros' point, I don't know that we that we see the the part that comes back to you. So tell me how you you got to these pages.

Those yeah. What you have in front of you, and I just put up on the screen.

Because these are actual notes from it that you have in in here. Right?

Sticky notes.

Notes from the city council retreat. So all we transcribed everything that you said. So even though you ultimately voted on those or, yeah, voted on those four priorities, we have all the detail that has been shared with staff. So they understand the and they were the senior leadership team was there. They understand the context and the suggestions.

Are you able to copy us on that? We don't we don't need to talk about it today. Just the notes that you sent back. Because, basically, you took what we said and sent it to them and said this is what counsel said.

Right? That that's what you have in front of

you. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Thank you. Yes, sir. Counsel, any other questions for miss Julian then? I think I'm start. Our question is gonna be for mister Jeff. He'll be standing up here a while.

Alright. Yeah.

You got a question? Yes, you want. Alright.

I don't have a question. I really just have a comment. Mhmm. Well, maybe it will lead to a question. Since we have verified the language

Mhmm.

And our senior leadership team is gonna have a retreat to try to bring back tactics for us. For goals that we didn't meet last year since we had the same strategic goals, what are they going to bring back different so we can achieve those goals that we didn't achieve last year? I don't know if that's for you or for the city manager.

I don't think it's for me. I I can give you a generic answer, but so the generic answer is every year, the city staff refreshes their plans, their work plans, essentially, for how they can achieve the strategic priorities that the council sets. Many of the work plans are very long term. You know the pace of government is slow, and it takes a long time to see results. So some of the actions that they're taking are the baby steps toward those longer term results.

And so it feels like you're not making a lot of progress even though they're they're making progress. Sometimes, you know, get diverted, different priorities come up midyear, and staff doesn't actually make much progress because they're either a bunch of people retired or council asked them to do something else. So sometimes priorities change midyear, so you don't see the progress. But I think that's the generic answer of how you'll continue to see progress. Anything you wanna add, mister Manor?

I I do. So this is a case in point. It's the reason why I asked about the adoption of what we've been asked to solidify today. So if you turn to page 14, right, and I know your your goal is to take our meeting, condense it, and to summarize it and send it to us. Now what we don't participate on as we look at page 14 is strategic goals, safe and secure community.

But I don't remember us. I remember a council member and I remember this became a political issue, which is why I'm bringing it up because your job is not the political side. Your job is to take council's priorities. I don't remember us defining success. And and I'm I'm saying I support this on the front end, but this is just an example of the specificity that came and that sometimes gets political that where we in the strategic plan talked about the first amendment, fourth amendment, fifth amendment being upheld as a as a success item.

We we know we need to do that because we all take a oath that we're gonna uphold the constitution. That became a political talking point that is now in this plan. Right? And so how did things like that happen out of that meeting? Because we're looking policy long term, not necessarily debating things like that because those those kind of things bring in extra conversation that probably ought not be. So how do we get from

what that looks like?

So so the document that's up on the screen that you're looking at are looking at is the summary of the conversations and the sticky notes that happened at your council retreat. So it did come up at the council retreat. One of the council members said, this is what success looks like for me. Mhmm. So we were just capturing all of the notes. As we took all of your notes and narrowed it down with you all prioritizing prioritizing ultimately dot voting

Yeah.

That isn't one of the things that you all put your dots on. Mhmm. So we're capturing this as your notes. We're not capturing this as the strategic plan. That's gonna

come later. That's my point. Like, we all have 10 different things for those areas, and we we we we do the dots.

And we have hit with

each other and and get consensus on the dots, is just like we do on decision making on this desk. Right? Mhmm. So if it's not a item that was a consensus item with dots, how did it how's it now in what we're being asked to adopt language wise?

We're I'm not asking you to adopt this that document.

Notes for our

all of just notes for your reference to remind you of the discussion at the retreat.

So do you put all discussion dots on I mean, whether it made dots or not? So that would be a longer list in this, wouldn't it? Because there are a lot of stickies on there.

This is everything that you all

So every single sticky on there is captured under here?

Yes, sir. Okay.

Yes, sir.

Alright. That's helpful.

Yeah. Alright.

Yeah. And and sorry that wasn't clear. This is just notes from the retreat. Okay. We take the notes from the retreat. The main thing we put out are those four priorities you looked at just now, and we checked the language. And then the staff takes all of these notes, the discussion, those priorities, puts together the tactics and the actions, and they will bring back something that you're actually adopting. So you're not adopting the notes. They're taking all of that information and saying, this is what counsel meant. They didn't mean legacy to be those fancy neighborhoods.

They're professionally interpreting what you said to make sure that they're on track. And then it comes back to you so you can see, yes, they're on track and vote for it.

So in your in your notes for us, how do you capture the things that there was a consensus on? What won the most dots? Do you indicate that anyway in here?

Yeah. So it's later in the document.

Okay.

It's on page 16.

Okay. So page 16 is those four priorities that y'all voted on with the most dots.

What we just

what we just watched through. Right.

I understand that. I I get the the priorities because that's the big block. I'm talking about what success look like over here. So it like, when when we agreed to that, is there a was there a dot there you go. Alright. So you're you're capturing every sticker that was on there, the one that has the dots that there was consensus that moved forward. Three dots, four dots Yes. Two dots.

Yes, sir.

Is that indicated in here that the items that council actually agreed upon? Yes.

Yeah. So we've got a picture of the physical dots so you can remind yourselves of the picture. Page 19. And you can see safe and secure community under that proposed priorities. It says five five council votes. So that was the dots on it. The next one, economic and strategic growth, shows the five council dots. You can also see constitutional rights and civil liberties had zero council votes. So we've we've captured what you did in terms of dots that day.

Okay. Password and strengthen. Alright. I see what you're saying. Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Yeah. And I and I'll say this is a lot of information. Mhmm. It was a long day, and we captured a lot of information.

This is good. Yeah. This is very detailed. So we can read that and and kinda work it into our next few meetings. Yes, sir. So what you have on the screen, if you put that back up, this is what you're asking us to affirm today is what we were just working on. I just wanna take a vote on that real quick and then we can let you.

Before you move on, mister American, I get a follow-up to my question from the senior manager because here's here's my concern. We set these priorities, one, two years, five to ten year priorities. We know what those priorities are. We go and fight for them when we go to Capitol Hill. We went and talked to our legislators about expanding transit to the West Part Of Fayetteville. We talked to them about expanding our airport. We talked about the c and I project, expanding housing. When we come back and we find out we get a no, what do we do to keep these priorities priorities if we're not fulfilling those priorities? What is our next move?

Well, taking the first one for as long as I can remember back to 2004, safe and secure community has been some form of fashionist, the number one goal of council. Economic development has been there. Housing and transportation have, you know, floated in and off. And so, the words are important and help us reframe. But when we get a no, let's say, for the BRIC grant, we may then move over and say that we're going to apply for it from the FEMA, but we never lose sight of the fact that that project is still there.

Similarly, the housing component Right. Was here less enough when we did, hope six. Hope six took care of a portion of our community. Now we're after Marcus looking at Marcus and Choice. Had a conversation with a council member about mobile home parks, how do we remove mobile home parks and reflected with with Gibson and others about how we had effectively worked on that issue, not that mobile homes are inherently bad at all, but it was is that the rental aspect and how do we focus on that and so we if one path seems blocked, it does not mean that we stop that, But it does mean that we may have to broaden our approach to look for other funding opportunities and things like that.

But these are all areas that even if they were not in a strategic plan that the council has already identified by your budgeting actions last year and probably in the coming years. Safe community, economic mobility, housing, and transportation. And then I think the devil's in the details as the mayor says as when we come back with how we're gonna fund those for the upcoming year. But there are some items too as Julie mentioned, let's say storm water. Right.

I think the mayor was here when we started the storm water master plan. I think that actually predated you to council member Hondros at the moment. And we're literally spending hundreds of thousands of dollars putting together a master plan that now has probably what, a half $1,000,000,000 worth of projects in it. Right. And Sheila saw her in the back and Byron in the back. We probably have what, another five years before we complete the master plan in later this year? One year. One more year. And then it turns away from planning to actually doing. And so but that's something that most of the members of council don't remember that we started that.

And so we're still funding those efforts with the stormwater master plan. So it doesn't fall off. It just means our

strategy I I got you. But let me just follow-up, and I wanna belabor this, mister mayor, but I wanna ask you a question, mister mayor. You sent us a a list of what the current administration is not gonna fund. If that is part of our priorities, what do we do? Wait for another administration to come in? How do we combat the nos that we're getting when we go to Capitol Hill?

Well, some of it and Joe Joe can probably speak to a lot of this. What I sent out was conference of mayors sent his the administration's proposed budget, which cut a number of departments that we're talking about. Cut department of energy, cut proposing to cut city b block grant. We noted the amount of things that the administration has congresses typically lockstep. So we I sent it so that we can be tracking it.

I think what happened is as we have our federal lobbyists, we're doing two things. One, we had lobbyists that had better relationships with the previous administration that got us into some of the Department of Energy and some of the the climate based stuff that they prioritize. This one is more defense and business, and we and we we we're moving in that direction. Some of it may be rewording and retooling it to take out the things that you know, this one is a little different. Jill miss Jody, you can speak to that. If you have

Yeah.

Certain keywords in there, they tell you automatically you get disqualified. So you wanna talk to that?

Yeah. I think it what what you're referring to is the president's proposed budget

Correct.

That was released on Friday. And what's important to remember about this is this is part of the process. It is a proposal. What will eventually, hopefully, get appropriated may not be that. Right?

It's part of the process that he'll the congress will have to talk about it. Both sides will have to talk about it. That's where we step in and begin our advocacy work with our delegation to make sure that what we find important that we're carrying that message, message, much like you all did very effectively in DC when we were up there. And so we're working with our federal partners right now to develop an action plan to make sure that our voices and our interests and what we want is loud and clear, but the mayor's exactly right. Part of it is being flexible and adaptable and knowing that the work that we do is important, it may be how we talk about the work.

Right? So we're gonna be responsive. We're gonna be responsible, And and we're gonna be adaptable. And know that if it's a council priority and we've been working toward it, there's always a way to make it work in in whatever shape, form, or fashion we can make that work.

Thank you, mister mayor. Thank you, mister

doctor McHugh. Alright. Councilmember McMillan?

Yeah. Thank you. I just wanted to want to signal alignment and understanding of where we are. Wanna thank you for your patience, for the clarity, for your grace. Coming from the military, definitely this feels familiar.

Understanding where we are in the process, understanding how important it is to nail down strategy so that follow on operations and tactics will be in line. And I just see also see your expert facilitation and how you were able to to take in all the inputs from council and ensure that we reached consensus on at least a few things. And I just wanna say thank you to the staff. Thank you thank you to to you both for for all that you've done, and I think we're in a good position to move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. Thank you, council member. Alright. So you wanna pop that up and let us affirm that. And the part that's been asked today is what we've been working diligently on. And he'll be back up shortly, I guess. Yep.

So control room, we want the screen back up.

All right.

There you go. So the main slide with those four original priorities from the council retreat, That's in the presentation. That's in your packet on slide 12. So anyone following along at home can see those. What we added in the blue Post it is what we discussed today. So we, again, we did it on the virtual whiteboard so we could take live notes for you.

Alright. So this is what the council is adopting only, not the notes, but this this part. Alright. Councils, so look to you for

And I'm sorry to interrupt, mister mayor. Just confirming you wanna leave the revitalization and refurbishment for now.

Yeah. So council member walked in, but, okay. Alright. So we're good on that? I was listening to them all here. Alright. Alright. So let's take a vote on that so we can clear this hurdle. Yeah. We were stuck on that one, council member. So we're just having to clean it back up. So alright. So got a consensus on that. Thank you all. So much. Appreciate it.

Look forward

to talking to you. Alright. Martin. Okay.

Martin. Martin.

Alright. Mister Yates, madam clerk, you got all the vote counts from that previous?

Yes, sir. Alright. And that's just consensus. Correct?

Alright. Mister Yates. Good morning again, mayor, council, Mister manager, thank you for your time this morning. So I'm excited to bring to you the manager's recommended, 27 through 32 capital program. Just to kinda give you an update on where we are in the process.

By general statute, the manager has to provide to you a recommended budget by the May. Historically, the city has done a variety of different things, in trying to bring in bringing the CIP and TIP early to counsel for additional discussion, which is what we're trying to mirror here. But, over the last few years, we have typically brought that to you with the budget program. So trying to get back on to a regular schedule, we wanted to bring to you the recommended CIP. This is only the introduction today, so we're not looking for any votes.

We're not looking for anything other than you'd receive the information. As I mentioned earlier, you received your books and your boxes on Monday afternoon. Some of you, I know, picked them up today, so there will be, you'll have some time to look at that. We would expect you to vote on this with the budget, around the June 1, first meeting in June. So we have time to work through it.

But I wanted to get we wanted to get this in front of you for additional dialogue. Mayor, as you pointed out, you're we're still working through some of your strategic plan items, so I'll outline what we base the capital program on, in just a moment. But really in the process, nothing is finalized. This is the, collection of information from the department heads, from the financial adviser, market conditions, all these different things to provide to you, some different strategies and some projects. Where it goes from here is up to you, from that perspective, and we'll look to you for that leadership direction.

And all of our tools are available to us. We just need to gather that information. I brought the whiteboards. So if we wanna start parking lot, we can, as we go through this. For the new council members and for the public, when when we go through this process, we have what we refer to as the parking lot, which are side items that either need to be researched or additions that some council members are interested in having.

What we will do is at the end of the process, we will look at those items, and we will look for council's consensus on those items. Then we'll develop funding strategies for how to get those and trade offs. The budget is about trade offs. Remember that during the strategic planning session, and I believe in the summary packet that you guys were just looking at, you've seen the slide where we showed demand and capacity. Well, we know that demand, even today, outstrips our capacity to provide service and funding.

So there's all all of the CIP is about trade offs and what can be achieved. So I just wanted to kind of set the stage for that conversation. Nothing is finalized. This is the start of the discussion with you as a council on the public dialogue. Staff is, for all intents and purposes, are done is done with it from the perspective of this is our best, recommendation, but we'll look to you for additional discussion.

So, mister Yates, that that that that gets on the street that I wanted to get to, but I don't wanna interrupt your presentation. But just touch that for me. Right? Because if we just agreed on the wording and make sure it captured the spirit of the council's priorities, how do you have something that you're saying y'all are done with? I understand it's not real till we adopt the full budget. Absolutely. But but how did you come up with it? How how did they have time to do that as we may change to refurbish versus revitalize versus legacy? Like, how are your plans baked in here, and we just fixed that?

Sure. So if if I could, mayor, I'm a

have a slide Go ahead.

About that. So I'll get when I get to that slide, we can talk about it, Yes. That's So typically, I'm a bottom line upfront discussion kind of guy. So what we've done is we've balanced the responsible planning. So what you have in front of you is balanced.

It's balanced at the current tax rates, and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a little while. It's aligned with city priorities, mayor, as you were talking about, and I'll outline that. Safe community, supporting local business, improving neighborhoods, building housing, improving transportation, and creating opportunities for youth, which were the, last year's priorities but, morphed this year, what we can realistically deliver. We know that the market, and we'll talk about that and the risks, that the market can only endure so much locally, and our capacity to deliver projects, is, I would say, limited, just because of the number of hands that we have available to do that, and we can augment that a number of different ways. Funding overview in 2027, it's about $97,000,000, through '30, 2032, there's about $670,000,000 recommended in the CIP.

Mayor, as I know you're always interested, project closures, there's about $11,000,000 of projects to be closed. Those are completed projects or projects that have, lived their life cycle. And then about a 1,200,000.0, a little bit less than that, was reprogrammed into the recommended CIP to help reduce our be able to do more to do more projects.

And and and just for all of our verification, can you talk to what that means? So basically, there are projects that were finished, but the money's still there. Can you talk to that?

Sure. So there are really two types of projects where we where we have closed them, would close them. So a project, say, like the Maplesea Smith facility, it's open. It's in use. The CO has been received.

It's been working for a year. So what we would do is any money left in that project, we would close that project out and look at the restrictions around the money. So if there were some if it was state dollars, if it was, geo bond, if it was some other funding, then we'd look to what projects we could reprogram that money to to help reduce this year's burden and do more projects with 27. The other type of project are maybe ongoing projects like street resurfacing or other projects where we've exhausted all the money, but the project this cycle of that project would be closed. So when we completed that cycle, we would close that project out.

And that there's a number of accounting reasons why you'd want to do that. But what we try to do is look at the projects that have remained open or are complete and try to get that narrow those down, close out those and use those resources so they're not just sitting in that project waiting for a future project because that's not high value to us from that perspective. And we want to give back to the residents as much value as we can get out of the CIP. So council strategic priorities. So, this is what I believe, mayor, you were referring to.

So this is what we built the the CIP on for this year, the ongoing commitment to public safety, economic growth, revitalization efforts, and housing needs so that was in there, mayor, evaluate and expand transportation and other connectivity for residents and parks and recreation opportunities for youth engagement interaction. We will tighten this up once the council is adopted, but we believe that even with the draft that Julie was sharing with you earlier, we are able to achieve those strategic priorities with the projects we're gonna recommend we are recommending to you. So I don't believe they work in conflict. We they they fall into those different veins even with the changes and tweaks the council is making. Our core principles.

So we work off from the strategic plan to try to to identify the projects, but we also set a prioritization, if you will, a framework, for how we are going to develop and prioritize and rank CIP projects. When we look at it, and we had this conversation with the CIP committee, this is the framework from which we said, okay, if we have $100,000,000 of projects and $60,000,000 of funding, where does the $60,000,000 go? The first thing is finish what we've started. So a lot of the projects this year, a lot of our new funding that goes into the projects this year is to top, if you will, top off a project, that prices have changed, estimates have changed. We need a little bit more money to complete that project.

So some of our new funding for 2027 is going to those projects and trying to get those out. And what I talk to construction management about all the time is delivering a project on budget, on time, as expected. Okay? So it falls into the promises made, promises kept, and what the original scope of the project was. Make sure we can deliver the project. Can we do it? Can the market accept it? Can we as a city accept it? Streets are a really good example. Stormwater and streets.

You can't tear your entire city up all at one time to redo the stormwater and streets. It's just not practical. So pacing projects out over the six year plan to systematically make those changes and take advantage of synergies around projects. So for instance, if you're going to do the stormwater in one area, are are you gonna do the street at the same time? Is PwC doing that work? Are we working through the parks and recreation, you know, plan? If we're if we're doing improvements in that area, what are the other things around it that we can catch synergy on to try to achieve that? Understanding our capacity. This is a really important one. Financial capacity.

Can we afford it? And when I talk about that, it's not only can we build it. K? Because just like in your personal life, you can afford a house. What you can afford in that house, you may be able to buy it, but you may not be able to maintain it. So when we see in the operating budget, the Tennis Center is gonna be a good example this year. I'm sure during our discussion, during the budget time when we bring the operating budget back to you at the May 1, we're gonna talk about the operations of the tennis center. We've got this beautiful facility. We we just had a preview on the other day. We'll be open, and people will play be playing tennis on it this summer.

Well, that requires staff. That requires grounds maintenance, all those other things. So we'll be talking about, can we maintain it? Do we have the financial capacity to maintain the new things we're building? Organizational capacity, that's top to bottom. Do we have staff to staff it, build it, monitor it, all those different things, and then market capacity, as I talked about earlier.

Third Do you have a councilor Mahendros. Thank you, mister mayor.

We talk about afford and stuff. Do we know what 1¢ in ad valorem tax rate will equal to this year?

Yes, sir. It's a couple of slides down, but I can tell you it's about 2,400,000. Just slightly less than

2,400,000.0.

Thank you, sir.

May Pro Tim's got a

question for me. Thank you, mister Yates. I'm sitting up here thinking about how we need money to maintain certain things. And you use the Glenville Tennis Courts as an example. And we all know that that's gonna bring a lot of economic development into the city of Fairfield with them holding tournaments and everything else. How do we use some of the taxes from that to help us maintain those individuals, those those projects, those buildings, those infrastructures?

So I will give you the technical answer because I think that the mayor may have some input on that as well because I know one of his interests is the hotel motel taxes. Correct. What we receive as a city, other than it rise tide rises all ships from a sales tax perspective, we will get some of that sales tax just because the sales tax numbers will go up. From an operational perspective, we'll get additional fees and whatever we charge to use the facility will come back to the city. But those are primarily the two streams of revenue.

One way less direct through the sales taxes and the direct through the operations of it from a hotel motel tax, bed tax, meal sack, all those others, whatever those other taxes are, we don't get those directly to support those facilities. The you have any I'm sorry.

Yeah. I having that conversation. Some of the TDA folks were there the other day. And, of course, as the the city makes these major investments in tennis center, sports complex, I mean, it's only fair that, possibly there we can explore some, recurring contribution that goes on a capital fund to maintain it, you know, and so, they were open minded to that. I think, you know, it's probably a council, official council decision to ask or not, but I think something like that, kinda like we do with SEGRA, that so so much money is put up for capital improvements just so, you know, when it's time to fix it or keep it up, you don't have that.

Do we also have the chart ready on what we're gonna charge county residents to use the Glenville Tennis facility?

I believe we're still look working through the operational policies and

That's in the parks and rec agreement. Right?

Yeah. Well, we we're happy to bring that back in the near future. Don't I don't believe we finalized that yet.

Yeah. Councilor Mahindra. Thank you,

mister mayor. Kinda piggyback on your thought there. Talking to the TDA and some of the other partners, and I'm I don't know if they can per statute legally contribute to operations, but they did express interest to some of the members I spoke with about capital investments.

And,

you know, they I was gonna save that for the MacArthur Road, but the members on that authority are very sports focused at the moment. Looking at doing a sports authority of some sort that may be a sub authority of that group or committee or commission. So I think perhaps it it it was a missed opportunity with the tennis courts at Glenville and, you know, definitely on a new project like MacArthur Road or any other parks and rec kinda sports related projects. We wanna get that partnership and that investment from them if if and when possible.

Concur a 100%. Alright. Mister Yates, I don't see any

more And that's a great segue into the next point. So thank you, councilman. Taking care of what we already have. Just kinda continuing on with the courts at Glenville Lake. We know the day we opened the doors, it's it's, aging. The play, the number of people that'll go through there. So the courts will we know that there's a time a time clock on those things for capital refurbishment and so forth. And I know that we've had a lot of conversation about maintaining the facilities we have, the roofs, the air conditioner, the HVAC, all those different things. So before we build new, one of the things we set out as a priority is how are we gonna refurbish? I refer to it replacement and renewal.

You'll hear me say R and R accounts. So what is our strategy around replacement and renewal? Maintaining the infrastructure that we have in place. And we know that we have courts and playgrounds and facilities and all these different things that are getting constant use, high use places, that every time somebody walks through that door, that door gets a little older. Right? We also know, for instance, like at the senior center east, now we've lived in it for a couple of years. There may be some of some of the functionality of the design may need to tweak a little bit so that it's a better use. Or you'll see later in the presentation, we know we need parking. Council's taken the step to acquire land. Now we

have to develop a parking lot.

Right? So there's that whole concept of taking care of and ensuring the assets we have in place are usable for the residents as they sit today before we kind of focus on adding that new. And then the last piece of that was plan for the long term. We it's incumbent on us to provide to you as a council that sustainable financial plan and sustainable plan for the capital. So if you think about operating budget, have to balance in a single year, right?

When we do the CIP, we balance it down and across. Meaning every year, the CIP is balanced in addition to the year we're going to ask you to adopt. So we look out five years, really five planning years plus one we're gonna ask you to adopt at some point, to develop a funding strategy, giving councils direction and guidance on tax rates, bonding capacity, all those other issues that the residents can sustain. We tweak it every year. We bring the next year forward.

We kind of rework parts of it, but we are constantly focused on that out window of sustainability from a financial perspective. And we saw that the benefit of that in our most recent bond ratings and the market's willingness to buy our deal because they understand that we have a capital planning program and strong fiscal controls, and you as a council have been very judicious in your use of the city's credit as well as the finances, so we built a good platform for that. So that's what this program gives you is kind of these things that as we sat down and looked at all the projects, because there were millions of dollars of requests from departments as we asked them, what do you see as the future need? What do you see as those challenges in your department? We had to winnow that down to something that's physically sustainable and that we could put in front of you.

So that's, I just wanted to reiterate kind of the core principles undergirding, if you will, the CIP as we developed it. So the recommended funding. So in this capital part, in your book, this is what you'll see. The balance at current tax rates, closed projects were reallocated. The stormwater rate implementation is underway.

So as council gave us direction last year during budget time to change the stormwater rate structure, we're working with the county to get that implemented. As you know, you pay your stormwater on your property tax bill. So last year when it was adopted, that overhaul, it was too late in the process with the county to make that overhaul for the tax bills. We are on track to have that for the upcoming, tax bill coming out. So, once that's complete, and that's some changes to the impervious surfaces calculation and so forth, we'll be able to achieve that.

So the stormwater includes that. We haven't finished the operating side. So I'm gonna reserve saying there won't be or will be any rate increases at this point pending discussion on the operations. Same thing with solid waste. We're looking at the operations of solid waste right now to look at that, but there are no none of those rate increases right now are driven off of the capital program.

Looking at the GO capacity, we've exhausted our GO capacity for the most part. As we went to the market, borrowed $40,000,000 which is a little less than half of what you had authorized. We've exhausted the parks and rec money, pretty much. What you do have is your 12,000,000 that you've committed some of it, but we haven't borrowed it yet for housing. And we have, depending upon the outcome of the nine one one PSAP, depending upon that outcome, there may be some public safety money in relationship to that if we get the grants that we've looked at through the e nine one one funds.

So there's a little bit of flex in there, but we've pretty much programmed based on the voters' actions and based on what councils told us. We've we've pretty much exhausted all that bonding capacity. And then again

So mister Yates, touch that a little bit. Sure. So you said we've we've we've drawn down 40, but the bond was for 97. So how we've exhausted it?

Sure. So what we've done is we've put in place what I refer to as reimbursement resolutions, which are notification to the IRS. That's an IRS requirement that says, we're gonna reimburse ourselves for these funds. This allows us to not have to pay interest on those funds while we build a project. In addition, we have programmed out, for instance, Fire Station 16, Fire Station 9. So we've programmed out those bond funds so that when we have to issue those contracts, we can sign those contracts. And then as we complete those, we will go to the market and borrow that money to reimburse the city. So when I say we've exhausted it, what we've done is adopted or programmed all of the bond money for So you've

encumbered it and and and but you haven't haven't expressed it?

We've encumbered or or programmed it. The council's approved and allocated it. So there's not additional funding at this time from the GO bonds because we're we're hid them by the $97,000,000 Obviously, we can't go above that. We do have a limited obligation bond included in the capital program that was approved that was for MacArthur Park, and

that

is also programmed in to fund that project. So all that debt service is programmed in around the committed tax rates. And when we say we're balanced at current tax rates, that's what that means. The $04 and the two GO bond tax rates are we've balanced the CIP at that level. Does that answer the question?

Councilman Mahendroth. Thank you, mister mayor. I was

gonna say I have a couple more. So to piggyback or or get more clarity on exhausting the GEO bonds. So we've programmed in already $60,000,000 worth of projects for public safety, 25,000,000 for infrastructure and $12,000,000 for housing. Can you expound on what those projects are in a nutshell?

So we've the 25 has been done over the last few years, and it's pretty much fully expended. It's been a number of things, sidewalks, resurfacing, and we can pull that specific list and provide it to you. For the public safety, the biggest chunk of that's on the nine one one center. So about 30,000,000 of the 60 for public safety is for the e nine one one or the PSAP. So we program houses? Excuse me?

The nine one one PSAP and then two firehouses?

Yes. Okay. I believe there was a third one, if I remember right.

Station 2. That's a re renovation?

That is a renovation. And right now, we're doing the feasibility study to see how that what renovation opportunities are there if it's feasible. If not, we'll come back to council and have some additional conversation about the recommendation.

And what have we done with the 12,000,000 housing piece? The 12,000,000

housing, I believe that council with the Merchants and Choice program and a couple of other projects has committed some of that bond funding for that. The remainder is unallocated for that piece, but we haven't issued it either. It's just it's in

So real quick question, and this is my favorite slide so far. So the bottom there, we got the number you mentioned earlier just under $2,400,000 per cent of ad valorem tax rate. So last year, if I remember correctly, so this is for '27, right? So we're in the current 2026 fiscal year, right?

Yes, sir. Absolutely. Last

year's '26, the current year's value was $2,348,000 if I remember.

It's going be probably a little bit more than that by the end But that was the estimated. That was the estimated.

So about $45,000 difference. So that was my question is what was the actual? Do we know the actual for '26? And then this is a proposed for '27. So, know, just curious if how accurate you are with the projected value in the way of, you know, hopefully we get some additional growth that we didn't anticipate that bumps that up a little further.

So we can we can pull those that information for you. We're not done with '26 at this point. But I can tell you in '25, we were less than we were less than $900,000 off on our ad valorem estimate to the good. So we got about 900,000 more, which was baked into your financial statements for 2025. And to give you an idea, that is sub 2%.

So we were 98, 99% accurate on our projection of, taxable value. And remember, a penny a penny I would say a penny is a penny is a penny. So the value of a penny doesn't change. What changes is your collection rate, your ad your assessment values. Because remember, ad valorem is made up of not just real property, but business and personal property, public services property, which is our, valued every year based on schedules, and then automobiles.

So of when the reval we talked about this last year. With the reval, you only dealt with houses and real property, but the other three components change annually. So that's where we work with the state. We work with the county and try to hone that in. We've been pretty accurate within plus or minus, you know, a percentage point either way and pretty tight with that.

So, I wouldn't anticipate it to go up huge, and it's constantly changing because collections, as you know, people pay pay their taxes, you come in and pay taxes in arrears and so forth. So that value of the penny makes some assumption about collectability, and a half percent change in collectability can change that estimate slightly, but but it's not material from that perspective. So, I hope that answers your question, We've been pretty tight.

It does. So we got about less than a 3% growth on the Advilarem, the value of that Advilarem, zero one. Do we know what the projected or proposed projected, I guess, growth of the sales tax from 26 to 27?

All indications, and we're still working on that right now because we're trying to give you the latest estimate. So keep in mind, sales tax goes to operations, and we haven't fully finished that exercise yet. We're seeing it slow. So, and I think you'll hear from Tiffany Murray, our CFO, on Monday when she does her her report financial first quarter or her quarterly report where we are with sales taxes. But I think the consensus is in talking with the state and talking with the national the national picture, we're gonna see that slow a little bit.

The market's changing where we've seen strong growth. And keeping in mind, we're a smaller piece of that pie also. So this is that first twenty six was the first full year we saw the impact of the change in the way that sales tax was collected, and we're seeing that continue on. But indications are from the state that we're gonna probably be 34% at most, maybe even sub 3% depending upon which category you're looking at. So we don't anticipate that being huge.

And our anticipated ad valorem growth is typically around one and a quarter percent. We try to break that down and look at automobiles, but automobiles are slowing a little bit as well. So and those are usually a leading indicator. So they they create some concern for us as we kinda look at that, because Fayetteville is a little different because of Fort Bragg and the and the clientele and the folks that buy cars here. But, typically, automobiles can be a lead leading indicator of other economic challenges. So we're kinda watching that closely, but we don't anticipate a large swing. I'd be very surprised if we saw a large jump in sales taxes.

Alright. Mayor Pro Tem.

Yes. I just had one quick question, mister Yates, and that's the unassigned fund balance. How did you come up with that number? What is that money being programmed to do?

And you're looking at this the That's correct. Okay. So the unassigned fund balance is a combination of, a little bit of general fund dollars being transferred over to the CIP to help offset some of those costs. And then some of that funding then also is for is unassigned closed project money. So that the way technically, the way that

it that works you mentioned earlier.

Yeah. It falls to the bottom, and then we reappropriate it. So it falls to the bottom of the fund if to the unassigned in those capital funds, and then we put it back up into projects. Gotcha. So that's when you see that as a funding source, it's a combination of those two things.

Thank you, sir. Mister Yates, so walk me through something real quick. Yes, sir. So, the bond, for the infrastructure out of out of that is 60,000,000 for for public safety, 12 for housing, and what? 15 for? 5. 25 for infrastructure. And so in order, for that to go out so quickly for you to have it appropriate and assigned, you use projects that we already had teed up ready to go. Right?

That is my understanding. Yes.

Alright. And so, like, what we're doing right now is we're assigning money. We're putting money aside to pay for things that are gonna be in our CIP over the next five years. Right? And so let's say we took out an infrastructure bond next year, and you got that swath of cash in, and you prepaid things that we already had that were teed up ready to go. Where's the money that we set aside along the way? So you lifted off of the the burden, the the liability of projects that were already being 2 pennies or penny was being set aside to pay. So when the the new money came in, what happened to the to the remainder of that money? Because you may be two or three years into

So there's a couple of assumptions that you're kind of making in that discussion is that the future projects were there and that they were funded with existing or funded with funds other than debt. So for instance, if we had programmed out five years of $500,000 each year, dollars 2,500,000.0 for sidewalks, and we got $2,500,000 of GO bond, and that was supposed to be cash out over those $2,500,000 of that five years, then what you're saying would be correct. There would be $2,500,000 or $500,000 freed up every year. If that was funded with anticipated debt of some kind, what you would have done is not issue the debt, not use that capacity, then borrow the 2 and a half million and do all of those projects and and capture the time value of money that doing it early without inflation. So I would have to go back and analyze exactly how all that

would Because you you can't do a limited obligation bond on a street or a sidewalk because it's not, like, tangible. So, typically, when we were putting that aside so, yeah, I would like the list of things that these projects went to pay once the the money came in and which where they originated from? Because, you know, when you were doing streets and when you're doing sidewalk, some of that was money that we were Sure.

You know, gradually put aside. I think if I remember last year from the discussion, because I I believe we had some of this last year, and we'll refresh that for you. We did plan plus, so we did additional sidewalks and additional projects. So the other aspect of that is just like we are kind of grooming the backlog, if you will, and coming back through projects and readjusting all the multiple years of the CIP, that funding would have then been reallocated to other projects to help offset that and lower that rate. So if you remember last year during the tax rate discussion, the objective was to try to get it as close to revenue neutral as we could, knowing that we couldn't get all the way there.

So that funding may have gone away at that point because we did we took the penny out or we took reduced the rate for that. So there's a variety of reasons and a variety of things that you would see in that. We'll be happy to come back to you and have that conversation.

Yeah. The specific projects. Absolutely. Okay.

So kinda coming back to it, what we have for you this year is kind of a little bit of a different strategy. The CIP you have in front of you is balanced with a 2¢ increase, and I'll highlight projects in a minute. But what we are recommending is at $04 which is the committed tax rate, there is a certain level of projects that we can do, and those are the new projects I'll talk about in a minute. Then we've given you a choice for the council to mull over and change if you'd like. We have a package for one additional penny, and we have a package for two additional pennies.

So if council so chooses to raise the rate by $02 then we have the the committed capital rate. I hear it. Otherwise, so we just were giving you a recommendation and an option. If you wanna do that, these are the projects we would recommend funding. If not, we have balanced the CIP otherwise with the recommendation as it sits, okay? So I'm going to walk through that in just a minute. But a couple of high points. The funding sources. Our program, our capital program is heavily reliant on state funding and federal funding. That comes through a variety of things, grants, primarily dedicated funding or earmarked funding and so forth.

So I wanted to highlight that just because we know that there is a geopolitical risk and a political risk to that right now. As you mentioned earlier, Mayor, you sent out the I believe the president's proposed budget and kinda what was there. So I wanted to highlight that and kind of point that out. We also have the continuation of the general obligation bond program, and you can see that line is really a total of about $98,000,000 So we've added some funding to it over time. So continuing on, the recommended CIP by fund, $13,000,000 in the airport fund.

That's the one of the big ones, but this really reflects what we believe is council's priorities, public safety projects, general capital, which is general government type stuff, and I'll get to more detail of that in a moment, storm water capital projects, and then our transportation, which is streets, sidewalks, so forth. These are all this is where primarily the money is going in the CIP. Then you also have the transit fund, which is primarily for buses and so forth.

Quick question on that slide.

Yes, sir.

So we see the GEO bond line items and CIP and those things. There's enterprise funds there. Where is the sales tax income, and where is the, ad valorem tax income in those lines? Sure. So, when you see

the dedicated CIP tax rate is the is the ad valorem tax rate that is committed to that. We don't allocate sales tax to the CIP, so you would not see sales tax in here. Last year, we had some sales tax reimbursements because when we build a project, we pay the vendor pays sales tax on it, and then we file an application to the state, and we get that sales tax reimbursed back to us. And what we did last year is we used that money to help offset project costs and used it as a funding source. We've caught that process up, so there's not a significant amount of money in that.

But when you look through this and you see the GO bonds, the GO bonds are supported by that dedicated tax rate and so forth. So the ad valorem rates are accounted for both as pay PAYGO and as debt service for those. Does that answer your question? And we can give you a more detailed breakout if you'd like to see that. So the important, what I think, and this is new to this year's discussion.

I wanted to talk about a little bit about how we're using the capital program because we talked about earlier on about maintaining facilities and those kinds of things. So I really wanted to look at, and I challenged the budget staff with, how are we allocating those funds or how are we recommending? Where is it all going, right? So you have infrastructure, about $48,000,000 That's going to be your hard infrastructure and all those different types of projects. We can give you the breakout of which projects go with which, and I believe it's actually in your book.

Maintenance and renewal, we talked about $42,500,000 facility renovation, just under $2,000,000 and then expansion. So as you can see, we're not really dipping into new as much as we're trying to take care of infrastructure and the facilities and maintenance that we have in front of us. So new to this year's projects, this isn't all of the new funding. This is just the new projects, if you will. Remember, we had as I mentioned earlier, we topped up some of the other projects that were existing to be able to complete them.

We have the facilities inventory and replacement study. We believe, and we haven't done one in a while, that it's time to look at the facilities, work on our facilities master plan. This is for office space. We know we want to get out of our rental space at Festival Park at a minimum, but we want to try to look at what our office needs are going to be not now, but also into the future. So this is that study to be able to look at that and to help program our future.

One of the things that are in the not recommended but requested list is kind of a public services campus, which would encompass fleet and everything else, and the working estimate for that was about $60,000,000. So we need to look at that and and know what our future needs are gonna be. Do we need to leave Alexander Street? Is Grove Street facility with transit sufficient? Tiffany brought to you a master plan or a study with transit looking at a West a Western expansion facility.

Right? So all of those things, how does that all work with the long term needs of the city and the long term staffing projections and all those different things? So we need to look at that. Parking lot maintenance, repair and resurface city lots to keep the asset and keep them in tune because you can resurface easily. But to do a full depth reclamation or replacement is very costly. Timekeeping system, as we've implemented our ERP system and are finishing that up, now

we

have to do the timekeeping piece because our existing timekeeping system and our ERP don't work together. So this is to help maintain just our payroll systems and so forth. And this is across the organization. Mayor, if you

don't mind.

Yep. Mayor pro tem and then councilor Alejandro. Mister

manager, just let me know if I'm out of bounds when I make this comment. We've been recently getting emails in reference to timekeeping. Are I have been getting emails in reference to timekeeping. Is there a problem with employees getting paid accurately due to the timekeeping system that we currently have?

I do not believe so. There are some changes that system has made, and we went live with our new payroll system in December. And in payroll time, that's only about five payrolls, give or take. So there have been some hiccups, but everyone has been paid. And if there was an issue with their paycheck, we rectified that immediately or worked with them to find a solution that worked for them. So if, so I will tell you, it's my belief and as far as I know, and I believe Amanda and Tiffany are here, and they can correct me if I'm wrong, but we've paid everybody in accordance with what they were owed.

Why are the emails stating for everybody to check their time cards to make sure that they're getting paid correctly that I'm receiving?

I'm not sure what emails you're referencing, but I would say that is best practice for every employee to check their time cards to make sure that they have clocked in and they've clocked out if they're hourly employee and that the hours that they worked are actually reflected on their time cards so that when that do gets moved over into the payroll system, that they are getting accounted for all the hours. So I will say that that process is not a seamless process because we work with two different systems. We have a configured file that comes three configured files that comes from our UKG system that we have to use to upload into the new system in order to be able to process payroll.

But I would I would add on this too, mayor pro tem, and any member of council. When you get those emails, you can send them to me even if you have to strip out the names if there's some concern.

The only one getting those emails? Is anybody else getting those emails? Well, maybe I am the only one getting those emails. But I've gotten and I've been on council for over four years, and I've gotten them two months in a row. So I don't know where it's coming from.

But if y'all would just I mean

Yes, sir.

Make make me aware. I know that there are issues. We struggle every year since 2004 I have been here, making sure that we meet the deadlines for federal and state and it is payroll is a very complicated process and particularly for when you have a punch system where employees have to clock in and clock out and those things. Please share those

Well, the reason I asked that question, there's a million dollar budget here that you're looking at for upkeeping or replacing the timekeeping system. And if nothing else, we wanna ensure that our employees are getting paid on time. So we wanna move that to a priority list to make sure that we're taking care of our employees. That's the reason I asked that question.

Yes. I mean, that is one of the top priorities for the finance department is to be able to move forward with the time plea keeping to avoid having any ongoing issues because we're dealing with a very configured, highly customized system when it comes to our UKG system that's our current timekeeping system. And so when you're having to navigate through that with a new system that doesn't really talk to each other, there is potential for errors. And so we're trying to make sure that we mitigate that so that we do not have any.

If I can, mister Mayor,

why are we waiting till the end of the year to to to tell us that is a need? Why didn't we do this sooner is my question then?

The the time keeping piece?

Yes.

I'm not really I wasn't here when the decision was made on which pieces of the module was gonna be implemented and the timeline for that. I just asked as part of the budget process that that be moved up.

Can you answer that, mister Yates?

I can. So as we went live with our payroll system in November, December time frame, we believed and and our consultants affirmed at that time that we'd be able to make the connections work and make the interfaces work as anticipated. And since that time, what we have discovered or what, we have figured out is that that is not exactly the case or it's very cumbersome. So as part of that recommendation now moving forward, it's it's a continuing continuation of that process. We believe we'd be able to do it at the time as did the prior folks who have made that decision, but it turned out that that was not the case.

Let me just make one comment, mister Mayor. It's it's not directed to anybody, but we have to make sure we take care of our employees. I remember when we did the market rate and the step pay for our police officers, we had a problem with payroll. Now here it is that we're having a problem with the timekeeping system. We're having a problem with payroll. I think once we discover that we're having a problem with payroll when it comes to paying our employees, we need to move that and bring that to somebody's attention immediately so council can make decision on how we move forward to make sure all our employees are getting paid in a timely manner. Thank you, mister mayor.

Alright. Councilor Majors. Thank you,

mister mayor. On the previous slide, slide eight, I didn't catch it before you move, but maintenance and renewal. Can you speak real briefly on what the renewal piece is?

Sure. So maintenance and renewal would be resurfacing or any of those types of projects, minor renovation, painting, replacement of equipment. Those So it's a kind of a category of maintenance and renewal, meaning renewing your facilities, renewing your assets. So the reason

I ask, you got a $42,500,000 there for the fiscal year we're about to enter 07/01/2027. Looking forward for the next four years after that, so there's a 14,500,000.0, then it pops up to 28.7, then it goes back down to 14, then it pops back up to 20, almost 22, then it goes down to 17. What is the reason for the fluctuation there? I mean, is that anticipated? You already have schedules programmed out for various stuff you're doing?

Or I just wanted a little more clarity on the fluctuation there.

So in your book under page b one, which is under the tab that says funding plan.

B as in boy. B as in boy.

And what you're looking at is specifically on b two. So for instance, playgrounds I'm sorry. I stepped away from the microphone. It is companion funding for NCDOT projects, fleet replacements, a big chunk of that, computer replacements, the fire truck replacements. So every other year, we have a $6,500,000 fire truck replacement because the lead time on a fire truck is anywhere between eighteen months to twenty four months.

In some cases, I think three years, three to four years. So that the specific projects in that section b one through b looks like, b yep. B four kind of breaks down which projects in the future funding is in there. And we can certainly if the council would like to have more conversation, we can bring more detail around that. But the specific projects are are listed there.

So vehicles for first responders like the police and fire in there as well in these pages b b one to b four?

When you see fleet replacement, the way that we do our fleet replacement is it's run through our fleet department, and everybody pays in. The general fund pays, the utilities or the enterprise funds pay in. And then it's based on mileage, based on cost to maintain, a number of factors for the organization, working with the departments, our fleet folks, get the vehicles that are needed to be replaced. And they give us that plan over time because he looks out they look out over the years, and we have a prioritization list. And the funding we have, we work down that list, until we hit the bottom in some cases.

And most of the time, that's sufficient for the year. If there's lag and we can't get it, that money rolls over to the next year, and we continue on that list. So it's an intricate process of looking at the cost. But working with PD, working with fire on their light duty in that case because fire trucks are a separate issue, apparatus is a separate issue, working with planning, our economic, our development services folks, all those folks that use cars and so forth, light duty particularly in equipment, parks and recreation. We plan all that out over a multiyear approach.

Now in the past budget work sessions budget as we get into the budget year, We were told that a lot of times, I know we do it for fire or police and maybe fire, but where we we purchase the vehicles and then we we lease them or get a loan on them. Once we purchase them, then we loan it. We get a loan on it to pay ourselves back, then we use those funds for something else. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Since in the time I've been here. So I can only speak to the time I've been here. We have not done that. But historically, one of the funding strategies to make available cash for capital is they would borrow, take the notes to the trash trucks, for instance, go to the market, get reimbursed for the purchase of the trash trucks, use the note of security or not the note, the title as security, then that funding would be used to fund capital projects out over time. So that allowed them to have the cash, The capital was then constrained by the amount of cash that was generated by that transaction or by that available cash from that equipment. So we don't do that anymore.

And I don't want to get too far, and I'm glad to hear we don't do it anymore. I don't want to get too far in the weeds on that today, but those are some questions I'm asked as we get further into budgets. Thank you.

And I will tell you, councilman I'm I'm sorry, mayor.

Go ahead.

Go ahead, Just one quick, one quick note. We do on the fire apparatus plan those as leases, what we refer to as a leasing program, which is a debt financing tool. Because of the lifespan of a fire truck is ten can be ten to fifteen years. So it makes sense to use that a debt instrument versus 6 and a half million all at one time. Most of those leases leasing programs, refer to those, are are dropping off at this point because we haven't done it in several years, and they're usually three to five years. So they're starting to fall off.

So question on that real quick. And and the reason we were taking that back end approach than just getting a lease directly or or borrowing the money directly. So we're using our cash, then we're going to take the title and borrowing it. What was the different why do we take a two step out of a one step process?

The reason why you would do that is, you have to have something of value to secure that note. So when you had, for instance what would happen is you would use, in this case, our example is a trash truck. That trash truck may have a $1,200,000 book value. You could borrow then $1,200,000 against that truck. The general fund would make that debt payment, but then that freed that up. To do a leasing program, what we call our leasing, it's really a a loan. To do that program, you have to have an asset or a value something of value to put against that debt because that's the security for it. So in that case, if we had not paid our payment, they would have come and picked up

the No. I I get that. I mean but the people who make fire trucks or people and I'm just talking on the big items. I'm not talking about a police cruiser that you can just write a check for. I'm saying on a on a fire truck, the people you ordered a truck from, they don't they don't provide financing options?

Typically, it's not it's not the best advantageous. So the rate? Yeah. It's the rate. We what we do is we work out there with our FA, and we put out an RFP. And we say, okay. Banks largely, it's banks. So Truist, Bank of America, PNC, give us a rate. What is your five year rate on this piece of equipment? And they'll give us that rate, and then we pick the lowest rate out of that because, it's just simply transferring title. You're right. Sometimes folks like Pierce will have a leasing program where they provide in house financing. Typically, it's not to our benefit to do that, but there's always that calculation of how we do it. And we do it in

a bank account. I guess it's the same. So then I don't wanna belabor that. Okay. Sure. So I did have wanna follow-up on the Mayor Pro Tem's point. As we you know, we we ran into a similar incident when we were changing over technology, in permitting or one of these systems that we upgrade from time to time, and there's a disconnect between the old and the new. When we have something like payroll, with this, I heard her say that it has to be uploaded from three different systems. Is that problem resolved now? And if not, when do we can we expect that to be to be completed? So let me be real clear. Everybody's getting paid On time.

On time and as they should

be. K.

So the issues that we have with payroll, there are a number of variety of reasons why people wouldn't get paid or wouldn't be exactly right from everything from missed punches to a lack of supervisor approval to those factors. So anytime you change a system in practice and in the systems, there's always a little bit of learning curve to how you use those systems. To your point, Mayor, the prior systems were that same type of process of upload and movement of data. One of the things we were hoping to do with the UKG system or the Kronos system was to try to eliminate that and get to an automated system. What we have discovered is in trying to do that and working with our vendor in Oracle, in UKG is that they we can't that interaction is not possible because of how customized our UKG or our payroll system is.

So in that discussion, what we've recommended here, and I may not have made this clear enough, what you're seeing in the recommended new projects list are those projects that are at the $04 level. So these are the balanced without a tax rate increase projects. It's about a year long implementation process for that timekeeping system. So it's not a two week implementation. So as we were working through our payroll, we now are confident our payroll system is running correct.

We have some issues with Empower and so forth with upload files, but these are all growing pains that you would go through with an implementation that until you do it the first time or the first few times, you don't know exactly how that's going to we test it, but you can't test every possible scenario. So we find these issues. The best thing employees can do is contact payroll. We've committed to paying employees even when we have to hand draw the check or give them a check, a paper check. We don't typically do paper checks or send them an EFT that afternoon. We've done that. So we believe, like I said, that as far as we're aware, everybody's been paid, and we've resolved those issues and when they have come up.

So the new system that you're asking for the or proposing the money to upgrade will have that seamless operation?

Yes, sir. We're gonna we're recommending going to the Oracle system, which is, the system RERP native system. So the the two things, you you use the native system and you eliminate or limit significantly any custom programming. So you use

the system as invested in the Kronos that now we're scrapping?

The Kronos system, I believe your last upgrade was a couple $100,000. And that was several years ago.

Okay. Alright. Counsel, any other questions on on this? Because you still got some more slides for us. Right? I just because I've got some more questions.

Absolutely.

Go

ahead. Okay. So the next thing is our public safety funding, about 2 point $2,000,000. This is for CAD system upgrades. And remind keep in mind, this is not all of the public safety funding. This is just new projects that are new to the CIP this year for '27. The CAD system, this is the computer aided dispatch, emergency medical portal for fire, to improve just the interaction. And then you'll see this in several levels. The public safety radio system upgrade, as with a lot of technology, there's planned obsolescence, so Motorola is no different. Over time, their their radios, handheld radios, go out of go out of warranty.

They go out of maintenance. And the way to think about that is a handheld radio now is more akin to a computer than it is a traditional walkie talkie, if you will. So we have to systematically start replacing that. We are also evaluating remaining on the core system with Raleigh or not. We share in their radio system and so forth. And some depends on what we do with nine eleven as to how we recommend moving forward with the radio system. But we have to replace a certain number of radios, and we have to do that because they're becoming obsolete. So this is the first tranche of that. It's not the complete replacement, but a portion. Parks and recreation, about 500,000.

This is for track improvements and additional parking at Senior Center East. Transportation, signal modernization, and pavement preservation program two. If you remember, I spoke a little bit about a life cycle project where program preservation one probably was five years or six years worth of paving over time. So we just wanna draw a line in the sand, cut that project off, and start a new one. So this is the continuation of our paving program, right at $4,700,000. And, again, the more you maintain, the longer life your roads have.

Got a question, mayor pro tem? Yes.

Thank you, mister mayor, and thank you, mister Yates. But can we back up to, public safety again?

Absolutely.

Because you said you talked to all the department heads. Where is it at that we're asked to unfreeze the 37 positions from the police department?

That would be the operating budget. Yeah. So this is just capital.

Okay. Gotcha. Okay.

I just wanna know how the dollar figure is gonna work in there.

Now, mister Yates, does this have the technology require request that we've heard about, enhancement on drones or cameras or some of those other recommended departmental things that we've heard about?

At at this point, it has some of them. The drone specifically, I believe, were requested but not funded.

Okay. So that that's not a thing that will come to the city council?

They can. You have the list of your We ask

for the things that every department requested. I'll just read. And then we make a decision on what's funded. So are we able to get that list before we

Yes, sir. It is actually. Hold on. I'll tell you.

Mary, you read my mind today. I know

it, man.

If you will look at on page a nine of your document, The unproject the unfunded projects for future consideration, those are the projects that are not recommended and have no funding at this time. It is absolutely within council's purview. If you see something on here that you would like to see, we can put together a financing recommendation.

What where's the item that I just asked about?

The very first item under public safety capital project fund is drones first responder.

K.

And then if you go down, there are some records management system, training center renovation, training center technology upgrades. There are a variety like I said, there are a variety of requests from the police department around some of those technology issues. But, again, we have $100,000,000 of requests and a limited bucket, and what I'm showing you right now is what's balanced at 4¢. Okay? So does that answer your question, mayor Proton?

Thank you, mister Yates.

The next part, stormwater drainage assistance program. And keep in mind, these are brand new projects to this, to this capital program this year. Stormwater office capacity optimization, so that's just some, facility work to, help staff, and then stormwater strategic planning, continuation of their planning efforts. For transit, you have 5,800,000.0. That's 4 and a half million dollars of bus replacement.

Then you have about two thirty five of other vehicles. Midlife refurbishment, we're looking at strategies to be able to reduce the cost of a bus. A bus's lead time is pretty significant. So we're looking at options to overhaul, rebuild existing buses, chain you know, change out the essentially, renovate the bus, if you will. And then radio replacement, they also have, they use radios, and those are going out as well. So we have some radio replacement in there as

well. Mister Yates.

Yes, sir.

To the point earlier today, right, when we affirm what our version of the strategic plan goals were, connectivity was one, alright, about how we connect. And so modal that came up in the conversation that, you know, we we unimodal versus multimodal that we talked about. We we've heard for the last several months about us being least walkable, bikeable, all those kind of things. In your recommended budget, like, I'm looking at what was requested, you know, bike lane modernization. You know, we talked about that when we took out the infrastructure bond, and we were gonna be creating more walkability in bike lanes.

And so how did you get a determination of what was on the recommended list? And I don't even see some of the stuff on this add a penny, second penny, list. How did you make a decision of what got cut and what's on here? And and how did it align with what we affirm we wanted to do? Sure. Because right now, I see a lot of requests to buy equipment, but it doesn't really address the core value of this the infrastructure piece, the roads.

So we going back to what our core framework was, remember early on in the presentation, we talked about, maintaining what we have, ensuring finishing what we have in the hopper right now and completing those projects and then also being able to provide the services. So when we talked through it and talked with the departments and so forth, what we looked at was, let's be sure we can provide, and you'll hear this during the operating budget as well, provide the services we have in front of us today. That is the very first thing. Before we expand, before we do new, let's be sure that we're doing what we said we would do, and that's what you have in front of you today. Where we had additional funding, staff working with the manager's office and working with the departments, we are recommending those if there's additional funding, and this is what the new projects are.

They go toward those goals. At the end of the day, we set the parameter at the start for this list that you have in front of you as the 4¢ limitation. Then said, we okay. If you have 1p more, what does that get us? And if we have 1p more than that, if we had 10 pennies more, you're absolutely right, mayor, we could do a lot of different things. But we have we had to do a limited amount of

I'm tracking you there. But if you look at your transit, right, let's just use that for instance, as we talk about connectivity and I mean, bus replacement, we know that that that's required. We heard heard give the results of the plan, but vehicle replacement, midlife refurbishment, radio replacement, like, don't really some those are not all ongoing things. These are things that you're asking to be funded or started. So I understand you only got capacity to do what you gotta do, but all this is not carryover necessarily.

That that's correct. So, again, coming back to the maintenance and renewal concept, what we are trying to is and and put into play is being sure that we manage those needs every year. So when you see these things, new and additional stuff, for instance, on the bus routes, until you've got the headway and you've got operating buses, the additional things don't do you a lot of good. So looking at how we maintain and how we ensure that every bus we have is up and operational and keeping that replacement cycle in place, that's the very first step in a quality transit program.

So I hear what you're saying there. Take take the buses out of for a second. Signal modernization. Right? Versus sidewalk money. You know, we're getting killed on a lease walkable. We we we got a bond passed for roads and streets and promised bike lanes and improvements. And but we're we're doing equipment stuff, not things that are moving us to the kind of community that council's describing. So how how are you making the cut on that?

Sure. So and and I would suggest to you, mayor, that the replacement of systems like that facilitate Sure. The other things. Signal modernization, for instance, in that discussion is as the DOT changes their software and how the lights operate, we have to keep up with that change. And to be able to have a quality trans transportation system, so your lights and how they operate in your crosswalks and all those other things, ensuring that all that works as it's supposed to, again, is part of that walkability. So if you have a red light system that doesn't work, and it's red light, green light, red light, green light

No.

No. I I did I did that.

So there's there's no incremental money that you're saying were were being put aside for the maintenance of of it because you're not making any new advancements. Correct. You're basically

In some cases, it's driven off of other so in this case, in the single mon single modernization, it's driven off of NCDOTs changing their system. In the case of the radios and some of the radio infrastructure, it is Raleigh is upgrading their core, and we're a participant in that. So we have a share that we have to pay for that. So there are a number of things you're you're absolutely right, mayor. There are a number of things that weren't on a long term maintenance and renewal plan that we are trying to move us to so that exactly what you're saying is that when we start looking at new, that new has that that new is highly visible, you know, vigorously active versus ensuring the infrastructure is shored up enough to support that new in the next step.

But we we believe, and counsel can tell us otherwise, this is absolutely your prerogative, we believe that you need to stabilize the services you have and the infrastructure you have to facilitate that future development instead of skip over it because if you miss a step in that process, all that work may not be for may not really achieve what we're trying to do without kind of going methodically through that process.

Right. Alright. Councilman Andrews.

Thank you, mister mayor. So I had a stormwater question, but since we're talking about this, so that maintenance and renewal, right, those are, in essence, sinking funds or or reserve funds for future maintenance?

Can be. Tend to program them out, so we have a schedule of what we believe will be done over the five years. But yes, because

that's Historically, we weren't doing that.

In some cases, you were not.

And then we were selling or getting loans on our vehicles to further kind of free up capital in that fiscal year, but it was tying up capital in future years because we had to pay that debt off. So we're in debting future generations. Okay. On the transit piece, the buses, does this midlife refurbishment or any of these bullet points there cover the pay system, the way you pay? I thought we were going from a digital a A cashless cashless to a digital. Is any of that captured in there?

It wouldn't be in these projects, but it is captured in the transit in the, I believe, entire transit program. So we are working through that process.

And I don't know Tiffany's

I thought I saw earlier.

Are we gonna be on track to fund it in the '27 fiscal year?

Good afternoon, mayor and council. Council member Hondros, we already have the funding for the cashless fair program. Just working through the procurement and getting the vendor on board and getting that project underway.

Is that a grant fund or is that local tax That's

a grant fund, eighty twenty fund.

FHWA or FTA? FTA. FTA. Yes, Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

And then back to storm water, the three bullet points there, $900,000 worth almost. This is general fund or enterprise fund?

Those would be enterprise funds.

Okay. I thought I I I was just making sure. Thank you.

I wanna do I wanna circle back one one second to a comment you made. The so there were a couple of funding mechanisms used historically. One of the ones that was highly important and the way that they continued some of that maintenance is they did the designation process at the end of the year. So when the city did its financial statement, any funding above in the fund balance, so programming it into future years like we do now, what they would do is the city would come back and say, okay, counsel, you're at 13% on your fund balance. Your your policy is 12.

1% equals Whatever. 2,000,000. Where here's a list of things we'd like to do. So that was the approach for a long time to be to use that cash funding and the ebb and flow to do the projects. So like tennis court resurfacing and those other things. A couple of years ago with COVID and everything else, we stopped that practice because we were right at our policy level. We didn't have the available funding to do that. So it kind of it's a shock to the system, if you will. So this is we're still trying to program in from those practices to be a little more proactive in the maintenance and a little bit more, methodical in our planning of that. It's not that they weren't doing maintenance.

It was driven off a number of different issues, not just necessarily a program. Does that I just wanted to

be sure I clarified that.

Yeah. No. I I just think the the way sounds like we're doing it now is is a best practices is better it's a preferred method to the other. So thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, mister mayor. I thought this was the question that council member Hondros was gonna ask, and I'm more concerned about the DAP program. I think somebody brought a council member's request to expand the DAP program. How do we come up with the number of $300,000 out of the fund for DAP? And is that enough?

Elaborate on that. Byron? Oh, yeah. Drainage assistance from Mhmm.

So we based the request based on the need, we're seeing. We have already in other fiscal years, we still have budget for drainage assistance program projects. So we limited it to 300,000 just because when the drainage assistance program was started, it was front loaded with with significant amount of of capital funding. And so as we've kinda drawn down on that, we really don't see the need for $300,000 for this fiscal year.

And that's part of my question. Did we agree to expand the DAT program to make it more available for citizens who need criteria of who needed it? And if we expand that program, how do we know that $300,000 are gonna be enough is my question.

We didn't expand it.

We didn't expand it? You got voted down? Okay.

Because we tried to do it for right now, it's for residential only. Tried to

it for

For non residential. Right. If there was a downward benefit downstream benefit to residential.

Conversation about more people using it and why does one person that's in front of the house have to pay for

it.

Was voted voted down in committee when we had the storm water committee.

Thank you. Bye.

And and again, just to follow-up on that, you know, if we've got some underutilized plans because the goal is not to have money carry over, and I remember that, we we front loaded it heavy, Then then I think we gotta look at the criteria on this just like we did homeowners. And I mean because it's it's certainly not need. Like, I get reached out from a lot of people who said they came out, looked, and I don't qualify. So is there any room, for the policy piece to be adjusted? You know, just like council member Jones is bringing, a policy consideration for a bus level that you have to have to get a bench.

You know, those kind of things help take a program that's moderately used and maybe makes it very effective. The goal is to get the money out the door.

Well, prior

Can you can you speak to that and how we expand the criteria so that we can approach can help with that.

Oh, I'm sorry. Go

ahead, doctor.

We'll be happy to come back to talk to y'all about that. The drainage assistance program, as some members of council may not, or may not have been on council, is for off right of way or private drainage issues. How we were able to make that, stretch is to say, how we make it, doable and fundable is that there's still some public tie in of benefit. That's how we can't go and fix private stuff, totally private. We're trying to and so we will look at that.

Be happy to come back and talk to you all about that, about how we might be able to adjust that. But it was unlike the bushes benches and shelters those are public amenities and public right of way for passengers where the drainage assistance program is largely off right of way. We spent considerable time working on trying to everybody close your ears make that legal make sure that it was using those funds and so we can definitely look at that again. The main thing is and when we were at our most recent dug in the district out in at Bill Chris senior center last week several members of council also heard that there are some additional issues which may not apply to the drainage assistance program and I would be happy to work with council and the staff to try to see if there were other opportunities besides that pot but I think that we are we'd be happy to come

back and talk to you Doctor. About

Hood, I just let me just emphasize one thing. We're creating these programs to help people. If the money is just sitting there and not helping anybody, it's not doing anybody any good. So we need to change the criteria so we can get more people accessibility to the DAT program, then that's what we should be focusing on. Thank you, mister

mayor. Alright. Councilor Hunter, do you have

a follow-up? You you started talking about storm water. Yeah.

Got storm water man.

Couple things just to piggyback on what doctor Newton and and mayor pro tem are saying. So we can't expand public dollars for private benefit. Right? So the case comes in. The drainage system program is for stuff off right away, off of a city right away on private property. The argument, is, you know, you got a PWC water meter sitting in the front of your house in the right of way. Everything from the street side to the to the meter is is the utility's responsibility. From that meter to your house is your responsibility. It's on private property. The difference is it serves only your house.

That water line going from the meter to your house serves only your house. If a concrete pipe, stormwater pipe, that's buried between two neighbors' yard fails, it's not just draining those two yards. Stormwater system, the way it is, it goes from public street right away onto private, back sometimes onto private or public. It keeps going back. So there is some some opportunity there, I think, to help more people.

It may be, mister mayor, whatever your discretion to go to community community development committee. I'd I'd be happy. I'm not on the committee, but I'd be happy to work with them. Or if we're gonna do nonresidential, bring it to business economic development committee. I would love to see how we can expand that program.

Agree. I think I mean, I think that the council's goal is clear that we we don't wanna set aside money that's not being being dispersed. So if there's a way that we can do it legally, of course, to to get there, is is that neighborhood revitalization, is that change? You know, I've met with some folks not long ago, and and their values changed based on some some factors. But I won't get too far into that. But, alright, counsel. I think we he's clear. I think you still got a couple more slides.

Just a few, sir.

All

right. So then we have some transit special revenue fund, which is different than the capital funds. That's education and workforce capacity for transit operations. The reason they're set aside is because these are grant funds with matching dollars. The Airport Capital Project Fund, really the biggest project or the project new to 2027, is 13,200,000.0, and that's for repaving and painting for the surfaces at the North North General Aviation. And then solid waste. This is the onboarding system to be able to, be sure we map and do, our routes as effectively and efficiently as possible.

I wanna talk about airport a minute. Okay. It's an enterprise fund, so it generates its own money. It's not coming out of general fund. And for the most part, you know, the the goal used to be that, well, we don't come and ask for money, so we're okay. But, you know, I'm really trying to put a little concentration on the growth opportunities. You know, council may have seen it, but we asked I asked the question about our runway length. Right? And then, out of all of our six municipal peers, you know, we're the only one with the 7,000 foot runway length that was built in 1960. So the question was, how do you expand that?

Right? Is it a coincidence that also we have the fewest amount of flight availabilities out of the large six? And you play take a place like Kinston, it has 11,000 square feet on the runway. So, you know, the question became and this came up one time before, you know, well, we don't expand it until we need it. But I think by the end, it's it's too late, I'm getting Charlotte's history because I I I saw, former mayor Grant Harvey Gan up there, and I asked to to talk to him. But but communities prepare for growth. Right? You can't wait until somebody's at the door for it. So the question is, have we ever taken out a bond for the airport, or have we ever looked at its own funding? Just like I asked miss Neil about transit.

There's one thing that it self operates or the city adds x amount to level it off, but you're talking growth measures are gonna take more. So, you know, the state has a half penny, quarter penny option for transit if you use it. What would what would that extra money do for growing it? So my question is as we look to grow this, you know, we're in DC year after year asking the federal government to do something. We're asking the legislature to do something. What are we doing for growth purposes, and have we looked at, a way since you do operate, with a positive balance that maybe you can you can encumber or take out a rev airport bond or or a lob or something to help us grow. So I see mister Lagala's itching to jump up here.