Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

It's called a meeting to order. City of JOEF Finance Committee meeting here Tuesday, June 17 at 05:30. On the committee is councilwoman Sherri Reardon, councilman Larry Hug, and myself. Approval of minutes.

I was not here for the last three weeks.

Okay. That's correct.

I was here, but I was passed out. I make a motion to accept him as presiding.

That's better. I'll second that motion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? None. Citizens to be heard on the agenda. We have one citizen here, but he doesn't count. Alright.

Move it. Move.

Are we gonna start talking hairlines again? What? Yeah.

It wasn't us that brought hairlines up. Okay. First agenda item. New position. Director of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Who would like to make that presentation? You, me.

Oh, I guess I'm being pointed to so that's gonna be me. This is a new position You

realize this was finance.

Yeah. This is a new position designed to oversee cultural affairs by parks, city square, citywide events. It was talked about last night's council. Some information was I emailed some information out to the council late today, think it's at the dais on some of the metrics from some of the other communities. I did talk to a number of other communities that have this position and people who serve in that role.

One of the things that's not reflected in some of those metrics is the economic impact or the spin off economic impact of the different events. They also stress the, you know, not only the quality of life and just bringing things for the citizens to do, but the economic benefits of of city or events in the community. One of them that I talked to, I'll give them a plug, was Aurora, they were very helpful. You know, he shared kind of the history of Aurora's downtown, you know, twenty five years ago, similar to Joliet. They started small with one position and it's now a vibrant downtown community with a number of events, businesses that are thriving.

And then also talking to some of the other communities, you know, the spin off from whether it's hostels hotel stay at stays from people staying overnight to coming to an event, shopping, dining in the community that wouldn't otherwise be there. So, you know, one of the things they it's difficult to measure because each event is different and there's no good metric for it is what that spin off revenue that the city would see from additional tax dollars and, like, hotel motel tax and then just businesses doing better. You know, having a healthy business community is something that is difficult was difficult for them to quantify but wanted to stress that they all felt that it led to a stronger business community as a result of having a number of events in the community to bring people in.

Obviously, there's a few pieces that can be measured which would be the number of events. We're seeing that there obviously are some bigger downtown events now, New Orleans, North, and the like, but we need something every day or every other day or something in the afternoon and in the evening that I would foresee this person being able to count that as an event that they have brought in.

Yeah. And then and then this position also is more than downtown, right? It's it's citywide. So one concept would be working with the neighborhood councils for different events throughout the community whether it's, you know, I'm just gonna throw things that I've heard from that are done in elsewhere, things like movies in the park, nights out within the community park where maybe you have a magician or a balloon artist just one night coming out to a neighborhood for the children and the people who live in that neighborhood. Those are things that once again lead to quality of life and people are staying in the community and not going elsewhere.

Was just going say, similar to what I said last night, consistency is what we need to have. We have to have something that people can look forward to going to, know that it's coming. You know, you said the movies in the park, they do that in small pockets in Joliet. If we could get that more spread out and people know how they're doing it, more art, more Mhmm. You know, we used to have such great art all over the city, and it's deteriorated and, you know, nothing ever came of it.

But I think we wanna have Downtown Joliet especially be a place that we say, like I said last night, hey, are you going downtown? What are they doing tonight? Or what are they doing this weekend? Or what are we doing wherever? But we have to have a person dedicated to that or it won't happen.

On the funding, I've received a number of questions about the funding. We're in a unique position that it does not require a budget amendment and the reason for that is we looked at non public safety positions. The budget created a number of positions. Most of those were public safety, but we looked at non public safety positions. I looked at six in particular, things like an office manager, permit clerk, citizen advocate, couple in IT.

You know, we didn't advertise those positions until the budget went into effect January 1. Some of those have been filled, but some of those haven't been filled yet. And so there's amount of money that hasn't been spent on those positions that frees up money that could be allocated towards this. So since we're not going over the total amount of the originally adopted budget, there's not required in a budget amendment. So we're in that position.

As you know, it has stated that, you know, then in '26, this position would just be part of that new '26 budget and would you know, we'll have to deal with the finances. It'll be the same as every other position that's in the city. Did get a question from one of the council after emailing the information out and it had to do with the number of events the city currently holds. And so, you know, we talked about it internally. You know, we have Bay that holds, you know, the various events at Bay Park.

Not sure, you know, those between the city and the foundation, so it's not really a 100 city. You know, really the third the only ones I could think of were the third of July fireworks and and other than that, that's pretty much it other than, you know, outside agencies having events in our community. So the city's not really controlling any or planning any events.

And we have the Hispanic parade this year, though.

Mhmm. It's actually through the CCP. That's actually in conjunction with the CCP. It's in the SSAs.

We, the city, are involved in this time.

Yes. We're assisting with it. Like, we assist with the light up the holiday parade, but we're not hosting it. It's through the city center partnership. Gotcha. Thank you. So we have that. And then,

you know, IHSA that, you know, once again is large event, but it's not we assist, but it's not the city in charge of that event. It's Heritage Corridor. So it's a conjunction with Heritage Corridor.

So don't you have to say the fireworks, though, are

The the third of July fireworks are the city. We fund that.

Okay. Even though they're in conjunction with the Park District?

That's the fourth of July.

Oh, I'm sorry.

The third of by park. Yes.

By park.

Yep. Park.

Thank So that's city staff that handles that one.

That one completely. Correct. Okay.

Kevin, in your spreadsheet, you got the six community you chose. So I appreciate that because I believe I asked for that last night.

Mhmm.

Where's Jolene's numbers?

I think because, like we mentioned, we we don't host.

We do have events downtown. So where's the numbers?

The city run events?

The city has a long history of having the events organized and run by the city center partnership. I mentioned that last night too. We pay them. I can't remember. It's either 50,000 a year or 80,000 towards their budget. If we were to bring somebody on, it's gonna take care of what they already take care of, then we should stop giving them money. That would help pay for the position. That's a separate conversation. I stand by my remarks last night. I'm not gonna rehash

them, you know, at

the committee level, but there could be an estimate here. That's how you do it.

You're correct, but that's similar to these other communities, have either private entities or public entities that also hold events in their We looked for just city or village run events, not the ones that are held by external partners and nearly all of these, they had that same situation where external people, whether it was a baseball organization or festival committee, ran an event in that community, that's not in these numbers. These are just the ones that the municipality runs and funds.

So Aurora, with 87,000 estimated total attendees, that's divided by 80 for a per event average. Correct?

Not necessarily. So they have a number of small events and and a couple of large events.

No. That's why I said for an average. Yeah. I get it. I'm sure they have some that might have 7,000 or 10,000 people

at a point. They have

one event that had 50,000 people.

So that means that 79% events produce 37,000

people. Mhmm.

So alright. I mean, we all know where stand. We don't need to rehash. We we discussed this at length last night, so thank you.

Okay. I I would like to note that whoever put the job position description together did their homework. Quite a bit of information there that this person is gonna have to be able to stand up to To get the job. Okay. Can I get a motion then?

A motion to approve. Well, guess I should say agenda item 8,725, approval of new position.

Can I get a second? I'll second that motion. All in favor, signify by aye. Aye. All opposed? No. Same sign. So marked. Monthly finance. You've got the sorry,

the monthly finance report for the month of May. Just some highlights on that report. General fund revenues are coming in slightly better than budget overall. Notable positive trends, ones that are higher than budget, state income tax, video gaming tax, interest income and charges for service. Charges for service examples are things like permits, ambulance fees, that kind of stuff.

And then overall the general fund expenses are trending below budget. Sewer and water, basically the revenues are trending at budget and expenses are slightly below and then parking is trending according to budget. Moving on to the exceptions, overall your usual stuff, utilities that would be late, refunds for deposits and expenses for travel and training.

Questions? Anyone for Kevin? No.

In the library monthly or quarterly report highlight there they had 133,547 visitors that checked out 194,494 items. They held 1,300 programs with 40,000 people attending those programs.

It's remarkable how many people they have

at the Lumber.

It's remarkable.

Nothing there. Continue on to travel. Travel.

That's picked up quite a bit.

Yeah. So my last report said that it's larger than normal and this report says it's larger than larger than normal.

This is pre COVID.

Yeah. Keep in mind, it does include travel that's occurred and then reservations because the structure of the report is once we pay for travel, whether it's booking a class or an airline, it's showing up on the report even though that training or travel may not have occurred yet. You know, if you notice, you know, a majority of it is for members of public safety. So, you know, we are training our first responders, making sure they get the training they need. Just a reminder, public safety, I mean police and fire.

Any questions from anyone? No. Okay. Moving then to personnel.

Personnel, we have in local four forty eight positions that are open. Five are internal. Three are five are internal. Three are exterior. The three exterior are the safety dispatchers. As you know, those are the ones that we always have opened the most, and that's where we are with those. Normally, the five interior will be moved around from one position to the other, so we will continue to fill those as they are available. Other positions available at the moment. At the bottom, we have some positions that are pending at the moment that to be filled. One offer was made for the grants coordinator, and the other positions are still open at the moment.

Any questions on that?

No? Good. No. Nothing from me. Can I get a motion, please?

Well, we have public comments. No.

I'm sorry. A motion

to Oh, motion. I'm sorry. Thought you're

Also the reports.

Oh. Oh, yeah. A motion to take the reports, $87.00 4, monthly finance report, travel expense report, $87.00 5 and $87.00 6, personal summary report to the full council.

Approval. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Now is there any new or old business not for final action, missus Ribbon? No. You gotta have something. I

got nothing.

Moving to public comment. There's still an opportunity for this gentleman to be mister Public, and he could comment. I'll stay in line for later. Okay. Looking for a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn. Oh, sorry. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Very good. Very much. Short and sweet.