Council Budget and Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay. Welcome, everyone. Today is Wednesday, 09/17/2025. It is 05:31PM. This is the, council budget and finance committee. And if miss Mello could please take a look.

Of course. Mayor Salinas? Council member Bonilla junior? Yes, sir. Council member Cyrus? Yes. Thank you. We have quorum.

Thank you. Moving on to public comments. This is reserved for anybody in the room that would like to make a comment on something on the agenda or housing agenda, seeing nobody. Is do we have we one of the city attorneys on there yet?

Yes. Mister Lawson is on.

Okay. Okay. Perfect.

So no public comment. Moving on to approval of the minutes. Second. I'm moving by councilor Bonilla. I second. Second by councilor Mersaia for the general objection.

You guys won't be there

in the past. Moving on to group forward action items. Discuss fall budget revision and future topics. This is a oral resort, as you can see, we added Thomas. Before we get to miss Thomas, I wanted just to acknowledge, the, finance department, particularly Christina Crosby and your colleagues, in the department.

I know that your department has, gone through some, big transitions over the last thirty days. And, so I just really wanted to thank you for, just, you know, staying on mission, staying on task, and, you know, and I know things have been rather tumultuous. So I just really wanted to acknowledge your work, your team's work,

and I'd say thank you very much for that.

We appreciate that. Yeah. Very glad to hear. Yeah.

And I'm sure council member Boni and council member Sara feel the same way. Right? Can I Okay? But thank you. Miss Thomas?

Yeah. And I think hopefully, we can

keep this short. I know

you guys are terribly lucky. But we wanted to and I I also wanted to yes. Thank you, miss Christina. Thank you. Christie voice is meeting his needs there and helping me be situated with everything as I'm getting up to speed. And most of what we're gonna talk about today is done by Christina and Nick here at UC here at Grand Online, and they do a lot of the analysis. So they're doing double time on the normal work plus all of the analysis for you this fall. And then, obviously, there's all the divisions that work are working for too. So we wanted to just have a conversation about the cadence. It came up a little bit for a session last night about about the cadence of the report that you'll see now.

I mean, November revised. It's a bit of a different situation than you've had in past years and the type of reports that you'll see. So our suggestion to you is there are in the next slide, and this is all in your packet, have suggested topics for the CVS specifically. These are more routine informational topics that are about making sure that we have accountability and eyes and transparency on some of these more technical issues. But considering the financial situation we're in, we also wanted to do written reports for the entire council in addition to these topics.

That would be our recommendation. So the goal of this item today is to go through what we think would be a good chance for the written reports and then for the technical reports. And we are open to not having discussion necessarily on the technical reports. If you but more just having them, you guys can read them. You can ask questions.

So I'll go through what what we're looking at. In addition to this, it's been requested, and we are going to have a standing item on the post session agendas for labor. So you'll be anything related to that will be discussing post sessions with council every council meeting. And then we are working on by September 30, which is pretty quickly having a measure c update for you so you know how much money is in measure c And as well as a look at sort of the first two months of the of this year, the salaries and benefits expenditure trends so you can see how we're trending. And, you know, we are trying to make some we're we're we're holding some position vacant so we can compare for you.

We're already doing that work, but we can just show you how that is impacting our salary metrics by and then fifteen days from that. So it was the fact that for state staff who were committed to getting information to you. We'll have the unaudited summary of the general fund from last year. It's still we're still closing that. That all should be wrapped up pretty soon, and then we can get you those statements again unaudited.

And then there's been a request from a council member to find an understanding of which funds are supported by the general fund. And so wanting to we'll get an overview of those and the fund balances of those. We can probably I'll just give give you also an unaudited list of the fund balances for all funds that really speaks focusing on the general fund and any funds that are supported by that. We can also, at that point, give you an update on our supplies and services expenditure trends. And on October 30, we'll do an overview of general fund revenue in general, so kind of what happened last year, what we're seeing for this year, and then an analysis of CIP projects that are supported by the general fund.

You'll start to see we're mostly pausing on some of those projects, but you'll start to see there will be a couple that pop up at open side, that councils, meetings that are funded through the CIP. But, of course, they are they're general funds, so we there's some discretion to have a lot on them. There's some that we recommend that we're recommending because well, maybe recommending, but it's up to discussion because there is, like, a a reason why we have to go now, a funding a funding match or some other things. But there is an analysis happening in public works right now, and we'll bring you that list of what we think you can pause on. And then finally, the fall revision will be the fourth of the eighteenth depending on you know, it's a lot of work to get that to you, and the goal, of course, by that is to have a budget that doesn't need any reserve.

And we will keep giving you updates in the labor meetings about how we're tracking that goal. So so the first of discussion and then I won't well, I think I could you can take a moment to review the suggested suggested topics, and I won't belabor with this through. But so the point of this discussion is is are these the right things that you're interested in? Are there things that we're missing? Is this the right approach to provide this combination of things here and that the.

Okay. Okay. Good. I I agree with you. So thank you for kind of people here. Just gonna go back to the other side. Yes. What because I think he's written updates are gonna be important, but I also think that it's important that we actually find a way to talk about this on a weekly basis. Because I think not talking about it, I believe, is gonna cause more to buy out the council with everybody's thoughts and ideas. And I also think if we can get some real clear guidance in terms of how council could be useful in this kind of budget situation because I think, you know, some of us might be wanting to go line by line in the budget.

That's not gonna be helpful. Right? Some of us are gonna wanna go and make some other big decisions and try to get support for that, and then it might not be helpful. So really just wanna understand, you know, from your from your perspective. Then, also, one of the things I think we should talk about as a council in the next setting or somewhere is there's been this whole kind of talk, you know, about should we be declaring a physical emergency? Physical emergency. Right? What does that mean? What does that do? What is that? Right? What does it get us? Why would we use that? Just more of, like, an education session on that, I think, would be really useful. Then I also wanna see what our reserve balance is, like, on a monthly basis.

Right? I would love to see kind of, like, were saying what the salaries and benefits are, but I also wanna see what that looks like projected through the rest of the year across all of those different categories, including the the reserve. Because, you know, we're hearing it now that there is no money in the reserve. Like, it's at a five zero. Right? And it's like, is that true? Is there something in there? Yes. If we can just go on the same page with that, that would be helpful. Then, you know, there's, you know, also how many vacancies are legal then? I don't know.

Oh, sorry. I didn't put this on there. We have an agency list that went out this week. So, yes, thank you. I've got to put that on it. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, yeah, and then I appreciate kind of what what you were saying about, you know, negotiating doing the hard work and from a structural perspective that we need to do. Because, like, borrowing from measure c and taking some of these more short term things we know are just feeding the actual structural problem that we need to be addressing. So I do appreciate everyone's leadership and hard work. You know, really kind of just taking a hard look at the budget and saying, how do we kind of fix these more deep and hard underlying issues so that we're not pillaging supplies and, you know, for 3.5, whatever. You know?

I mean, what I I'm just saying generally. Do you know what I mean? And and then the other thing I wanted to know is in in a future meeting, do we still have any nonliquid assets in the reserve? And you know how to answer that now. It just bring that to the process again.

We can't answer right now. So I'll I'll answer and correct me if I am not getting you correctly. We do have the nonliquid assets are basically are basically our long term receivables. So one of them is a long term receivable on the theater, and the other one is a long term receivable from the successor, I should say. And that one, I've got 3,000,000 a little maybe 3,000,000 left, so we can get that for you. And then the theater is obviously the. Those are the two. Is that in my Mhmm. No. You're right.

And do we show that in our general fund balance?

It shows as a nonspendable. It it's a nonspendable reserve, and then you have your available cash in your annual backfill report. Yeah. It is listed separately.

So can we can we see that listed then on these monthly reports that we're getting for weekly?

It generally doesn't change. I mean, it it updates, but you don't see that movement on a, like, weekly

But on a monthly basis, you would see a movement at the general fund reserve if we're using

You would see a movement in the general fund

reserve if you will before you're having to dip into it.

Yes. If you're doing cash monitoring. Yes. They would see that.

I mean, if if that's not too much cash today, I just think it'd be helpful.

Yeah. And we can go back and look at it. And Yeah. And I think so one thing and I think it's the one thing to know that this is just all part of the education on me because we're

not gonna we'll we'll share it. Yeah.

But to give you a heads up is we have what we see is a total we don't have any revenue. We're doing a lot of revenue. We do have revenue monthly comes in until December, and so you're just gonna see a huge dip. And then December is when we get our first property tax. And so it's not like we it's not a business. It's not like we're getting the same amount of revenue every month, and you're spending the same amount every month. So it feel it'll feel a little chaotic. But happy to do that reporting as long as everyone understands that that's what they're looking at. Yeah.

Perfect. The world is gonna come cracking down in December.

Yeah. And Yes.

As long as

we're counting the story. We're trying to get to December right now is basically what we're gonna do. Yes.

And then maybe more long term, can we get an update maybe on our business license tax? You know, is that still structured the right way? Are we still maximizing our opportunities there? What does that look like in comparison to, you know, other cities around us? And then the very last thing, it's also DOT. I know we kind of just, you know, moved it to one point, but they were still a little bit higher. Can go, but we chose not to do it all at once. But with, you know, kind of everything that's going on with the world, like, I don't know. Yeah. We might wanna reconsider that.

I think could those both be in terms of those items, do you think it's more appropriate to do still those council wide reports or have those VCF? Those would be more CPSC discussion items to just see what the implications are, or are you in preference?

I would you say bring all the council. Bring all the council. Okay. At least in there, into the most three months, you know, until December. Got it. You know?

And I think so to so the question about the approach of having discussions on a weekly basis. So in that closed session, and we highly recommend the conversation about any number of customers and things we meant or any flavor issues we have in closed session. We we're limited to talking about items that are really appropriate for closed session. So talking about just revenue or something is gonna have to happen in open session. So I think we can continue. If we can have that conversation, if that is what everyone would like to do. So how to format that. Let me

ask this question. If you were talking about like, you're right. So do agenda something on closed session? There's only, like, three or four categories or three categories.

Like, property, you know, acquisition or

Yeah. So let's get you guys to make sure that back here.

And then if we think that it's viable, then we could adjust it. We could advance it to the full

council. Yeah. And we can I think we could do some work sessions at council on these items as well? Like, I think that that's very appropriate. But that's in terms of us scheduling that it's a little Yeah. I agree. We could have a standing item at open session, but I don't feel a little chaotic. I yeah. Yeah.

I don't And and I yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, a standing item for open session. But but, yes, let's think about that and and because, you know, I I just wanna be careful. Well, you know, I just wanna be careful what we project to the community. I don't wanna project whole panic. But, you know, we're anyways, but I get what you mean when you increase and just talking about it and and address it.

I mean, I haven't done this in my time here. There's been a couple of times, you may remember, when we had we've met in you have closed session in way. Now we have open session in two way, almost as a workshop with hard or some you know? And then we move the council for the so there's, like, a multiple phase. Maybe there's an opportunity to do that. It's, like, a prework session from six to seven, where we're talking about some of the reports that we're sending. We can, yeah, we can talk through options. Or Again, I'll let you invite it, but it's not Have

a budget finance have a budget finance committee meeting after close session.

Yeah. Or some yeah. Something

Where where it's just a a review or a report of something. Yeah.

And I was just wondering about those two tax things in particular. You know, I think that goes actually to come back here. If they're if they're fine with it, I'm fine with, you know, the TOT kind of assessment coming back here and then the business, like, you know, license tax and all that kind of stuff coming back here initially because I know it's not gonna be something we're gonna do tomorrow. So I get that we have to prioritize it and figure it out within the longer

term. But that makes a lot of sense. Solution set. Okay. Thank you very So we'll go take all of this, and we'll talk to Jim to come up with and my goal to make sure that we're meeting around that requirements Yeah. And come back with a a plan soon, like, within the next few days that you can review. Yeah.

Alright. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks. Just for the purpose of direction, I agree with pretty much everything council member Boni had said. It would be helpful to have maybe I know ten year projection is very crazy. And but but I think we're more thinking about, like, I would say even a three year projection over time to understand, like, similar to us getting a sense of

our actual rules for the year, what is the state

of the general fund, how the what the reserve, what the expense has been.

And then next year, if this time continues, what does

that actually look like? Right? So we have a sense of, like, any adjustment that we make, how's that gonna actually impact the midterm picture? I don't expect us to know what's gonna happen in ten years because there could be a recession. But I know in the past iteration of budget and finance committee meeting sort of also a monthly review of revenues. And so if that's something that can happen here, I

know we might not have

a budget discussion and open session every month. But if we're meeting monthly, at least have that information available here, I think, is one of the ways that we can remain transparent to the community. And, also, a lot of the customers who review and take that information too. And then this is a note that I got from talking to somebody that had navigated that step before. Okay. Being aware of if the county or the state is holding our funds versus if we have it or not. So like we said, we don't get our revenues until December. Right? Does the county bill funds from us for a certain amount of time and then give it to us or are we entitled to funds from the county or the state that we have to wait to receive? Like, it'd be helpful to know.

Yes. There's a.

Okay. Was just gonna say. So the the main one that we're talking about that happens in December December and then April is property tax.

Okay.

And that's because we pay it in November. Right? Yeah. So Yeah. They all write our checks, and then they get it, and then they turn around and give

it back to us. Yeah. So so that's

they're not really holding it. They just receive it. They process it, and then they turn it over.

Yeah.

The other ones that are that they are more holding is, like, reimbursement stuff. Like, if we have grants, and then we gotta demonstrate that we actually spent the money appropriately, we submit the paperwork, and then

they give it back to us. Mhmm.

The other big one is probably your OAS reimbursements from Yeah. Fire. Okay. And that that's a bigger one, and that can take, like, a year and a

half depending on how long Got it.

For them to process it. But for the most part, our our big, like, general fund Yeah. One is property tax. Yeah. And that's coming from county, and they really don't hold they don't really hold it.

Got it. Okay. So we don't need to push for a product then. Yeah. I think just all understanding our overtime too. So when I see, like, this audit summary of the general fund,

like, that exactly where you

include, like, a summary of overtime, or is that September 30 of, like, the two month salary and benefits?

It would the overtime is definitely included in the salary and benefits that we're going along every two doing that analysis.

Got it. Okay. And then, yeah, I just wanted to echo what council group when they said about I know that we had exploring policies that might be signing economic development, just old policies. Like, we have this tab rate ordinance. I don't know when it was passed, but how

is that I think.

Okay. Good. So so we have that. Our business license tax, I think we haven't been touched for decades, as well. I know we when I first got the account with that, it was, like, 50% from food and 50% from alcohol. Like, is that signing business? Like, we're in addition to stopping the bleeding, like, what are other ways that we're doing in our own way from attracting businesses to wanna set up shop compared to, like, newer jurisdictions. I know this is more of a poll question, but it has been on the road map. I'm wondering if there's, like, two or three major

economic development So, actually, there's been a lot of work done on the line. I'm gonna be council next Tuesday. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. Yay. One piece of good news. I'm sorry. Okay. I mean, the work session. Good. So you guys can provide feedback on what you're interested in then Okay. Possibly changing government in the month. Yeah.

Got it. Okay. Okay.

Not the the business license tax is not. Got it. It's the other.

Got it. Okay. That's good to know. Okay. Great. Otherwise,

yeah, I I

think what I'm I'm hearing when the council has had a chance to discuss is, you know, just really want clarity on actuators in the way they and over time and revenue on a more regular basis so that we have a sense of what direction we're heading in. Like, I really appreciate your question about how much is in the reserves currently. Are we leveled out? And I don't know if going to answer that now, but, like, are we just ranking out reserves at the moment, and then we're trying to correct to make sure that we're balanced? Like

We are very close. It's

very it's

Yeah. Okay.

We're kind of holding our breath as we're gonna wait on final accruals because we haven't closed the year yet, and we're still getting some, like, trickle in revenue that we wanna make sure we're accounted for. And then we've got everything accounted for by the time you actually do that analysis. Okay. But it's all very set for purposes.

I think you should operate with the understanding of almost nothing in the reserve. And we can do so I think it's a good opportunity, but we decided we'll be transparent. Yeah. What you're gonna see if we give you a monthly update on the reserve Yeah. General fund is it will dip negative because we are going to be not receiving because we had that revenue comes in Yeah. December. Yeah. We're gonna be spending more than we're taking out on a base basis. So you're gonna see it get more and more negative until, hopefully, we jump back up again.

Okay. If have that three year view that George was asking about that, what what kind of

I'm thinking that maybe what's useful is we can show you how much revenue that we receive Yeah. Each month. You know, the the, like, the same months for the past two years and then see what came in for this year. The other thing that happens, which, again, we can just share it just as long as you guys understand, is that we receive the rep that the post date of the revenue and, like, the date we actually receive it is not like, sometimes we receive the revenue fifteen days later after the month ends, but it's July 4 that month. So there's a little bit of that we'll need be thinking about that. Yeah.

Could share post date to

post date. And not post date. Sorry. We could share received. We can share with the received date to receive date. Yeah. That's or not

post date. Right? It's we could share with post date. It's Mary's right, though. Like, they it is deceptive because we budget for a year for a year at

a time. Yeah.

But it's very it moves like this because, really, the only thing that we get monthly is sales tax, right, which is, like, 5 to $6,000,000 a month. And then we get our big payments, and then you've got other stuff that is very intermittent. Yeah. So it becomes it's scary to look at when you look at it that way, and you're not used to seeing it that way. Okay. Because we give it to you in one big chunk.

Yeah. Like, here's your annual,

what you're getting, and you're not seeing, like, how it always kinda

Yeah.

Dips, then and then it dips.

And so, I mean, that historical context would be helpful for seeing that pattern in the previous year and then seeing this year. So it doesn't look like an emergency when it's just on its own out of context. Like, just be mindful of not allowing the like, mayor said, we don't want the public to panic either, but I think we also I think we wanna be honest with the community about the position that we're in and especially if we're having discussions around the the structural aspect of this deficit and how even if we, let's say, move some or cancel some CIT projects or look at what funds are being supported in general fund. Like, even if we get everything on the books there, it's not gonna actually resolve the deficit. And I think it's important for our community and our partners to understand the position that we're in and how we need to work together to to resolve it.

So I'm I'm for trying to be as honest as possible without inspiring panic, but really as a means of saying, yo, to come to the. So yeah. Otherwise, those are those are all my comments. Thank you for for putting all this information together.

I know it's a science to pull it all in such

a short amount of

time. Yeah. The only expect I agree with everything because the only thing I was gonna I wanted to ask is, in this, in this chart in terms of future topics, You know, sometime next year, you know, I'm optimistic that we're gonna start to see, you know, improvement, you know, next year. You know, maybe maybe not as early as January or February, but maybe in the spring, even in the summer, there might be some light at the end

of this at the end

of this where we can start to see some, you know, upticks for this week. So I guess the question that I wanna ask is, you know, can't, you know, can we do some thinking around checks and balances in the future around making expense expenditures. Right? Like, what are what are some internal checks that we could, you know, that we could use when we're talking about, you know, salary rate, when we do raises, when, you know, when we, you know, buy things, when we, you know, make investments or or whatever, you know, what are some guiding principles that we can sort of think about when we're when we're doing these things. You know, I know there was there was some talk, and and I don't wanna totally direct this to labor, but there wasn't, you know, there wasn't talk.

I don't know how far along it has come, but was some talk by one group about, you know, putting together a bargaining philosophy or, you know, they were talking about, you know, talking about that. Whereas, you know, know, letters and guiding principles with counsel when we do start talking about, you know, know, like I said, purchasing something or investing something or or or whatnot. You know, what are those checks and balances? What are we you know, which you know, what are some guiding questions or or guiding things that we should be considering, be looking at as part of a as part of, you

know, sort of a routine?

Having that is really yeah. So I think that there's a couple of things we could do as reports here and then see if it makes them through in terms of what's already in place in terms of internal checks and what do we recommend maybe could be putting more in place to do to have even more checks sort of looking at what other speeds have done. In in terms of the bargaining philosophy, think that also brings up the compensation philosophy that you guys are briefed on last year, which is sort of it's still it's happening, but it's slowed down a little bit because of the transition to HR directors. However, I think we can bring that back. Yeah.

We can have a conversation. Because I think that that's setting the framework now for the you know, for when these contracts end in a couple of years for miscellaneous so that you guys can be thoughtful about or, yeah, sort of setting that up now. Yeah. I think all of that, yeah, could be on the table. Any other anyone?

Yeah. I would say revisiting you know? And I know we have a reserve policy, but definitely things where we're reprioritizing those reserve policies so that before you have an opportunity to spend, we have to make sure that as we increase that revenue, that you know, because that's always everyone's first question. Can we increase the revenue? But isn't there more revenue? Cutting? How can we not support cost? And it's the truth is revenue is just never gonna increase at the same way our expenditure is. And so we need to build things in that are really taking that into account and making sure we're setting aside that appropriate level so we don't get in this situation again. Because what was happening is, yeah, we are getting more revenues over time, but we weren't really taking it aside and making sure

we had that 20% set aside ahead of time.

So we were just spending, I think, is what was happening. So I think looking at those policies and making sure we're following those policies and we're not doing these, like, one off, like, oh, it's okay. It'll be fine. Right? We'll we'll we'll get through it and making sure we prioritize what the rules we

put in place to safeguard us. It's a good point. Already had there is a whole bunch of physical laws in our budget, and we already could review those too. We make sure we're following them. Yeah.

Yeah. And and and and calling them something, sort of bundling them up and naming it and saying, this these are our principles that we will that we will follow Mhmm. You know, moving forward. Ultimately, of course, we would of course, we don't ever wanna do this. We we don't ever wanna be in the position again. But, you know, sometimes it's like, what am I saying this was? But, like, you know, in 2010, when the economy was Yeah. Completely imploded, we we had to do something, and we did a lot of stuff and so forth. But but this right here, you know, potentially was avoided. Mhmm.

Yeah. Think And it's important too, and Mary and I have thought it. You know? It would be completely acceptable to give you, like, a quarterly report. You know? Right now, we're we're rushing to give you more information more quickly than, you know, is normal. But to have, like, a quarterly expenditure report and revenue report. So you see year over year, quarter over quarter, okay. Where are we at this year? Is this making sense?

Or are we did we do something completely erroneous in budget or something is not right and you're seeing it in real time? Because I think in in this often happens in municipalities and just government in general. Budget is the fun stuff. Right? That's where we get to focus and, like, look at strategies and, you know, we we focus on that, but we don't always get a chance to circle back and only talk about how did that plan work. Mhmm. And so refocusing and making sure we have the opportunity to circle back on a regular basis and give counsel the opportunity to maybe it's just, you know, here every quarter, you you see what that looks like, and it's just a short thing. But you know what what's kind of exciting.

That's a good point because, I mean, I I I already I already know there's particular individuals, you know, in the community, like, already here that are saying how often you guys look at the budget, how often you guys give you reports, and, you know, and and they'll bring up nonprofits that they're involved with. So when we get a, you know, we get a p and l, or we get a, you know, a statement every every month when we meet. And, you know, and I I have had that question before. But, you know, you know, Chabot College, the the the friends of Chabot College Foundation, that's that's the board I'm on. And, they have a, they have a really interesting we implemented a new system.

It's a it's a dashboard. It's some kind of a it it's a dashboard. And, they, you know, they give it's a I can, I can send you a copy of it and take it again? But it's a dashboard where, you know, the a one it's a one sheet or one pager that, you know, basically outlines, you know, money coming in, money going out, and and, you know, there's this color coding dot system that shows us, you know, we all we all wanna make sure we're in the we're in the green, you know, once we get rid. Careful and so forth.

But it it's a it when we get our financial reports, the the the CPA refers to that dashboard. And it's, you know, it's pretty simple. It's easy to sort of look at and explain, but

even up to 72, you don't have

to do it. You know? But, anyways, I guess the the point here is, we're looking for frequency. You know, we're looking for frequency and and and easy to read, then we can Yeah.

That makes you don't wanna have to we can do the digesting for you, and then you can see see that. Yeah.

But but we also don't wanna see just the top top of it. Like, your customers, so we wanna see that opportunity.

Well, I think, again, this is the moment that you need to be asking for those things when it's totally accessible. And then once there's enough, know, maybe you say we wanna see less. But and I did wanna mention you mentioned the projections. Mhmm. So just just so you know, at the same time that we're like, we are focused on this year and November revised and future rate for the year. We are also working. It's not stopping. Working on thinking about what square week seven will have to look like. Department hasn't already started. I think most of the conversations, because there is a a large structural and labor component will happen in the session with you guys.

But that's imagine as soon as the fall November revise is done, we'll be immediately submitting to that. So it's happening. I just yeah. Just wanted to confirm. And part of that conversation is looking at longer term projections because we we'll need to solve it on a lot. Like, it's not at all. This is not gonna be a winner.

That's all.

And just to echo what Amir said around compensation philosophy, I think what would be helpful is I also just wanted to say that at their previous meeting have requested that any budget finance reports be emailed to the Oh, yeah. Council. So if they're able to receive this presentation, just so that aware of these topics familiar with, I think that'll provide a little bit of relief. And then you wanna update it based off what we said, like, vacancy report, for example. Got it.

Yeah. Just so that they have a clear idea of everything that's coming down the pipeline. But, you know, when we talk about compaction, for example, we have a number of different contracts that handle compaction in different ways. Is that a philosophy that in the current budget state we're in, we need to uphold or we need to revisit other alternative ways for us to structure contacts in the future so that we don't find ourselves with unexpected expenses? So know we have, you know, actions coming forward for the news management community.

And it's, like, a pretty high price tag as a result of, I think, the POA's get POA getting increased that when we're making decisions together, don't it's hard to see down the road that far because we're unaware of how one change here affects three other things down the line, like a domino effect. So I know I'm requesting a little complicated. Maybe

it's better

suited for a a closed session meeting than this meeting in particular, but our overall compensation philosophy and understanding how we handle compaction in general would be whatever bit you think is appropriate. I just think we're really trying to get a a good bird's eye view here so we can make the best decision possible across a number of different topics.

Yeah. I mean, it's a nice look. Yeah. Absolutely. Just Yeah.

Second item

the third item is the annual review of the city issued data.

And, again, for these items, we know these are more informational, so we'll always have staff available to present and answer your questions. But we understand that we want even. Okay. So, basically, this is an annual report that goes to you guys. It just goes over all of the debt instruments that we use in the city.

It's debt that we take out and then we have to pay back. The new debt issued in the last year was from the wastewater bonds. That's the only new debt from the last time you saw this. We are well below and you guys answer the questions if there's any what our legal limit is, which is much that we could issue that, but we don't recommend. Or at this

point, I actually, we don't have a legal limit.

You're right. That's right. Okay.

It's just an example if we were a generalist or a generalist city. Okay. And since we're charter, the same

rules don't apply, but we use them

as a just a benchmark. Right.

So 200,000,000 in debt is fine. It's, like, a relatively good number, or I mean, is that kind of what you're saying?

It's a it's a relatively fine number considering how much it's based on property assessment. So based on how much property assessment you have in the city, it's fine as long as you can pay. That's gonna be just like your personal life. Like, you know, as much debt as you can actually afford. Right?

And what is the no. I thought like, last time, I thought, like, the property value and, like, value of paper was something, like, what, 22,000,000,000 or something. Do you have that number of when that

It's the number four. I don't it's.

I think it's added. I think we had it with.

Yeah. We had it before. It's a it's a gigantic number.

Yeah. So it's it's helpful to understand when people say I I think we go off just about, like, what we value that. And I also think the health care perspective is when we, you know, are very noninvented into the city. It's like, this is a very large, expensive organization.

Mhmm. Yeah. And I think

that number is actually all

Yeah.

All the way in. It's all the. Yeah. By the same paper itself. Yeah. It's just every 64

square miles.

Yeah. The whole Yeah. And I actually do. I recently got that for the success. I actually do have to. Okay. I was gonna say, I know

it's I've seen it, but I don't have to.

It is between land improvements and personal property, the county secure all the third oh, sorry. What is this just for this for the county or the city? I'm gonna look this. Oh, no. It's it looks like it's 30,000,000,000. 30,000,000,000.

Okay. 30 point something or what? 30 point.

$33,000,000,000.

Yeah. So if you wanna buy every parcel of. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

Good? Okay. Okay. Alright. Staff member or committee member staff announcements. Are we taking donations?

Mhmm. We can

have a bake sale.

Bake sale?

Some nachos. Nachos.

We need a cheese machine.

Yeah. I can provide a cheese, a hotdog, and a snow cone. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I'll tell you. I not not too long ago, I was watching, I was I was watching the school board meeting, and, there were some there was a couple of students, you know, the elementary school kids, who were concerned about the deficit in school district, and they offered to have a big sale. Oh. Yeah. That was that was pretty interesting. But, anyways, okay. If there are no

Oh, it looks like Michael

Lawson has a question. Thank

you. Former acting city manager Lawson here. Just I I just have two questions, and maybe these are directed at Mary. And I heard discussion of compaction discussed earlier. Can you talk about what the plan is regarding compaction?

Sure. Yeah. So the the the compaction most almost all of our physicians have that compaction that's set in the MOUs. It is between 1015% in all cases that they need. I'm not I will get an answer from that if there's anyone outside of that range.

And so it it is that either in the MOUs or in the case of the set in their offer letter, some flash contract in that way. So if we were to set a different philosophy compensation, we basically would say that this is what our our philosophy is around inspections so that we when we enter into your later negotiation staff understands what philosophy is. I would recommend in that case that we look at industry standard too, not yeah. And and whatever other does that answer your question, Michael? No. No. You mean Well,

yeah, I mean, yes. I mean, you know, just as an observation, it's it there's just a very peculiar look to, you know, high ranking executives getting compensation increases without regard to performance evaluations Because compaction sort of drives compensation higher because of compensation lower in the organization. And thus you get department heads getting significant increases not based on performance, but based on increases below. That's and I understand that that probably applies to a couple of departments, but it is just a very concerning dynamic. Okay?

And just one other question is is there an evaluation of fleet purchasing policies? I asked that question not because I support, you know, police officers driving Crown Vicks for twenty years, but there is significant investment in fleet vehicles. Sometimes it's, like, on a a replacement schedule. Mhmm. And, you know, and I'm just wondering if there's a way to sort of more closely examine scheduled fleet purchases because although that might appear to be in the CIP fund, it is actually a very significant drain on the general fund.

Yeah. Absolutely. So that's part of the analysis this GAFD projects that are supported by transfers is to look at because some of these supported by public work by enterprise. But to your point, Michael, the lease and the buyer are the are our major fleet purchases and the more expensive vehicles. Actually, that's not entirely true.

Some of our some of our water utility funds are expensive too. And so looking at a full analysis of the age of the vehicle or any concerns about, you know, are are they still usable with the lifespan and ensuring that we're not just replacing them because they've reached a certain number, but there's actually they're not usable anymore. So, yes, that'll be something that by the October, we hope to get we hadn't you know, I don't wanna say if he doesn't have that information. It's just we haven't compiled. But, yeah, we're trying to do all these things at once. So

Would that include because I I remember I remember back in 02/1011, I I I think, when I forget which plan was more which plan was least expensive, renting vehicles versus owning vehicles. And and because I forget, we were

renting and we went

to owning.

It's probably lease purchasing versus buying outright. Yeah. Because you pay, like, an interest rate, but you don't have to have all the cash up front. And so I think I obviously wasn't here.

Yeah. Yeah. No. That was I I remember that was the way they were.

I think

that was a discussion, and we've been outright purchasing Yeah. Vehicles for a while, and maybe we're looking at at least purchasing depending on what the the trade off is. And I don't know enough about

that market right now. You know, tough

The only reason why I bring that up is because we have a we have had that conversate we had the conversation back in, you know, 10/11 where the

If you have the cash to do it, it's always great. You know? Just like They're owning Yes. Wanna buy your if you have the cash sitting in the bank and you wanna just go buy it depending on what the interest rate is Yeah. It makes more sense to just save the interest rate. If the interest rates are lower, which we may be entering that kind of phase, you know, then maybe it makes more sense when we don't have a whole lot of cash to to finance and get a lower interest rate in and plan for time. But I would defer that. I would defer Yeah.

And then he has that analysis. I think putting it together in regards to the next step. They have also, we have deferred some big fleet purchases. So we've already it's not like we are we have already to help with some of the class savings deferred some. So that'll be captured in that analysis. But think it's a really yeah. It's a really good question. And that, quite honestly, the biggest VIP projects that you will see, there's a couple of some building projects, but a lot of it is things like fleet that we do have to make these purchases that on some schedule. We can't not have vehicles, but can slow it down. Okay.

Right. Yeah. Just to build off of Cindy Clay Lawson's first question around, I think, executive pays. In the past, we haven't really had a philosophy around unrepresented employee, either pay increases or bonuses. So find the appropriate, I think, venue, whether it's here or in a closed session, I have a discussion.

I know past discussions, there is a desire to, like, loss of guessing, connect your performance metrics to those increases versus the past that are presented what has been brought forward as a block, which also included nonexecutive members of our staff too, which also didn't feel entirely appropriate either. So I also wanna make sure we're not, you know, violating the charter by making a performance based, like, operational judgment here that's typically reserved for the city manager. But what role do we as a council have to play in influencing that philosophy around that? Like

Yeah. And I think this is all a lot of conversations around the compensation philosophy that would get us to I mean, we're you know, since we're in an open session, what I would say is we have the contracts we have. I don't believe. I won't I am not. I haven't looked it up, but the resolution probably have maybe has something in there about the compaction. I can even get that to you guys if it does or doesn't. So we we can look at the terms of these contracts and then when we might be able to reopen them and then have a conversation philosophy ahead of time. Yeah. Of course, in a closed session, we can talk about any interview session already. Yeah. Even with the that

the contracts that we have right now, think we should just get a line on what would be to be going forward to see, you know, time executive pay to to to nothing. And having a negotiated as a block might not be the this would responsible thing for us to do. I don't think it's possible for us to tie in some unrepresented nonexecutive staff into that pile either. Mhmm. I think there was a desire to clarify secondary pattern and have symmetric based performance based, conversation around executive salaries. So if that's part of

I think that's very that is counsel's role. Like, I think that's very appropriate as part of the philosophy not to come in and then say this particular individual Yeah. But, like, that philosophy It's totally your role.

Okay.

And so it sounds like that's really something that you guys wanna see. So we'll make sure that we get that scheduled, and that's what it's that's more on the HR side. Mhmm. But can can absolutely come to this community.

When you when you see that as appropriate, I mean, obviously, this budget is priority one, and we already have contacts in place.

So this can happen far especially when

Well, one thing we can at least do since it's coming this week is I don't know about getting it in the next couple of months,

but at least get you

on a list of for all the positions in the city what was the assigned compaction rate Okay. For supervisors and Okay. So you can see it.

Thank

you, sir.

Okay.

If there are no for the business. I think I ran a pretty good meeting not being able to see anybody. I said we're gonna see you in good, but I can't see you anywhere else.

Oh, oh, you have your glasses.

I'm not.

I'm not. Okay. I was like

I walked out of the house with some glasses.

Okay. Meeting adjourned. Okay. Good. You too. Bye. Okay.